Wednesday, April 24, 2013
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“The housing sector continues to be the bright spot for the economy. Inventories are light, which means that builders are going to keeping building.”Ward McCarthy, Jefferies LLC chief financial economist Article, 1DRetroactive veto of mine permit upheld
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had the legal authority to retroactively veto a water-pollution permit for one of West Virginia’s largest mountaintop-removal coal mines years after it was issued, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed a lower court’s ruling in a case that has economic implications across coal country and potentially the nation. The case goes back to U.S. District Court for further proceedings.
The appellate court directed Judge Amy Berman Jackson to address the coal industry’s argument that the EPA’s action was an “arbitrary and capricious” violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, an issue she has not previously ruled on.
In January 2011, the EPA revoked a permit that the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers had issued four years earlier to St. Louis-based Arch Coal and its Mingo Logan Coal Co. subsidiary. The EPA concluded that destructive and unsustainable mining practices at the 2,300-acre Logan County mine would cause irreparable environmental damage and threaten the health of communities nearby.
Jackson later ruled the EPA had overstepped its authority by revoking a permit that had been thoroughly reviewed and properly issued by the Corps.
EU probes Greek airline merger plans
BRUSSELS - The European Commission has opened an in-depth antitrust investigation of the proposed takeover of Greece’s Olympic Air by its domestic rival Aegean Airlines.
The commission, which acts as the 27-country European Union’s competition watchdog, said Tuesday that it fears “the transaction may lead to price increases and poorer service on several domestic Greek routes out of Athens,” where the merged entity would have a monopoly.
The commission now has three months to decide on the $94 million takeover bid.
A first attempted merger was blocked by the commission about two years ago on grounds that the combined carrier could have monopolized the national market.
Half of U.S. drivers find the price of gasoline too high at $3.44 a gallon, and almost two-thirds are changing their habits on the road and at home to offset the cost, a AAA survey found.
The average price of gasoline at the pump fell 0.3 cent to $3.515 a gallon Tuesday, AAA said on its website. It’s been higher than the $3.44 threshold since Jan. 30.
The largest U.S. motoring organization said people are driving less, delaying major purchases and limiting shopping and eating out because of high gasoline prices, even as the U.S. economy tries to rebound from job losses, bank failures and housing-market collapses.
“Most people have resigned themselves to paying higher gas prices and are cutting back on driving, shopping and dining out to save money,” Robert Darbelnet, chief executive officer of Heathrow, Fla.-based AAA, said in a statement.
About 46 percent of the 974 respondents in a AAA telephone survey said gasoline prices are too high at $3 a gallon, and 90 percent said $4 is their threshold. AAA expects prices to be between $3.20 and $3.40 a gallon this summer, said Michael Green, a spokesman for the organization.
Business, Pages 24 on 04/24/2013