Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) made his maiden speech on the floor of the Senate on Thursday, extolling the virtues of common sense and, as a logical corollary, laying into the Environmental Protection Agency. He said:

I believe it is fundamentally wrong for any bureaucratic agency, including the EPA, to regulate what has not been legislated, to have absolute power to change the rules at the end of the game and to revoke a permit, as the EPA did in southern West Virginia’s Spruce Mine, after it was lawfully granted and employees were hired. Giving any agency such absolute power will have a chilling effect on investment and job creation far beyond West Virginia.

Manchin announce introduction of the EPA Fair Play Act, intended “to check EPA’s power, protect jobs and investments in West Virginia and beyond” by preventing the agency from revoking permits that had been legally granted.

The permit for the Spruce Mine was approved after an exhaustive, approximately 10-year regulatory process that included extensive review by the EPA. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded the Section 404(c) permit, which is a requirement for constructing clean valley fills, a process used in surface coal mining. The EPA has authority under the Clean Water Act to veto Section 404(c) permits before they are awarded by the U.S. Army Corps. However, the EPA has never before attempted to veto a previously awarded and active permit.

Arch Coal was poised to invest $250 million dollars in the Spruce Mine project, which was already employing West Virginians and would have created approximately 200 good-paying jobs with benefits. The EPA’s decision to retroactively veto the permit casts serious doubt on the future of this project and others throughout the country.

Sen. Manchin’s legislation has bipartisan support from other energy-state Senators, although the principle embraced by the bill is larger than coal or mining. It goes to the fundamental rule of law in the country: Can the government arbitrarily take away what was already achieved through a legal process for political or arbitrary reasons?

UPDATE (8:20 a.m.): The bill is S. 272, A bill to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to clarify and confirm the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to deny or restrict the use of defined areas as disposal sites for the discharge of dredged or fill material. Original osponsors are: (continue reading…)

The Associated Press has acquired a report from the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement that reveals the Obama Administration’s regulatory plans could wipe out coal-related jobs all across the United States. From “Govt: New rules would cut thousands of coal jobs“:

[The] agency’s preferred rules would impose standards for water quality and restrictions on mining methods that would affect the quality or quantity of streams near coal mines. The rules are supposed to replace Bush-era regulations that set up buffer zones around streams and were aimed chiefly at mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia.

The proposal — part of a draft environmental impact statement — would affect coal mines from Louisiana to Alaska.

The office, a branch of the Interior Department, estimated that the protections would trim coal production to the point that an estimated 7,000 of the nation’s 80,600 coal mining jobs would be lost. Production would decrease or stay flat in 22 states, but climb 15 percent in North Dakota, Wyoming and Montana.

This latest attack against the No. 1 energy source in the United States aligns with the decision by the Environmental Protection Agency to revoke an already approved mining permit for a West Virginia operation. Not just was the EPA demonstrating its hostility toward coal, its caprice undercut the regulatory certainty that employers and investors demand.

Indeed, it’s not too much to say the EPA’s decision undermined the rule of law. The Washington Post published an excellent letter explaining the threat Sunday, “The EPA’s unprecedented reversal on a permit,” by John Sitilides, founder of Trilogy Advisors LLC. (continue reading…)

John Engler, president of the National Association of Manufacturers, packed a lot of policy perspective into his seven-and-a-half minute interview with CNBC’s Becky Quick on Squawk Box. The discussion included green jobs, nuclear energy, infrastructure, trade and the Administration’s need to develop a “growth strategy.”

Engler was attending the National Energy Summit this morning, and CNBC was on hand. There are other very good interviews:

• Powering Up With Coal: Steven Leer, CEO of Arch Coal, discusses alternative energy, reducing carbon dioxide emissions, the coal industry and more with CNBC’s Becky Quick.
• Energizing the Future: CNBC’s Becky Quick interviews Mayo Shattuck, CEO of Constellation Energy, at the National Energy Summit.
• Blue Chips Take on Energy Jim Owens, CEO of Caterpillar, and Chad Holliday, of Dupont, discuss their energy initiatives with CNBC’s Becky Quick.
• Making Energy Affordable: CNBC’s Becky Quick interviews John Hofmeister, founder and CEO of Citizens for Affordable Energy and the former president of Shell Oil.
• Sustaining a Competetive America: CNBC’s Becky Quick interviews Deborah Wince-Smith, president of the Council on Competitiveness, at the National Energy Summit.