1.   The Bush administration is preparing to allow the coal mining industry to fill waterways and valleys with the rock and dirt from mountaintop mining, particularly in West Virginia.

2.   The Bush administration approved regulations late Friday that will allow coal companies to dump leftover dirt and rock from mountaintop mining into streams and valleys.

3.   The technique, known as mountaintop removal mining, occurs under a legal cloud that the Bush administration is about to remove.

4.   Coal companies in Appalachia have been turning to mountaintop mining as an inexpensive way to extract coal.

5.   The ruling could all but shut down mountaintop removal mining, a strip mining technique used increasingly in Appalachia.

6.   The practice is especially critical to the strip mining technique known as mountaintop removal mining, which has been used increasingly in the Appalachian region in recent years.

7.   The singer testified about mountaintop mining, a practice in which the top of a ridge or mountain is sheared off to expose a coal seam.

8.   Underwood has tried to generate labor support by supporting the coal industry in a federal lawsuit over mountaintop removal strip mining.