Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the STREAM Act. We should not willfully delay the stream protection rule. I have seen firsthand the impacts of coal mining, both positive and negative. I spent 9 years visiting the coal counties in Virginia: Buchanan, Dickenson, Lee, Wise, Russell, and others. When times are good, there are good incomes and nice cars. When times are hard, times like today, when we are not mining much coal mostly because of the abundance of natural gas, then things are pretty sad. When I was Lieutenant Governor of Virginia during the 1990s, mountaintop removal became the most prevalent coal mining technique in central Appalachia. Surely, coal can have a positive impact on local economies. But we also have to look at the impact it has on the environment and the health of these same communities. My good friend, Mr. Johnson of Ohio, has said that these are about the lives of people. Absolutely right. And we have shown callous disregard for the health of the people who live in these communities. The citizens of these same Virginia coal counties have by far the worst health outcomes of anybody in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The cost-benefit analysis, yes, but we are not doing anything to stop coal companies from mining coal or even mountaintop removal. We are just demanding that it be done responsibly. It takes tons of rocks and soil to expose underlying coal seams, but these are placed in valleys, headwater streams filled with all this displaced material.…”