Coal-country lawmakers ramp up push against EPA permit veto

“For years, the EPA has been bullying coal companies and the workers they employ,” the freshman Republican said in a statement. He alleges that if EPA is able to overturn Corps’s permits, “dozens of heavily regulated industries and hundreds of thousands of American jobs hang in the balance.”

“Businesses will not invest in new projects and create new jobs if they know that regulatory agencies can ignore existing permits and arbitrarily pull the rug right out from under them,” McKinley said.

Rahall told E2 on Wednesday that the measure has enough backing to clear the House, but he predicts it would not clear the Senate and that President Obama wouldn’t sign it anyway. Nonetheless, he called the bill an effort “to show the frustration that exists out there.”

“There is a fear that it has ramifications for other industries where there have been previously granted permits,” Rahall said.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is planning to soon introduce similar Senate legislation.