[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Page 14507]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              THE COAL ACT

  Mr. SMITH. Mr. President, on June 10, Senator Grassley, chairman of 
the Senate Committee on Finance, issued a statement concerning the Coal 
Act, included in the 1992 Energy bill, and very specifically the 
intolerable situation regarding reachback and superreachback coal 
companies.
  The tax levied on these companies in that act is unfair. It never 
should have been enacted to begin with. It even applies to companies 
that are no longer in the coal mining business. The Coal Act created 
the combined benefit fund, CBF, in an attempt to solve many of the 
pension problems of retired coal miners. There were never any hearings. 
There was no serious debate on the Senate floor.
  The combined benefit fund is approaching insolvency. There are 
accountants who today would say it is already insolvent. It has been 
saved from terminable illness only by annual appropriations in recent 
Appropriations bills. These appropriations do not permanently solve the 
problem.
  I, for a number of years, have attempted to pass legislation to solve 
this issue. It is my hope that the House of Representatives would at 
last send to the Senate a bill rectifying this problem so we might also 
enact it and at least put an end to this inequity.

                          ____________________