Sense Act Will Help Restore Pennsylvania Lands

Floor Speech

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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the Satisfying Energy Needs and Saving the Environment Act, also called the SENSE Act.

The SENSE Act will have a tremendous impact on the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Decades of historic mining has left behind piles of coal refuse or waste coal, which is essentially a worthless material, but its presence has led to environmental degradation in many cases.

Today, the coal refuse-to-energy industry uses waste coal to generate affordable energy. This means hundreds of good-paying jobs and remediated waste coal piles across the Commonwealth.

Pennsylvania is home to 14 of the 19 coal refuse-to-energy plants in the United States. And we have already seen enormous environmental and economic benefits thanks to this industry. We are keeping Pennsylvanians employed and working to restore our beautiful streams and countryside.

Mr. Speaker, one-size-fits-all government regulations do not work.

The SENSE Act crafts responsibly tailored regulations to address the application of an EPA rule for electric generating units that utilize coal refuse to generate electricity and serve critical environmental cleanup and remediation purposes.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense legislation.

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