Alex Mooney: “I thank Congressman McKinley for his leadership on this issue and in our great State of West Virginia. I thank…”

“I thank Congressman McKinley for his leadership on this issue and in our great State of West Virginia. I thank Congressman Barr for his great comments and for his telling some personal stories about how this affects real Americans from different States. Mr. Speaker, our great country is blessed with abundant natural resources. Unfortunately, President Obama has made a campaign commitment to destroy coal as a domestic energy source, and he is intent on fulfilling that promise. Just 2 weeks ago, the Office of Surface Mining, under the Department of the Interior, released its latest set of rules and regulations that will cripple the coal industry not only in West Virginia, but across the country. These new rules and regulations are over 2,500 pages in length. If you do not know exactly what that looks like, here it is, ladies and gentlemen. It is six folders full of new regulations--2,500 pages. This is what it looks like, okay? The Department of the Interior has given us 60 days to go through this. It is a lot of work. At the very least, a 120-day extension is needed beyond the current 60-day comment period. I have already joined Chairman Bishop of the Natural Resources Committee, on which I serve, and 43 Members of Congress in sending a letter to the Obama administration, requesting a 120-day extension of the comment period for the recently announced job-killing stream buffer zone regulation right here.…”