Lisa Murkowski: “obviously, Senator Toomey will come to the floor to speak to his amendment. I wish to follow up on the comments of the…”

“obviously, Senator Toomey will come to the floor to speak to his amendment. I wish to follow up on the comments of the Senator from Illinois, who was referring to petcoke. Senator Toomey in his amendment is attempting to deal with a situation in specific parts of the country that are impacted by coal refuse. Coal refuse, as it is defined in his amendment, effectively comes about from some centuries-old, 19th century mining operations that left behind this coal refuse in certain parts of the coal mining regions around the country. They remain a legacy problem that is acknowledged, a legacy problem that creates environmental issues, including contamination of local streams with heavy metals, acid, and mine drainage, that, again, I think we all recognize there is a responsibility to address. The good news is there is a solution to cleaning up this problem. Coal refuse powerplants take this coal and these waste piles and turn them into energy and heat for consumers, for businesses. They follow EPA regulations. This is not a situation where we are bypassing EPA regulations when it comes to the emissions issues. But remediating these mine sites, removing these waste piles, and at the same time generating electricity with the coal and applying the basic ash from the process reclaims the land at a lower cost. So we are able to do several things at the same time. We are dealing with an environmental issue that has been in place for far too long.…”