Barbara Cubin: “I am sorry that the color of the State of Wyoming was not in bright yellow on the chart that the gentleman from West…”

“I am sorry that the color of the State of Wyoming was not in bright yellow on the chart that the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. Rahall) just showed the body. It should be in bright yellow because the Powder River Basin produces so much coal that all of those States that use cheap Wyoming coal have a lot of light in their lives because of that. Despite what my colleagues have heard from the sponsor about this amendment, the coal-leasing provisions are not about giving breaks to coal companies or creating monopolies that control Federal coal leases. In fact, the amendment creates an atmosphere that guarantees monopolies will exist in the coal industry. He has not given an explanation of exactly the way the situation is. The current law artificially raises the cost of bidding on Federal coal leases to the point that only the largest corporations in the world can afford to mine them, and what the energy bill does is, right now, when he says that there is no competition on these leases, he is actually misrepresenting, well he is representing his perspective, but I would aver that it is wrong. What happens is, people bid on the leases, and then if they cannot develop those leases, what he would have us do, because of financial costs, what he would have us do is not be able to ever develop those leases. So it would be leaving coal still in the ground.”