July 30, 2014

My name is Bradley Charles Lewis - President of Westmoreland Energy Services and President of Friends of Coal West. I am a registered professional mining engineer. My comments today are presented on behalf of Friends of Coal West and my employer Westmoreland Coal Company; a top 10 coal company and the oldest coal company in America. We have been mining coal since 1854, which is before the Civil War. I am proud to be a coal miner, I am proud of the contributions the coal mining industry has made to America's greatness and I am proud to be an American. I am here today to respectfully request EPA to withdraw the Clean Power Plan. My top 10 reasons are:10.) A 375 page document is not the answer. We need a laserfocused plan that can be logically explained in less than 50 pages. 9.) Decimating the American economy while only reducing less than 1`)/0 of the global carbon pollutants over 20 years makes no sense. 8.) The Plan is nothing more than a symbolic gesture of reducing carbon by the US, and to expect the rest of the world to follow suit is delusional. I assure you this from first-hand experience working in the international market for the past 24 years. 7.) The Plan gambles our future on renewables that have repeatedly failed throughout the world because they are uneconomical and unreliable. If renewables were the right solution for the future, we would not need for political advocates, subsidies and regulatory mandates.6.) Americans use more energy per capita and have enjoyed the

lowest cost energy of anybody in the world. Only coal and gas power plants have the proven track record of providing large scale, reliable electricity for decades. 5.) Energy is the industry that powers all other industries. The Plan callously disregards the impact of increased energy costs that have a domino impact on every step in the supply chain resulting increased costs of our goods and services, reduced competiveness and job losses. Americans need to get back to work and stay working. 4.) The lion's share of the cost to generate electricity is the fuel cost. Historically, coal price annual increases have been modest. Conversely, gas prices have fluctuated wildly over the past 40 years. 3.) The US utility industry has made significant progress over the past 40 years in substantially reducing total emissions while at the same time significantly increasing coal use. 2.) A centralized governmental energy plan has never worked. The Plan handcuffs the free market's ability to use American ingenuity to solve problems. 1.) "All the Above" is not what Americans need or want. I do not want two cups and a string, a rotary dial phone, a land line phone with 20 speed dial buttons and a smart phone (i.e., all the above). I want the cheapest, most reliable smart phone with outstanding features. I also want the smart phone equivalent in electricity and that is increasingly cleaner coal fired electricity.Coal is energy dense and our most abundant global energy

resource. Coal fired electricity has energized hospitals, water filtration plants, food processing plants, factories, urbanization, education and the information age. I advocate for continuing the US trend of the past 40 years of continuously reducing emissions from coal fired plants by allowing the markets to aggressively develop and implement the requisite technologies. Please step back from all the statistics and technical jargon and ask yourself: Is my life better today than it was when I entered this world? If the answer is yes; thank a coal miner.

Thank You and God Bless America !