Rep. Kelly Introduces Coal County Protection Act

mike-kelly1Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Butler) introduced a bill today in the House of Representatives to curb the negative effects of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recently proposed energy regulations.

Of particular concern to Kelly, whose district is in the Northwestern corner of the state, is the loss of jobs and rise in electricity prices in strongly coal-dependent states like PA due to the proposed restrictions on the nation’s power plants.

“The Obama administration’s war on coal is a war on American jobs and livelihoods — it is time to fight back,” Kelly said. In a press release last week immediately following the proposal of the new EPA rules, which would cut carbon emission by 30% by 2030, the Congressman called the new regulations “unfair, unworkable, and intolerable.”

“The Coal Country Protection Act will defend hardworking Americans from the EPA’s extreme overreach by stopping unfair, job-killing regulations in their tracks,” Kelly claimed. “I believe a clean planet is important, of course, but I solidly stand with every hardworking American in Western Pennsylvania and beyond who rightly believes that their jobs and way of life should never be a trade-off for one politician’s selfish agenda.”

Kelly’s Coal County Protection Act, the House version of the legislation that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) introduced last week in the Senate, would require several steps to take place before the EPA instituted any new regulations regarding carbon emission on a plant.

First, the Secretary of Labor and the Director of the Congressional Budget Office would have to verify that the regulations would not result in a loss of American jobs or a drop in the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In addition, the EPA would need verification that the regulations would not result in increased electricity prices or decreased electricity efficiency.

In support of his proposed legislation, Kelly stated that in PA alone, over 40,000 jobs are associated with coal plants that could be hurt by the EPA’s emission regulations. He also pointed last week to the tendency of Americans to prioritize employment and the economy over environmental health, as found by a Gallup poll in May 2014.

Legislators in agreement with Kelly, including Sen. McConnell, are calling the proposed regulations an “attack on the Middle Class” put forth through “unilateral executive action” that will result in massive job loss. President Obama maintains, however, that the new regulations will create jobs in alternative energy production and eventually decrease electric bills while simultaneously allowing US citizens to breathe easier. In fact, the EPA projects that the regulations will prevent between 2,700 and 6,600 premature deaths due to pollution related sickness per year.

9 Responses

  1. Seems to me that cheap shale gas is the biggest enemy of coal, what are you going to do about that, Mike?

  2. Dear Mike Kelly,
    Where are the jobs???????
    You got into office on that mantra and our district is still waiting for you to deliver…something, anything.
    Where are the jobs??????

  3. Pander on, Mike. Are you maybe a little worried about that young fellow you’re facing in November?

  4. nt is so used to lying. To suggest that switching to alternative means will be cheaper, is king of the whoppers. Alternatives, as we’ve seen are a boondoggle(Solyndra, etc). EPA regs will cause shortages and drive up electricity costs and all other costs of related products or services. The President then gives money to his friends in the “alternative game’ who kick back money to the President and the Dems. And please, spare us the unproven and heretofore incorrect predictions about climate change. In the 60’s they told us the oceans were dying, in the 70’s it was a new ice age. It’s sad, the very people who gave Pasha Obama this state in the last election, will be screwed by the President they helped elect.The only one who is fighting for Pennsylvania workers and consumers here is Rep. Kelly.

  5. This one is as good as the ObamaCare Real Acts – all 50+ of ’em. What are the odds that Obama will sign a law repealing his own regulations? Or maybe this dunderead thinks he can get a super-majority to vote in favor of Pollution, Higher Carbon Emissions, and Global Warming. Better not retire to Florida sir – 47% will be under water in 20 years!

  6. He’s not worried about jobs, just one job, his own. This legislation stinks of ALEC. He’ hasn’t the sense to produce a piece of law on his own.

  7. I’m confused, what is the selfish agenda that these rules are affecting? The ability to not drown from rising sea levels or choke on polluted air?

  8. Someone should inform Kelly that these aren’t “unfair, job-killing regulations”.

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