National Coal Council Cancels Meeting Because of Wash U Student Protesters

Wow, this is a pretty cool story from StudLife:

A National Coal Council meeting in downtown St. Louis was canceled following a protest from Washington University Green Action.

Directly after council members had finished taking roll call on Tuesday, students from Green Action and Missourians Organized for Reform and Empowerment entered the meeting at the Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark. The students unfurled a banner proclaiming, “Coal is never clean” and sang, “Clean coal is a dirty lie.”

“Clean coal doesn’t exist, and we’re opposed to the lie that there’s any way to use coal safely without hurting communities,” said Green Action member Harry Alper, a senior.

The group was escorted from the hotel by two officers from the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. The Hilton’s head of security had not yet arrived at the event.

According to Officer Mana, the situation was “no big deal,” and students were polite and peaceful as they left the building.

According to the article, they decided to cancel the meeting, but still stuck around to eat their private lunches. So why have a meeting in the first place? Oh yeah, because they have money to burn.

Read the whole thing.