Some regulatory officials in Alabama are taking issue with an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposal intended to reduce carbon emissions at coal-fired power plants, and they want the EPA to back off because they say their state’s coal deposits are no less than a gift from God.

At a recent press conference, the commissioner-elect of the Alabama Public Service Commission (APSC), Chip Beeker, lashed out at the EPA, which seeks to reduce carbon emissions by 30 percent. He said Alabama’s coal supply, which totaled over 19 million tons in 2012 alone, is a gift from God, and the federal government has no right to interfere with something God provided.

“Who has the right to take what God's given a state?” he asked at the press conference, according to the news site AL.com.

Beeker was joined by APSC President Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh, who called on God to intervene and asked for prayers from the state’s citizens.

“I hope all the citizens of Alabama will be in prayer that the right thing will be done,” she said

If the name Twinkle sounds familiar (and who could forget a name like that?), it’s because she has a nasty habit of mixing faith with her duties as a public official. Back in 2013, she refused to apologize after she faced backlash over a prayer that was delivered at a public service commission meeting. At that meeting, she asked everyone in attendance to stand. Then John Jordan, a member of East Memorial Baptist Church in Pratville, made some pretty offensive remarks.

“We’ve taken you [God] out of our schools and out of our prayers,” Jordan said. “We have murdered your children. We’ve said it’s okay to have same-sex marriage. We have sinned and we ask once again that you forgive us for our sins.”

After word got out, and criticism was heavy, Cavanaugh was defiant.

“My Christian faith guides me in everything that I do, and I’m proud that the Alabama Public Service Commission opens each meeting seeking His divine guidance and thanking God for the blessings He has given us,” she said in a statement to the Huffington Post at the time. “I make no apologies as a Christian elected into public service by the people of Alabama. Without a doubt, our nation needs more prayer, not less.”

It’s not hard to understand why Beeker and Cavanaugh are protecting the Alabama coal industry: It employed over 4,400 people in 2012, according to the Alabama Coal Association. But some have accused Cavanaugh of using her faith to mask the fact that she is little more than a shill for the state’s power interests.

John Archibald, writer for the Birmingham News, said last year that Cavanaugh is trying to cover for the fact that Alabama Power, which claims to provide electricity “at rates below the national average,” is actually raking in huge profits at great expense to the public.

“[Alabama Power’s rate] structure…is high for residential customers and low for industry,” Archibald wrote. “It allows the company to write off an $8 million salary for CEO Charles McCrary as Operations and Maintenance, at a government-regulated monopoly. It lets the company take a return on equity 30-40 percent higher than the national average, according to testimony today that was not disputed, and allows it to take hundreds of millions in higher profits that could be saved by ratepayers and pumped back into the economy.”

Of course Americans United has no opinions on power prices in Alabama or EPA attempts to regulate carbon emissions, but we do take issue with state officials trying to use religion to shape federal policy.

Whether you believe God gifted coal to Alabama, or if you recognize that coal comes from plants and animals that died hundreds of millions of years ago (a reality that people like Cavanaugh and Beeker probably don’t support), no public officials should ever use their personal religious beliefs as a justification for altering public policies that they don’t like.

If Cavanaugh and Beeker want to protect Alabama’s coal interests, that’s their business. But they should be looking for real policy alternatives rather than asking God to bail them out.