Congress and Coal

This is the final straw! According to "Reliance on Coal Sullies 'Green the Capitol' Effort" [front page, April 21], "the Capitol Power Plant, operated by Congress, is the only coal-burning plant in the District and is a major source of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and soot in a city that has repeatedly been found in violation of the Clean Air Act."

Not only does Congress tax us residents of the District without our representation, it also knowingly pollutes our air. And we don't even have a vote to stop it.

CAROL RICE

Washington

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Why don't Congress and the media focus on the real problem with coal?

How "cleanly" it is burned is not the issue. The problem is how it is extracted. Sens. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) are being hypocritical at best when they influence their poverty-stricken constituents to fear the loss of their coal-mining jobs. The loss they're experiencing now as a result of coal mining is far more devastating.

Huge swaths of West Virginia and Kentucky are being systematically and irretrievably destroyed by mountaintop-removal mining. Now and then someone will write an article about it in The Post or elsewhere, seemingly as a way to assuage our consciences, but this travesty should be at the center of every argument against the use of coal.

"As we break the chains of foreign oil," to use the words of Jenny Thalheimer, a spokeswoman for Mr. Byrd, we may find ourselves in new chains, put there by the powerful representatives of domestic coal.

GLORIA SIMMONS

Auburn, W.Va.