Coal-fired power plants across America are under a new directive from the Environmental Protection Agency to either clean up their act or close, and West Virginia’s representatives on Capitol Hill and a coal leader are up in arms about it.

New rules force plants to control mercury and other pollutants and likely will impose the biggest impact in coal-producing states, such as West Virginia.

“Too aggressive, too quick,” declared Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association.

“It’s just real arrogant bureaucracy.”

Raney said the more stringent rules can’t help but jack up monthly bills West Virginians pay for electricity and could throw up to 1.5 million people out of work across the nation.

“The crazy thing is that America has more coal than any other country in the world,” he said.

“You would think we would be using that to achieve our energy independence, if you will, at least security from an energy standpoint.”

All in the congressional delegation say the new rules are likely to force up costs for consumers and rob the state of jobs.

Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., who voted against immediate implementation of the clean air rules, said the EPA’s order cannot do anything about global emissions but will doubtless throw some coal miners out of work.

“It certainly makes more sense to me to be investing in American-made technologies to help American utilities upgrade to more efficient, cleaner ways of using domestic coal, rather than putting the rule-making hammer to American plants and forcing our coal to be shipped overseas where emissions will be even greater,” the 3rd District congressman said.

“From the standpoint of sufficiency of our energy supply and protection of our global atmosphere, we ought to be looking creatively at coal power, rather than instituting policies that force coal out of our energy sector.”

Raney said EPA’s rule will impose the same negative effects as the earlier proposals of Kyoto and cap-and-trade.

“It has no congressional review,” he said. “If I were in Congress, I’d be really miffed by the fact that they’re doing this thing.”

All of them were miffed.

Sen. Joe Manchin, also D-W.Va., called it “yet another onerous rule by the EPA (that) completely ignores the devastating impact these regulations will have on jobs and our economy, not only in West Virginia, but across the nation.”

The Utility MACT Rule, as it is known in bureaucratic talk, combined with the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule approved earlier in the year, are two of the most expansive in history, he said.

“And every American should be concerned about their effect on energy prices, the reliability of our power supply, our coal mining industry and most importantly our families,” Manchin said.

In a bipartisan move, he and Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., introduced the Fair Compliance Act, saying this would avert the loss of jobs, keep utility rates down and prevent other economic setbacks.

Offered in November, Manchin said the proposal he co-sponsored with Coats would provide “a more reasonable time frame” while protecting jobs and keep power bills from rising.

Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., a co-founder of the Congressional Coal Caucus, called on the Obama administration and the Senate to work on a House plan to “rein in this rogue agency.”

“This is about re-election politics: the administration has to appease an environmental lobby that’s felt left on the sidelines,” she said.

“If American jobs are lost in the process, apparently that’s just collateral damage.”

Raney called the EPA mandate “awful.”

“The real crippling thing is everybody’s electric bill is going to go up,” he said.

“That means every product, and there aren’t many that don’t use electricity somehow in the manufacture of them, are going to go up. It’s almost hypocritical in a sense that they say they’re going to do this.”

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com