CHARLESTON – The June 29th decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the EPA’s Mercury Rule is a major win for the coal industry and for American consumers. The ruling affirms what we have argued from the beginning – the EPA’s actions under this rule and others were made without regard to economic consequences and were specifically designed to remove coal from the nation’s energy mix.
"The West Virginia coal industry, its employees and the entire State of West Virginia have been particularly hard-hit by the impacts of EPA’s regulation which have spurred a massive closure of coal-fired power plants across the country," said Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association. "Today’s decision is an important first step in reigning in a clearly out of control bureaucratic agency that intends to implement its vision for America’s future regardless of Congressional intent, cost to the consumer, risk to electricity reliability and impacts to the nation’s coal mining regions. We are still reviewing the decision and its implications, but I think it’s fair to say the Supreme Court handed down a decision for common sense and affordable energy today."
In its 5-4 decision, the Justices said the Agency MUST take into account the economic cost of rules such as the Mercury Rule. With this decision, the Justices embraced the arguments of industry and 21 states that the EPA rules were prohibitively expensive and amounted to government overreach.
In their decision, the Court made abundantly clear its disdain for the EPA’s argument. “The Agency refused to consider cost when making its decision… the agency action is unlawful if it does not rest of the relevant factors…”
This decision is critically important, but our elected leaders at the local, state and federal level must continue their efforts to defend the nation’s coalfield communities and electric supply from EPA’s equally ridiculous and dangerous greenhouse gas rules and their efforts to make West Virginia coal more competitive in the national and global energy markets.