 What happens when coal companies go broke and what happens to the pensions of their workers? When coal mines go bankrupt or go into financial difficulty, workers and retirees should not have to live in fear that they will lose their retirement benefits. Wall Street vulture funds that take over coal companies like Patriot Coal, Alpha Natural Resources and Walter Energy should not be allowed to break the promises that were made to coal miners with respect to their pension and retiree health care benefits. When a worker is promised a pension, no one should be allowed to renege on that promise by pulling the rug out from underneath that worker. You don't like people have very little faith in the system. If a promise was made to you 40 years ago and you worked hard and you gave up wage increases or health care benefits in order to protect your pension and then at the end of your career when you are retired somebody pulls the plug and says oh thanks for giving up all those other benefits but now we're going to cut your pension 30, 40 or 50 percent. That is not only is it unacceptable, it really destroys faith in any system, how can anybody believe any promise made to anybody when those pensions are being cut. Now many of you know that United Mine Workers pension plan is on the brink of failure. Some 90,000 workers and retirees are at risk of having their pension benefits slashed by 30, 40 or 50 percent. In the Senate I have been working hard to do everything I can to protect those pensions and the pensions not only of minors but of other workers throughout this country who are in a similar predicament. Our Clean Work Adjust transition act would fully fund the United Mine Workers pension plan by using excess money from the Abandoned Mine Land Fund. By keeping our pensions promise act would not only help mine workers in Kentucky but workers who are being threatened with pension cuts all over this country. Alright now here's something that is interesting. Several senators both republicans and democrats have been fighting to protect these pensions Sadly Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has now the leader of the United States Senate. He is in a very strong position to protect the retirement benefits of pensions of Kentucky coal miners. Now last December an agreement was struck by a bipartisan group of senators and members of Congress to include a plan in the budget agreement that would have fixed this problem for coal miners but at the last minute Senator Mitch McConnell removed it from the budget deal. Now I honestly do not know why he would have done it especially coming from a state where so many workers here will be hurt with significant reductions in their pensions. So alright but in any case clearly that behavior is unacceptable. We cannot we will not allow the pension and retirement benefits of the United Mine Workers of America to be slashed. Senator McConnell should drop his opposition to this agreement and save the pension benefits of more than 90,000 coal miners in this country and he should do it right now.