Editor’s note: The Register-Herald editorial board recently spoke with 3rd District Congressman Nick Rahall and focused on a number of current issues. Two stories from that meeting appear in today’s edition.



Rep. Nick Rahall issued some advice to the Environmental Protection Agency in the turmoil in West Virginia over delayed coal mining permits: Get your act together.

Industry leaders are growing increasingly frustrated over the stalled permits, and at one point, Gov. Joe Manchin sat down with President Obama in an effort to get some action.

There have been some breakthroughs in recent months, including the Hobet 45 application that held 500 jobs in the balance and a second installation in Mingo County, but the uncertainty over other permits is causing angst.

Surface mining makes up almost 40 percent of the coal production in West Virginia.

If the pending permits aren’t approved, two professors warned at the state Capitol last week, surface mining will become an instant dinosaur and the negative effects will echo across West Virginia.

“I’m not defending EPA,” Rahall declared in a sit-down with The Register-Herald editorial board.

“Does the EPA need to do a better job? You better believe they do. That’s why I’m working with them on a constant basis.”

Rahall said he stays in touch with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and the White House’s environmental trouble-shooter.

“The EPA needs to tell the industry not only what they cannot do, which they’re good at, but what they can do in order to get a permit approved. And the EPA needs to get their act together. I told Lisa Jackson that herself. She knows they don’t have their act together.”

One problem is the inconsistency of the EPA between its Washington and Philadelphia offices, the 3rd District congressman said.

“The problem is within the agency. They need to get their act together. They’re working on it. They’re making progress. But they’re not there yet.”

At the same time, the Beckley Democrat said the industry cannot expect carte blanche in seeking mine approvals.

“If they’re serious about getting them approved, they have to recognize that everything they initially ask for isn’t going to be approved. What process do you ever go into when you get 100 percent of what you’re after?”

Moreover, he said it’s vital to work with the EPA.

“If the Corps (of Engineers) were to go ahead and approve the permit without the EPA signing off, then we’re back to where we’ve been in the last decade — lawsuits, lawsuits and lawsuits,” he said. “That’s where we’ve been for a decade or longer. That just didn’t come about with the new administration.”

Rahall remains a defender of mountaintop mining, a practice he acknowledged has attracted growing opposition on Capitol Hill from both sides of the aisle.

Some 200 members of the House proposed legislation to abolish the method, but it went to the Roads and Transportation Committee, where Rahall is vice chairman.

“I blocked it,” he said. “I kept it from even having a hearing on it. It would have passed Congress overwhelmingly. It was a freebie. Republicans would have voted to end mountaintop removal.”

Since it’s not an issue in their districts, he said, “they’d have voted to abolish it in a heartbeat.”

Another means of wiping out the practice would be to amend the surface mining and reclamation law which Rahall authored in his first year in Congress in 1977.

“Guess where that has to go?” he asked. “The Natural Resources Committee. Guess who’s chairman? Me.”

Rahall recalled bringing former Rep. Mo Udall, D-Ariz., a strict environmentalist, to West Virginia back in 1977, and once he observed reclaimed land, he agreed to work toward a compromise on surface mining.

Rahall appeared annoyed at some of the recent ads run by the industry in West Virginia touting coal mining.

While he applauded the Massey Energy ad content as “first-class,” he complained they should be aired in states where mountaintop mining has spawned enemies.

“They’re good ads,” he said. “But why are they just running in southern West Virginia?

“It just doesn’t make sense. Why run ads in southern West Virginia only where you’re preaching to the choir, unless there is some other motive behind it?”

Rahall found no fault with the recent criticism of Obama by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, also D-W.Va., over coal, but suggested the chief executive’s image as anti-coal is unfair, given that he hails from a coal-producing state, Illinois.

“I believe the president is truly supportive of a comprehensive energy policy that includes all of our domestic sources of energy, and that includes coal,” he said.