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Shuster fighting for local miners

By Rebekah Sungala 3 min read

The Herald-Standard recently published an article and an editorial regarding the Reclaim Act, a measure involving abandoned mine land reclamation that misled the readers on the issue.

You are not going to find a stronger advocate in elected office that is more focused on fighting the war on coal and defending our coal miners in southwestern Pennsylvania than Congressman Shuster. A major reason why I work for him is because I know many coal miners who have been impacted by Obama’s war on coal, and Shuster is a leader in Congress in working for each and every one of them.

The article and editorial were unfairly critical about Congressman Shuster not yet cosponsoring this specific legislation. As our office stated to this newspaper, “Congressman Shuster has not cosponsored the legislation in its current form due to concerns that the funds could potentially not be used for their originally intended purpose-abandoned mine land reclamation. He has expressed these concerns to the office handling the measure, He is certainly open to supporting the legislation in the future if revisions are made.”

Congressman Shuster doesn’t support flawed legislation that won’t help our region as much as it should. We don’t want to see the legislation be implemented with the funding meant for projects that benefit our coal miners, go to projects that would not help them. Congressman Shuster and his colleagues in Congress in this region all want the best possible outcome for our coal miners.

This paper relied on one source for its flawed criticism, and it is unfortunate that the person quoted left out that he is in close contact with our office and has spoken with and met with staff several times as we work with him on the policies contained in the bill. In fact, Congressman Shuster’s legislative director recently spoke to him and he thanked us for the update and for letting him know we are in continued contact with the office that sponsored the measure regarding potential revisions that will help southwestern Pennsylvanians.

Congressman Shuster is a fighter for the coal industry and that will never stop. He has introduced his own legislation to require congressional approval of EPA regulations hurting the coal industry, he has helped pass measures that cut EPA funding, and he has sponsored several pieces of legislation that eliminate job killing regulations. He’s done this while at the same time still rejecting President Obama’s failed policies.

The article and editorial about the reclaim act chose to ignore this proven record, and as stated earlier, the office continues to be in contact with the bill sponsor and hopes to see changes that will improve this legislation for our region.

Rebekah Sungala is the field representative for Bill Shuster.

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