The Justice Department on Wednesday sued West Virginia’s Republican Gov. Jim Justice’s son and Justice’s family businesses. A lawsuit said its 13 mining companies had “breached their legal obligations” by failing to pay penalties and fines.
The civil lawsuit comes as the judge’s father launches a Senate campaign against West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, one of the most influential members of the chamber who was a key supporter of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
The senior judge is reportedly the richest person in West Virginia.
According to the 128-page filing, Justice’s mining companies “have failed to pay uncontested penalties for their uncontested violations” after being fined by the U.S. Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement for more than 130 violations totaling $5 million civil penalties were cited Interior Ministry.
The DOJ filed the application in US District Court in the Western District of Virginia.
The DOJ is suing West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice’s son for unpaid fines at mining companies he controls. Justice Running for Senate Against Senator Joe Manchin (DW.Va.)
The suit comes at a delicate time. Governor Justice Manchin leads West Virginia by 22 points (54 to 32 percent) in a new poll for the Senate election in West Virginia, according to a poll by the East Carolina University Center for Survey Research released Tuesday.
“Our environmental laws are designed to protect communities from the adverse impacts of industrial activities, including open pit coal mining operations,” Assistant Attorney General Todd Kim of the DOJ’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources said in a statement. “Through this lawsuit, the Department of Justice seeks to take responsibility for the defendants’ repeated violations of the law and to recover the penalties they owe as a result of those violations.”
Manchin was considered vulnerable simply because he was seeking re-election as a Democrat in a Republican-dominated state.
He is banking on his reputation as an independent politician, having sided with the Biden administration on major regulatory initiatives and engaged in protracted negotiations, but ultimately backing his Inflation Reduction Act.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee issued a statement saying Biden’s DOJ’s lawsuit was an “abuse of power.”
“Joe Biden’s Justice Department has gone completely rogue.” “For the Democrats to use the federal government as a weapon to attack the family of a Republican Senate candidate is a complete abuse of power,” spokesman Tate Mitchell said Wednesday.
The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment on any political sensitivities.
Sen. Joe Manchin (DW.Va.) faces a challenge from Republican Gov. Jim Justice. The Justice Department is suing the judiciary and the companies it controls for fines totaling $5 million. A pipeline driven by Manchin is included in the budget agreement to be voted on in the House of Representatives on Wednesday
The DOJ filed the lawsuit in federal court in Virginia on Wednesday
Environmental groups howled after approval for the Mountain Valley Pipeline was included in the budget agreement
The bipartisan budget agreement, which is due to be voted on in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, includes the approval of changes long pushed by Manchin. A provision that would require a permit for the 300-mile Mountain Valley pipeline that would traverse part of his state has infuriated environmentalists and some Democratic lawmakers who questioned why it was a must-pass budget compromise to cut spending and extend it the debt ceiling came .
Governor Justice and his son have worked together to manage a sprawling empire.
Justice reportedly made a fortune in 2009 when he sold Bluestone Resources, a collection of mines, to a Russian company and was later forced to buy it back under Russian control amid allegations of mismanagement.
The father and son said in a lawsuit that their goal was “to bring Bluestone back to profitability,” Forbes reported.
The billionaire governor and owner of the long-established Greenbrier resort is also “having a hard time paying his bills,” Forbes reported in 2019. He and his companies face $10 million in court penalties, as well as millions more in tax liens and claims for damages funds owed for mine clean-up.
Justice’s 13 owned or controlled companies are incorporated in Virginia, West Virginia and Delaware.
The lawsuit makes no mention of the senior judge’s political role and describes James C. Justice III as “a person residing in or about Roanoke, Virginia.”
Some of the judge’s fines detailed in the lawsuit relate to quarterly coal production figures.
The government led Premium Coal, National Coal and S+H Mining with more than 100 breaches between 2018 and 2022. These included “Failure to preserve the surface of a dam”, “Failure to ensure seismic stability of a dam” and “Slope instability is caused by improper placement of overburden against a hillside windrow and exposure of wood in the backfill soil.”
A number of companies are said to have failed to challenge fines imposed by the government and failed to comply with “stop orders”.
Other regulatory failures listed in the lawsuit appear to be measures aimed at reducing the environmental impact of coal mining on rivers and streams. These include “failure to maintain sediment control measures”, “failure to remove excess sediment from basins”, “illegal discharges” and “failure to properly dispose of non-coal waste”.
The regulations require operators to submit declarations showing how much coal is extracted from a mining operation. A recovery fee is charged for each tonne of coal mined. The fee is 22.4 centers per donor, or 10 percent of value, whichever is lower.