Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies

Floor Speech

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Mrs. CAPITO. Mr. President, I want to thank Senator Manchin, certainly for putting this colloquy together. I want to thank Senator Portman of Ohio, Senator Donnelly of Indiana, and Senator Brown of Ohio. We are deeply affected by this, and the facts bear out that we can't wait.

We talk about emergencies, and what we have on the floor is the emerging bankruptcy of Puerto Rico. I think all of us have expressed deep empathy and sympathy for Puerto Rico and the situation that they are in, and we appreciate the bipartisan effort to find a solution. But at the same time, we need our voices to be heard louder and clearer. My voice is that I cannot vote for cloture on Puerto Rico when we have stranded and are stranding our hardworking coal miners and the retirees who are upcoming.

You have to look at what is at stake here. We heard the numbers-- 21,000 Americans stand to lose their health care at the end of the year. By July 15, some are going to lose their health care in 90 days. That is way before the end of the year.

You often hear the trite slogan ``promises made, promises kept.'' This was a promise that was made. This is the hard work of American coal miners who knew going in when they started to work in the mines that they were difficult and dangerous jobs. The question by the spouse was, Will my husband make it back today from the mines? They had a promise, and that is why a lot of them pursued and went forth in dangerous conditions to provide for their families and power the country.

My colleague from Ohio remarked that 70 percent of Ohio's energy is produced by coal. In our State of West Virginia 95 percent is coal- produced energy. We are blessed to have a lot of coal in West Virginia. That has been a good thing for a long time. Unfortunately, we have had a lot of issues in the coal industry, which is under assault from multiple directions--whether it is regulation, increased competition, the effects of a broader economy. All kinds of things are flying into this, but the reality is where we are today.

We mentioned the numbers. Of 12,000 Americans who could lose their health care, 5,000 of those are our fellow West Virginians. I can guarantee you that between the two of us, we know quite a few them. We live in a small State. We live in a community where everybody knows everybody. I tell you one thing, to divert from this to what has happened to our State with the floods. I am sure other States do this just as well, but I don't think there is a State that does better than West Virginians helping West Virginians. What we have seen over the last few days with neighbors helping neighbors and people pulling up each other and pulling together is phenomenal. A lot of those folks are not coal mining families. They know coal mining families. They go to church with their families. Their kids go to school together. Their grandchildren play together. We are all connected together.

You look at the health care and pensions of 27,000 West Virginians. As was mentioned, these are not large amounts. I think the Senator from Ohio mentioned $560 a month. Unfortunately, for some retirees that is the difference between paying their electricity bill and having food on the table. That is a substantial amount. It could mean getting gas for the car, buying their medicines, or helping their children when they might need help to purchase a new pair of shoes. All of these kinds of things are extremely important in the everyday life of our retirees.

I think the best voices are the voices of the miners. I have received letters, and I am sure you all have received letters and talked to folks yourself, from people like Rita from Ieager, WV, who wrote that her husband started work as a coal miner 40 years ago right out of high school. Without the act, she and her husband will lose their entire health care coverage.

Walter is a third generation coal miner. We find these a lot. A lot of these people are third and fourth generation coal miners. He is from Danville and began working in the mines when he was still in high school. He wrote to express concern not just for himself. As a typical West Virginian and hardworking American, he is worried about his friends and former colleagues in Boone County. There are people like Teresa, also from Boone County, whose husband worked in the mines for 36 years and planned for retirement knowing that they would receive the health care and pension benefits they were promised. She asks us to ``please help these retirees to ensure that people like my husband keep the benefits he was promised and that he earned and worked hard for.''

There is Ralph from Morgantown, who reminds us--and I think this is especially important for us to reemphasize today--that ``Congress has the power to keep that promise because it is the right thing to do to protect those hardworking Americans.'' Ralph is right.

So I am going to make a stand with my colleagues. I am asking in a loud and joint voice to have this vote to keep the promise that was made.

While Puerto Rico is facing a financial crisis and I have great empathy for what is going on there, I cannot vote for cloture on the Puerto Rico bill until I get some certainty that we are going to move in a positive direction. I appreciate the passion and the willingness of Senator Manchin to join us together in this colloquy today. We have bipartisanship. We have a regional coalition that I think we can build on every day. I hope we will be successful so that we can make sure that our miners and their families have the assurances, the security, and the faith in us who could make that decision, and the faith in this country that made that promise.

I yield back to the Senator.

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