On July 30, 2014, Congressman Andy Barr joined members of the Kentucky delegation, including U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, Senator Rand Paul, Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, and former coal miner and America’s Got Talent star, Jimmy Rose, a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps from Pineville, Kentucky, at a press conference in front of the U.S. Capitol. Barr discussed how all Americans are negatively impacted by the EPA’s disastrous regulatory policies. 

Transcript of Congressman Barr’s Remarks: 
 
I want to thank the Republican Leader, the Dean of our delegation chairman Rogers, Senator Paul, my colleagues from West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and all of these members who are members of the Congressional Coal Caucus, for their leadership in defending an industry that literally powers America.
 
And I especially want to thank Jimmy Rose, a fellow Kentuckian who has put a face on this issue and I want to especially recognize the thousands of Kentucky coal miners and their families who are out of work because of this Administration’s senseless and lacking of commonsense attack and war on coal.
 
And I want to tell you, I come from a district, yes, 90 percent of Kentucky power comes from coal, but I come from a district that’s not a mining district.  Jimmy is from Eastern Kentucky where the immediate effect of the war on coal was felt by all those 7,000 laid-off coal miners.  But I want to tell you that this impacts districts all around this country that are not mining congressional districts. 
 
It’s about the auto dealer, whose sales are off 50 percent. It’s about the hospital whose bills are going through the roof.  It’s about the security company that had to lay off all its workers.  It about the fertilizer and seed company that can’t get the sales anymore because there’s no reclamation work.  It’s because of the mining equipment manufacturers, it’s about the truckers, it’s about the working men and women of America who are going to see their cost of living go through the roof as a result of this Administration’s senseless policies.  So let me just encourage other Members of Congress who are not with us here today to stand up for American energy, to stand up for the working families of this country and to end this War on Coal.  Thank you very much.

 

Click here for more pictures fromt he press conference.