Mike Tony [email protected]

By Duncan Slade Mountain State Spotlight On Monday, Patrick Morrisey stood on the steps of the state Capitol — one hand on a Bible, the

Federal environmental regulators have proposed a new rule to slash carcinogenic air pollution from chemical plants prevalent in Kanawha County, especially that of ethylene oxide. But the rule proposal welcomed by air quality advocates faces a murky future in the incoming Trump administration, which is poised to roll back the planned rule that would cover Union Carbide, Specialty Products, Covestro and Altivia facilities in Kanawha County.

Federal authorities have again threatened to take over mine permit violation enforcement from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection, telling the DEP it has failed to act on patterns of state rule violations across a string of permits spanning over 2,600 acres in Greenbrier County. The U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement last week directed a notice to the DEP finding reason to believe the DEP failed to promptly review and act on patterns of violations it issued for Ashford-based South Fork Coal Company mine permits in Greenbrier County.

Dismissing concerns about West Virginia’s ability to protect against environmental health risks from wells essential for storing captured carbon dioxide emissions underground, the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, has approved the state’s request for primary enforcement authority over them. The EPA approved the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection's (DEP's) request for primacy over Class VI wells.

Federal regulators have threatened to take over enforcement authority from West Virginia for another coal mine permit in United States Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va.’s business empire. The U.S. Office of Mining Surface Reclamation and Enforcement issued the threat via a notice to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection last week regarding the DEP’s oversight of a Justice family-controlled mine in McDowell County. The OSMRE notice came four weeks after it made the same threat to the DEP in response to what the OSMRE indicated were DEP failures to revoke another Justice coal company permit in McDowell County as required by a state regulation and to identify a pattern of wide-ranging environmental violations on that permit.

Proposed changes to rules governing how the West Virginia House of Delegates does business would vest new powers in the House speaker, impose new restrictions on the public and media, and replace public hearings with what proponents say would be a better process to collect meaningful citizen input. But the proposal introduced by House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, House Resolution 1 (HR1), has sparked heavy criticism from advocates who fear it would reduce public feedback and legislative process transparency for a Republican-supermajority Legislature that has cut procedural corners in recent sessions.

A coal mine where an underground fire on Jan. 13, 2025 prompted reported mine worker evacuations had a long history of safety and health violations leading up to the blaze. Over 1,100 federal safety and health violations have been assessed at the Leer South Mine in Barbour County, West Virginia since the start of 2022, according to Mine Safety and Health Administration records. In the same span, the mine was assessed 172 violations deemed “Significant and Substantial,” a designation the MSHA uses for hazards reasonably likely to result in serious injury.

President Donald Trump's executive order pausing disbursements through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act and other climate and energy-related moves have created confusion and sparked intense criticism. But Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., and Gov. Patrick Morrisey expressed little concern about the moves.

For the first time ever, CSX Corp. moved more coal for export markets last year than it did for domestic markets. And things don't look to get better this year, CSX executives said on their quarterly conference call Thursday evening.