Appalachian Mountain Advocates

Appalachian Mountain Advocates, formerly the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment, is a nonprofit environmental law and policy organization founded in 2001. We believe there is no more environmentally destructive practice than mountaintop removal mining occurring anywhere in the United States, and we will not rest until we have stopped it. We have had unprecedented success in enforcing the Clean Water Act and other environmental statutes against coal mining operators. Our litigation has raised the costs of mountaintop removal mining, making less destructive forms of energy production more competitive. The legal theories that we have developed and implemented have fundamentally changed coal mining and environmental regulation in the region. Our work has been the catalyst for much of the grassroots opposition to mountaintop removal mining.