Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, today, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2824, the Preventing Government Waste and Protecting Coal Mining Jobs in America Act, legislation that I introduced with my friend and colleague, Congressman Doug Lamborn. This important legislation addresses the administration's flawed, waste of taxpayer money, and job-killing rewrite of the Stream Buffer Zone Rule. Immediately upon taking over in 2009, the administration began their efforts to rewrite the Stream Buffer Zone Rule, even though a new rule that took 5 years to codify had just been finished in 2008. From the beginning, the Office of Surface Mining and the Department of the Interior fumbled the ball, and it has been a train wreck and lack of leadership over the past 5 years. Nearly $10 million of taxpayer money has been wasted by the administration in their attempts to destroy thousands of direct and indirect jobs and cause electricity prices to skyrocket. We know from the administration's own estimates that their preferred rule would cost 7,000 direct coal jobs and thousands more indirect jobs, not to mention that States like mine in Ohio would see their electricity prices skyrocket thanks to increased coal prices. We also know, from the whistleblower contractors that worked on the rule, that the political appointees in the Office of Surface Mining tried to cover up these job loss numbers because they knew how politically damaging they would be in the runup to the 2012 election year.…”