Dear Fox News,

I am highly disappointed in your news coverage on the evening of January 17, by Shepard Smith.  I have never heard such bias and ignorance, reported in such a scathing tone by your news organization about the coal industry and the revocation by the EPA of this mining permit in West Virginia.  My family and I have long been proponents of your news coverage and I have to say, you are “just plain dumb” as to the aesthetics of this topic and industry.  The news media and the rest of the country, so like to portray the people of Appalachia in this manner, so maybe the tables have turned.  We have lived in this great state, (one of the few in this country that is not financially in trouble) for the last 19 years.  I am an accountant, bookkeeper and real estate agent and self-employed business woman who is married to, yes, the coal industry. It is my heritage and our way of life.  My husband is a Professional Engineer with 28 years of mining experience and two engineering degrees from the University of Kentucky, and contrary to public perception, this industry has more great minds and degrees than your whole organization put together.

The West Virginia State Senate passed, Thursday, a resolution calling on the U.S. EPA to reconsider its veto of the Mingo-Logan Spruce #1 Mine in Logan County.  EPA announced its retroactive veto of the permit, a permit granted almost four years ago, earlier this week.  Senate and House leaders of both parties joined with Governor Earl Ray Tomblin and Senator Joe Manchin at the Capitol Coal Rally Thursday afternoon.

Full text of the Resolution follows:

SENATE RESOLUTION NO. 10

(By Senators Kessler (Acting President), Green, Unger, Browning, McCabe, Stollings, Sypolt, Plymale, K. Facemyer, Williams, Minard, Hall, Laird, Jenkins, Boley, Nohe, Yost, Klempa, Wells, Prezioso, Beach, Miller, Palumbo, Snyder, Edgell, D. Facemire and Tucker)

Urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider its January 13, 2011, action to veto the permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the Spruce Mine in Logan County, West Virginia.

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Dear Fox News,

I am highly disappointed in your news coverage on the evening of January 17, by Shepard Smith.  I have never heard such bias and ignorance, reported in such a scathing tone by your news organization about the coal industry and the revocation by the EPA of this mining permit in West Virginia .  My family and I have long been proponents of your news coverage and I have to say, you are “just plain dumb” as to the aesthetics of this topic and industry.  The news media and the rest of the country, so like to portray the people of Appalachia in this manner, so maybe the tables have turned.  We have lived in this great state, (one of the few in this country that is not financially in trouble) for the last 19 years.  I am an accountant, bookkeeper and real estate agent and self-employed business woman who is married to, yes, the coal industry. It is my heritage and our way of life.  My husband is a Professional Engineer with 28 years of mining experience and two engineering degrees from the University of Kentucky , and contrary to public perception, this industry has more great minds and degrees than your whole organization put together.

It’s not every day that egg farmers and cattlemen rise to the defense of a mountain-top coal mine in West Virginia. But that’s what appears to be happening as the Obama administration nears a decision on the fate of the mine.

Nearly two dozen industry groups – including the National Realtors Association, the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and, yes, the United Egg Producers – are urging the White House to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from yanking a water permit for a mountaintop-removal coal mining project in Logan County, West Virginia that would be one of the largest in Appalachia.

Why do those industries care about Arch Coal Inc.’s Spruce No. 1 mine? Because, like coal producers, their businesses require federal water permits.

If EPA pulls the permit, it would mark the first time in the agency’s 40-year history that it canceled a water permit after it was issued – a scary precedent in the groups’ eyes.

“The implications could be staggering, reaching all areas of the U.S. economy including but not limited to the agriculture, home building, mining, transportation and energy sectors,” the groups say in a letter dated Tuesday to Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality. The letter notes that clean-water permits such as the one issued to Arch by the Army Corps of Engineers support roughly $220 billion in economic activity each year.

“If EPA is allowed to revoke this permit, every similarly valid … permit held by any entity — businesses, public works agencies and individual citizens — will be in increased regulatory limbo and potentially subject to the same unilateral, after-the-fact revocation,” the groups say in their letter.

The Environmental Protection Agency, in an unusual move, revoked a key permit for one of the largest proposed mountaintop-removal coal-mining projects in Appalachia, drawing cheers from environmentalists and protests from business groups worried their projects could be next.