It has been called “the boondoggle that won’t die,” a decades’ old provision within the massive defense appropriations bill that requires a large U.S. Air Force and Army base 4,000 miles away in Germany to heat its facilities with anthracite coal mined in northeast Pennsylvania.

Although the utility at the military base in the small town of Kaiserslauntern in southwest Germany could readily purchase cheaper domestic coal or natural gas to fire its boilers, a legislative mandate dating back to the post-World War II era requires it to use 5,000 to 9,000 tons of Pennsylvania coal shipped overseas. Since 1972 each Department of Defense Appropriations Act has included an earmark requiring the Pentagon to purchase this coal.

 Related: The $20 Million Political Boondoggle That Just Won’t Die

Taxpayers for Common Sense and about a half dozen other government watchdog groups have railed against the provision, which costs about $20 million a year, as one of the worst examples of waste in the budget. And late on Wednesday the House was scheduled to consider an amendment to the fiscal 2016 defense appropriations bill to finally knock it out.

Two Californians -- Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman and Republican Rep. Tom McClintock – have co-sponsored an amendment that would finally eliminate the resilient sop to Pennsylvania’s long-withering coal industry.

“It’s about time we stopped burning dirty coal – and taxpayer dollars – to power this military base,” Huffman said in a statement.