Fighting the President's War on Coal: One Activist's Story
On Friday, June 8th, I was joined by other Americans For Prosperity activists as we visited Senator Robert Casey’s Office in Allentown, PA. In a meeting with Senator Casey’s Allentown office staffer, and via phone conference with a staffer in his DC office, we made it quite clear that Senator Casey is representing a “coal rich state” and that Pennsylvania needs the coal industry. We reminded Senator Casey’s staffers that Pennsylvanians depend on clean coal plants to “literally” fuel the state’s economy.
Since Senator Casey was unavailable to speak directly to us, the staffers promised to pass the message on to the Senator that the EPA’S Utility MACT rule would merely impose more unnecessary regulation on an industry that is already over regulated.
We also reminded the staffers that China is the major source of coal emissions, yet goes unregulated. The United States has already cleaned up it’s act, now it is time for other countries to follow suit. American industry cannot continue to compete with nations who can manufacture with lower taxation and little or no environmental restrictions.
In a recent video highlighted by Senator Inhofe, an EPA official acknowledged that the consequences of the new proposed performance standard for greenhouse gas emissions for new power plants would be especially “painful” for communities that depend on coal. This video was played for the staffers at the meeting.
To say that “Coal Communities should just go away” is truly unconscionable.
While Casey’s staff was very congenial, it was clear that we were not going to get an answer as to whether the Senator, our public servant, would stand with his coal constituents.
As the Utility MACT rule looms over us, we will all be watching to see which way Senator Casey will vote on S.J. Res 37. It is almost unbelievable that a Senator from coal country has not made up his mind on this issue.
As of Friday, he was still contemplating how he would vote.
Funny — the activists didn’t think it was a difficult decision (but then – it really isn’t funny, it’s quite telling and speaks volumes that he is having such a hard time making a call on this one)!
Note: Senator Pat Toomey already said he would vote YES to the resolution.
This blog was written by Sandy Delicker. Sandy is the chair of Americans for Prosperity-Pennsylvania’s Carbon County Chapter. She was joined by other activists from the area, including from the Lehighton 9/12 Project and the Lehigh Valley Patriots to tell Senator Casey to vote YES to S.J. Res.37, which would block the EPA’s Utility MACT Rule.
Click here to send an action alert to Senator Casey to vote to STOP UTILITY MACT!
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