“A decision today by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia is yet another victory for West Virginia’s 63,000 coal mining families in their efforts to defend their jobs against an on-going legal onslaught that has needlessly delayed mining permits for years.
In its decision in the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition v. United States Army Corps of Engineers case the Court said in essence that it is the sole purview of the states, their elected policymakers (such as the Legislature) and state regulatory agencies to determine water quality standards when granting mining permits.
“…. The Corps does not have primary responsibility for water quality,” the judge wrote. “Under the Clean Water Act, that responsibility lies with the WVDEP and the NPDES permit, not the Section 404 (federally-issued) permit.”
“West Virginia’s coal mining families welcome this decision. It is clear that it is the states and not the federal government or the courts that are charged with establishing water quality standards. The court decision is yet another in a series of federal court rulings that have dismantled the attempted seizure of state responsibility for environmental regulation by the Obama Administration’s EPA and its anti-coal activist allies.
“This decision follows by less than two weeks and reinforces Judge Reggie Walton’s decision holding that the EPA had trampled on the state’s authority in the issuance of a water quality guidance document. Earlier this year, two other decisions were issued in federal court holding to much the same findings. These included the decision earlier this spring by Federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson with regard to the agency’s veto of the Spruce permit in Logan County and an earlier decision related to the enhanced coordination process – an illegal process by which the EPA tried to assert authority over the Corps of Engineers in the granting of Section 404 permits.
Taken together, these decisions should bring to an end both the use of the courts by activist organizations to bypass the legislative process and the EPA’s own breach of the limits of its authority established and intended by Congress.
“We again call for the EPA and the Obama Administration to end their three-year war on coal and allow our coal miners and their families to return to work. We also call on the anti-coal groups to respect the authority of our elected representatives and the rule of law. Americans need jobs.”
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