Political Quotes

“I am really pleased to be here to join in the colloquy with my fellow Senators, Mr. Manchin, Senator Brown from Ohio, and Senator Warner from Virginia. This is important. This is really important. I could say I look around the room, and it is important to us, but it is important even more granularly to some other folks who are right here watching what we are doing. Many of us have worked together previously in order to save retiree health benefits for 22,000 retired miners in 2017, following the bankruptcies of Patriot, Alpha, and Walter Resources. Today we are back together to advocate for another over 1,000 retirees and beneficiaries whose healthcare is impacted by the Westmoreland Coal bankruptcy, as Senator Manchin described. It is also critical that we redouble our efforts to find a solution to the 1974 UMWA Pension Fund. If we do nothing--if we do nothing, which I don't believe is an option--this pension fund, which provides 83,000 current beneficiaries with their pensions, will be insolvent by 2022. That is getting close, and insolvency can come even sooner, depending on market conditions. So combined with the 20,000 people who have a vested right to future benefits, more than 100,000 people are covered by this pension plan. As Senator Manchin said, these are hard-working people who were promised and who, in the course of their working lives, gave up something so they could have a better peace of mind later on. They worked hard day in and day out.…”