Not sure if y'all saw this, but Sen. Byrd gave the coal industry a pretty decent tongue lashing recently, or at least as good a tongue lashing as we're likely to see from a major Appalachian political figure for a while. 

Basically Byrd called out the coal industry by letting them know that mountaintop removal mining (MTR), "has a diminishing constituency in Washington". 

This may seem both obvious and lukewarm, but he went on to say, "Most members of Congress, like most Americans, oppose the practice, and we may not yet fully understand the effects of mountaintop removal mining on the health of our citizens."

This may not seem big, but it is. Sen. Byrd has been in Congress for 50+ years, and wields pretty immense power. In general he's been on the side of the coal industry -- and it's not like this announcement by him is any anti-MTR statement -- but it's a step in the right direction, and evidence that the writing is on the wall for MTR.