Tomorrow, May 21, Jim Waters, the President of the Bluegrass Institute, will take on Tom Fitzgerald, director of the Kentucky Resources Council, in a debate on the Intrastate Coal and Use Act!

WHAT: Debate on the Intrastate State Coal and Use Act, hosted by TACKLE

WHO: Jim Waters, President of the Bluegrass Institute, and Tom Fitzgerald, Director of Kentucky Resources Council

WHEN: Tuesday, May 21 from 6 to 8:45 PM

WHERE: Heeren Hall, 2nd floor of Cooke Hall, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary at 2825 Lexington Road, Louisville, KY 40206

The Intrastate Coal and Use Act is a piece of model legislation sponsored by the Bluegrass Institute and unanimously approved by the American Legislative Exchange Council’s Task Force on Energy and the Environment. If passed, the bill would protect Kentucky’s constitutional rights to regulate all internal commerce, specifically any coal mining operations in which the coal is mined, sold, and used exclusively within the borders of the commonwealth.

Such a law would push the EPA monkey off our backs for the one-third of Kentucky coal that stays within the borders of the commonwealth, allow for a more sensible and locally-driven environmental program, restore thousands of mining jobs, and protect our majestic wildlife and waterways.

So come on out tomorrow to this important discourse and voice your support for Kentucky’s constitutional rights!

Sens. Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell aren’t the only ones providing Kentuckians with the type of tools necessary to protect our energy sector from the EPA’s unilateral mandates – so is the Bluegrass Institute.

This coming Tuesday in Louisville, Jim Waters, President of the Bluegrass Institute will argue for the Intrastate Coal and Use Act, a bill which would guarantee to Kentuckians sovereignty over the one-third of all Kentucky coal that is mined, sold, and used exclusively within the borders of the commonwealth. Such commonsense and constitutional defenses are what we need in the commonwealth if we are to succeed in fending off the federal behemoth that is the EPA.

And we need these weapons now more than ever.

Last year alone, Kentuckians lost more than 4,000 coal mining jobs or 22 percent of mining employment. Eastern Kentucky and Appalachian miners were explicitly targeted by the EPA, and experienced a 30 percent decline in employment. Overall, mining production in the commonwealth was down by 91.4 million pounds.

No doubt, Jim Waters will reference a new report from the Bluegrass Institute that shows how – in no small part due to EPA regulation – energy prices are set to increase by 20 percent over the next ten years. These increases in energy costs will not only be a direct burden on Kentucky families, they’ll also chase business from the commonwealth, which relies so heavily on low energy and operating costs to lure industry to set up shop.

So come on out to 2825 Lexington Road in Louisville, KY at 6 PM to voice your support for the Intrastate Coal and Use Act.

Last week, Sen. Rand Paul joined Mitch McConnell in coming to the aid of Kentuckians in our lopsided battle for a sensible environmental policy by introducing the Defense of Environment and Property Act.

This piece of legislation would provide a commonsense and definitive delineation for what makes a “navigable waterway,” a term which the EPA currently has unilateral power to define and enact mandates. For too long, the EPA has played fast and loose with what waterways it considers under its jurisdiction, even ruling that ephemeral streams temporarily formed by recent rainstorms are under its jurisdiction.

As a result of the EPA’s nonsensical notions for what makes a waterway “navigable,” the bloated federal bureaucracy has succeeded in blocking close to 40 mining permits and brought a halt to millions of dollars of economic activity in the commonwealth. Even private landowners whose property is wetted by snow-melt are not safe. If they want to build on their property, the EPA’s cronies are liable to come after them.

Kentuckians have had enough, and so has Sen. Rand Paul:

“Environmental protection must be balanced with the constitutional right to private property. I have spoken with several Americans who have fallen victim to the EPA and Army Corps’ aggressive breach of power. This act will restore common sense to the federal jurisdiction over navigable waters, place necessary limitations on out-of-control government agencies and protect our right to private property.”

This is the second piece of legislation sponsored by Kentucky senators in recent weeks designed to put some limits on EPA overreach  The first was Mitch McConnell’s Coal Jobs Protection Act.

On Tuesday, May 21, Jim Waters, the President of the Bluegrass Institute, will take on Tom Fitzgerald, director of the Kentucky Resources Council, in a debate over which entity is best equipped to oversee the costs and benefits of the commonwealth’s energy sector: mid-Atlantic bureaucrats at the EPA, or informed and concerned Kentucky citizens.

WHAT: Debate on the Intrastate State Coal and Use Act, hosted by TACKLE

WHO: Jim Waters, President of the Bluegrass Institute, and Tom Fitzgerald, Director of Kentucky Resources Council

WHEN: Tuesday, May 21 from 6 to 8:45 PM

WHERE: Heeren Hall, 2nd floor of Cooke Hall, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary at 2825 Lexington Road, Louisville, KY 40206

The Intrastate Coal and Use Act is a piece of model legislation sponsored by the Bluegrass Institute and unanimously approved by the American Legislative Exchange Council’s Task Force on Energy and the Environment. If passed, the bill would protect Kentucky’s constitutional rights to regulate all internal commerce, specifically any coal mining operations in which the coal is mined, sold, and used exclusively within the borders of the commonwealth.

