In this era of hyper-partisanship, the mainstream media thinks that bi-partisanship is beautiful…unless both parties agree on an environmental policy, in which case the media invariably recasts the story such that it’s the Green Democrats versus the Dirty Republicans.

On cap-and-trade policy, I’ve noted in a previous post how the media willfully ignores that both parties oppose energy rationing. Instead, you’ll read or hear about the “Republican War on Science,” whenever Congressional climate policy gets rejected by a bipartisan, bicameral vote.

There was another example of this phenomenon last Wednesday. The Energy and Water Subcommittee of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held a hearing during which there was unanimous bipartisan agreement that the Environmental Protection Agency had overstepped its bounds on a controversial policy regarding  mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia.

To me, at least, unanimously bipartisan opposition to a major Presidential policy on an ultra-divisive issue is newsworthy. But there was no mention of it in any of the stories on the hearing that I read. Readers of the stories that I read would have thought that the Democrats and Republicans clashed.

The subject of the hearing was the EPA’s issuance of what full Committee Ranking Member Nick Rahall (D-WV) called “do or dare permits,” whereby the EPA threatened to veto surface coal mining permits that failed to meet “non-binding” guidance documents. This is a blatant violation of the federal Administrative Procedure Act. As I explain in detail here, the EPA’s justification for these procedural shenanigans is the protection of an insect that lives for a day, and which isn’t an endangered species.

Subcommittee Ranking Member Timothy Bishop (D-NY) spoke of a “pendulum” between the “non-mutually exclusive” issues of environmental protection and economic activity. He said it had swung too far towards business in the Bush era, and now it appeared to have swung too far in the other direction. Of course, Rahall agreed with the Republicans; he’s from West Virginia, the nation’s second largest coal producing state. Rahall’s constituents suffer most as a result of this Administration’s war on Appalachian coal production. Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA), offered “our support, as a group…for anything we can do to lessen the burden.” Rep. Laura Richardson (D-CA) chided EPA Acting Assistant Administrator Stoner, saying, ““When an issue raises to the level of the Congress, you know there’s a problem.”

To be sure, Rep. Bishop aggressively defended the EPA from the rhetorical claim, made by one witness, that the Obama Administration was waging a “war on coal” in order to fulfill the President’s promise to “bankrupt coal,” but he also allowed that EPA had gone too far when he made his pendulum analogy. Again, Rep. Rahall’s willingness to check the EPA was never in doubt. Rep. Altmire is from Appalachian PA, where surface coal mining is practiced (although there has been a dramatic conversion from surface to underground mines there over the last decade), but I couldn’t find any evidence of mountaintop removal coal mines in that State. Rep. Richardson’s skepticism of the EPA’s actions was most striking, given that her district is as far from Appalachia as it gets.

Remarkable, right? Perhaps, but it wasn’ newsworthy. In fact, if you didn’t attend the hearing, but you read media accounts of the hearing, your knowledge of what took place would be the opposite of what took place.

In the trade publication I rely on for energy and environment news, the write up of the hearing mentioned that two Democrats defended the EPA from purple rhetoric used by witnesses and Republicans. The story never mentioned that these Democrats ultimately agreed with Republicans on the need to check the EPA. And on the blog that I rely for detailed information about the Appalachian coal industry, a post on the hearing was titled “EPA, Democrats Respond to Coal Attacks.”

I’ve been an outspoken opponent of the EPA’s war on Appalachian coal production. See here, here, here, and here.

In particular, I’ve sought to shine a spotlight on the EPA’s outrageous crackdown on saline effluent from surface coal mines. The EPA argues that this salty discharge is an illegal violation of the Clean Water Act, because it harms an order of short-lived insects known as the mayfly. The science suggests that the total number of insect species doesn’t decrease downstream of surface mines, as hardier insects readily assume the niche vacated by the mayfly. Nonetheless, the EPA alleges that the loss of the mayfly alone is sufficient to violate the Clean Water Act’s narrative (qualitative) water quality standards. The mayfly is not an endangered species.

A year ago, the EPA issued guidance for quantitative salinity water quality standards, effective immediately. According to one mining engineer, they set the bar so low that you couldn’t wash a parking lot without violating the Clean Water Act. Remember, the President had campaigned on a promise to “bankrupt” coal; this was the fruition of that promise. Even EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson conceded that new surface coal mine permits in Appalachia were unlikely under the terms of the April guidance.

Last Friday, the EPA was scheduled to issue final guidance documents for quantitative salinity water quality standards. However, Friday came and went, and nothing happened. On Saturday, EPA sent out notice that it will need more time to finalize the guidance documents. It also said that, “The Office of Management and Budget will conduct an interagency review process before final guidance is issued later this Spring.”

The OMB’s participation is interesting. It could be routine; OMB, and, by extension, the White House, has the final say on regulations. Yet, if it were routine, I don’t know why EPA would mention it.

To be sure, I don’t think that OMB’s involvement was precipitated by Obama’s concerns of overreach against coal. Rather, I guess that OMB’s conspicuous participation is meant to guard against allegations of procedural overreach. This Administration has been catching a lot of flak for using guidance docs in lieu of formal rule makings (from an administrative standpoint, the former is less cumbersome than the latter). Maybe the OMB involvement is meant to bolster the record, and thereby fend off allegations of Administrative Procedure Act violations.