[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 122 (Tuesday, September 17, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H5581-H5586]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SURVIVAL OF THE COAL INDUSTRY
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Collins of New York). Under the
Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Ohio
(Mr. Johnson) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the
majority leader.
Mr. JOHNSON of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, it's an honor to be standing before
the House this evening to talk about a very, very important issue, an
issue that is important not only to my constituents in eastern and
southeastern Ohio, but to Americans across the Nation, and the issue is
the survival of the coal industry.
Coal has provided America's energy engine for generations, and can
for many future generations if we have policies out of this
administration that reflect the value that the coal industry has meant
to America and the future that it has in front of us.
Coal is an abundant, affordable, and reliable form of energy. Coal
directly or indirectly employs nearly 800,000 Americans and supplies
approximately 40 percent of our Nation's power generation. Coal mining
employees across my district number in the thousands in eastern and
southeastern Ohio. It also provides nearly 80 percent of Ohio's
electricity, and it's the energy engine for Ohio's manufacturing
industry which so many of my constituents depend on for their
livelihood.
I'm very proud to be joined tonight, Mr. Speaker, by some of my
colleagues who are equally passionate about the coal industry and its
value to America, both in the past and in the future.
At this point, I yield to my friend and colleague from the great
State of Kentucky's Sixth District, Representative Andy Barr.
Mr. BARR. I thank the gentleman, my friend from Ohio, for yielding
and for organizing this Special Order on coal.
This fall marks the fifth anniversary of the financial crisis. We
remain burdened by a weak economic recovery, with unemployment still
lingering above 7 percent, two-thirds of the American people living
paycheck to paycheck, and only 58 percent of the working-age population
in this country employed. But this does not seem to concern this
President or this administration. Unable to wage a war in Syria due to
immense public opposition, the President, for some reason, seems intent
on conducting a war on jobs.
Whether it's driving up the cost of health care with the disastrous
Affordable Care Act or burdening community banks with mountains of
bureaucratic red tape from the Dodd-Frank Act, this administration is
seemingly intent on doing everything in its power to ensure this
recovery remains slow and painful.
The finalization of the New Source Performance Standards rules from
the EPA for greenhouse gas emissions this week will represent the
latest and perhaps the most damaging barrage in this war on jobs. This
regulatory carbon tax is the keystone of a radical environmental
agenda, the disastrous results of which are already known in my
district of central and eastern Kentucky. The consequences of these
regulations have echoed throughout the hills of Appalachia, and they
will reverberate across the country in years to come.
The New Source Performance Standards will finish the job that a
deadlocked permitting process and multibillion-dollar regulations like
Utility MACT have started: killing the coal industry and driving up the
cost of energy, a top-line budget item for families already struggling
to get by in this President's economy.
But then, no one should be surprised. This is the one promise the
President made and has kept. When running in 2008, President Obama,
then Candidate Obama, said his policies would make the cost of
electricity ``necessarily skyrocket.'' More recently, White
House climate adviser Daniel Schrag recently admitted this
administration's previously only thinly veiled position. Mr. Schrag
said, famously now, ``a war on coal is exactly what's needed.''
Mr. Speaker, I can't think of another example of a Presidential
administration pledging to put hardworking Americans in a centuries'
old industry totally out of work, apparently for the crime of providing
low-cost energy that drives the engine of our economy.
The damage of these policies is already clear in Kentucky. Just
yesterday, another 525 coal miners employed at three eastern Kentucky
mines operated by the James River Coal Company were given pink slips.
My heart goes out to these miners and to their families. And I have met
some of these people. They're just trying to follow their ancestors by
digging up a piece of the American Dream in the Appalachian foothills.
Last month, the Commonwealth of Kentucky released statistics on the
health of the coal industry for the second quarter of this year, and
the story they tell is dire, even before yesterday's news of another
525 layoffs. Eastern Kentucky coal mines facing the brunt of this
President's regulatory overreach shed another 851 jobs last quarter,
leaving the total number of Kentucky employed at the mines at just
12,342. That is the lowest number since Kentucky began keeping such
statistics in 1927. Eastern Kentucky coal production is down a whopping
41.4 percent in just the last 2 years. And with those reductions, we
have lost over 5,700 mining jobs.
