[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 50 (Wednesday, March 17, 2021)]
[House]
[Page H1417]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    REDEVELOPING ABANDONED MINE LAND

  (Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join my 
colleague, Mr. Matt Cartwright, once again as cosponsor on the RECLAIM 
Act. This bipartisan legislation focuses on reauthorizing the abandoned 
mine land fund, or the AML fund.
  My district, Pennsylvania 15, has the most abandoned coal mines in 
the country, and reauthorizing the AML fund will provide opportunities 
and funding to clean up the abandoned land, not just in my district, 
but across the Nation.
  Coal mining built America. It powered us onto the world's stage. It 
helped us win two world wars and brought our Nation into the modern 
era.
  The AML is set to expire this year. While we continue to make 
progress on environmental restoration, reauthorizing the fund is 
crucial to support clean-up efforts and spur economic development.
  Madam Speaker, Congress has a great opportunity to do right by 
Pennsylvania and other great coal mining States by reauthorizing the 
abandoned mine land fund, which is not funded by tax dollars but by a 
fee that has been placed on every ton of coal mined since 1977. Those 
moneys are sitting there in the Federal Treasury, and we need to 
reauthorize that abandoned mine land fund to further the redevelopment 
of the scars of the water and the land in those abandoned lands.

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