Domestic Energy Strategy

Floor Speech

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Our natural resources power this Nation and our economy. We have abundant, affordable resources that provide low-cost energy and give thousands of people good-paying jobs.

In my district of southern West Virginia, coal is struggling because of this administration's anticoal regulations. The people who mine coal and the families who depend on coal's paychecks are suffering.

We are at a critical point in the war on coal. I know times are tough. I see it every time I talk to a coal miner or their family.

Our Nation is at a turning point. We will fight for coal each and every day. But the question is: Will we support jobs in domestic energy, or will we favor an environmental agenda at the expense of our economy and our communities?

Coal must play a critical role in an all-of-the-above domestic energy strategy. We can use our resources to create jobs here at home, provide safe and affordable energy for businesses and families alike, and reduce our dependence on energy from unfriendly nations.

Unfortunately, it appears that the EPA and the Office of Surface Mining are dead set on bankrupting coal. They have issued rule after rule that will decimate our industry--and the livelihoods of our coal miners.

The proposed stream buffer zone rule will lead to the loss of tens of thousands of direct mining jobs and hundreds of thousands of jobs linked to mining. Likewise, the EPA's finalized regulations on coal-fired power plants will hurt our economy and drive up electricity rates for our families, seniors, and small businesses. It sets unachievable emissions limits for our coal-fired power plants and forces States to adopt different energy policies or else become subject to additional Federal regulations and a cap-and-trade program.

Not only will the EPA's plan destroy jobs, but it will increase utility costs for consumers and lead to higher household electricity bills for all American families. Our seniors, the middle class, and Americans on fixed incomes should not have to bear the burden of increased costs. Our economy is still struggling to recover. People are struggling to survive.

Each of us here tonight has led the fight against the EPA's overregulation and overreach. On the House Appropriations Committee, I helped to secure a provision in the Interior-EPA funding bill that would prohibit funding for the rulemaking on power plants to proceed. I was an early cosponsor of Chairman Whitfield's resolutions to block implementation of the EPA's coal-fired power plant rule.

This week, we will join together with the House to send President Obama and the EPA a strong message: No more attacks on coal. No more attacks on domestic energy. No more attacks on the people who produce energy.

We will take up resolutions to disapprove of the EPA's new regulations on new and existing coal-fired power plants. We will also vote on a broad energy bill that will update our policies to allow America to take advantage of all of our domestic energy while strengthening our energy security and independence.

Congress is standing up to this administration's regulatory overreach. We must send a message to President Obama and his runaway EPA and end the war on coal.

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You and I share the Ohio River. We both have actually been in the districts together. We both have seen on the faces of the people that we have the honor of representing the real impacts of this war on coal.

I know each of us can come with a multitude of stories, but your remarks reminded me of attending one of these wonderful county fairs last summer. It was a year ago this summer, in Nicholas County, in my district. A middle school teacher came up to me and kind of put a face, again, on the war on coal, and said: ``I remember earlier this year in our public school in Nicholas County when the principal came on to the intercom and said, 'If there are any kids whose parent lost their job this morning in the announced coal layoffs, come on down to the office and sign up for the free lunch program.'''

What a stunning indictment of Obama's war on coal, to think that we have principals in our public school systems come and ask kids to come down because those rules and regulations just put them into the free lunch program. It is a stunningly tragic example of the impacts of this war on coal.

Again, thank you for your leadership and your fight on this.

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