And now the New Source Performance Standards will prohibit coal from
even competing in the energy marketplace, even though the final
regulations have now been delayed a year due to industry and public
opposition, as so often before this administration has brushed those
concerns aside and proceeded apace. The EPA even forecasts, given the
regulatory environment, that there will be no new coal plants built
after this year.
Rather than phasing in rules to allow all types of fuel to adapt,
these regulations on new and existing plants single out coal, stifling
the promise of carbon capture in its crib, a technology that could have
provided the United States with a revolutionary technology on the
magnitude of hydraulic fracturing that could have changed the course
and shape of our economy, driven exports, and paid real benefits in
terms of carbon emissions reductions. Instead, the United States will
endure unilateral economic disarmament while our international
competitors continue to pursue growth-oriented energy policies.
Over the next few years as these policies take hold, the rest of the
country will be made aware of this disaster that is already taking
place in Appalachia. Already, one-fifth of the Nation's coal-fired
plants--204 plants across 25 States--closed between 2009 and 2012. The
rest will shutter prematurely in
[[Page H5582]]
the years following implementation of the New Source Performance
Standards.
Seven EPA regulations already proposed over the last 4 years are
forecast to cost $16.7 billion annually once fully implemented. The New
Source Performance Standards will trump even that figure, constituting
the largest energy tax of all time implemented by regulatory fiat
without the consent of the people's elected representatives in
Congress. That's because this President's own party couldn't enact this
radical environmental agenda through cap-and-trade in the first 2 years
of this President's administration.
The loss of 69,000 megawatts of coal-fired power will ripple through
the economy, costing an estimated 887,000 jobs in the mining, utility,
shipping, and manufacturing sectors per year. The President had pledged
to spur growth in manufacturing, and low energy costs at home coupled
with rising wages in countries like China and India promised to restore
our competitive advantage in manufacturing. But the New Source
Performance Standards will quickly put an end to those prospects.
Mr. Speaker, the United States has 250 years' worth of coal reserves
at current consumption rates that could, if utilized, provide
affordable energy and high-tech manufacturing feedstocks. But the
President isn't interested in playing this ace up America's sleeve.
Instead, he wants to stay the course on a disastrous energy rationing
policy that has already put thousands in the unemployment lines in my
neck of the woods in Kentucky and all throughout central Appalachia and
will put hundreds of thousands of more hardworking Americans there in
the years to come.
So I urge the President to abandon these disastrous, job-killing
policies and to come to Congress to work on a plan that will relieve
energy costs for our families. Put the American people back to work and
protect the environment. Otherwise, this week's announcement of these
New Source Performance Standards will demonstrate a willful denial of
these ambitions and a ruthless attack on a centuries-old industry that
has provided jobs and economic opportunity for thousands of Americans.
I want to end my comments this evening by telling a story that
illustrates the human cost and the human dimension of this
administration's war on coal.
In the eastern edge of my district sits a small town of Campton,
Kentucky, in Wolfe County, Kentucky. When I was home during the August
recess, I went there and had a town hall meeting to listen to the
concerns of people who are struggling.
{time} 2030
I met a young woman by the name of Sally. She came up to me after a
town hall meeting with tears welling up in her eyes. She looked at me
and she said, my husband just lost his job in the coal mines--he's a
coal miner. He lost his job because the Environmental Protection Agency
would not issue a coal mining permit to his employer. As a result, they
had to lay off all of the coal miners, including my husband--is what
this woman told me.
She said, Here's the problem: My children need to go back to school.
It's August, and it's time to go back to school. They're growing up,
and they don't have shoes, they've grown out of their shoes. And so I
don't know what to do because we can't afford shoes. So I went ahead
and bought them flip-flops so they wouldn't be embarrassed to go back
to school.
Imagine that, politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.,
putting this working family in central Appalachia in that kind of
economic distress so that they can't even afford shoes for their
children. I don't care if you're a Republican or a Democrat, a
supporter of this administration or not, it is fundamentally wrong, it
is fundamentally immoral for the Federal Government to put working
American families into economic distress.
So I call on my colleagues in Congress to stand firm and stand in
opposition to this radical agenda, which is destroying jobs, destroying
opportunity, and destroying the American Dream.
Mr. JOHNSON of Ohio. I thank our colleague.
