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Carmel, Illinois. All the coal mined from Alcoa's extensive reserves in the region is transported to the 755-megawatt Warrick power plant that supplies electricity for Warrick Operations. Vigo has been ramping up production at Liberty during the past y ear or so. After producing 586,627 tons of coal in 2013, the mine's o utput more than doubled to 1.22 million tons in 2014. Liberty pro- duced 237,929 tons in the first quarter of 2015. Friendsville produced 849,383 tons last year and 220,805 tons in the first three months of this year. Still No Decision on Future of Foresight's Deer Run Mine The forced idling of Foresight Energy's Deer Run longwall mine in Illinois entered its fourth month in July with no firm indication when the next ton of coal will be produced. Amid what amounted to a virtual news blackout about the mine's future, rumors were flying. Among them: As many as 3 million tons of high-sulfur steam coal cover the ground at the mine site near Hillsboro in Montgomery C ounty. The mine owners, possibly because of the huge stockpile, a re in no hurry to resolve a lingering carbon monoxide issue and reopen the mine. Do not believe the rumors because they are untrue, Gary Broadbent, assistant general counsel for Murray Energy Corp. and official spokesman for both Murray and Foresight, advised. Privately owned Murray, based in St. Clairsville, Ohio, acquired a major own- ership stake in St. Louis-based Foresight in early spring, and some Murray executives since have assumed top positions at Foresight. n e w s c o n t i n u e d B Y L U K E P O P O V I C H EPA Down on the MAT D A T E L I N E W A S H I N G T O N Last month, David decisioned Goliath in a heavy- weight bout fought in Washington, not Vegas. The Supreme Court awarded the National Mining Association (NMA) a 5-4 decision granting our request to strike down the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) 2012 standard for mercury and other emissions. The court held that the EPA was unreasonable in not considering costs — including the cost of compliance — before deciding whether further regulations on power plants were appropriate and necessary. In other words, EPA didn't use common sense when deciding it was "appropriate" to impose a rule whose costs far outweighed its benefits. "Appropriate" is a commonplace word to help guide common sense deci- sions. We're not parsing Heidegger's "Being and Time" here or conjugat- ing Old Norse verbs. In setting this plain criterion under this section of the Clean Air Act, Congress assumed regulators, whatever their political views, were essentially rational people bound by broadly acceptable stan- dards of conduct and judgment, people who, if given your dog to walk around the block, would return home with the same animal. But this administration makes such a belief seem naïve, almost quaint. Lawmakers did not anticipate this breed, much less that the nation's energy grid would one day be transformed by doctrinaire fanatics running an environ- mental agency that is indifferent to cost, to the law, to congress and to public opinion. That sounds like the old Soviet Politburo, not the U.S. government. Yet, fast forward to today, and we see how environmental mullahs at the EPA thought it was entirely appropriate to expect Americans to pay $1,600 for $1 in benefits. A rule that triggered the closure of 60 GW of affordable power generation, not the 6 GW that the EPA estimated. A rule that led to many of the 45,000 coal jobs lost since the rule was imposed in 2012 and that stranded hundreds of millions of dollars spent on clean technology. Luckily, five of the nine justices agreed with us that such a rule fails the common sense test. The words of Justice Scalia in the majority opinion should be inscribed over the portals of the EPA's headquarters: "It is not rational, never mind 'appropriate,' to impose billions of dollars in econom- ic costs in return for a few dollars in health benefits." The practical impact of the decision on the number of power plants spared retirement remains to be seen. Many plants have already made the decision to retrofit or retire. But more than 400 coal units representing 142,000 MW of capacity have been granted one-year extensions for com- pliance. Some portion of this capacity will live another day to strengthen coal demand and the electricity grid. Also unclear, if more important at this point, is the ruling's impact on the EPA's coming carbon reduction rule, the so-called Clean Power Plan, expected later this summer. Forget any possibility that the EPA would amend its proposal in light of the Supreme Court's mercury rule. EPA Administrator McCarthy struck a defiant tone at a House committee hear- ing, dismissing NMA's victory as "very narrow" and irrelevant to the Clean Power Plan. We'll see about that. Five justices decided this EPA can't be trusted to exercise common sense, so they might withhold the customary discretion the court gives to regulators. The court also decided the EPA can't simply "rebake" the law by accepting words that favor its regulatory ambition while ignoring words that restrain it. In the Clean Power Plan, the agency ignores all precedent by straying far from the fence line of a power plant, where it has standard-setting authority, to the entire grid, where it doesn't. Mike Tyson said, "everybody's got a plan until they get hit in the mouth." The EPA just got hit in the mouth, and its plan may need revision. Luke Popovich is a spokesperson for the National Mining Association, the industry's trade group based in Washington, D.C. " Five justices decided this EPA can't be trusted to exercise common sense, so they might withhold the customary discretion the court gives to regulators. " 12 www.coalage.com July 2015