Political Quotes

“I rise today to speak about an amendment that I filed with the Highway and Transportation Funding Act. While my amendment did not get a vote, the issue it addresses is very important to my home State so I want to take a minute today to talk about the issue and the need to address a situation that was created when we passed the MAP-21 conference report in 2012. The conference report undid a carefully constructed compromise on the Abandoned Mine Land Program that was put together in 2006. It took apart the work that we had done by limiting the total annual payments of AML funds to $15 million per year. That is a change that only affected the State of Wyoming. We usually don't do legislation that only affects one State when a number of them receive funds. What was worse, the provision was not in the House or Senate highway bill. It was added in the dead of night without consulting anyone from the Wyoming congressional delegation. I was extremely disappointed that the provision was included in the conference report because Senators from other coal-producing States and I spent years working on this issue. When the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act was passed in 1977, a tax was levied on each ton of coal that was produced. The purpose of that tax was to reclaim the coal mines that had been abandoned before the enactment of the reclamation laws. Half of that tax was promised to the States where the coal was mined. That was known as the State share.…”