I think you can see, Mr. Speaker, the passion that's coming to
Washington to advocate on the part of the coal industry. We're not just
talking about a black rock that's dug out of the ground; we're talking
about lives. We're talking about American lives. We're talking about
jobs and the ability to put food on the table, to put clothes on our
children, to provide a manufacturing base so that Americans have
somewhere to work and to do what America knows how to do best--innovate
and compete and solve problems.
I'm proud now to yield to another one of our colleagues,
Representative Kevin Cramer, from the great State of North Dakota.
Mr. CRAMER. I thank my colleague and friend from Ohio for leading
this important discussion on this very important and somewhat scary
week.
Mr. Speaker, I love the opportunity to tell the story of North
Dakota. You know, a lot of people think of North Dakota these days as
just an oil-producing State out there somewhere in the Wild West. While
we're the second-leading producer of oil--and we're rather proud of how
well we do it--long before that, even long before North Dakota was one
of the 10 top producers of wind energy, long before that North Dakota
was producing electricity by burning coal. In fact, for decades, North
Dakota has been generating electricity burning coal. In fact, at the
current burn rate, there's an 800-year supply of lignite coal under our
prairies.
Prior to being elected to this great institution of the people's
House, I was a public service commissioner for 10 years and carried the
portfolio of coal mining in our State. I got to oversee the data
collection, the pre-mine permitting, the permitting of the mine, the
inspections of the mines, the releasing of the bond at the end of the
life of the mine.
North Dakota companies mine over 30 million tons of coal every year,
Mr. Speaker, generating about 5,000 megawatts of electricity.
Currently, we have about 120,000 acres under permit for coal mining in
our State. It's very important to North Dakota, as it is to the rest of
our Nation.
The lignite industry in North Dakota, a State with fewer than 700,000
citizens, employs more than 28,000 of those 700,000 people. It has an
annual economic impact in our little State of $3 billion and generates
over $100 million of tax revenue to help fund the priorities of our
State.
To provide some perspective, Mr. Speaker, on the wage impact of the
industry on North Dakota, two counties--Mercer and Oliver Counties--are
home to three coal mines and five generating plants. They are the two
counties with the highest wages of any county in our State, and we have
a State with very high wages. But those direct economic benefits are
just a small part of our story. Because, you see, 79 percent of North
Dakota's lignite is used to generate electricity for over 2 million
citizens in the upper Midwest; 13.5 percent is used to generate
synthetic natural gas that is piped to over 400,000 homes in the East.
Every time I have this opportunity to address the House, I like to
tell a little piece of the story. You see, 7.5 percent of that coal is
used to generate fertilizer for our number one industry, agriculture.
It's a great part of our culture. It's what I believe makes us very
good at coal mining, it's those agricultural roots.
Let's talk about electricity generation for a moment that's under
such attack today. No industry in America is more under attack today
than this by this administration.
We're home to seven plants, as I said, owned by rural electric
cooperatives and investor-owned utilities that provide low-cost
electricity to our region. Beyond the direct employment of the high-
paying jobs in this industry by the coal mines and the generation
plants, the transmission companies and the utilities that distribute
the electricity, our low-cost coal provides the region with some of the
cheapest utility rates in the country. In fact, just today I printed
out the most recent Electric Power Monthly Report of Average Retail
Price of Electricity by State year to date, and North Dakota and the
State of Washington have the lowest retail prices of any State in the
country. Can you imagine what a tremendous advantage that is in the
global marketplace when you're trying to
[[Page H5583]]
attract other industries, as my colleague from Kentucky talked about,
the opportunity for manufacturing and other industries?
Now, we're also home to the Great Plains Synfuels Plant, which takes
our coal and turns it into gas. It is used by homes and industry. In
the process of gasifying that coal, 50 percent of it is captured--the
carbon is captured--and it's shipped via pipeline to Saskatchewan for
tertiary oil recovery. So we capture half of the carbon and then inject
it into old oil wells and generate more oil from it.
Long before carbon capture and sequestration was cool, North Dakota
innovators saw it as a commercially viable byproduct of energy
development. Now all of that is going to get squashed by these rules
that we're hearing about this week.
Another innovation of our coal is that we use the ash from the
plants, a byproduct of the power plants. Instead of it being emitted
out of the stacks, it's collected. And other entrepreneurial-minded
individuals have discovered productive ways to utilize the coal ash
instead of sending it to landfills. It creates a stronger, longer
lasting, and easier to work with concrete that's used in our Nation's
infrastructure--something that we need very badly these days. It's used
in paint, insulation for stoves and refrigerators, ceiling and flooring
tiles, lumber, bricks and masonry, shingles and roofing materials. This
is a byproduct, not a waste product, and it's certainly safe.
