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Troublesome bill Dear Editor:
I am a member of the United Mine Workers of America, an organization with a diverse membership representing thousands of workers in Pennsylvania as well as coal miners. Our jobs, and the jobs of thousands of other Pennsylvanians, depend on our state’s ability to continue to use coal to produce affordable electricity.
Affordable electricity gives us an advantage of competing for jobs and industry that are essential to economic growth and prosperity. More than 60 percent of Pennsylvania’s electricity is generated using coal, furthermore a recent study by economists at Penn State University found that access to low-cost electricity from coal helps create jobs and reduces energy costs for consumers. According to the Penn State study, coal production and jobs resulting from access to affordable electricity will be responsible for as many as 298,000 Pennsylvania jobs by the year 2010 and about $11.6 billion in household earnings for working families in our state.
I was gravely concerned when I read that Sen. Jim Jeffords from Vermont – a state that does not use coal to produce electricity and has the third highest energy costs in the nation – has introduced a bill that could make coal uneconomic to use. His bill would add another layer of regulations to the hundreds of pages of regulations in the Clean Air Act. The Jeffords bill imposes strict new emissions control standards that far exceed the existing ones, and requires utilities to meet the new requirements in a very short timeframe.
If this bill passes, energy costs will go up and Pennsylvanians will suffer. The U.S. Energy Information Agency says the Jeffords bill will increase energy costs by 33 percent by the year 2020, and reduce economic output.
The Jeffords bill is a bad idea at a time when our country needs affordable and reliable electricity to remain competitive in a global economy. I urge the Committee on Environment and Public Works, including our own Sen. Specter, to vote “no” on the Jeffords bill. It is important to our country and to the people of Pennsylvania that we find a reasonable way to continue to clean up our environment without endangering jobs and the economy.
Richard P. Kulick, legislative director, UMWA