[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 121 (Thursday, July 18, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4924-S4925]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            ECONOMIC GROWTH

  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, earlier this week, I spoke about the 
economic pain that many Americans felt under the last administration's 
leftwing policies and all the Trump administration and Republicans in 
Congress have done to turn the page.
  Today we see the lowest unemployment in nearly 50 years, way more job 
openings than job seekers, and an all-American recovery that isn't 
limited to just a select few places and industries.
  My home State of Kentucky has hit and sustained our lowest 
unemployment rate ever recorded--ever recorded. Two thirds of Americans 
now say they feel optimistic about where their finances will be a year 
from now.
  But we know the effects of bad policy are hard to erase. So my 
colleagues and I are continuing to fight for the places that are still 
struggling to pick up the pieces.
  Unfortunately, my home State of Kentucky offers a particular case 
study, because nothing shows the difference between the last 
administration and this one more clearly than in the case of affordable 
energy and the coal industry.
  For more than a century, coal has been a reliable and low-cost energy 
source that has helped fuel America. Coalfields in both Eastern and 
Western Kentucky have provided good jobs and served as critical drivers 
of our economy.
  Back in 2009, the industry directly employed more than 23,000 
Kentuckians. It provided more than 90 percent of our electricity. It 
brought billions of dollars in revenue into our State. So we were 
especially vulnerable when a Democratic administration came to 
Washington that didn't even try to hide its hostility toward Kentucky 
coal.
  Speaking in San Francisco, then-Senator Obama pledged to bankrupt any 
new coal-fired plants and declared that under his plan ``electricity 
rates would necessarily skyrocket.'' His Democratic leader of the 
Senate said, ``Coal makes us sick.''
  So clearly, the elite disdain for fossil fuel in places like New York 
City, Chicago, and San Francisco was going to become the law of the 
land. Sure enough, the Obama administration declared a War on Coal. It 
hurt Kentucky badly. Plants closed. More than 10,000 miners were let 
go--10,000 unemployed miners. And then these mass layoffs strained 
local social services. Entire communities went into a tailspin. 
Unsurprisingly, many of these places experiencing economic distress 
subsequently became ground zero in the opioid and substance abuse 
crisis as well.
  I, and Republicans generally, did all we could to fight. But when we 
passed bills repealing the worst regulations, President Obama vetoed 
them. When I urged his EPA Administrator to hear from Kentucky 
families, she turned me down.
  The policies had been dreamt up in places like New York City and San 
Francisco for places like New York City and San Francisco. Places like 
Kentucky? We were just the collateral damage. So it is no surprise that 
all kinds of Americans elected President Trump and Republican 
majorities in 2016. And we hit the ground running.
  One of the first bills we sent the President was a bill I introduced 
to repeal the stream buffer rule, a burdensome part of a series of 
regulations designed to make coal prohibitively expensive to mine or to 
use. We halted some of the worst regulations, like the waters of the 
United States, eliminated the so-called Clean Power Plan, and replaced 
them with policies to support American energy dominance.
  For former miners and for the industry, the damage can't be unwound 
overnight. This very month, we have seen two more major coal producers 
in Kentucky move toward bankruptcy. Clearly, even now, all is not well. 
That is why my colleagues and I are focused on lending a helping hand. 
When healthcare benefits for thousands of retired coal miners and their 
families were at risk, I led the effort to secure a permanent extension 
and protect coal communities in States like Kentucky.
  Congressman Hal Rogers and I established the Abandoned Mine Land 
Reclamation Economic Development Pilot Program, which aims to revive 
old mine sites into economic drivers again. That program includes 
everything from helping dislocated miners develop the skills they need 
to transition to a new career, to delivering resources to strengthen 
our water infrastructure, to improving the infrastructure and tourist 
attractions to draw new visitors and money into Appalachia.
  With each program and many others, we are working to revitalize 
communities and repair the damage. But many of our Democratic 
colleagues are itching to take us right back to the bad old days. The 
most prominent voices in the Democratic Party are openly calling to 
restart a Big Government assault on fossil fuels and on so many 
Americans' livelihoods.
  We all remember several months ago when many Democrats embraced an 
unabashedly socialist proposal called

[[Page S4925]]

the Green New Deal that would have made the Obama-era War on Coal look 
like child's play. Among all of its other craziness, it sought to end 
all production of American oil, coal, and natural gas within a decade. 
How ridiculous. How absurd.
  We had a vote on it in the Senate, and lest we think this was just 
some extreme view that only the fringe subscribes to, only 4 of 47 
Democrats could bring themselves to oppose the Green New Deal in the 
Senate--only 4 of 47 Democrats could bring themselves to oppose the 
Green New Deal in the Senate. There were 43 of 47 Democrats who 
couldn't vote against this thing. Fortunately, Republicans voted it 
down.
  But last week, not to be deterred, a number of Democrats rolled out 
yet another far-left environmentalist manifesto. This new resolution 
calls for--here we go again--a managed phaseout of the use of oil, gas, 
and coal to keep fossil fuels in the ground--a managed phaseout of the 
use of oil, gas, and coal to keep fossil fuels in the ground. Of 
course, this means a whole lot more intrusive Big Government.
  The bill calls for a ``massive-scale federal mobilization of 
resources''--a ``massive-scale federal mobilization of resources.'' 
Just imagine what that would entail. And get this: The new manifesto 
dictates that our Nation model ourselves after Europe, Canada, and 
liberal enclaves like New York and Los Angeles. You just can't make 
this stuff up.
  The contrast is clear. Republicans are working overtime to rebuild 
the conditions for middle-class prosperity, and we are working overtime 
to help those who were hit hard in the Obama years. But Democrats are 
working to resurrect the same bad ideas that caused much of that damage 
and implement them yet again, this time on steroids. The good news is, 
as long as this Republican Senate has anything to say about it, none of 
these radical job-killing manifestos have a chance of becoming law.

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