FRANKFORT, Ky. (Legal Newsline) - A coal company has taken its issues with Kentucky Public Service Commission officers and the state’s attorney general to federal court.
Foresight Coal Sales, LLC sued a handful of defendants on. March 17 in U.S. District Court for the Central District of Kentucky, alleging that a new policy “is a blatant and unapologetic effort by the state to inhibit interstate commerce by neutralizing the cost-advantage inuring to coal producers in states that do not impose severance taxes, including the state of Illinois,” according to the lawsuit.
Also named in the lawsuit as defendants are: Michael Schmitt, chairman of the commission; Robert Cicero, vice chairman of the commission; Talina Matthews, commissioner; Kent Chandler as executive director of the KPSC; and Daniel Cameron, the state attorney general.
Foresight claimed the regulation infringes on the Commerce Clause and wants the court to step in to declare the regulation as unconstitutional.