Amid accusations of holding alias email accounts to avoid the utmost transparency in her position, Lisa Jackson is set to step down as head of the Environmental Protection Agency in January.

Over Lisa Jackson's four year stint in her un-elected position, she's done the job of an elephant in a china shop in "cleaning up" Kentucky's energy sector. After the current administration's cap-and-trade bill was shot down in 2009, Lisa Jackson has used her power at the EPA to strong-arm the states into adopting her vision of a greener nation.

Unfortunately for some states - most notably Kentucky and West Virginia - her shoot first, ask questions later approach to ignoring the costs associated with her unilateral mandates has resulted in thousands losing their jobs and created a dark future for some of the nation's most proven energy sources.

During her tenure:

• She became the first environmental czar to place unprecedented regulations on carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases as a threat to public health.

• She introduced the Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology rule which forces power plants to emulate the greenest plants in the nation - at a cost of $10 billion per year.

• Her Mercury and Air Toxics rule, ostensibly designed to mitigate spurious health defects associated with mercury emissions, actually derives 99.99% of its alleged benefits from indirectly affecting pollutants which existing regulations already address.

• Her regional administrators have compared their mission to take out coal-fired power plants to that of the ancient Romans crucifying Turkish dissenters.

• She's overstepped her bounds by blocking new mining permits, denying her victims a fair hearing, and costing thousands lucrative employment. Even federal courts have sided against her, most notably in shooting down her costly Cross-State Air Pollution rule.

Because of the EPA under Lisa Jackson's watch, a growing number of coal-fired power plants are announcing their closure, while new coal-fired power plants are all but doomed.

So how will her resignation affect Kentucky?

Unfortunately, Lisa Jackson may be gone, but the ideology that got her a job in the first place still exists within the current administration and the EPA. According to the Wall Street Journal, her two most likely successors are people who worked under her closely at the EPA and who share her vision for the nation.

So it seems she's but a cog in that regulating machine hell-bent on destroying cheap energy and Appalachian industry. Given the bewildering list of  regulations that Jackson has filed to take effect next year, I wouldn't take her resignation as a sign for optimism.