Congressman Morgan Griffith is a Republican from Salem who is also co-chair of the Congressional Coal Caucus. He has a bill that will be considered on the House floor this week that would change the rules for when a power plant is required to shut down. It's called the Power Plant Reliability Act.
"When you take existing coal and natural gas plants and you shut them down or you limit them as a result of policies, and people may like those policies. But when you do that, which is what the Democrats have advocated doing in numerous administrations and when they were in control, you're going to make electricity prices go up," Griffith said.
Critics say policies in West Virginia that keep coal-fired power plants up and running are driving up power bills in Southwest Virginia.
Lee Francis at the League of Conservation Voters says Griffith’s bill does nothing more than prolong the use of fossil fuels.
"It's really a handout to the fossil fuel industry. When they are talking about power plant reliability here, they are talking about keeping these aging, antiquated coal plants running past their retirement dates. Whenever you do that," Francis said, "the coal magnates and the utilities that are running those power plants do well, but everybody else has to pay more for their electricity."
He says the best-case scenario is that the bill goes nowhere in the Senate.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
