Lexington Herald Leader Editorial: Service With A Smile.
Service with a smile
To news reports that state environmental regulators might have put accommodating coal interests above following the law, a lot of Kentuckians will shrug and say: "So, what else is new?"
Political donor Joe Craft's Alliance Coal received underground mining permits even though the company had yet to obtain permission from property owners.
Ron Mills, the permitting head who refused to sign permits that he considered illegal, was overruled and later fired.
During the Fletcher administration, the cabinet began issuing permits if companies could show they had the right to mine two-thirds of the area. This was called the two-thirds or 33 1/3 rule.
Early in the Beshear administration, on Oct. 8, 2008, Hank List, the deputy secretary of the Cabinet for Energy and Environment, e-mailed Carl Campbell, commissioner of Natural Resources: "I have recommended to the secretary that we can accommodate the coal interests with reinstating the two-thirds rule."
After hearing from the cabinet's legal counsel, Cabinet for Energy and Environment Secretary Leonard Peters reinstated the rule.
In January, List told Campbell to "let all the permit applications that include the 33 1/3 provision out the door."
The cabinet's general counsel, C. Michael Haines, told Herald-Leader reporter John Cheves that he could not identify any federal or state statutes that authorize the 33 1/3 rule.
"That's just the way we've chosen to interpret it."
Peters has insisted that Mills was fired because he fell short as a manager, not because he was less than accommodating to coal, and that Gov. Steve Beshear had nothing to do with the firing.
Mills, a lawyer, says he was told that Beshear was involved in the decision and that he was fired because of his stand on the permitting issues.
Peters says Indiana has a two-thirds rule. He points out that the law requires permission from landowners before coal is actually mined. And he said he has faith in his legal office's advice.
The legal controversy is probably headed for court. An environmental group has said it will sue the state for permitting mining in areas where companies have yet to obtain the right to mine.
Peters, a chemical engineer, headed a national laboratory on the West Coast before joining the Beshear administration.
Since he's relatively new to state government, he can be forgiven for not understanding that accommodating the coal industry is a tradition that runs so deep that stretching the law to help coal has become second nature in the agency he oversees.
How else to explain the miles of headwater streams buried under mining waste with no regard by the cabinet for the cumulative effects on water?
The miles of mountain forest laid waste with no regard for the law's requirements for post-mining land use?
The private homes and water supplies ruined by blasting and mine runoff, with no regard to the rights of property owners?
It's a tradition that's 100 percent wrong.
To news reports that state environmental regulators might have put accommodating coal interests above following the law, a lot of Kentuckians will shrug and say: "So, what else is new?"
Political donor Joe Craft's Alliance Coal received underground mining permits even though the company had yet to obtain permission from property owners.
Ron Mills, the permitting head who refused to sign permits that he considered illegal, was overruled and later fired.
During the Fletcher administration, the cabinet began issuing permits if companies could show they had the right to mine two-thirds of the area. This was called the two-thirds or 33 1/3 rule.
Early in the Beshear administration, on Oct. 8, 2008, Hank List, the deputy secretary of the Cabinet for Energy and Environment, e-mailed Carl Campbell, commissioner of Natural Resources: "I have recommended to the secretary that we can accommodate the coal interests with reinstating the two-thirds rule."
After hearing from the cabinet's legal counsel, Cabinet for Energy and Environment Secretary Leonard Peters reinstated the rule.
In January, List told Campbell to "let all the permit applications that include the 33 1/3 provision out the door."
The cabinet's general counsel, C. Michael Haines, told Herald-Leader reporter John Cheves that he could not identify any federal or state statutes that authorize the 33 1/3 rule.
"That's just the way we've chosen to interpret it."
Peters has insisted that Mills was fired because he fell short as a manager, not because he was less than accommodating to coal, and that Gov. Steve Beshear had nothing to do with the firing.
Mills, a lawyer, says he was told that Beshear was involved in the decision and that he was fired because of his stand on the permitting issues.
Peters says Indiana has a two-thirds rule. He points out that the law requires permission from landowners before coal is actually mined. And he said he has faith in his legal office's advice.
The legal controversy is probably headed for court. An environmental group has said it will sue the state for permitting mining in areas where companies have yet to obtain the right to mine.
Peters, a chemical engineer, headed a national laboratory on the West Coast before joining the Beshear administration.
Since he's relatively new to state government, he can be forgiven for not understanding that accommodating the coal industry is a tradition that runs so deep that stretching the law to help coal has become second nature in the agency he oversees.
How else to explain the miles of headwater streams buried under mining waste with no regard by the cabinet for the cumulative effects on water?
The miles of mountain forest laid waste with no regard for the law's requirements for post-mining land use?
The private homes and water supplies ruined by blasting and mine runoff, with no regard to the rights of property owners?
It's a tradition that's 100 percent wrong.
Labels: News reporting
posted by KYJurisDoctor at 7:50 PM
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