When the Environmental Protection Agency was created, it was intended to have the power to address clear, pressing environmental issues - and, therefore, was allowed by Congress to implement its own laws. It has become a runaway bureaucracy with its own agenda. That agenda sometimes appears to be inflicting economic harm on a certain segment of Americans.

GOP lawmakers who took control of the U.S. Senate and increased their majority in the House of Representatives said one of their top priorities was to rein in this out-of-control EPA. So far, little has been done.

But U.S. Rep. David McKinley, R-W.Va., has reintroduced a bill he proposed a few years ago, that would curb the EPA's power to retroactively revoke mining permits. McKinley was bothered by what the EPA did in Logan County four years ago, where a coal company had applied for permits to operate the Spruce Mine.

An expensive, laborious 10-year review of the company's water permitting process had been conducted, and a 1,600-page environmental impact statement prepared - with participation from both the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA. So, in 2007, the Corps issued the Spruce Mine permit, and work began. Then, in January 2011, the EPA retroactively revoked the permit, costing the mining company a huge sum of money and eliminating many good jobs, at the hands of the Obama administration's war on coal and affordable electricity.

Without limits on the EPA's power, no one can be certain the agency will not approve a permit, then, years later (when the agenda changes,) revoke it. Such operating procedure, while common for the EPA, should not be permitted.

Congress should approve McKinley's bill; then move on to curb other abuses by the EPA.

--

This editorial appeared in the Parkersburg News and Sentinel on March 6, 2015.