October 24, 2008-- Judge Robert Chambers, the presiding federal judge in a lawsuit seeking to block a Fola Coal Co. strip mining permit in Clay County, has refused to step down despite a potential conflict of interest.
In a filing two weeks ago, attorneys for Fola Coal asked Chambers to recuse himself from the case filed by several environmental groups, including the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy. Chambers’ past membership in the organization – dating back to the 1980s and early 1990s – was cited as the reason for the request. In their filing, Fola lawyers James Crockett and Allyn Turner alleged that U.S. District Judge Robert C. Chambers' prior involvement with the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy "creates an appearance of impropriety." But lawyers for the Conservancy maintained that Chambers ended his association with the group well before President Clinton appointed him to the bench in 1997, which clears him of any appearance of impropriety or need to recuse himself.
Chambers, who was a member of the Legislature from 1978 to 1996, declined to discuss the matter because the case is still pending in his court. He did issue a written order Wednesday clarifying his involvement with the Conservancy. "To the best of my recollection, sometime in or around the mid-1980s I began receiving a periodic newsletter published by the Highlands Conservancy," Chambers wrote. "I believe that for some period during my legislative tenure I may have made the minimum financial contribution necessary to be a member and continue to receive the newsletter. I did not participate in the organization's meetings or other activities." The judge wrote that during his decade as House of Delegates speaker, he may have participated in a panel discussion or event sponsored by the event. He ended his membership before he left the Legislature, and has not been involved with the group at all since, he wrote. Conservancy lawyers said they had checked the organization's membership records, and there is no evidence Chambers was a member or gave the group money since 1994.