It is used to make better bridges, like the new I-35 Bridge in
Minneapolis; better footings for wind towers. The many, many wind
towers in North Dakota are actually attached to coal ash concrete. And
their ability to sell this byproduct allows our utilities to keep
electricity rates low for everyone.
But you might ask: What of the environment? After all, it's the air,
land and water that concerns the magnitude of rules and regulations
that are coming at our industries with such zeal out of this
administration. I love talking about our environment in North Dakota. I
submit to you, Mr. Speaker, and to our colleagues, that very few places
on Earth are cleaner and greener than the State of North Dakota.
With regard to our air, you might assume that a State with seven
power plants would have dirty air; but no, we are one of very few
States that meet all Ambient Air Quality Standards as prescribed by the
EPA. We're very proud of that. By the way, remember those two counties,
Mercer and Oliver, with the five power plants and the three coal mines?
Once again, this year they received an A grade from the American Lung
Association for their clean air in their annual report for 2012.
But perhaps the area I'm most proud of is the reclamation of our mine
lands. Before the Federal Government passed the Surface Mining Control
and Reclamation Act, the State of North Dakota passed its own
reclamation laws which were stricter, higher standards. We return our
land to pre-mining use. I wish every Member of Congress could come to
North Dakota. I wish our President could come to North Dakota and see
how good America could be, and see how we reclaim our land, because we
love our land. We're farmers and ranchers. Our mines take great pride
in and invest vast resources in protecting our environment--their
environment. Our companies have won many awards for stewardship.
You see, coal miners and utility company employees not only enjoy
high-paying jobs, but they live there, they breathe the air, they drink
the water, they farm the land. They're not just farmers and engineers;
they're accountants, machinery operators, environmental scientists,
rangeland biologists, truck drivers. The care of our natural resources
is more important to us than it is to the EPA, quite honestly. And we
do it quite well. We're a place made up of people who have proven for
centuries you don't have to compromise quality of life for a high
standard of living.
We are an all-of-the-above State, and I'm very, very proud of it. And
I'm proud to be here with you, my colleague from Ohio (Mr. Johnson), to
tell the story one more time about the importance of this industry. And
if a war on coal is what's being waged, then we'd better be armed for
the war because it's worth fighting for. It's for our future.
Mr. JOHNSON of Ohio. I thank the gentleman.
And the point that you just made and that our colleague from Kentucky
made--it's not simply a war on coal, it's a war on American jobs. It's
a war on the American way of life. We have to stand.
Mr. Speaker, I'm proud now to yield to another one of our colleagues
who--no one in the House knows more about the impacts of the coal
industry to the economy of her State and her region than does our
colleague from West Virginia, Representative Shelley Moore Capito.
Mrs. CAPITO. I thank the gentleman from Ohio for having this Special
Order to talk about coal, to talk about energy, to talk about jobs, to
talk about quality of life in our States--North Dakota, Kentucky, Ohio,
West Virginia. West Virginia is the second largest coal-producing State
in the country, and it is part of who we are--and has been for many,
many years.
Living in West Virginia and being home as we were in August, there's
a lot of pessimism in the entire State. It's not just about coal--if
you're a coal miner or directly involved--it's the whole community,
it's the whole area, it's the whole region. There's a feeling that the
President, through his policies, has really picked winners and losers
in this country, and our region is going to lose.
The job issue, we're seeing hundreds of jobs--we just had a mine
close last week, or a week before, 250 miners. But then that's the
transportation, the truck driver, the Stop-and-Go owner, the oil and
gas market, the electrician, the pipes, all the things, equipment
manufacturers. Everything. It's not just about those 250 jobs, it's a
multiplying effect in our region of West Virginia.
The abundance of coal in West Virginia nationwide gives us real
potential. We get criticized: Oh, you're fighting an old fight; that
fight is no longer part of the future. We've got to make it a part of
the future because it makes good sense. Producing more domestic energy
means reliable, it means an affordable supply of power and energy.
