[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 129 (Friday, September 21, 2012)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1630-E1631]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    STOP THE WAR ON COAL ACT OF 2012

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                          HON. JAMES P. MORAN

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 20, 2012

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the state of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 3409) to 
     limit the authority of the Secretary of the Interior to issue 
     regulations before December 31, 2013, under the Surface 
     Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977:

  Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the Coal Miner 
Employment and Domestic Energy Infrastructure Protection Act.
  Here on the last days of the 112th Session of Congress, we are 
wasting time debating a bill, whose constituents parts have already 
been approved by this body.
  We've already spent considerable House time debating all five titles 
of this bill.
  And all five titles were rejected by the Senate and have received a 
veto threat from the President.
  Over the past 19 months this body has cast more than 300 votes 
against the environment.
  Just as repeating a falsehood doesn't make it true, passing a bill in 
the House twice in the same session won't make it a law.
  When the history of this Congress is written, it will be known as the 
least productive Congress in a century, eclipsing even the infamous 
``Do Nothing'' Congress that President Harry Truman confronted more 
than 50 years ago.
  Rather than advance policies that would promote employment, help 
drought stricken farmers, even address the long-term solvency of 
Medicare, this House remains stuck on vilifying the Environmental 
Protection Agency and taking issue with its obligations under the law 
to protect the public's health.
  This week's announcement by Alpha Natural Resources that it plans to 
lay-off miners and scale back coal production by 16 million tons 
annually may fuel the argument that EPA is somehow responsible, but 
even Kevin Crutchfield, the company's chief executive officer, 
acknowledged that the principle cause was ``the result a difficult 
market in which power plants are switching to abundant, less expensive 
natural gas.''
  If natural gas is cheaper to burn than coal, then where is the 
legislation to ban its use?
  How about a war on natural gas?
  For decades the coal industry and utilities have been exempted from 
Clean Air Act regulations.
  It took court orders for previous administrations' inactions and the 
current administration commitment to protecting the public's health 
that led to today's regulatory climate.
  And, while hundreds of miners may lose their jobs because of cheaper 
natural gas and new Clean Air and Clean Water Act regulations, tens of 
thousands of Americans, this bill so callously disregards, will be 
saved from premature deaths, asthma attacks, emergency room visits and 
missed work and school days each year.

  I will vote to protect the lives of thousands of Americans over the 
few hundred who might lose their jobs.
  If the majority truly cares about the fate of these miners, then 
support a jobs bill that will allow them to rebuild America's 
infrastructure.
  This bill is wrong.
  It advances narrow, profit-based interests over the interests of 
everyday Americans.
  It presumes that a cleaner, healthier air and water must be 
subservient to the interests of keeping this nation's dirtiest power 
plants and the most environmentally destructive mining techniques free 
from regulation.
  My colleagues, it's a distorted set of priorities advanced by just a 
fraction of CEOs in the utility and mining industries who refuse to 
clean up their operations.
  We can have cleaner air and more jobs.
  And history provides us with proof it is possible.
  It's already happened, and I credit George Herbert Walker Bush with 
having the courage and foresight to put his signature on the Clean Air 
Act of 1990.
  He would be vilified by the current House majority if he signed that 
bill today.
  It's a sad commentary to see so many in this chamber beholden to an 
industry that prefers to invest in the political process rather than in 
saving lives by reducing its life-damaging practices.
  Few of my colleagues may realize that the coal consuming industries 
that have underwritten this assault on EPA had an opportunity to 
collaborate with the Obama administration on a regulatory framework.
  They were invited early on during the first year of the Obama 
administration to sit down and craft a compliance option.
  The administration had hoped to craft a deal similar to the historic 
deal it made with the nation's auto industry on fuel efficiency and 
tailpipe emissions.

[[Page E1631]]

  A National Journal article by Coral Davenport in the September 22, 
2011 issue referenced this meeting.
  But unlike the auto industry, the coal consuming industries refused 
to negotiate.
  Instead, and let me quote from the article, they:

       ``banded together with the Republican Party to strategize, 
     and the 2010 midterm elections offered the perfect 
     battleground. The companies invested heavily in campaigns to 
     elect tea party candidates crusading against the role of Big 
     Government. Industry groups (like the U.S. Chamber of 
     Commerce), tea party groups with deep ties to polluters (like 
     Americans for Prosperity), and so-called super PACs (like 
     Karl Rove's American Crossroads) spent record amounts to help 
     elect the new House Republican majority.

  My colleagues, this bill presents a false choice, peddled by an 
industry that refuses to clean up its act.
  This bill serves the interest of no one but a few CEOs who refuse to 
accept responsibility to the harm their operations have imposed on the 
rest of us.
  It needs to be defeated.
  I implore my colleagues to vote ``no.''

                          ____________________