ABSTRACT
An evaluation of strip mine control during the regime of Nunn’s successor, Wendell Ford, yields paradoxical results. Despite much greater attention given to remedying the administrative deficiencies associated with the regulation of strip mining and the investment of much larger amounts of money in the program, little improvement in the actual quality of strip mine control was detectable. Operators continued to flout the control regulations with impunity, and the environmental byproducts of their improper methods—landslides, stream siltation, etc.—continued to blight the East Kentucky landscape. This paradox may be resolved by examining the hybrid political ideology subscribed to by the leadership strata of the Ford Administration, the effects which this ideology had upon the implementation of the strip mine control program and, even more significantly, its impact upon the climate of opinion in which debate over changes in strip mine policy were carried on.