I think about a State like mine that has a lot of folks who are
living on fixed incomes, a lot of older folks. When it comes to the end
of the month and they see their electric bill, they're having trouble
now meeting that challenge of paying for that, making choices of
medicine or food,--food for their pets or whatever is important to
them--because of the high cost now. That's just going to go up and up
and up if we disenfranchise ourselves in this country, our most
abundant resource, and that being coal.
Let's talk about the tax revenues that are lost to all the counties,
the school systems in our State. If you don't have the tax revenues in
our State that coal produces and energy produces, whether it's natural
gas--we've all got a lot of natural gas in our States too, we're
blessed with that. But if we don't have the tax revenues there, this
just wounds county commissioners, wounds county boards of education.
{time} 2045
That to me is not one of the unintended, but one of the consequences
that never gets talked about that really will harm a way of life, a
future for the children. So let's talk about the potential.
We have been exporting a lot of coal. By doing that, we create jobs
because we're exporting our coal. I see nothing wrong with exporting
coal to our allies because exporting energy means we're producing the
resource.
Earlier this year, Bloomberg News reported that Germany will start up
more coal-fired power stations this year than at any time in the past
20 years. When we think about Germany, we think about somebody who's
environmentally conscious. They have a very healthy Green Party over
there. They're considered to be very cutting edge when it comes to
conservation and clean energy, yet they're building more coal-fired
power plants in their country than they have over the last 25 years.
During the first campaign, the President said that if you build a
coal-fired power plant, we will bankrupt you. We've all seen the tape.
On Friday, that's what his statement is going to be from the EPA. It
will be impossible
[[Page H5584]]
to build a new coal-fired power plant or it will bankrupt you if you
try to do it.
One of his major advisers has said that a war on coal is exactly what
this country needs. How can you say a war on an industry that employs
thousands of people in the heartland of our country and thousands more
in ancillary businesses, and it's a way of life? It's domestic energy.
The administration supports this attack on hardworking people in an
industry that provides good jobs and affordable energy. It's affordable
energy, not just for our folks on fixed incomes, but for our
manufacturers, our small businesses. A cheaper, affordable energy is
going to create jobs in other industries, as well, and it has.
You don't have to look too far to see the administration's attack on
coal. We know about the EPA's unprecedented action of retroactively
pulling a validly issued clean water permit. That was shocking on the
face of it. They said, Oh, we've done that before. Well, when you look
at it, maybe once, maybe a long time ago, but this was a 10-year
process, millions of dollars to get this permit that was yanked out
from under this company. Who's going to invest in an industry when
you're in danger of losing a permit retroactively after you've jumped
through all the hoops, met all the standards, worked with the Corps,
done all the things you're supposed to do, and still this
administration will come back and take your permit back?
The administration has attacked the use of coal. Recent figures say
that 295 coal units across 33 States are closing. They're closing in
our States, and we can already see it. It's a source of great concern.
In 2012, the EPA proposed a New Source Performance Standard. They
kind of backed off from it, but they placed coal plants and large
natural gas plants under the same standard for carbon dioxide
emissions, 1,000 pounds per megawatt hour. What we heard from earlier
reports is they're going to create two standards, but the standard for
coal is going to be unmeetable because the carbon capture and
sequestration technology is not there. This is where I think, if we
look to the future, where the real future lies for our abundant
resource, coal.
But earlier this year they scrapped the 2012 proposal, and the
President instructed revised standards. Basically what we're going to
see on Friday is the same thing. It's like Groundhog Day: same thing,
same rhetoric, same standards, same results. Lost jobs, higher utility
costs, seniors and others on fixed incomes worried about how they're
going to heat their homes or cool them in the hot summers. All of these
things are very daunting in my State of West Virginia.
The truth is that without new performance standards, carbon dioxide
emission generation in the United States is falling.
Let's talk about the rest of the world. At the same time, global
emissions have increased by 1.4 percent. So if the administration wants
to impose carbon dioxide standards, regulations that will harm the
American economy, then at a minimum, it should act as part of an
agreement with other countries. The Senate unanimously took that
position in 1997 when it passed a resolution sponsored by then-Senator
Robert C. Byrd from West Virginia and current Obama Secretary Chuck
Hagel which said that the United States should not ratify the Kyoto
treaty unless specific standards were agreed upon to limit emissions by
developing countries.
The Byrd-Hagel principle was common sense in 1997, and it remains so
today. For that reason, I will be introducing legislation that would
delay the implementation of the new source rules for coal plants unless
other countries, that account for 80 percent of the total non-USA
carbon dioxide emission standards, enact those standards so that we are
not disadvantaging our workers, our jobs, our economy, our seniors, our
folks who have manufacturing jobs in small businesses.
