Steve Daines: “I would like to shift gears for a moment and share some comments about President Obama's news that he made yesterday…”

“I would like to shift gears for a moment and share some comments about President Obama's news that he made yesterday with the EPA. Yesterday, President Obama and the ``Employment Prevention'' Agency, the EPA, continued to wage their war on American energy, American families, and American jobs. As President Obama was announcing his plan to devastate Montana's coal industry and the good- paying jobs it provides, yet another coal company filed for bankruptcy. At the same time, the J.E. Corette powerplant, in my home State of Montana in Billings, is being dismantled as we speak in the aftermath of President Obama's previous anti-coal regulation. In addition to supporting 30 jobs, the Corette powerplant has powered tens of thousands of Montana homes and contributed several million dollars in tax revenue to Montana and Yellowstone County every year. Over the past year, Montanans have braced themselves for the release of the Obama administration's final regulations, which were already set to wreak havoc on our coal industry and make construction of any new coal-fired plant virtually impossible. The proposed rule was bad. The final rule is even more devastating to Montana jobs and to Montana families. The final rule announced by the Obama administration makes the retirement of existing coal-fired powerplants inevitable within the next few decades. The rules moved the goalposts and, I might add, to the wrong end of the field.…”