Chris Ward: “I want to tell this House about someone who took off work to travel all the way to Washington to argue against this…”

“I want to tell this House about someone who took off work to travel all the way to Washington to argue against this bill. His name is Donnie McDonald. Donnie worked at the Canny Creek mine in Muhlenberg County, KY, from 1963 to 1989. In 1974, Donnie was in an accident where a loaded coal rail car fell on him He lost his arm and was off work for 6 months. But he went back to work and worked for another 16 years. Donnie says that because of the Mine Safety Administration his line of work is much safer today than it was in 1974 but he warns that we cannot go back to the kind of loose regulation we used to have in the mining industry. He says that the $15 million cuts that this bill will impose in Federal mine safety efforts will do just that and that we should defeat this bill.”