The legislation would place limits on the EPA’s ability to veto dredge-and-fill permits previously issued by the Army Corps of Engineers.
This is what happened last month when The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that the EPA had the right to retroactively veto a water pollution permit for one of West Virginia’s largest mountaintop removal coal mines years after it was issued.
The permit for Mingo Logan Coal’s Spruce no 1 mountaintop removal mine was granted by the Army Corps of Engineers with input from the EPA in 2007.
Rahall said the power of the agency threatens the future of coal mining jobs and communities.
“In recent years, the EPA has taken direct aim at the Appalachia coalfields using and abusing seemingly every regulatory tool in their arsenal to stymie, disrupt and prevent coal mining,” Rahall said in a media release.
“But perhaps their most brazen assault on coal miner’s jobs occurred in January, 2011, when the Agency retroactively vetoed a previously issued Clean Water Act 404 permit for the Spruce Mine in Logan County, West Virginia. Last month’s decision by a U.S. Court of Appeals affirming EPA’s use of this authority now opens the door for the Agency to shut down a coal mine or stop all manner of industrial activity with an unrestricted flick of their veto pen.
“I do not believe that it was ever the intent of Congress to vest such sweeping power in the EPA, and if our intent was too vague when the statute was written decades ago, we must make it crystal clear today,” he said.
The act is called “The Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act of 2013” and also aims to hasten the EPA’s Clean Water Act permitting process.
“Similar legislation I offered last year to restore the traditional balance between states and the federal government in the Clean Water Act permitting process was approved by the House on a bipartisan basis,” Rahall said.
“But new urgency has now been injected into this issue. If the EPA can retroactively veto any Clean Water Act 404 permit ‘whenever’ the Administrator determines it necessary, all such permits for any range of industrial or construction activities throughout the country are rendered completely meaningless. These permits are issued after years of study and consideration and should not be allowed to be taken away when the political winds shift.”
“It is not merely a piece of paper that the EPA is taking away when they veto a permit. They are taking away the ability of our coal miners to earn an honest living and provide for their families and it is for their sake I am filing this legislation today.”
The bill was first introduced in 2011.
Rahall is joined on the bill by congressman John Mica.
