The future of coal mining in Pennsylvania seems bright, or at least it should. Coal production is responsible for 41,500 jobs across the commonwealth, and Pennsylvania is the fourth-largest coal-producing state, with enough coal for the next 250 years.

But sadly the future of coal is not bright. The federal government is responsible for a “perfect storm” that is eroding the market for coal and making it more difficult to mine this valuable energy resource.

Market forces, including historically low natural gas prices and a weak economy, have suppressed energy demand. However, operators can deal with market conditions as we have throughout the historically cyclical nature of the mining industry.

The more insidious factor to this perfect storm has little to do with market conditions. There is no business principle — no strategy — that can counter the regulatory assault being waged on coal by Washington regulators and the Obama administration.

The goal of this assault is clear — eliminating coal as an energy source.

This war against coal is being fought — first and foremost — by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Career bureaucrats embedded in this behemoth regulatory agency are making decisions about public policy that affect industry, despite the fact that they have never met a payroll, earned a profit, created a job, or had to face the agony of employee layoffs.

Indeed, the EPA’s overzealous regulation of coal mining in the past three years has threatened the future of our industry. These policies attack both the mineral extraction process through protracted federal environmental reviews of mining permits heretofore reserved to the states, and the end-use process through unreasonable and unjustifiable emission-reduction standards that weaken America’s position in the global marketplace.

Due in large part to the cost of complying with very stringent emissions control regulations, six coal-fired power plants located in the state have been designated for retirement or deactivation since the first of the year. These plants represent a combined 2,400 megawatts (MWs) of capacity — or roughly enough electricity to power 2.4 million homes every year.

Moreover, a preliminary analysis of just some of the announced retirements conducted by the PJM Interconnection, the regional transmission organization tasked with ensuring electric grid reliability throughout the Mid-Atlantic, indicates that these closures would create “significant reliability concerns.”

At a time when affordable energy prices are critical to reversing our troubled economy, when energy independence is vital for maintaining our national security and when the reliability of supply is a prerequisite for energy independence, our policies should embrace coal, not reject the opportunity for job creation and domestic energy production that this vital resource provides.

Burning coal today is cleaner than at any point in our history, and mining conditions, by any standard of measurement, are safer today than yesterday. There is no legitimate basis for stopping the use of coal.

Those of us in the Pennsylvania coal industry have had enough with these policies and processes that are devoid of any reason, science or balance, and intended solely to drive us out of business and force layoffs of the men and women who want good-paying jobs and the chance for prosperity. For their sake, and for the sake of America’s future, we intend to take the fight for coal right back to Washington.

We need to aggressively engage in the public debate that leads up to the election on what course of action must be taken to bring about energy security and economic prosperity. The stakes are too high for us to remain a silent majority. The faceless bureaucrats within the bloated federal regulatory agencies are making a mockery of our system of checks and balances.

It’s time they face some checks, and their policies experience the balance that comes from the people.

John Stilley is owner and president of Amerikohl Mining, Inc., Center Township.