Emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request reveal no evidence of the Environmental Protection Agency's so-called "war on coal," denying the conservative media ammunition against Gina McCarthy, President Obama's nominee to lead the agency. But Fox News is now using the lack of evidence to attack McCarthy, suggesting the administration is engaging in a cover-up to protect her.

Chris Horner of the fossil fuel-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) released more internal EPA emails this week as part of his ongoing effort to uncover the agency's crusade against coal. Instead, he found correspondence on the subject to be “remarkably absent,” leading him to wonder: isn't it a little suspicious that the emails didn't uncover anything suspicious?

Remarkably absent are what should be the dominant class of records covered by our request seeking records: Gina McCarthy discussing her biggest assignment, the Obama administration's “war on coal” . [...] The question is no longer whether they are hiding things, it's what are they hiding now. And the answer apparently is: Whatever they have to hide to protect Ms. McCarthy's nomination.

Fox News seized on CEI's report to claim that McCarthy is “under fire for a batch of internal emails just out,” only to later admit that she is almost entirely absent from the emails:

Fox News, which has long pushed the “war on coal” narrative, went on to identify McCarthy as “the author of new EPA plant restrictions which basically put coal-fired plants out of business.” In reality, the shale gas boom -- and the resultant decline in the price of natural gas -- has created market conditions that favor gas over coal:

[Source: CO2 Scorecard based on EIA data, August 2012]