Donnelly Speaks about Importance of Coal for Hoosier Families, Businesses
Advocates All-In Approach to Energy Policy
Washington, D.C.—Senator Joe Donnelly spoke at a Coal Technology Symposium today, where he talked about the importance of coal providing affordable and reliable energy for Hoosier families and businesses while playing a vital role in an all-in approach to our nation’s energy policy. Indiana is the third highest state in coal use, and Donnelly emphasized it will continue to play a critical role in Hoosier job creation. One of the participants in the symposium was Angila Retherford, Vice President, Environmental Affairs and Corporate Sustainability, at Evansville, Indiana-based Vectren, who attended as a guest of Donnelly’s.
During his remarks, Donnelly said, in part, “…We rely in Indiana right now for 80 percent of our electricity from coal and we have over 6,000 Hoosiers who every day earn their living from coal-related activities. So this is an industry of critical importance to us. And on a per capita basis, we have more manufacturing jobs than any other state. That is who we are, that’s our footprint. And in order for manufacturing to be able to get done, we need realistic power costs, we need realistic energy costs.”
Donnelly continued, “I support clean coal. I support developing the best technologies available. I don’t support putting us in a place where we’re trying to meet a standard that is technologically not even feasible at this point. So why don’t we work together as a group, try to develop technology that leads the world… I am all-in to try to be a good partner to create more jobs, to create more opportunity; with people working, everything works. And part of people working is realistic energy costs. I am all-in energy guy.”
Watch Senator Donnelly's remarks here.
Donnelly joined Senators Heidi Heitkamp, Joe Manchin and Mark Warner as they talked about their efforts to support coal-based power and encourage new technologies that are making coal energy production increasingly clean and efficient. In addition to presentations from the Senators, leading experts from government, industry, academia and environmental groups gave updates on current and near-term technology options for coal-based power. Panel sessions during the symposium covered topics including the existing coal fleet and energy-efficient technologies; carbon capture, utilization and storage; international collaboration; and coal’s critical role in our future energy mix.
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