Beech Tree News Network

In the last three years of the Biden administration we have seen rising prices, record levels of illegal immigration, and communities flooded with illegal drugs. To make matters worse, the Biden administration has taken aim at the very heart of our communities across Western Kentucky. Recently, Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued harsh regulations that threaten to shut down nearly all coal-fired power plants across the nation. 

The Obama-Biden Washington war on coal is nothing new. Thanks to these increasingly strict mandates, coal production has been declining dramatically for well over a decade and has forced many coal-fired power plants to close, eliminating good-paying jobs and threatening national security in the process. This has sent shockwaves through our Western Kentucky communities and through communities across the Commonwealth as nearly 90 percent of all of Kentucky’s electricity comes from fossil fuel power plants. 

Electricity that comes from coal-fired power plants lowers energy costs for families and fuels economic activity that lifts up rural communities with good paying jobs. Kentucky is well positioned to garner huge investments in manufacturing, industrial processing, and data centers as companies look to return to the U.S. All these industries need massive amounts of reliable and affordable electricity to reach their potential. 

With increasing power demands, we must be looking at ways to expand energy production, while not taking dependable power offline.  America is blessed with an abundance of natural resources that fuel economic prosperity for our nation and across the Commonwealth. Yet, Biden’s war on fossil fuels will all but ensure that the U.S. loses our competitive advantage for job creating industries. This short-sighted ruling from the Biden administration only makes this problem worse while undermining reliability of the electric grid and taking away key jobs from right here in our communities. 

America must become energy independent once again, and have an all of the above energy future that includes coal-fired plants right here in Kentucky. That’s why I recently introduced a Congressional Review Act resolution with Congressman Mike Collins (GA-10) to reverse the Biden administration’s anti-coal and anti-American energy policies. 

This resolution directly opposes the Biden administration’s mandates that force unproven technologies to be used in American plants. The resolution opposes Biden’s misguided rule that makes regulatory compliance with the mandate so expensive that coal plants may have no other choice than to be forced to shut down. 

By standing up against the overreaching Biden administration we can ensure that we have the energy needed to power our future growth. We can fuel this growth by actively utilizing our great energy workforce in Kentucky and across the nation. Which is why I introduced the Nuclear for Brownfields Site Preparation Act, that I am happy to say passed the House of Representatives as part of the Atomic Energy Advancement Act. 

This bill helps to reform the permitting process to convert brownfields sites into sites of future nuclear power generation. Currently, the key obstacle facing brownfield site redevelopment is the burdensome federal regulatory process. Permitting and licensing these brownfield sites for nuclear power can be highly bureaucratic and frustrating, taking ten years or longer to complete the process and build the plant. These regulations prevent investments in our communities and reduce our energy independence. My bill will help these issues by streamlining the process.

I am committed to ensuring we have a robust energy future where we can keep the lights on for American families and keep energy prices low in our communities while ensuring a sustainable energy future for our children. This begins with securing our energy future and pursuing an all of the above energy approach that does not abandon our communities, but embraces them as we move to the next generation of energy production. Through my work as a senior member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee I am committed to ensuring that Kentucky has a seat at the table for the future of energy production in our country.