Judge slams EPA for axing coal permit

Politico ^ | March 23, 2012 | ERICA MARTINSON

[Timber Rattler]

A federal judge slammed an Obama administration gambit to revoke mountaintop mining permits Friday, saying the EPA invented authority where there was none.

“EPA resorts to magical thinking” to justify nullifying permits issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for Arch Coal Inc.’s Mingo Logan mine in West Virginia, wrote U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington, D.C.

Berman Jackson said the EPA’s effort to revoke permits already issued by the Army Corps lacked the backing of any statutory provision or regulation. “It posits a scenario involving the automatic self-destruction of a written permit issued by an entirely separate federal agency after years of study and consideration,” the opinion says.

“Poof! Not only is this nonrevocation revocation logistically complicated,” the ruling said, but it also robs industry of the only way they can possibly measure compliance with the Clean Water Act — a permit.

[Timber Rattler]

Double whammy on EPA!

And this is a surprise---the judge is an Obama appointee:

District Judge Amy Berman Jackson

Amy Berman Jackson was appointed as a United States District Judge in March of 2011. Prior to joining the Court, she was engaged in private practice in Washington, D.C. as a member of Trout Cacheris, where she specialized in complex criminal and civil trials and appeals. Earlier, she was a partner at Venable, Baetjer, Howard, and Civiletti. From 1980 to 1986, Judge Jackson served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, where she received Department of Justice Special Achievement Awards for her work on murder and sexual assault cases.

Judge Jackson received her J.D. cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1979 and her A.B. cum laude from Harvard College in 1976. After graduating from law school, she served as a law clerk to the Honorable Harrison L. Winter of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. She has lectured on corporate criminal investigations and has been a regular teacher at the National Institute of Trial Advocacy, the Georgetown University Law Center CLE Intensive Session in Trial Advocacy Skills, and the Harvard Law School Trial Advocacy workshop.

During her years in private practice, Judge Jackson was elected to serve as a D.C. Bar delegate to the ABA House of Delegates, and she was active in the ABA Litigation Section, the ABA Criminal Justice Section White Collar Crime Committee, and D.C. Bar and Women’s Bar Association committee activities. Judge Jackson has been a member of the Parent Steering Committee of the Interdisciplinary Council on Developmental and Learning Disorders, and she served on the Board of the D.C. Rape Crisis Center and other educational and community organizations.

[PubliusMM]

Thank you, your honor, for taking us one small step back toward sanity.

[Army Air Corps]

Ping.

[JediJones]

Guess that whole female Harvard lawyer thing didn't work out so well for BamBam Barack this time.

The United States Senate confirmed Jackson in a 97-0 vote on March 17, 2011.

[Venturer]

It’s about time somebody jerked a knot in their butt.

[Conservative Vermont Vet]

Bitched-slapped twice in one week?

Oh my, O'Bummer and his jack-booted thugs at the EPA ain't gonna like that at all.

Yahooooooo!

Is it too late to have another Crown Royal? Nope, and that's just what I intend to do.

[CharlesThe Hammer]

Thanks Judge Jackson!

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I thought Harvard Law only graduated communists. I wonder if the school has tried to revoke her diploma.

Way to go, Judge Jackson! A small move toward sanity in this insane land.

[Traveler59]

No problem for the EPA, they’ll just ignore the ruling like everyone else in this administration.

[rockinqsranch]

These idiots currently in charge took to heart Valerie Jarret’s statement about “...ready to rule...”

This entire lot of the current administration believe they are omnipotent. They aren’t “Representative Government”, but “Omnipotent Rulers” in their minds eye.

[WVNan]

Thank you Judge Jackson. Uh, I don’t think the EPA will mess with the miners in WV now that they have the law on their side.

[SunkenCiv]

Obama administration violating the law and the Constitution — Impeach Now!

Thanks Timber Rattler.

[MaxMax]

they’ll just ignore the ruling like everyone else in this administration.

Certainly John Balless Boehner will write them a really really stern letter.
It will be illegible though, do to all the smearing caused by tears.

[MasterGunner01]

Time to get rid of this Frankenstein monster called the EPA. Every state has one, so why do we need a wasteful and dangerous federal version? Time is long past to put the EPA and its overpaid bureaucrats on the unemployment line. Try and find a real job, EPA boys and girls. Oh, by the way, if you do find a private sector job, the pay will be half of your previous FedGov job, you'll contribute to Social Security, and you'll not get health care thanks to Obama.

[mmanager]

We have been fighting this permit for years and opened the mine based on the economics of this surface permit in conjunction with the underground mine (in production). Finally we get the permit that was already issued and now there is no coal market. Obama is destroying the domestic coal industry and the only savior may be international sales.

The EPA through water quality regulations is making it virtually impossible for new permitting of mining activity. The environmental groups are now trying to shut down ports on the coasts so that coal companies cannot ship abroad.

This administration is pure evil.

[Timber Rattler]

Oh, I know. I come from a long line of SWVA coal miners, and have followed the EPA’s war on coal for a long time now since it impacts my family too.

[tbw2]

They’re trying to kill the hydrocarbon economy in an effort to create “solar-topia”, though such a thing does not really exist.

[thouworm]

http://bdtonline.com/editorials/x1940319299/Reining-in-the-EPA-Federal-ruling-a-victory-for-coal