Joe Manchin

It is. I thank my colleagues for their support of this critical legislation and for participating in the discussion here today. Ms. McSALLY. I would like to thank Chairman Murkowski and Ranking Member Manchin for their time, attention, and…

I thank, first of all, the Senator from Virginia for fighting for his coal miners in Southwest Virginia. They have been out there fighting in Westmoreland, and we have 1,200 miners about ready to lose everything that we had to fight for to…

I want to mention one more thing and then I will turn it over to my colleague, my friend from West Virginia, Senator Capito. The reason this is so urgent, our miners' pensions are in dire need. It goes first. They come to insolvency by…

I say to my friend from Delaware that my understanding is the same as that of the Senator from Alaska, and I thank him for his inquiry into this provision of the bill.

I also rise to oppose the amendment of my good friend from Utah. I oppose his amendment, and I will be joining Chairman Murkowski when she moves to table the bill. In my view, this is the most significant achievement of this broad public…

Is there an incentive from the DOE to make them change the refineries or increase their technology to accept--so we can truly be energy-independent?

This bill would direct the Department of Energy to establish and update a coal technology program to develop new transformational technologies for coal-powered generation.

Thank you, Chairman Gardner, for holding this hearing to discuss the 14 bills on today's agenda.

So I would hope that you would take that and maybe report back to us, because I am understanding the plants that they are putting online do not even have the basics of sulfur reduction, NOx reduction, baghouses for mercury, the things that…

But particulates is their biggest problem right now. They cannot breathe.

I understand that people are very much concerned that India will throw caution to the wind as far as the environment is concerned.

Do you believe that ongoing federal investment in coal and natural gas technologies is key to ensuring a cleaner energy future?

I believe it is critical policy ensuring that advanced coal and natural gas technologies borne in our labs reach commercialization.

But I mean, do you agree that, basically, to be energy-independent you should be able to not depend on any import at all to run your energy sector?

I was also happy to see Senator Murkowski's Nuclear Energy Leadership Act on the agenda, a bill which I co-sponsored.

Energy conservation is the key cost savings tool for the Federal Government and it is important that the relevant regulations and standards are consistent, ambitious and effective.

I would like to submit a letter from the Carbon Utilization Research Council in support of this legislation for the record.

I continue to have serious concerns with some of our civil nuclear cooperative agreements with other countries, in particular, China.

The reason I am saying that is I know the passion in my state and the culture in my state, and if that is limited or taken away, we do not need to get into this because we all want the same thing.

I have concerns about the hunting. I do not see where we have ever allowed access to hunting in the culture that we have in the National Park System.

This basically makes no sense to West Virginians at all to produce as much power as we produce, to be paying higher prices that are unnecessary.

I believe that the grid is going to be jeopardized, the security of our nation is going to be jeopardized.

But we worry about the resilience of our system.

So something is causing the people who are struggling day-to-day, month-to-month, to pay a much higher price, and it doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.

I didn't look at this from a political standpoint.