Such a law would push the EPA monkey off our backs for the one-third of Kentucky coal that stays within the borders of the commonwealth, allow for a more sensible and locally-driven environmental program, restore thousands of mining jobs, and protect our majestic wildlife and waterways.

So come on out to this important discourse on May 21 and voice your support for Kentucky’s constitutional rights!

One week prior to the Kentucky Public Service Commission’s hearing on Kentucky Power’s plan to retire more than 1,000 megawatts of power produced in the Big Sandy region of the commonwealth, Appalachian legislators like Sens. Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell have had enough. This week, they introduced the Coal Jobs Protection Act which would put actual limits on how long the EPA can do political waltzes, delay mining permits, and seriously impact much-needed Appalachian jobs.

Another strong supporter of state sovereignty for Kentucky’s energy sector, Rep. Andy Barr, R-KY, drove the point home yesterday:

“This important legislation will expedite the current mine permitting process, under which many applications have languished for years, and bring much-needed certainty back to the coal mining industry. More certainty will allow our mines to expand production and reverse this trend of job losses, both in the coal mining industry and in industries in my district that depend on a healthy coal industry.

“Ultimately, the runaway regulations coming out of this Administration are the most significant impediments to job creation.  At a time when families are struggling to make ends meet and put food on the table, Congress must act to prevent the EPA from continuing to pursue its radical, job-killing agenda that is hurting the American people.”

Kentucky Power’s hearing will occur in Louisa, KY on May 14th, with two meetings via teleconference to follow on May 15th.

At least one member of Congress has had enough of the yo-yo that is the technical legality of the Environmental Protection Agency’s manipulation of the Clean Water Act to crush Appalachia’s energy sector. As a result of recent appellate court decisions allowing the EPA to retroactively reverse mining permits already approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Sen. Mitch McConnell announced this week that he will be introducing the Coal Jobs Protection Act in Congress.

The Coal Jobs Protection Act would  put actual constraints on the EPA’s power to reject mining permits by requiring the bureaucracy to make a decision on a mining permit within 270 days for mining operations that risk runoff, and 90 days for mining operations that involve clearing soil. Currently – and predictably – there is no timetable for how long the EPA can take to reject or approve a mining permit, resulting in business uncertainty, less business investment, and less desperately needed Appalachian jobs.

It seems the EPA would rather let permit applications wallow in no-man’s-land than actually take a stance on a mining operation and face the potential blow-back that would come with it. As Jim Waters, President of the Bluegrass Institute, recently put it, it’s about time for the EPA to “man up” by announcing a decision within a reasonable time-frame,  or shut up.

McConnell joins four of West Virginia’s five members of Congress to speak out publicly against the appellate court’s acquiescence to the EPA’s unilateral mandates. According to Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WV, “One agency grants a permit, another agency takes it away and business suffers in the end. The federal government should be an ally, not an adversary, in helping to strike a balance between protecting the environment and creating good American jobs.”

McConnell hammered the point home in his recent press conference:

“Just because [the current administration's war on coal] is undeclared doesn’t make it any harder to see. It’s apparent all around us…[The Coal Jobs Protection Act will] be our best ever weapon of defense to protect the thousands of jobs being targeted by this administration.”

The yo-yo that is the technical legality of the Environmental Protection Agency’s manipulation of the Clean Water Act to crush Appalachia’s energy sector continues to spring up and down as two appellate courts have invalidated previous lower court decisions which ruled that the EPA had overstepped its bounds when it blocked mining permits approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers years prior.

These most recent rulings from U.S. Courts of Appeals in both Cincinnati and Washington, D.C. once again put hundreds of mining jobs at risk and bring to a halt millions of dollars worth of economic activity. It also puts the kibosh on operations at Arch Coal’s Spruce Mine No. 1 in West Virginia, for a total of 2,300 acres worth of economic stagnation.

And according to Tom Fitzgerald, an environmental attorney in Louisville, the damage isn’t likely to stop here. There could be as many as 70 other mining permits soon targeted by the power recently returned to the EPA. Not good.

Now the cases will return to district courts where judges will decide not whether the feds have the power to overturn mining permits in general, but whether they did so “arbitrarily and capriciously” in these specific instances.

Still, though it took more than a year for appeal decisions to be handed down, the legal battle over which entities have jurisdiction over Kentucky’s energy sector is likely to rage on – with the commonwealth itself having a deflatingly small say in the matter. Just why is it that courts in Cincinnati or Washington, D.C., or federal bureaucracies in the mid-Atlantic get to decide how coal is mined, sold, and used in the commonwealth? Wouldn’t commonsense have those most affected by the pros and cons of Kentucky’s energy sector, Kentuckians, be the ones who decide the fate of Kentucky coal – not some far-away federal masters?

Kentuckians should be insulted with how little control we actually do have left, with how much control has been stolen from our hands and from the very land our most valuable resource is mined from.