On the recordFebruary 26, 2014
I thank the gentleman and my friend from Pennsylvania for yielding. I appreciate the hard work that both he and his staff have put into this important amendment, which I had the pleasure to join him in introducing. As I indicated earlier in the debate on the underlying legislation, in Kentucky, the overregulation of the Kentucky coal industry has really taken a toll. Under President Obama, Appalachian Kentucky has lost about 7,000 jobs in just 5 years, putting coal industry employment in the Commonwealth to its lowest level since records were first kept in 1927. This amendment would strengthen the underlying regulatory reform legislation by holding accountable those agencies that go after already suffering workers like Kentucky and Pennsylvania coal miners.
