Delegate Tim Ennis (D-Brooke) is leaving the West Virginia Legislature to fill a vacancy on the Brooke County Commission. The Herald-Star of Steubenville, Ohio, says the commission appointed Ennis on Tuesday to fill the seat held by the late Commissioner Bernie Kazienko, who died Dec. 5.

Candidates planning to run for public office in the 2012 elections may begin filing candidacy papers on January 9, according to the West Virginia Secretary of State's Office.

The office also will offer a free live video stream every day of the filing period, including up to the midnight deadline on January 28, for people wanting to watch who is filing. The live streaming video will be available on a link that will appear at the top of the Secretary of State's website at www.wvsos.com.

The West Virginia Contractors’ Expo will be held at the Charleston Civic Center March 21 & 22. The event is one of the largest events in the annual trade show calendar for the state.

The West Virginia Coal Association and Friends of Coal will once again man a booth at the event during the two days. Look for us there.

In a harshly worded filing, the National Mining Association and other industry groups asked for partial summary judgment in the suit filed against the EPA over the agency’s “final guidance” document on the Clean Water Act issued this past year.

“In both word and deed in drafting and implementing these “guidance” documents, EPA has dramatically overstepped the bounds Congress carefully crafted for EPA across multiple statutory programs that govern coal mining,” attorneys for the industry wrote. “If EPA had the authority to issue the proclamations found in these documents, which include regulation of mine design, presumptions on conductivity as a measure of water quality, and invasion into the states’ water quality standards, there would be no need for “guidance” in the first instance. EPA’s role and views would have been codified and woven into dozens of regulatory provisions that have governed environmental permitting for coal mining for at least the past three decades.

“The final guidance document runs roughshod over the carefully crafted regulatory schemes in the SMCRA and CWA… EPA exceeds multiple ceilings placed on its authority and disrupts the critical cooperative federalism balance that Congress intended between federal agencies and the states.”

According to an AP report, halfway through its budget year, West Virginia has resumed its course toward a modest general revenue surplus in December after a brief rough patch for tax collections.  Last month the state took in $336 million, or $28.7 million more than expected. That helped put state government $56 million above its revenue goal for the budget year, which ends June 30.  Muchow credits the state's energy sector for much of the good fiscal news. Continuing a trend that's helped buoy the state amid the fragile recovery, Muchow cited coal prices and the strong export market for this fossil fuel. Muchow added that natural gas production and increased investments in West Virginia's share of the Marcellus shale field is also playing a role.  The severance tax on extracted natural resources bested its December estimate. So did taxes on business equity — the business franchise tax — and corporate net income.

West Virginia expects to raise $4.01 billion from general tax revenues by June 30. It began January with $1.97 billion collected.