The Impacts of Coal
Floor Speech
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Mr. BARR. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman, my colleague and friend, from West Virginia for his leadership in the Congressional Coal Caucus, to my colleagues from Pennsylvania and Ohio, and all over the country representing coal-producing States where good people--men and women--working in the coal mines literally power America.
They come from an industry--they work in the coal mines; they support the coal miners--an industry that provides affordable and reliable energy that powers the American economy and has been the backbone of the American economy.
Instead of celebrating that industry, instead of applauding the heroic work that these men and women do, day in and day out, underground and above ground, what is the response of the Federal Government over the last 6 years? It has been to singularly punish this industry.
I can't think of an administration from either party in the history of the United States that has singled out a single industry with the level of vindictiveness, frankly, and targeted a single industry and literally bankrupted many of these companies.
I don't understand it for a variety of reasons, but let me just share with you a little bit about the coal industry in Kentucky. We could very well be the poster child for demonstrating the tremendous negative impact and the consequences of this heartless, aggressive, anticoal policy from the EPA and from this administration's regulatory policy.
Since 2009, the Commonwealth of Kentucky has lost more than 8,000 coal mining jobs throughout our State. For every one coal mining job, three additional jobs are directly tied to every coal mining job. This is a direct result of the administration's war on coal.
Sure, there are competitive pressures from natural gas, and we celebrate the fracking boom and the result of discoveries in natural gas, but I can tell you what the coal industry says. It is not cheap natural gas that is the cause of these lost jobs; it is the fact that the Federal Government has put its heavy hand of regulatory power on the scales to make this industry noncompetitive.
Just to give you a sample of the problem, in the first quarter of 2015 alone, Kentucky's coal employment numbers dropped another 10 1/2 percent.
What does that mean in total? Coal production in Kentucky has decreased to its lowest level since 1963. In 2015, production levels are currently half of what they were just two decades ago; yet demand for energy in the United States has suddenly increased.
There are more than just statistics, Mr. Speaker, when it comes to talking about the face of the war on coal. Many of my colleagues have shared these stories about what this really means, what all of these regulations really mean in the real world. It is not statistics on a page; it is not about coal production percentages on decline.
What it is really about, it is about Sally, the young woman in Wolfe County, Kentucky, that I met with tears in her eyes at the end of a townhall meeting.
She came to me as her Congressman and she said: Do they know what they are doing to our family? My husband lost his job because the coal mining employer that he works for didn't get a permit, and so now, he is out of work. Don't those people in Washington understand that I have got kids? We are going back to school; it is August, and I can't afford shoes for my kids. I had to go to Walmart and buy them flip-flops, just so they wouldn't be embarrassed to go back to school.
Now, I want the regulators in Washington, D.C., to come back to Kentucky, to eastern Kentucky, and meet Sally and look Sally in the eye and ask her to describe to them what the impact of this war on coal is for her.
What about Robert? Robert the coal miner from Wolfe County, Kentucky, in my district, he gets up at 3 a.m. every morning to commute an hour to go to work in the coal mines just to put food on the table.
Or what about James, who looks at me with an incredible expression and says: Andy, don't they understand what they are doing? They are putting people out of work. They are making life harder on the American people. Surely, these are the people who say they are fighting for the working man. I am the working man. Congressman, what are they thinking?
Then you talk about Chris, Chris who says: Congressman, I don't know much about politics; I don't really care much about politics, but if you can go save my job, I am for you. Can't the politicians in Washington fight for people just to go to work and provide for their families? These are paychecks that these people depend on.
Finally, it is Curtis, Curtis who said to me that his father crawled on his belly for decades to take care of his family, and because of his father's hard work, he had opportunities.
This is more than statistics. This is about real people who have been victimized by bureaucrats in Washington who are out of touch--if the bureaucrats in Washington would at least just go to these places--West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky--and look these people in the eye and ask them what they think about their policies.
Worst of all, it is all done in the name of the environment. We all love the environment. These coal miners love the environment. They come from a beautiful part of the country, in Appalachia.
It is not about not wanting to help the environment or environmental stewardship, but what is so sad is that these regulations aren't going to do a darn thing about global carbon emissions.
The Clean Power Plan rule that this administration has proposed would reduce global carbon emissions by less than 1 percent--for what, $8 billion in additional annual cost to our economy and thousands of American families without paychecks.
This is wrong. The Congress of the United States is right to stand up for these families. The Congress of the United States is right to stand up for jobs.
That is why I support all of the legislative work done by this House by these good Members--the STREAM Act from my colleague and friend from West Virginia; the coal residuals bill that the gentleman, the chairman, has championed and done a great job in supporting, my colleague, Ed Whitfield, the chairman of the Energy Subcommittee on the Ratepayer Protection Act; the REINS Act, which we just voted for and passed out of this House, which would stop all of these costly regulations.
Mr. Speaker, it is time for us to stand up for American jobs, for American energy, and for American-produced coal power. I thank the gentleman for his leadership.
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Mr. BARR. Mr. Speaker, I would also make this point that this is the United States of America.
In the United States of America, we solve problems through entrepreneurship, free enterprise, and innovation. We put a man on the Moon because we are Americans. We believe in freedom, and we believe in innovation.
If there is a problem with carbon emissions and climate change, then we should solve the problem the American way, through fossil energy research. What we should not do is supply a Soviet-style, command-and-control solution from Washington, which will not solve the problem.
What we need to be doing is exporting American technology to China and India and other countries that have inferior electricity-generating capabilities.
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Mr. BARR. I agree with you 100 percent.
I would just mention, too, it is not just about the coal mining jobs and the coal miners who will lose their jobs.
My district is mainly not a mining district. My district mainly is known for thoroughbred horses and bourbon distilleries and cattle, in addition to the University of Kentucky and the City of Lexington, but we do border the coal industry.
What I do know about those senior citizens on fixed incomes or low-income folks who live in those noncoal-producing counties in my district is that their electricity bills are going to double or triple if this Clean Power Plan goes into effect.
I have talked to the utilities. Over 90 percent of the electricity in Kentucky comes from coal. Coal keeps the lights on. Coal provides affordable energy.
The estimates from the utilities is that, in a single year, folks who live below the poverty line are going to see their electricity bills increase by two times, maybe three times, and that is simply something that they can't afford.
So this is an assault on low-income Americans, not just coal-mining families, but, also, fixed-income seniors and other low-income Americans.
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