[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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