The coal mine permitting process is a rigorous one that has been determined by federal and state law since 1977. These laws have been strictly followed by regulators and operators alike. The permitting process is long, detailed, based on massive engineering work and very expensive. Perhaps the major characteristic of the entire process is the dialogue between regulator and operator to reach agreement as to how the law can best be compiled with during the mining process itself.

Recently, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) arbitrarily, without any dialogue, decided to subject 23 pending coal mining permits in West Virginia to an indefinite, undefined “enhanced review” process. The criteria and schedule for this so-called “enhanced review” process are not now, and have not ever been made available to either the public or to the mining applicants. What is known about the process is that the economic impact of the EPA’s actions is already being felt and as time passes will be even more devastating to our state.

This EPA decision is threatening tens of thousands of jobs in West Virginia and is further destabilizing communities throughout our state that have been battered by the recession. West Virginians, along with millions of other Americans, depend on coal for affordable electricity. West Virginia also depends on coal for tax revenue that keeps our state and local governments afloat. Additionally, coal mining creates an economic cycle of good jobs and opportunity that benefits families and strengthens communities in every corner of our state.

With nationwide unemployment at its highest level in years, the federal government should not stop Americans from going to work. Yet that is, and increasingly will be, the exact result of EPA’s recent delay tactics.

As members of the West Virginia Legislature we share the outrage expressed by Gov. Joe Manchin and Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito, and share in their view that we can no longer afford to give EPA the benefit of the doubt. Their motive is clear: it is to destroy coal mining in West Virginia as we know it.

It is for these reasons that we urge you – our elected representatives in Washington- to speak out against this harmful decision and take immediate action to ensure EPA lifts the bureaucratic roadblocks to West Virginia’s economic prosperity.