Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I want to begin by thanking the majority for including my amendment offered to the coal ash bill considered in a previous Congress requiring States to have a strong and comprehensive emergency response plan in the unfortunate event of a spill or a leak. As I said then, and believe even more now, we simply cannot count on a private company to be prepared for a spill. The State and local governments, who will be the first responders, must also be active partners. By requiring States to be prepared with their own emergency response plans, I think we are taking a modest step to ensure they are prepared to protect the communities. Again, I acknowledge that and thank my colleagues. {time} 1715 It is in that same spirit of bipartisan, commonsense, and modest safeguards that I offer this amendment that would simply require that all inactive surface impoundments that begin closure procedures to put in place the same groundwater monitoring safeguards procedures required in the final Federal rule. When we debated similar legislation in July of 2013, I spoke of the devastating 2008 failure of the coal ash impoundment in Kingston, Tennessee. As a result of that breach, more than 5 million cubic yards of coal ash were released, covering more than 300 acres in toxic sludge, damaging and destroying homes and property, resulting in more than $1.2 billion in cleanup costs.…”