The American people want us to work together. They really do. We hear
that when we're out. It's Republicans, Democrats, Independents,
nonparties, old, young, educated, less educated, blue collar, white
collar. They want us to work together. They want commonsense policies.
They want an energy policy that creates jobs, that includes everything,
that is an all-of-the-above energy plan. That's what we want, and
that's what we're fighting for. The President stood up here in January
and said he was for all-of-the-above energy. On Friday, he's going to
say all of the above except coal, which is abundant in the heartland of
America.
I urge my colleagues on the floor tonight to think about coal as I
know some States do not realize what their portfolio is in coal. So I
looked up Florida. Twenty-two percent of the power generation in
Florida is coal, yet you hear many of the Florida delegation right on
board with the climate change philosophy of this President. Their
renewable portfolio in the Sunshine State is slightly over 2 percent.
The renewable portfolio in the State of West Virginia, who has some
of the most abundant resources in the country, is at least twice that.
It goes back to actually do what you say and say what you do.
So I think that we need to work with our colleagues and educate our
colleagues about what a great role coal plays across this country. Even
if you don't mine it in your region, you're using it, you're powering
it. Your seniors in Florida are using it to cool themselves down on a
hot summer day.
With that, I would say I look forward with dread on Friday to see
what the new EPA Administrator has come forward with because I feel
that it's going to pick winners and losers in this country and that our
region, and really our own domestic energy supply and in some ways our
domestic energy security, is going to be disadvantaged. That, to me, in
a time of high unemployment, in a time of more part-time jobs being
created than full-time, we're going to turn our back on an industry
that looks to the future to do it better, to do it cleaner, to do it
more efficiently, to do it with higher technology, to do it with better
research, to do it with education, to employ the next generation in an
industry that has been part of the backbone of this country and
certainly of our region.
I thank the gentleman for having me.
Mr. JOHNSON of Ohio. I thank the gentlewoman, and certainly we can
see the passion that she brings to the table.
I think one of the things that is important for the American people
to understand is this notion of energy independence and security. We
hear those terms a lot, but not everybody understands what those terms
really mean and how it affects them, their families, their future.
I think there are some lessons that can be learned about America's
past that would help us understand how energy independence and security
might affect our future, and I'd like to spend a little bit of time
talking about that. To do so, I want to set the stage just a little bit
by taking us back to March of 2011 when right here in this Chamber the
Prime Minister of Australia addressed a joint session of Congress. She
came to this Chamber and she started her speech off by saying:
You know, I remember being a young girl sitting on my
living room floor watching Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin
land on the Moon, thinking to myself, ``Wow, those Americans
can do anything.''
She went on to talk about America's and Australia's engagement in
world issues, how America stood alongside of and often in front of
Australia during World War II. At the end of her speech, she summarized
by saying:
I'm not that young girl anymore. Today I'm the Prime
Minister of our country, and yet still today I believe that
Americans can do anything.
When she said that phrase the second time, this notion that Americans
can do anything, you could have almost heard a pin drop in this
Chamber. There was a hush as Members from the Senate, from the
President's Cabinet, dignitaries, military leaders, Members of the
House sort of took a collective cleansing breath, sucking that air in,
that notion that Americans can do anything. It's not like we don't
believe it. It's certainly not that we haven't proven it. But we don't
hear it these days. We're certainly not teaching it to future
generations the way we once did.
You see, when President Kennedy launched us on that great vision to
put a man on the Moon in 10 years, he engaged every fabric of our
society--our scientific community, our technological community, our
academic community, our military, our economic
[[Page H5585]]
will, our political will. And he said before the American people, We're
not doing these things because they're easy. In fact, we're doing these
things because they're hard and because by doing these things we're
going to invent and innovate and discover things that we might not have
discovered otherwise.
I'm paraphrasing what President Kennedy said, but that was the
message that he delivered to the American people. He did such a good
job of rallying the American people around this vision of American
exceptionalism on that day that we didn't make it to the Moon in 10
years; we actually made it in 8 years. We saw one of the most expansive
and innovative periods in American history unfold right before our very
eyes, and we still see the benefits of that era today: the cell phones
that we carry around, the flat-screen TVs that we watch, the computers
that we use, the GPS systems that navigate us from place to place,
medical technology, communicating technologies. So much innovation came
out of that period of time.
