Published: November 4, 2016 |

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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has responded to a court ruling involving regulations and their impact on coal jobs, but many remain skeptical about the agency’s argument.

The EPA maintains that it is going to take more than a year to calculate the economic impact of a Clean Air Act regulations on coal jobs. But while the EPA claims that the regulations are necessary to help the environment, the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia ordered the government agency to study regulation impacts on coal jobs and come up with a plan and schedule that determines what — if any — job losses would occur as a result of the regulations.

Monday’s response from the EPA met a 14-day deadline set by the court, which the government entity said lacks jurisdiction over this matter.

Regardless of this claim by the EPA, attorney Robert Henneke, who serves with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, contends that this analysis is something that should have been considered from the beginning.

“The language of Section 321A of the Clean Air Act was clear and unambiguous in that it said the [EPA] administrator shall conduct evaluations of potential loss or shift of employment costs by these regulations — and ‘shall’ is a mandatory term.”

Henneke believes that this case is likely to be heard by a higher court.

“In their response, [the] EPA completely maintains that this is not something they’re required to do, and [it] reserves the right to object and to appeal further,” he explained. “So they’ve put forth the plan that the court required, but they’re clearly not agreeing that their obligations under the statute actually require them to do what the law says.”

One of the plaintiffs in the case against the EPA, Robert E. Murray of Murray Energy, argues that the Obama administration and other government entities represented on the other side of the suit display a blatant disregard for the detrimental effects a win for their side would bring about.

“The response to the Federal Court filed by Barack Obama, Gina McCarthy and the U. S. Department of Justice is deeply offensive to the Court, to the employees of Murray Energy and their families, and to those Americans who rely on the lowest-cost and most reliable electricity, which coal provides,” Murray insists. “Indeed, the Obama EPA has plainly admitted in their filing that they have never counted the job losses required under Section 321(a) of the Clean Air Act of 1971 and will require up to two years to do so. They have totally flouted and ignored the law and the court.”

Source: (November 2, 2016) One News Now

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