WASHINGTON — IER released today the following statement from Senior Vice President Daniel Kish after the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear an appeal from Arch Coal Inc. on its revoked permit for the Spruce No. 1 mine in West Virginia. After being issued the permit in 2007 by the Army Corps of Engineers, the EPA retroactively vetoed the project in 2011. The statement reads:
“This is just more proof that the Supreme Court has become more a protector of the Big Government status quo in Washington than it is of the rights of individual Americans. The Court has decided it agrees with a lower court that said the EPA can veto a permit if EPA changes its mind. This gives EPA too much deference and ignores EPA’s dishonest dealings. One of EPA’s head regulators is now in jail because of his fraudulent activities and EPA refuses to provide Congress and the American people with the science it uses to justify expensive regulations while using fake aliases and outside email addresses to avoid FOIA.
“Anyone familiar with EPA’s growing record of fabricating whatever justification it takes to gain bigger budgets and more power knows this is a ‘blank check’ for an agency whose actions now threaten everything anyone does anywhere, according to the Supreme Court’s interpretation.
“The Court, through this decision, appears to be saying it lacks the ability to rein in the growing power of the Executive Branch, and in fact it has been unwilling to do so in a string of decisions. This is the same Court that gave carte blanche to the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide, even though the authors of that provision in the Clean Air Act maintain it was never the intent of Congress to regulate carbon dioxide.
“For those who have looked to the Supreme Court to protect the interests of individuals and contract sanctity, it is becoming clear that the Justices are now becoming part of the Washington elite, which accepts power in the hands of the government as the coin of the realm. It is too bad they condone taking those coins from the hands of working men and women who can ill afford them.”
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