Preventing Government Waste and Protecting Coal Mining Jobs in America
Floor Speech
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Mr. CRAMER. Mr. Chairman, I thank Chairman Hastings and Chairman Lamborn and my friend from Ohio, Mr. Johnson, for introducing this important legislation.
I had the great honor, for nearly 10 years prior to coming to Congress, to be on the North Dakota Public Service Commission, where we carried the SMCRA laws and enforced the Federal SMCRA laws on behalf of our lignite coal industry that employs thousands of people.
We had a little over 100,000 acres under permit, mined 30 million tons of coal every year, and burned it to generate electricity, very low-cost electricity.
We had a great relationship with our Federal Government, our Federal partners. We did it in partnership. They appreciated and honored State primacy. We carried out the letter and the spirit of the law very well.
As a consequence, we have clean streams; clean water; clean air; good, rich topsoil; as well as the jobs that come with it.
We don't have mountains, so a rule that was designed by somebody to deal with mountain removal mining doesn't really match the prairie of North Dakota, which is always the problem with one-size-fits-all regulations; and that is what we find so offensive back home, is when the Federal Government tries to fix every problem with one piece of legislation or one regulation.
We were very familiar--I worked with the 2008 rule. It works just fine. It involved stakeholder involvement. It involved consultation with stakeholders. We are missing that in this particular case.
Quite honestly, I guess when you talk about the war on coal, and some might want to deny that one exists, you might believe that if it was just one rule occasionally; but in the context of the aggregate of all of the rules and regulations and laws coming down from this administration, it is hard not to believe that there is an attempt to unilaterally disarm our economy and the global marketplace with a war on coal.
I encourage my colleagues to join me in voting for this important piece of legislation.
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