We have an opportunity in America to harness that great American
character of innovation just like President Kennedy did around an idea
of energy independence and security. As my colleague from West Virginia
just pointed out, the President stood in this Chamber and said that
back in January. He advocated, in his words, for an all-of-the-above
energy policy, one that includes all forms of energy, yet his policies
continue to do the opposite, particularly where the coal industry is
concerned.
What if we had a national energy policy that went something like
this? Starting today, America is setting a goal to become energy
independent and secure in America by the year 2020.
{time} 2100
And we are going to harvest the vast oil and gas resources that we
have? Experts say we have more of that resource now than any nation on
the planet. We are going to expand our nuclear footprint. It is the
cleanest form of energy on the planet. We're going to invest in and
advocate for alternative forms of energy like wind and solar, biofuels
and hydro, but we are going to let the market drive those innovations.
And yes, we are going to continue to mine and use the vast coal
resources we have because we have got enough coal in this country to
fuel our energy needs for generations. It's the most affordable, most
reliable form of energy that we know.
But we're not going to stop there. We're going to have a regulatory
process that requires that regulatory agencies, like the EPA, become
partners in progress with America's industries and businesses, rather
than just throwing up barriers and saying ``no.'' If there's a reason
to say no for public health or public safety reasons, then say no, but
don't let no be the final answer. The American people have an
expectation that their tax dollars are going to be used to move America
forward, not to put on the brakes, kill jobs, ruin families, and make
America less competitive in future generations.
I believe if we had that kind of energy vision we would once again
see America's innovative wheels begin to turn. We would see young
people lining up to get into technical programs and college programs to
prepare them for careers in energy development, domestic energy
development. We would see millions of jobs created. We would see
industries crop up, and we would see a resurgence in manufacturing. We
would see America go back to work.
And it would put in play the American Dream once again for millions
of Americans, millions of middle class Americans, that have begun to
think that perhaps the American Dream doesn't apply to them anymore.
The American Dream is still alive and well in our country, and all we
have to do, all we have to do is plug in to the type of American
exceptionalism that put us on the Moon, and go after a real energy
independence and security policy that harvests our coal, uses the
natural resources that we have, and puts Americans back in charge of
their own destiny.
I want to go into a little detail here on some of the comments that
my colleagues from West Virginia, Kentucky, and North Dakota made just
a few minutes ago. We know that coal-fired power plants like the
Cardinal, Ohio, and Sammis plants, both of which are in my district,
can be built with scrubbers in place so that coal can be used in a very
environmentally safe way.
The President and his administration have started this war on coal
that focuses on both the mining of coal and the use of coal in power
plants. This week the EPA is expected to issue a rule on new power
plants that will almost certainly ensure that under existing technology
no new coal-fired power plant will be built in America. The new rule
will require a technology called carbon sequestration and storage, and
it's not commercially available nor commercially viable. My friend from
West Virginia, David McKinley, has legislation that says that the EPA
can't issue a rule that requires technology that isn't commercially
viable. I hope we will consider that legislation in the House for two
reasons. I think the American people have an expectation that people
that make regulations that affect the economy, that affect the jobs,
that affect the livelihood of Americans all over this country, that
those rules are based on scientific fact and that they are
technologically viable. That's not what we're seeing out of the EPA
today.
And number two, I think it is absolutely irresponsible for the
Federal Government to ban, essentially ban a form of energy that has
fueled America's energy needs for generations and can for future
generations. Remember what I said earlier: 800,000 jobs are produced
either directly or indirectly across our country by the coal industry.
Before long, grid reliability will be in question, and rolling
blackouts will be the norm again if we don't have coal power as part of
our energy mix. I come from a background in information technology, and
I can tell you that much of our technology is designed to operate on
stable, reliable power, and blackouts and brownouts and dips in our
power grid will put great stress on our technological resources. Don't
take my word for it, ask the experts. Not to mention that energy costs
are going to rise. People will lose their jobs and hardworking families
will be forced to pay higher utility rates.
