Senate Approves Santorum-Specter Amendment to Promote Clean Burning Fuel

Senate Approves Santorum-Specter Amendment to Promote Clean Burning Fuel

Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, and Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, applaud the Senate for adopting their amendment to the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Bill, which passed the Senate today, to promote clean burning diesel fuel derived from waste coal. This amendment was offered to help alleviate the United States' dependence on foreign oil. It is also intended to support the Department of Defense's Clean Fuel Initiative to catalyze the commercial industry to produce clean fuels for the military from secure domestic resources using environmentally sensitive processes.

This amendment allows a portion of funds already appropriated to the Department of Energy and awarded to WMPI PTY LLC, a coal and energy company based in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, through a Clean Coal Power Initiative (CCPI) competitive grant, to be used to fund a federal loan guarantee for WMPI's coal-to-diesel project. The company projects that 1,600 jobs will be created at the Schuylkill County plant alone.

"This amendment provides a national security benefit that is critical to improving our domestic energy supply; I am pleased this technology has the added benefit of producing environmentally friendly, ultra clean, zero-sulfur diesel fuel from waste coal," said Senator Santorum. "This project will be beneficial to the economy of Northeastern Pennsylvania, as well as create new jobs for the region."

"I am pleased my colleagues in the Senate have approved this provision for a company near Pottsville to develop the first coal-to-liquid fuel program in the United States," Senator Specter said. "This technology has the potential to dramatically reduce our nation's dependence on foreign oil."

This Fischer-Tropsch technology project turns waste coal into high-quality zero-sulfur diesel fuel and will be the first coal-to-liquid fuel project in the United States. This technology has the potential to dramatically reduce our nation's dependence on foreign oil.

Within ten years, WMPI estimates that the technology would be able to produce a minimum of two million barrels per day, which equals approximately 20 percent of what the U.S. currently imports daily.

"The U.S. is currently exporting a half a billion dollars a day overseas to buy foreign oil. This provision Senator Santorum and Senator Specter were able to get passed by the Senate today will jumpstart a new domestic fuels industry that will mean we can spend that money here in the U.S. and create hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs. Within a decade we can release ourselves from the stranglehold foreign oil has on our economy and dramatically drive down the high cost of transportation fuels," said John Rich, President of WMPI, in reaction to news that the United States Senate passed the Santorum-Specter provision to promote Fischer-Tropsch coal-to-oil technology in the U.S.

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