Despite continued opposition from coalfield citizen groups, a U.S. Senate panel this morning advanced President Obama’s nomination of Joe Pizarchik to run the federal Interior Department’s Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement.
Just two members of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources — Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Independent Bernard Sanders of Vermont — were recorded as voting against Pizarchik. The nomination now moves to the full Senate.
The vote came just hours after the Citizens Coal Council on Wednesday night filed another formal Notice of Intent to sue over allegations of serious deficiencies in the Pennsylvania strip-mining regulatory program that Pizarchik runs.
This petition, following up on a previous one over Pizarchik’s policies on toxic power plant ash disposal at mine sites, focuses on “chronic violations” of federal historic preservation laws in regards to damage from mining.
According to a Citizens’ Coal Council press release:
Pennsylvania is one of the original thirteen states with a vast array of unique national historic properties, including many with existing structures in Western Pennsylvania dating from the times of the French & Indian War and the Revolutionary War periods, and including existing historic cultural landscapes and traditional cultural properties. Pennsylvania also has a documented prehistoric human occupation dating back to over 16,000 years before the present era.
Aimee Erickson, Coordinator of the Citizens Coal Council, explained:
Prominent among the historic properties of Pennsylvania and its people are the historic farms and homes, historic drinking water and livestock watering sources and delivery systems — including the aquifers, springs and surface waters.
I’ve posted the latest Notice of Intent here. Like the previous one, it seeks to force Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to have OSMRE take over enforcement of strip-mining laws in Pennsylvania because of Pizarchik’s failure to do so.
Among other things, the notice alleges that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has not protected historic resources in that state from damage from longwall mining. It cites some of the fine work by my buddy Don Hopey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on this issue, here, here and here.
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Senatorial ignorance and arrogance strikes again.
Gee Dorothy you aren’t in Kansas anymore. It’s actually West Virginia redone as Kansas!
This goes to show that an Internet campaign that smears someone is not necessarily successful. The letters from those who have actually worked with Joe appear to have carried more weight than those from people who believe something they read on the Internet as being fact. Congratulations, Joe!
I know Joe,
First of all, I believe you’ve posted here before — and aren’t you related to Mr. Pizarchik?
Second … you have once again not pointed to any specific errors in anything that I’ve written or that others have said about him.
Unless you can provide specific examples of something that’s been said about his record that is inaccurate, it is absurd for you to refer to what has been written about him as a “smear” campaign.
Ken Ward Jr.
How could anyone know Joe? His verbal testimony was an exercise in evasion, his written testimony wasn’t made public.
If Joe was a black box (or, the generous reading, open and honest, just woefully unqualified) some light was shed on the US Senate, where only four of the twenty-three committee members bothered to show up. And only one–Menendez–stayed for the entire hearing.
Ken,
How do you get the committee votes?
This guy seems to have the experience and education to qualify for the position. Give him a chance you might be surprised.
MANY people who have worked directly with Joe know that he has integrity and is fair, using the law and verifiable science to make decisions. I am appalled by the environmental groups actions – pulling stunts like the Intents to Sue the day before committee actions. Perhaps they might focus on the real problem and not just direct their ire unfairly at a single person. If they don’t like the laws that public officials HAVE to enforce, then change the laws. Don’t kill the messenger.
There have been many OSMRE directors:
http://www.osmre.gov/aboutus/director/formerdir.shtm
Many were not good even ones, even those who could have been so.
Joe Pizarchik can be a good OSMRE director — he has the knowledge, skills and abilities plus great experience to do so. (He has my vote.)
What is most concerning to me: Glenda Owens — currently the acting OSMRE director for a second time — was set to be nominated for the position without any public indication that was going to occur. Also, when potential nominees were being publicly noted, Joe Pizarchik was not until just prior to him being nominated. That’s not much of a public participation opportunity — or very transparent.
Right now OSM(RE) is so messed up that it cannot get much worse.
Note: I was with OSMRE from 1978 to 1995 after being an Ohio reclamation specialist, 1975-1978.
Yo Ken -
I’m the one related to Joe (and who has disclosed it) and who has written previously. I am working on a response to your request for “specific errors” in your reporting, but there is so little real information, or for that matter, reporting, that it is an arduous task. In short form you do not know enough about law, government, the environment or the economics of coal to make specific errors, your premises are flawed and your reporting is about as “fair and balanced” as other who make that claim. Come out and admit it — you just plain hate coal period. That’s an OK position, I am not particularly thrilled with its environmental consequences, but it that is your position, then unplug your computer, take down your website and turn off your lights. Don’t pretend to speak for coalfield families who depend on coal mining for jobs. You should at least know that a good portion of all electricity is coal-generated and until we move the energy policy of the country away from coal, which is not the job of OSMRE, its use needs to be monitored consistent with federal regulations. You have not offered one specific instance where Joe Pizarchik has not done his job in the complex federal and state regulatory framework, and within the legal rights of the citizens and operators. But I will save the rest for my response. I’ll let you know when it’s posted.
By the way, I posted in response to your response to “I know Joe”, but it did not appear. I hope this one at least makes it.
By the way — Go Phillies!!!!!!!!