Posted on 08/08/2009 6:29:05 AM PDT by Son House
REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. (AP) - Rural voters are pressing two Minnesota congressmen for their support of a climate-change bill that could hurt small farmers.
Reps. Collin Peterson and Tim Walz took heated questions during a panel discussion at the annual Farmfest, which draws thousands of farmers and rural voters to Redwood Falls.
Peterson, the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, told audience members he voted for the bill only because he knew it wouldn't become law immediately. He says it needs more work.
Walz says the U.S. needs to find new ways to produce energy, including using coal and nuclear power, to keep jobs from going overseas.
Farmfest kicks off
http://www.dglobe.com/event/article/id/25846/
Peterson, the chair of the House Ag Committee, does not expect the pace to slow, as lawmakers continue to grapple with economy and health care regulation bills.
“We’ve been very busy, and I expect to be in the fall,” Peterson said.
Walz, who was a teacher in Mankato before being elected in Minnesota’s First District, agreed with Peterson on the rapid pace of legislation. “Thank God I supervised the lunchroom for 20 years. I’m prepared for total chaos,” he said.
Peterson and Walz, also an agriculture committee member, haven’t been directly involved in the health care regulation debate, but are meeting with stakeholders during the August recess.
“I’ll see if there’s anything I can support,” Peterson said, adding that none of the four bills that have been introduced and the one pending introduction have his support yet.
Change, transparency and market reform in health care are needed, Walz said, stressing that medical care decisions under new health care regulations must remain between a patient and their doctor. “This (legislation) is to bring market reform,” he said. “No market can function without referees.”
Farmfest kicks off
http://www.dglobe.com/event/article/id/25846/
On cap and trade
The real cost to agricultural production by the new cap-and-trade legislation, and its efforts to address climate change, is troubling, Peterson said.
Cap and trade refers to a policy of capping emissions but providing some flexibility in complying with the cap, including the option to “trade” — buy and sell — allowances under the cap.
Agricultural economists have evaluated and estimated the costs to be somewhere between no cost and a 4.5 percent increase under the House-passed legislation, Peterson said.
When asked if the Senate legislation, yet to be considered, would be similar to the House bill, Peterson laughed and said, “I have no idea. The Senate does as the Senate does.”
Farmers are likely exposed to much more cost change due to speculation by investors in the oil market than from the cap-and-trade legislation, Walz said. He noted that diesel fuel was up 41 cents a gallon since it passed the House. “You are under a lot more pressure from speculators than under this bill,” he said.
It’s a messy process
Walz asked constituents to engage themselves in the legislative process, adding that key issues like health care regulation cannot be a win-lose situation.
“These bills are not done, this is a messy, democratic process,” he said. “It’s not an ‘I win and you lose’ situation, we have to all win.”
“Thank God I supervised the lunchroom for 20 years. I’m prepared for total chaos,”
I wonder if the good congressman realizes running a legislative process is different from running lunchroom.
Unfortunately Tim Waltz is my socialist-fascist-commie pig bastard, supporting down to a tee, any demoRAT party bill brought forth. I call his Washington DC office and his Mankato office at least on a weekly basis, and vehemently argue & stress my conservative concerns to his libtard staffers. All to no avail!!! Waltz & the demoRATs are hard-core socialist-fascist-commie pigs!!!
The good news is, I don’t think “cap and trade” can pass before the 2010 elecions. It’s widely viewed by the voters as a big tax, and rightly so.
It’s absolutely a power grab, unnecessary, and will have no discernible effect on the global temperature. It has the added “advantage” that we simply won’t have enough energy for our economy to grow properly.
I understand that Rep. Peterson was given some additional funding for pet projects by Nancy Pelosi in exchange for his yes vote on cap and trade. His comment that cap and trade could be fixed later is disingenuous. If the bill was flawed why did he vote for it in the first place?
Obviously your well aware Walz ran in 2006 to get us out of Iraq, yet he later supported funding the war, wonder why his Democrat supporters have given him a fee pass on that one? Thank God he retired from National Guard Service, one less poor judgment individual giving our Troops orders
Walz did vote against the 2008 Bail-out bill, because enough Republicans supported it, but then his true Socialist Agenda surfaced in supporting the !(not)Stimulus bill.
After the government regulates farming out of existence there’s not going to be any lunchroom.
You bet he is an advocate for a radical socialist agenda. I have had numerous debates with his DC & Mankato libtard schmucks on the other end, and they always refer to his vote against the Oct 2008 TARP & the bail-outs AT THAT TIME only. To which I reply, he voted for the Spring 2008 tax stimulus $160B bill which stimulated nothing. His vote against the Oct 2008 TARP was just a cover for his pending election, since the DimWits & Rinos had enough votes to pass it anyway. He voted for the $800B Porkulous bill in Feb 2009. He voted for the $410B Omnibus spending bill. He voted for CRAP 'n TAX job killer bill just last month. He is a complete, 100%, demoRAT socialist-fascist-commie pig. I have used these exact words in my phone confrontations with his libtard staffers, which usually means they hang up immediately when I finish the words "...commie-pig". Sometimes I call back and say, gee, we must have had a bad connection, I got cut off. I love to tweak these bastards, since I know that none of this is getting thru to schmuck libtard rat Walz anyway.
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