At a West Virginia hearing yesterday on the EPA’s controversial proposal to veto the permit for the largest mountaintop removal mine in the state’s history, hundreds of industry supporters — including Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) — blasted the agency for threatening jobs in the region. They’re claiming that the proposal to veto Arch Coal’s Spruce Mine puts politics above science — an ironic argument considering that there are clear signs that evidence-based decision-making is returning to the EPA after eight years in the wilderness of the Bush administration.

The Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward Jr. reports:

Supporters of the permit complained that EPA was wrong to step in after a mining permit was already issued, and that such an unusual step means no permit ever issued is safe from being later rescinded.

“EPA wants to take the permit away for what seem like political reasons, not scientific reasons,” said John McDaniel, a top Arch Coal engineer who worked on the Spruce Mine permit for more than a decade.

Rahall weighed in at the gathering as well. “Pursuing this course will have a chilling effect on the coal industry in West Virginia and the Appalachian region,” Rahall said, according to Ward.

“It sends a message to investors that no permit is ever assured and that money they might be willing to put into similar coal mining operations and coal jobs is nothing more than a high-risk bet,” Rahall said.

Spike Maynard, a former state Supreme Court Justice (and close friend of the industry) who’s challenging Rahall in November, was also on hand to rip the EPA’s veto proposal.

“The EPA has changed the rules mid-stream on our miners, and I don’t see how anyone could think that is fair.”

Funny that there were no similar complaints from industry supporters when the Bush White House changed the rules mid-stream on coal miners (see here and here).

Of course, those changes made it easier to blow up the mountains.

Under the Clean Air Act, California must receive a waiver from the EPA in order to impose emissions controls. The state submitted a waiver request in December 2005, but after a delay of more than two years, then-EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson rejected the request in March 2008. Upon taking office, President Obama asked the EPA to revisit the matter.

From Jackson’s signed statement this morning:

EPA believes that there are significant issues regarding the Agency’s denial of the waiver. The denial was a substantial departure from EPA’s longstanding interpretation of the Clean Air Act’s waiver provisions and the history of granting waivers to California for its new motor vehicle emission program.

If, as expected, the EPA grants the waiver, it could lead to tighter emissions controls not only in California, but also in 13 other states that hope to adopt California’s standards.

Stricter emissions measures have faced strong opposition from the auto industry, even though Ford and General Motors agreed to equally tough standards during the debate over the federal bailout of the Big Three automakers in December. Nonetheless, these companies are likely to be the most vocal opponents of the waiver.

“The current concerns over global climate change should not drive EPA into adopting an unworkable policy of requiring emissions controls,” Johnson said.

In a letter sent Monday to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, Boxer blasted Johnson’s argument as not only detrimental to anti-global warming efforts, but illegal. To heed Johnson’s words, Boxer wrote, would only “create further unconscionable delay in efforts to protect America — and the world — from the ravages of unchecked global warming.” From the letter:

The steps we must take to address global warming are a recipe for economic recovery, but Mr. Johnson’s illegal memo will only postpone the steps that will combat global warming, create millions of jobs, and ensure America’s energy security.

The courts are on Boxer’s side. In April 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that carbon emissions are indeed subject to the Clean Air Act. More recently, the EPA’s Environmental Appeals Board reached the same conclusion. “The Attorney General has an obligation to intervene when the actions of the Administration are so clearly outside the law,” Boxer said in a statement accompanying the letter.

The Natural Resources Defense Council issued a statement saying that the sheer absurdity of the ruling should lend hope to those interested in reining in air pollution.

The ultimate consolation, however, is that today’s EPA offense is so ham-handed, so divorced from the law, that it can and should be reversed by the Obama administration with the stroke of a pen.

Obama already has hopes to overturn many of the Bush administration’s “midnight regulations,” and this, no doubt, will be among those targeted. The question is: How long will that take?

The change is of particular threat to Appalachia, where coal miners have adopted the practice of blasting the tops off of mountains to reach the coal seams within — a process that produces enormous amounts of waste, or “overburden,” that needs disposing.

A 1983 Interior Dept. rule, called the “stream buffer zone rule,” prohibits disposal within 100 feet of live streams — a restriction requiring companies to truck the waste elsewhere. But the mining industry has long-pushed for explicit allowances to dump the debris in adjacent valleys, even if that means burying streams.

The new rule does just that, asking only that companies explain why dumping in streams is unavoidable, and to minimize the environmental impact “to the extent practicable” — like asking for abstinence from a rabbit.

In a statement that can be described only as Orwellian, Interior Dept. spokesman Peter L. Mali told The New York Times that “the rule strengthens protections for streams.”

Federal law allows coal mine waste to be placed in streams, and the rule tightens restrictions as to when, where and how those discharges can occur.

An environmental impact statement accompanying the new rule indicates that 724 miles of Appalachian streams were “directly impacted” by mining between 1985 and 2001. At that rate, another 724 miles would be affected by 2018, the report said.

Stephen L. Johnson — who has used his post atop the Environmental Protection Agency to do everything but — approved the new rule, telling The Times that, “Americans should not have to choose between clean coal or effective environmental protection.”

(Huh?)

Anyone else singing bars of “Don’t know what you got til it’s gone?”