November 9, 2011

The Honorable Joe Manchin
United States Senate
Hart Senate Office Bldg., Room 303
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Manchin:

The Utility Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO, represents men and women who proudly deliver vital services every day to fellow Americans. We have members working in the electric industry across the country — responsible for generating, delivering and restoring power — keeping America running.

I write to you today, on behalf of the UWUA, in strong support of the Fair Compliance Act of 2011 on Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology (Utility MACT) and the Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CASPR). This bipartisan legislation does not alter the stringency of the Environmental Protection Agency 1s(EPA) Utility MACT or CASPR rules in any way. The legislation simply extends the compliance deadlines of these rules to January 1, 2017. We know that the current Utility MACT and CASPR deadlines will not provide adequate time for many U.S. utility companies to comply. They will be forced to close plants and lay off workers across the country. And as these plants shut their doors, the stability and reliability of the electric grid will be greatly jeopardized.

This legislation does not simply buy time. It seeks to ensure that utility companies use this extension wisely by requiring that they submit an implementation plan that lays out how they intend to retrofit and retire plants to ensure compliance before the deadline. Requiring these implementation plans will not only help safeguard the reliability of the electric grid, but will also greatly reduce the job losses due to plant closures. And because the technology required for Utility MACT and CASPR compliance is often the same, it makes sense for these deadlines to be the same.

Not only will this legislation prevent job loss, it will promote job creation. Retrofitting plants with the technology required for compliance with Utility MACT and CSAPT will create construction industry jobs, an industry that currently has an unemployment rate of 13.7%. Tn addition, plants properly retrofitted, will need additional workers to run the plants, thus creating thousands of new, permanent jobs in the utility industry.

This legislation provides a logical approach to implementation of the Utility MACT and CASPR rules. Most importantly, this legislation achieves the same goal while sparing thousands of American jobs and creating thousands more new jobs. At a time when millions of Americans are already unemployed, I urge you to support the Fair Compliance Act of 2011.

Sincerely yours,

Michael Langford
UWUA National President