DOJ announces civil action against coal mines owned by West Virginia governor’s son

Editor’s note: This report has been updated to specify that the Department of Justice filed the civil complaint against Jim Justice III, the son of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R).

The Justice Department (DOJ) on Wednesday filed a civil complaint against Jim Justice III, the son of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R), a 2024 Senate candidate, and 13 coal companies he owns, alleging unpaid fines for earlier mining violations.

The complaint claims Jim Justice III-owned firms committed more than 130 violations of federal mining law between 2018 and 2022 and ignored more than 50 warnings from the government to halt operations until they had been resolved. The alleged violations also accrued $7.6 million in unpaid fees and interest, according to the filing.

“Our environmental laws serve to protect communities against adverse effects of industrial activities including surface coal mining operations,” said Todd Kim, assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division, in a statement. “Through this suit, the Justice Department seeks to deliver accountability for defendants’ repeated violations of the law and to recover the penalties they owe as a result of those violations.”

Gov. Jim Justice, a one-time Democrat, is challenging Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), perhaps the most vulnerable of a handful of red-state Democrats up for reelection next year.

In a statement, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) accused the Biden administration of targeting Gov. Jim Justice due to his Senate candidacy.

“Joe Biden’s Department of Justice has gone totally rogue. Democrats weaponizing the federal government to attack the family of a Republican Senate candidate is a complete abuse of power,” NRSC spokesman Tate Mitchell said in a statement.

The governor, who has an estimated net worth of more than $1 billion, has reportedly sought to put his family coal businesses up for sale as he pursues the Senate seat, according to a March report in The Wall Street Journal.

In 2021, Gov. Jim Justice and his son and business partner were fined $2.9 million by the state of Kentucky over allegations they did not comply with the mine-reclamation process for three mines. Earlier this year, a federal appeals court also upheld a $2.5 million penalty against Gov. Jim Justice-owned mines over allegations they violated environmental regulations.

During a press briefing on Wednesday, Justice suggested the action could be politically motivated.

“The Biden administration is aware of the fact that with a win for the U.S. Senate, and everything, we could very well flip the Senate… government agencies can sometimes surely react, and this could be something in regard to that,” he said. 

–Updated at 2:56 p.m.