Obama Administration mulls reforestation proposal

By ROGER ALFORD (AP)

FRANKFORT, Ky. -- The Obama Administration is mulling a proposal for a jobs program that would plant trees on Appalachian mountaintops scalped by mining companies searching for coal, an official said.

A group of researchers, mining executives and government field workers, collaborating under the banner of the Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative, proposed the project that would both ease unemployment in the economically depressed area and restore forests annihilated by coal mining.

"This offers a tremendous opportunity for creating green jobs that will have far-reaching impacts on the economy and ecology of the region," said Office of Surface Mining forester Patrick Angel.

Angel said Thursday he discussed the initiative via telephone with Van Jones, President Obama's special adviser on green jobs at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Angel said Jones "expressed great interest."

The proposal, Angel said, meets many of the goals of the administration: it's ready to start now, environmentally friendly, and would be an economic boon to communities struggling with unemployment rates that in some cases exceed 20 percent.

"It's like all the stars and the moon in the night sky are in perfect alignment for the development of this thing," he said. "It is an idea whose time has come."

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