Responsibly and Professionally Invigorating Development Act of 2013
Floor Speech
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Mr. McKINLEY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment would prohibit agencies under this legislation from using the social cost of carbon that this administration implemented under executive order. Late on a Friday afternoon in June of 2013, this increase in the cost estimate for the social cost of carbon showed up in an obscure rule regarding microwave ovens. In typical fashion with this administration, there was no public debate, no stakeholder comment, and no vote in Congress for this estimate which increased the cost over 50 percent. But they didn't consider the social cost of mental anguish and health care for those that lose their job as a result.
Then again, this is the same administration who issued a de facto ban on new coal-fired powerhouses and refused to hold listening sessions in the areas most affected by fossil fuels. Coal production is down throughout Appalachia, and down by nearly half over the last 5 years under this administration.
Too many people in Washington just don't get it. When you shut down the fossil fuel industry in a community--in particular, a coal mine--you shut down an entire community. Railroad workers, machinists, timber and coal industries, pharmacists, and schoolteachers all are effected by these kinds of policies. Entire communities, the social fabric of our Nation, are on edge while this administration's ideologically driven policies are threatening hundreds of thousands of jobs all across America.
This is the same President who, in 2008, said he would bankrupt the coal industry. This has become personal to me, Mr. Chairman, and many people throughout the coalfields of America. The rest of the world is investing in coal, building new plants, and increasing their consumption of coal--but not here in America.
This President is gambling with our economy and risking America's future. For a President who likes to talk about fairness, Mr. Chairman, blaming our fossil fuels as a health risk isn't fair.
But then again, is it fair for the EPA to require standards that can't be achieved? Is it fair to blame man for climate change when naturally occurring CO
2 emissions represent 96 percent naturally, while U.S. coal emissions contributed only two-tenths? Let me say that again. Two-tenths of 1 percent of the emissions occur from coal-fired powerhouses.
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