Al Gore = fish in barrel (via Glenn Reynolds):

Al Gore Jr. received more than $500,000 in royalties from the owners of zinc mines who held mineral leases on his farm near Carthage, Tenn. Now the mines have a new owner and are scheduled to reopen later this year.
Before the mines closed in 2003, they emitted thousands of pounds of toxic substances and several times, the water discharged from the mines into nearby rivers had levels of toxins above what was legal.
State environmental officials say the mine has had a good environmental record and there is no evidence of unusual health problems in the area.
But the mine’s reopening again raises concerns about threats to the environment.
Find out more about how Gore became connected to mining, what’s happened at the mines through the years and what the former vice president is asking the new owners to do in the Sunday Tennessean and at www.tennessean.com.

Stay tuned.
Hey, wait a sec…are there such things as Zinc offsets?
UPDATE:Here’s the link to the Sunday piece. Big headline, but–after press inquiries–VP Gore dashed off a letter:

Last week, Gore sent a letter asking the company to work with Earthworks, a national environmental group, to make sure the operation doesn’t damage the environment.
“We would like for you to engage with us in a process to ensure that the mine becomes a global example of environmental best practices,” Gore wrote.
Victor Wyprysky, the company’s president and chief executive officer, did not respond to requests for comment on the letter.
The letter was sent the week after The Tennessean’s Washington bureau posed questions to the former vice president about his involvement with the mine.

And further down:

In its last year of full operation in 2002, the Gordonsville-Cumberland mines ranked 22nd among all metal mining operations in the U.S., with about 4.1 million pounds of toxic releases. The top releasing mine, Red Dog Mine in Alaska, emitted about 482 million pounds that year. In 2002, Smith County ranked 39th out of more than 3,000 U.S. counties for lead compound releases and 21st for cadmium releases, according to tallies by Scorecard, a Web site run by environmentalists that compiles federal data.
Even Gore noted in his letter that, according to Scorecard, “pollution releases from the mine in 2002 placed it among the ‘dirtiest/worst facilities’ in the U.S.”

There are some who see hypocrisy:

[N]ow that the mine is reopening and Gore’s status as an environmentalist has grown, some of Gore’s neighbors see a conflict between the mining and his moral call for environmental activism.
“Mining is not exactly synonymous with being green, is it?” said John Mullins, who lives in nearby Cookeville. A conservative, Mullins welcomes the resumption of mining for the benefits it will bring the community. But he says Gore’s view that global warming is a certainty is arrogant and that by being connected to mining, Gore is not “walking the walk.”

And some who don’t:

Earthworks president and chief executive Stephen D’Esposito said Gore’s involvement with mining doesn’t bother him “in any way, shape or form.”
“We are going to have mining. The question is doing it in the right place and the right way,” said D’Esposito, who has not studied the Carthage mines.

But here’s the problem for Al Gore, as explained by Glenn Reynolds:

That said, it’s not clear that Gore himself has done anything wrong, though he’s clearly made money from a project that’s pretty environmentally unfriendly. But this will add to the perception that Gore’s green talk is hypocritical, I suspect. As I’ve noted below, if you adopt a quasi-messianic posture, people will judge your actions very differently than if you do not.

UPDATE II: {See extended entry}.

Mr. Gore is going (back) to Washington to testify before both houses of Congress. Sounds like it could be interesting (according to Drudge:

Proposed questions for Gore, which are circulating behind-the-scenes, have been obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT — question that could lead Gore scrambling for answers!
Mr. Gore: You have said several times that we have 10 years to act to stave off global warming. Was that 10 years from the first time you said that or 10 years from now? We just wanted to get a firm date from you that we can hold you to.
Mr. Gore: How can you continue to claim that global warming on Earth is primarily caused by mankind when other planets (Mars, Jupiter and Pluto) with no confirmed life forms and certainly no man-made industrial greenhouse gas emissions also show signs of global warming? Wouldn’t it make more sense that the sun is responsible for warming since it is the common denominator?
Mr. Gore: Joseph Romm, the executive director for the Center for Energy and Climate Solutions, has said we must build 700 large nuclear plants to stave off climate change. Where do you stand on the need for nuclear energy?
Mr. Gore: Do you think the earth is significantly overpopulated and that is a major contributor to your view of climate change. (If yes, what do you think is a sustainable population for the planet?