By Darrel Rowland

September 17, 2017 - The idea that the former president of the Ohio Coal Association is now lobbying Congress as an official with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is not sitting well with environmentalists, Dispatch Washington Bureau Chief Jack Torry notes.

Christian Palich, a former aide to Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Marietta, works in the EPA’s congressional relations shop. The post did not require Senate confirmation.

“We’ve gone from an alleged ‘war on coal’ during the (President Barack) Obama era to a war on breathers,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of the Washington-based Clean Air Watch.

“And four years is a long time to try holding your breath while the (President Donald) Trump team — including Palich — tries to revive a dying coal industry.”

Even before he joined the Trump EPA’s payroll, Palich was quoted in an EPA news release lauding Trump’s executive order undercutting Obama’s Clean Power Plan.

“President Trump has honored his pledge to stand with energy consumers and Ohio coal country over radical environmentalists,” Palich said. “It’s a much brighter future for the coal industry as this administration continues to systematically end the war on coal.”

Johnson has been honored by the coal group for distinguished service.

Palich was just one of several from the coal and chemical industries named to the agencies that regulate those same industries, Business Insider reported. The Environmental Defense Fund cited both Palich and another Ohioan, Doug Matheney, appointed special adviser for fossil energy at the Department of Energy after directing the coal industry’s Count on Coal, as top examples of those with conflicts of interest.

Last week, Michael Cope was named interim president of the Ohio Coal Association, replacing Palich, who began working for the EPA in May.

Christian Palich