I am incredibly proud to stand today with the century-long Appalachian resistance against the devastating effects of the coal industry. I have broken the law because the legal system is broken. I have broken the law because mountaintop removal is destroying our health, our mountains, and our futures. I have broken the law because the destruction of our landbase, which is our endowment, is legal. —- Mullins is alarmed by health studies on the impacts of coal mining including the one in 2011 co-authored by Dr. Michael Hendryx, a researcher at West Virginia University, linked mountaintop removal mining to increased community cancer risk, based on data from 773 adults in door-to-door interviews, which found self-reported cancer rates twice as in mining versus the non-mining areas after controlling for age, sex, smoking, occupational history, and family cancer history.