The House took a parting shot at what critics say are the Obama administration’s policies to discourage coal production Friday by passing a package of bills designed to rein in the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to impose regulations on the struggling industry.

In its last vote of the session, the House voted 233-175 to approve a bundle of five bills, known as the “Stop the War on Coal Act of 2012,” that would block recent EPA efforts to regulate emissions, require the agency to consider the cost and economic impact of certain rules, and give states greater authority over pollution control.

“President Obama has spent his entire term waging a regulatory war of red tape and government mandates on coal miners, coal jobs and the millions of people who rely on low-cost coal-fired electricity,” said House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-WA). The legislation is unlikely to reach the Senate this year, and even if it did, Mr. Obama has indicated that he would veto it.

But the House’s approval highlights the election-year tension between the Obama administration and the nation’s coal-mining states, several of which are also battleground states.

Those include Colorado, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, all of which are home to coal companies grappling with the EPA’s recent first-ever rule on mercury emissions and its proposed carbon-emissions standards for new coal-fueled plants.

The heightened regulatory climate, coupled with falling natural gas prices, prompted Alpha Natural Resources to announce that it would shutter eight coal plants and lay off 1,200 workers in Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia.

An industry analysis released Tuesday forecast the closure of 204 coal-based units in 25 states in the next three to five years, resulting in job losses and higher electricity prices...

Nineteen Democrats crossed the aisle to vote with Republicans in approving the legislation, while 13 Republicans voted against it.

The Democrats voting in favor included Rep. Shelley Berkley, who’s locked in a tight contest for the open Nevada Senate seat, and Rep. Mark S. Critz of Pennsylvania, a vulnerable first-termer whose GOP opponent Keith Rothfus has made EPA regulations a centerpiece of his campaign...

A poll conducted for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy and released Thursday showed 59 percent of those surveyed in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia support coal-based energy. The poll, which over-sampled Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, also found that most “agree that EPA is making decisions based on politics, not policy.”

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Editor's Note: Rest assured the obstructer in chief in the Senate -- Harry Reid -- will make sure this legislation never gets any consideration in the Senate, just as he has pocket vetoed a plethora of legitimately passed bills out of the House.


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