The Impacts of Coal

Floor Speech

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Mr. JOHNSON of Ohio. Thank you to my colleague for yielding.

You made a comment just a minute about, you know, we don't have the Detroits, we don't have the New Yorks, we don't have the big cities in coal country.

We may not have those big cities in coal country, but I guarantee you those big cities get some of their electricity from the coal that is produced by the coal miners that live in our region.

Over the past 5 years, the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation has spent more than $10 million of its budget to pursue a wholesale rewrite of one of the agency's regulatory programs.

Dubbed the ``stream protection rule'' by the agency, this massive regulatory undertaking has little to do with protecting streams and much more to do with riding roughshod over State regulatory programs.

This rule rewrite means more Americans will be out of work and that electricity bills of hard-working families could increase.

As OSM's related draft environmental impact statement indicates, the Appalachian Basin, home to thousands of Ohioans who depend on the coal industry for their livelihood, to put food on their table, to put clothes on their children, to send their children to school, could see as many as 450 production-related jobs lost per year, with potential adverse impacts of $37 million annually.

This appears to be of little concern to the administration, as Interior Secretary Sally Jewell was recently quoted as characterizing the job loss in coal country associated with this rule rewrite as ``minor.''

I invite Secretary Jewell to join me on a trip to any coal mine in Ohio and directly tell the hard-working miners--look them in the eye and tell them that this new rule has only minor impacts.

I will clear my schedule, and I will be available any day, anytime, to go with her if she wants to come there.

Furthermore, this regulation omits and ignores the relevant input from those stakeholders with the most expertise in regulating mining, the States who have been doing it for years.

In fact, 9 of the 10 States originally involved in the rules development have withdrawn their support due to OSM's exclusionary tactics.

This is unacceptable, and it is why I urge the House to consider H.R. 1644, the STREAM Act, as soon as possible.

Introduced by my colleague from West Virginia, Alex Mooney, the STREAM Act would direct the administration to conduct a comprehensive study of the effectiveness of the Stream Buffer Zone Rule that has been in place since 1983. We have been doing this for a long time and protecting streams in the process.

While this study occurs, a prohibition on the

promulgation of new rules addressing the stream protection or stream buffers will be implemented to ensure that the Secretary incorporates the findings of the study into any future rulemaking.

This is just one example, Mr. McKinley, of the regulatory overreach of this administration and its devastating impacts on coal miners, on families that depend on the coal industry for their livelihoods, and the businesses that depend on cost-affordable, reliable electricity across our country.

I appreciate you giving me the time to share that.

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