National Mining Association (NMA) President and CEO Hal Quinn released the following statement in response to the decision today by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in National Mining Association v. Lisa Jackson:
“NMA is gratified by today’s decision in NMA v. Jackson in which the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia set aside the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Final Guidance for coal mining operations in Appalachia because the guidance and agency’s activities have overstepped the bounds of the law. As we have always maintained, EPA has engaged in an unlawful overreach in its attempt to commandeer the permitting responsibilities the law places with other state and federal agencies.
“Today’s decision has truly given coal miners and coal mining communities their ’day in court’ and has affirmed NMA’s longstanding belief that EPA overreached its authority in its virtual moratorium on Eastern coal mining permits and denied those operations the protections provided for under the law. It is now time to get miners back to work by allowing the state permitting agencies to do their jobs.”