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Ms. HEITKAMP. Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you to my great colleague from the great State of West Virginia, a State that has been powering America for many years--in fact, from the very beginning. My thanks go to all of the great workers and coal miners in her State who have added to our economic opportunity, not just for the people in West Virginia but for the people of an entire region.
That is one thing we forget--that in America a great miracle happens every day. We turn on a light switch and the lights come on. If that doesn't happen or if it is too expensive to turn on that light switch, we will not be the country that we are. With this regulation, I think what we have done is cede the all-important role of electrical security and energy security to an environmental agency that does not have the experience or expertise to understand what it takes to get an electron in the wire.
I am proud to stand today with my colleague Senator Capito and introduce a bill to roll back the EPA rule on carbon emissions--that rule which threatens the supply of abundant, affordable, and reliable electricity in North Dakota. I pledge to register my displeasure through multiple channels. This legislation today is the most public way of expressing not just my frustration but the frustration and concern of my State regulators and my State utilities.
Although this rule will have dramatic consequences across the country, it unfairly targets North Dakota utilities. During the original draft rule, North Dakota's allocation was 11 percent. This is not something we were happy with given the extent of the jurisdictional reach but something that people started rolling up their sleeves saying if we have to reduce by 11 percent, how are we going to do it and how are we going to meet this challenge? That is the North Dakota way, to not only fight for our rights but also look at what the alternatives are. Unfortunately, when the draft rule went from an 11-percent to a 45-percent reduction in the final rule, that was the straw that broke the camel's back.
I am trying to do everything I can to push back against EPA's burdensome powerplant rules to find workable solutions so North Dakotans can continue to have low-cost, reliable electricity. This CRA is one of the many different avenues I am taking to make sure that North Dakota is treated fairly.
I want to talk about what is unique about North Dakota. In fact, a lot of the generation that happens in North Dakota is generation that is generated by rural electric co-ops. These co-ops own and operate about 90 percent of the State's coal-based generation facilities, and they provide electricity to rural areas that in the past other utilities would not serve, not just rural areas in North Dakota but rural areas all through the region. These are people at the end of the line, as we call them, the very people that this rule will most impact and that EPA and this administration failed to consider when they made this final rule.
North Dakota's utilities are heavily invested in coal-based generation for a good and historic reason. I think this is an important point to make because a lot of people may say: Well, what is the difference? You can fuel switch. But at the time our electric co-ops built these generation facilities, they used coal because it was against Federal law to use natural gas. The fuel use act made it illegal to use natural gas for power generation, virtually forcing these power companies to make the investment that they made in this fuel source of coal. Now, after making billions of dollars of investments to meet the mandates under the fuel use act and to meet the numerous emissions standards that have been put forth by EPA, the administration once again is straining these assets, causing them in many cases to be stranded. If the administration were willing to pay fair market value to strand these assets, then maybe we could have a discussion, but I don't see that deal on the table. These utilities built, modified, and retrofitted all at great cost and according to Federal law at the time, and now they are threatening the very existence of this generation.
These assets are not just critical to North Dakota. Our coal-based generation provides dependable, affordable, reliable baseload electricity to millions of people in the Great Plains with roughly 55 percent of electric power generated in North Dakota being shipped outside our border.
When this final rule came out, I simply said that it was a slap in the face to our utilities and our regulators. This final rule was so vastly different from the rule that was proposed, it was almost laughable that EPA said it wasn't in any way informed by any real input or any real comment. How can you take a utility and a State from 11 percent to 45 percent and not reissue that rule? How can that be the movement in the final rule?
I think this final rule is a rule that jeopardizes close to 17,000 good-paying jobs in my State. It provides power for rural communities that otherwise would struggle for affordable, reliable baseload power. We have some of the lowest power costs in the country because we have some of the best utilities in the country, which are always looking out for the consumer at the end of the line.
North Dakota has never stepped down from a tough challenge, especially when the challenge is fair, the goal is attainable, and the timeline is achievable, but that is not this rule. The goal is not fair, the challenge is not fair, the goal is not attainable, and the timeline is unachievable in my State--unachievable. That is not anything the Clean Air Act ever anticipated--that we would set a goal with no feasible or possible way of meeting that goal, given current technology. Yet that is the position we are in.
At the end of the day, what matters most is making sure that our utilities can do their jobs, making sure that when a North Dakotan or a South Dakotan or someone from Wyoming or Colorado, where we deliver power--and certainly those in Minnesota--reaches over to turn on that light switch, regardless of the time of the day, that light comes on. That is called baseload power. People who think this is easy, people who think this is just switch fuels or switch technology, have never sat in a boardroom as I have and listened to the challenges of putting that electron on that wire.
I stand with my colleague from West Virginia and my colleague Joe Manchin here on our side of the aisle saying enough is enough. This is a problem we need to address. Maybe that is the difference in how we look at this. This is an issue that we can tackle and achieve results over time, but this rule is wrong. It is wrongheaded. It will, in fact, cause huge disruption to the economy of my State and the economy of the middle of this country. We have to do everything we can to prevent this rule from becoming a reality.
Thank you for letting me join you, the great Senator from West Virginia. We have two great Senators from West Virginia here.
I yield the floor.
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