The bottom line is people have to be kept safe.

What a great country is all I can say.

This was an unprecedented reach out, and all we hear are complaints about it.

Sir, I just want to say to you, regardless of what you hear, you just stand up and you continue to do that. And when people look at you and say, sir, you shouldn't do this, just tell them to look at those families in Flint. This is what…

The majority party here, with all due respect, this is their philosophy, they demonize anybody in the Federal Government.

I am on the floor to talk about a situation that is occurring in my home State with a leak--a natural gas leak that is creating havoc in one of my communities. But before I do, I wish to comment on the issue that my Democratic leader…

How do you know what to do? We have the Clean Water Act, we have the Safe Drinking Water Act, we have the Surface Mining Act.

the public support these acts by 90 percent.

Of course we want industry. Of course we want jobs. You have to have that.

How about there are 21 peer reviewed studies by different people? How about that I am going to put them in the record and these are the facts that were found out.

But that is not my job and is not the job of this U.S. Senate. It is to protect the health and safety of the people, while of course looking at the economics.

Mountaintop removal coal mining has already destroyed more than 500 mountains, buried more than 2,000 miles of headwater streams, and polluted thousands of miles of downstream surface waters.