McConnell dares Obama to visit coal miners

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called on President Obama to visit Coal Country to hear from miners who will be affected by a regulation aimed at reducing carbon emissions.

“Mr. President: the campaign trips can wait. You’ve recently expressed an interest in hanging around middle-class Americans for a change,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “Here’s your chance. Come on down to Kentucky and talk to the coal miners.”

{mosads}McConnell has been critical of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) announcement that it intends to regulate and reduce the carbon emissions of power plants. He says this is the latest blow in the administration’s War on Coal.

The EPA has held listening tours around the country, but McConnell complains that none since the regulation announcement will be held in Kentucky.

“The sad truth is, officials in Washington don’t want to come anywhere near Coal Country,” McConnell said. “They just want to impose their regulations, hear some quote-unquote ‘feedback’ from the echo chamber in order to check a box, and then move right along to the next front in their War on Coal. They don’t even want to talk to the very people they intend to put out of a job.”

McConnell has introduced the Coal Country Protection Act, which would prevent the administration from implementing the regulation unless it can prove that no jobs will be lost and that energy costs won’t increase.