Sadly, this new rule on power plants is just the beginning. Next
year, the EPA is expected to release a new rule regulating existing
coal-fired power plants. Now if that rule is anything like the rule
coming out this week, coal-fired power plants could go extinct in just
a few years. We're already seeing the effects of the EPA's crusade
against coal. In my district alone, one coal-fired power plant has
already closed, leaving over 100 people without jobs. Furthermore,
there are six other coal-fired power plants in my district, and if the
EPA issues that unworkable rule next year, thousands in my district
could be without jobs.
Now, if the President's war on coal simply stopped here, the coal
industry and the people employed either directly or indirectly by the
coal industry might be okay. However, the EPA rules are just the tip of
the iceberg because the rest of the administration is also actively
trying to shut down coal producers with a series of new rules. First,
at the Department of the Interior, the administration has been trying
to rewrite the 2008 stream buffer zone rule for nearly 5 years now.
This rewriting of the rule has been a disaster from the beginning as
the administration has wasted nearly $10 million and 5 years of our
time on this environmentalists' dream. It might be a dream of theirs,
but it is going to be a nightmare for the coal industry and the
families across this country that are dependent upon it. We know that
the preferred rule by the administration would cost thousands of jobs
because the consultants they hired to do the analysis told us so, and
it will lead to coal production being cut by nearly half in America.
And yet, the administration appears unfazed and continues its effort to
rewrite the rule.
That's why last year I introduced the Stop the War on Coal Act that
would have stopped not only the rewrite of the stream buffer zone rule
but also the EPA's misguided attempts to regulate coal-fired power
plants. My colleague from Colorado, Doug Lamborn, and I, have
reintroduced similar legislation this year, and I hope that the House
will once again pass it and send a strong signal to the President to
stop this rewrite.
[[Page H5586]]
Next, let's look at the Department of Labor. The President's
Department of Labor is actively writing a rule dealing with coal dust
that could potentially shut down totally underground mining. The rule
is so unworkable and unreasonable that it has even been said that coal
miners wearing full oxygen masks and tanks would not be in compliance
with the rule. Think about that. Coal minors that would be breathing in
pure oxygen would still be in violation of this new rule. And I'm not
sure how a coal company can continue with a rule like that, and that's
why we've been fighting against the implementation of this rule, called
the coal dust rule, as well.
We and the American people should not be surprised by the President's
actions nor the actions of his administration against the coal industry
since he came into office. As our colleague from West Virginia pointed
out, he told us back before he was first elected that his anti-coal
policies would cause electricity prices to skyrocket and that it would
bankrupt a utility company if it wanted to build a new coal-fired power
plant in America. It might have taken him almost 5 years to deliver on
those promises, but we're about to see him issue rules that will cause
energy prices to skyrocket, make it impossible to build a coal-fired
power plant, and kill thousands of jobs across the country.
However, as we have seen tonight, there is a strong will here in the
House of Representatives to stand up and fight back against the
President's policies. So here's the message: we will not roll over
because the future of our economy and the livelihoods of our
constituents, our children and grandchildren are on the line. We will
continue to fight through the appropriations process. We will continue
to work hard to educate the public on these destructive policies until
the President backs down.
I want to share one final story before I yield back. I wasn't born
into the coal production industry. I didn't grow up knowing a lot about
coal production, but I sure learned a lot about coal consumption. I
spoke to the Ohio association of rural electric co-ops about a month
ago and I shared with them that as a small boy, I was the utilities
manager at a rural utility co-op. Now they looked at me like some of
you are looking at me. They cocked their head kind of sideways and
said, how can a young boy be the director of a utility co-op?
You see, on that rural farm where we worked, we had no indoor
plumbing, and my grandmother heated and cooked on a big, black, round
potbellied stove. My job as a young boy before I went to bed each night
was to make sure that the coal bucket was full on the back porch so
when my granddad got up at 4:30 in the morning to fire up that stove so
grandmother could get up and start breakfast, it was there. It was also
my job to bring in a cistern of water from the outside pump so she
didn't have to go outside and get it.
So in a very real sense, I was the utilities manager for that farm. I
provided the fuel and ensured that the fuel was there to heat and cook,
and provided the water.
Folks, that's the character that America was built on. That's what
hardworking people along Appalachia, Ohio remember. They dreamed of a
future for their children and their grandchildren because they lived
that kind of character. They still live it today.
I want to thank my colleagues for coming tonight and joining me in
this effort to stop the administration's war on the coal industry.
Mr. Speaker, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would remind Members to direct
their remarks to the Chair.
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