To prohibit the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from finalizing any rule imposing any standard of performance for carbon dioxide emissions from any existing or new source that is a fossil fuel-fired electric utility generating unit unless and until carbon capture and storage is found to be technologically and economically feasible.

Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the EPA is expected to unleash what is essentially a Federal cap-and-trade proposal aimed at our Nation's existing coal-fired power plants.

I will oppose this rule, as it will adversely affect coal miners and coal mining communities throughout West Virginia and the Nation. At stake is our economy and the livelihoods of our coal miners, our steelworkers, electrical workers, those who keep our freight trains running, and families and businesses that rely on affordable energy from coal.

Even though we don't have the details of the rule yet, from everything we know, we can be sure of this: it will be very bad for jobs. The only real question is where, on a scale from devastating to a death blow, the new rule will fall.

I have written to OMB opposing the new source performance standards rule for future power plants and calling upon the Director to return the draft rule to EPA and calling on EPA to go back to the drawing board on their proposal.

I have joined 181 Members of this body in a letter to Administrator McCarthy asking that the normal 60-day comment period be extended to at least 120 additional days.

I have cosponsored and voted for H.R. 3826, the Electricity Security and Affordability Act, along with my colleague, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Whitfield), which would block the new source performance rule for future power plants. The House passed the bill on March 16, by a vote of 229-183, and sent it over to the other body.

I have cosponsored, along with my colleague, the gentleman from West Virginia (Mr. McKinley), H.R. 2127, a resolution of disapproval that would prevent the new source performance standard rule for future power plants from going into effect. If enacted, this would have the same effect as the Whitfield bill, blocking EPA from advancing the rule on existing plants.

More importantly, Mr. Speaker, are the effects on our coal miners' health care and pension plans. There are more than 100,000 retirees, their dependents, and surviving spouses who receive health care and/or pensions from the UMWA, United Mine Workers of America, health and retirement funds.

Because these benefits are paid for by contributions made by the coal companies for every hour worked by an active miner, this rule could dramatically undercut the solvency of these funds.

In 2012, for example, a total of $1.2 billion went into coal field communities in pension payments and direct payments to health care providers for retiree health care benefits. That included nearly 400 million into rural West Virginia communities.

This is what keeps the health care systems in these communities open. Doctors, pharmacies, clinics, therapists, and nursing homes all depend on this funding to survive.

So in conclusion, Mr. Speaker, let me say how devastating these proposed rules--although we have not seen the details yet--could be for coal mining communities.

I--and I am sure others who represent coal mining communities across this Nation--will not sit idle in the face of this latest challenge by the EPA to our way of life.

It is about jobs, it is about jobs, and it is about jobs, and I will look at any and all options that will be available to block this proposed rule from being finalized.