Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the SENSE Act. This bill is an unnecessary and permanent carve-out for waste coal plants that forfeits scientific and industrial progress. Waste coal plants may be unfamiliar to many of my colleagues…
Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the SENSE Act. This bill is an unnecessary and permanent carve-out for waste coal plants that forfeits scientific and industrial progress.
Waste coal plants may be unfamiliar to many of my colleagues here in Congress because the vast majority of them are located in my State, Pennsylvania. These plants take waste coal left over from mining anytime before the late 1970s and use it as fuel. You see, these areas were mined before laws required reclamation or remediation of mine damage.
I would just like to remind my colleagues who rail against government regulation all of the time, that the reason we have this environmental catastrophe is because there were no regulations before the late 1970s. This is what happens when we have industry, no government regulations, we get environmental catastrophes and now we are left to clean up the mess.
These piles of waste coal have sat covering hundreds of thousands of acres in my home State of Pennsylvania for decades because there was no regulation. Many don't realize, Pennsylvania has produced more coal than any other State. Our mines powered the country while our steel mills built it into the world's greater industrial nation, the arsenal of democracy through two world wars.
But now my home State remains saddled with the leftovers, the legacy of nearly 200 years of unregulated mining. These piles can directly affect people's health, their communities, and their environment. These abandoned sites can contaminate local water sources with harmful runoff, or combust and release toxins into the air at eye level.
Now, I have seen mining sites reclaimed because of these plants, and the turnaround is remarkable. Over decades of operating, they have cleaned up about 4 to 6 percent of the total affected lands across our State, and they have dramatically improved the land at those sites.
They are an important but minor accessory to the use of abandoned mine land reclamation funds. Let me provide some context to that. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection estimates that, using abandoned mine land reclamation funds, the State and outside organizations have reclaimed 70,000 acres in my home State. The most recent industry estimate I have seen on waste coal plants reclaims approximately 200 acres a year.
Now, let's hear the arguments in favor of this bill. Waste coal plants help facilitate remediation of abandoned mine sites. Some plants say they are having a hard time meeting clean air standards, so let's loosen those standards forever.
But my problem is, we know plants can meet these Clean Air Act protections. Many already are. The scientists at EPA have determined this, and the Federal courts have upheld the EPA's ruling. In fact, the largest plant in Pennsylvania can meet the standards that this bill undermines.
I understand it can be difficult to upgrade emission controls technologies in current market conditions. I understand that, with the many issues that are at the nexus of the energy versus environment debate when one side wins and the other side loses. But coal refuse plants present us with an exciting opportunity to have a true win-win. This bill does not.
This bill says, let's sacrifice our air quality and the air quality of States downwind, and let's give these plants a pass. Let's sacrifice progress for a few companies' convenience, and let's stick it to those companies that have already invested in upgrading their plants, and let's do this forever.
I believe the environmental issues and the energy challenges our country and the planet face will be solved through technological progress and innovation, through scientific advancement and thoughtful policy. For that reason, I oppose this bill.
Let me be clear. Pennsylvania has inherited and shoulders a debt, the collective legacy from our Nation's unregulated industrial past. This debt is levied on our land, our children, and our communities. We need help, and we deserve help, to continue righting this wrong. That requires strong environmental stewardship, increased abandoned mine land reclamation funds. The RECLAIM Act would provide greater R&D into making fossil fuels cleaner, and the list goes on.
I want to applaud my colleague on the other side of the aisle for highlighting the importance of this issue. This legislation, however, is not the answer. It is still not the answer, and I urge my colleagues to vote against it so that we can try a different, smarter approach.
I think we can make great progress on this issue in the coming months. I would welcome cooperation and input from colleagues on both sides of the aisle in doing so. Let's do this the smart way, the right way. Let's not penalize companies that are spending the money to comply, by helping a few companies that claim they don't want to.
Madam Speaker, let me just say to my friend--and he is my friend--that none of us have a problem with these plants. They are providing an important service. The largest one in our State is complying.
What I don't understand is, when the majority of these plants can comply and are in the process of complying, why do you want to pass a law that would exempt them from having to do that?
It seems that when we have this debate, we only define ``burden'' as one way. When I hear my colleagues talk about the burden, it sort of has a singular dimension: money, dollars and cents on a business, on an individual, on a taxpayer.
What about the burden of lower air quality? Is it not burdensome to the health of our students, the elderly, folks with asthma to breathe in higher levels of particulate matter? What about those folks?
When we have an opportunity and we have the technology to have these plants continue to remediate sites, but to do so in a more environmentally friendly way, why would we not want to do that, especially when there are only 14 of these sites in Pennsylvania, and the majority of them are in the process of complying or are complying?
You know, this bill is the same bill you brought here last year that didn't pass the Senate. This bill is not going to become law either. I would just encourage my friend to sit down with members of the Democratic Party, sit down with these stakeholders, and let's work on a solution that is futuristic, not one that takes us back to the past.
Madam Speaker, let me just say to my friend that at the rate of 200 acres a year, it will be well into the year 3000 before we reclaim all these sites. So when I say, ``forever,'' there is not going to be any of us sitting here today around to see it, nor will our children, nor will our grandchildren, at that rate.
And, by the way, the quote you give from the EPA regarding that was under a different rule, not the rule that we are talking about. This boils down to companies that are already spending the money and complying. Where is the fairness to those companies, their bottom line, their workers, when they are complying with this rule?
And then you want, literally, a handful of companies not to comply? And when you talk about customizing a solution, what you are talking about is no rules. I mean, you are basically saying they don't have to comply with anything. So the answer to these 19 plants that operate in the entire United States, of which better than half are in the process or already complying, is to tell the ones that aren't complying there are no rules.
Every year, our technology gets better. Every year, technology gets cheaper. Why would we want to give a lifetime exemption to a handful of companies that are reclaiming 200 acres a year? And at that rate, we are going to be into the year 3000. Why would we say you never have to comply with any rules, when most of those companies are? It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
No one is saying anything bad about these plants. They are providing a valuable service. They can do it in a much more environmentally friendly way because technology is allowing that to happen. And all the EPA and their scientists who study this and the Federal courts, which upheld their decision, are saying is let's make the environment even cleaner.
We have seen what happens to our State when there is no regulation. It is called ``environmental catastrophe.'' Let's not go back to saying no environmental regulation to this handful of companies that aren't complying.
At the risk of beating this horse to death--and this will be my final remarks--I would just say to the Speaker that there are many of these plants that are complying with this rule, and I commend those plants that are doing that.
It is not fair to those plants that are complying that we exempt those plants that aren't complying or don't want to comply because they don't want to spend the money to do so. The idea that all of these plants are going out of business if they are forced to do that is simply not based in any reality.
I would encourage the gentleman and the Speaker to reconsider this bill, which is going nowhere. It may pass the House, but it is not going any further than that. Let's sit down and work together on a bipartisan basis to come up with a rule that utilizes the best and latest technologies, that continues to improve and get cheaper, help work with these companies that may need a little assistance in complying and help them comply, and then we truly do have a win-win situation.