Coal Industry

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on another matter, one of the untold stories of the Obama administration was the dramatic geographic inequality that deepened on the Democrats' watch.

From 2010 to 2016, the Nation's largest metro areas captured nearly 75 percent of the new jobs and 90 percent of the population growth. Big cities did OK, but unfair and regressive policies, like the War on Coal, left many other communities--smaller cities, small towns, and rural areas--literally in the dust.

Homegrown American energy, including coal, has supported entire communities in Kentucky and throughout the country for generations, but even before he took office, President Obama declared a war on coal. Here is what he said: ``If somebody wants to build a coal-fired power plant, they can; it is just that it will bankrupt them.''

Of course, that approach didn't only hurt American businesses, it hurt American workers. In 2009, 23,000 Kentuckians made their living mining coal. By the end of 2016, that number had dropped to barely more than 6,500. It went from 23,000 to 6,500 during the Obama years. Nearly three-quarters of the State's coal jobs were gone in the span of one Presidency.

So since the earliest days of the Trump administration, we have prioritized ending the War on Coal and trying to repair the damage. We have repealed hostile regulations and created tailwinds instead of headwinds for America's energy dominance. But 8 years of damage is not easy to unwind. Many coal communities are still suffering. There are more mine closures and more bankruptcies. Workers' paychecks and retirees' pensions are thrown into uncertainty. So our work continues.

A few years back, I worked to secure permanent health benefits for thousands of retirees. Yesterday, a bipartisan group here in the Senate, led by Senators Capito, Manchin, and me, took a major step toward addressing the emergency of underfunded pensions for thousands of miners, retirees, and their families. We introduced new legislation to expand that healthcare fix to include 13,000 more miners and protect the pensions of nearly 92,000 miners into the future.

Earlier this week, I personally raised the subject with President Trump. We discussed the importance of working toward a solution for these retirees.

Just yesterday, I hosted Kentucky miners here in the Capitol to hear their concerns and discuss a potential path forward.

I have spent my entire career in the Senate fighting for all Kentuckians. I have worked to protect coal communities from bad ideas and to promote their future, and I will keep working with the Trump administration and my colleagues on both sides to support our mining families.

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