Mannix Porterfield
Register-Herald Reporter
October 22, 2008 10:07 pm
—
Earmarks that members of Congress use to divert federal dollars into their districts is a process that has Rep. Nick Rahall’s blessing, so long as certain conditions are met.
“It should be open, transparent,” Rahall says.
“Earmarks to me are seed money that often get a project started. It’s not the final conclusion but rather often shows the importance of this project, and, I stress, the local support that it has.”
In his meeting with The Register-Herald editorial board, the veteran 3rd District congressman acknowledged some earmarks have been frivolous.
“Just like every barrel of apples, there’s bad ones in there and we’ve seen those come to light,” the Democratic leader said.
“But let’s not let throw out all the apples just because of a few bad ones.”
Congress is under the obligation of the Constitution to initiate public funding and the earmarks process is part of the equation, he said, but there must be ample questions asked and proper identification of the projects in mind over a thorough examination in committee.
“We are better able to judge the needs and local support for a project in our congressional district than any president of the United States,” he said.
Rahall has focused his earmarks almost exclusively on highway projects — the King Coal Highway and Coalfields Expressway, to name a couple.
“There are numerous projects over southern West Virginia that have improved the lives of the people,” he said.
Before any project leaves his Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, a questionnaire must be filled out, he noted.
Rahall remembers the Ronald Reagan presidency and the conservative Republican’s ability to argue vehemently in the working hours with his chief political adversary, liberal House Speaker Tip O’Neill.
After business hours, the two sat down to slake their thirst with a beer or two, or played golf together.
And that level of camaraderie, the ability to set aside ideological differences for some shared moments of relaxation, is missing along the Potomac these days, Rahall says.
“We do need to work across party aisles and philosophical divide much more than we have,” he said.
“Now, that’s not to say we must agree 100 percent on everything. That would be bad. We will always have disagreements, but we must agree to disagree in a respectful manner.”
Rahall cited the recent $750 billion rescue package for Wall Street as an illustration of how partisan differences can be discarded and both parties can agree on legislation.
“It was not the perfect bill,” he said. “Nobody I can recall got up and said, ‘I like everything in this, I’m 100 percent for it.’ It was just the fear of inaction that was the driving force.”
Much has been learned from the failed health care proposal the Clintons proffered when the couple occupied the White House, Rahall says.
Regardless of who wins the presidency, Rahall predicts access to affordable health care is one top issue that is bound to be assigned a priority next year.
“It’s a shame that we, as a super power nation, have some 37 million working Americans uninsured,” he said.
“It’s vital that we provide guaranteed, affordable, accessible and quality health care to all working Americans. It’s going to be tough and it’s going to be expensive. I hope we can address it in one fell swoop. It may be we have to address it incrementally through reforms in Medicare and Medicaid.”
Rahall says the government should negotiate with drug makers to bring down prices, just as is done with the Veterans Administration.
A hallmark of Rahall’s tenure has been his focus on what he fondly labels the “Three Ts.”
By that, he simply means transportation, technology and tourism, all of which he views as critical to southern West Virginia’s economic future.
Given the advance of high-tech and its ever-increasing role in business, Rahall says technology must be considered when asphalt is laid.
“What I call smart technology,” he said. “When we lay the roadbeds today, we also at the same time lay the infrastructure for the technology, for the wires, the cables, that are necessary to go underground so we don’t have to come back and re-dig later, thereby adding to the costs,” the Beckley resident said.
Through the Rahall Transportation Institute, he said, an inventory is examining what small tech firms are capable of doing and ways of helping them expand to reach new markets.
In a technology corridor program he launched with a private foundation, Rahall said he has succeeded in using the expertise of technology centers either up and running now, or will be in the future, at Bluefield, Concord University, the airport in Lewisburg, Pinecrest Park in Beckley, the Raleigh County airport and in Hinton and Summersville.
A key item comes in the next Congress when the federal highway program is up for reauthorization.
“The current highway trust fund is bankrupt,” Rahall said.
“The high price of gas has caused people to buy less gas, travel less, and it has meant less revenue into that trust fund. We just had to borrow $8 billion from the general trust fund. How we’re going to fund our new bill, which I hope to obtain earmarks from, is a big question.”
Lawmakers are eyeing myriad options to make the fund solvent.
In West Virginia, the congressman pointed out, the most challenging terrain in the country makes road-building an expensive undertaking — about $25 million a mile, as opposed to the far cheaper costs of doing the same work in flat country.
Even some parts of West Virginia lend themselves to road building more than southern counties, Rahall noted, and this needs to come into play when the state is putting up its match share with federal dollars.
“We deserve a fair share of that additional money down south and the local people should rise up and say that,” he said.
Just as was done two decades ago, Rahall is calling for a bipartisan commission to take a long look at Social Security, now that the baby boomers are easing into retirement.
“I’m not saying there’s a severe problem in Social Security at the current time,” he said. “I’m not saying that at all. But I’m saying we need whatever tinkering we need to do with it around the edges in the future. It’s too political an issue. And every time, despite our pledges to not make it look like the other side is trying to attack Social Security, it happens.”
One Web site indicates there won’t be enough workers paying into the fund by 2030 to bankroll the monthly checks of recipients.
“We ought to have that commission make recommendations to us as what to do,” Rahall said.
Provided they are domestic, Rahall wants to see America employ all avenues of energy production — coal, natural gas, oil, wind, hydro, solar, geo-thermal.
“That’s the way to free ourselves from reliance on foreign oil and to address the high costs at the pump,” he said.
“Currently, the moratorium on off-shore drilling has been lifted. Congress failed to act, therefore the moratorium that was in place falls now with the president’s decision to lift that moratorium. It’s open season for drilling.”
Rahall defended mountaintop mining, pointing out that, as a freshman in 1977, he served on a House panel that wrote the historic Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act that President Carter signed that summer.
The law struck a compromise between environmentalists who wanted to outlaw strip mining and industry leaders who sought to maintain the practice.
Under the bill, operators could get a variance from the approximate original contour if they produced improved better post-mining uses as part of a bonding proposal before any mining took place.
“Over the years, for the most part, industry has been abiding by that law,” Rahall said.
“Again, there have been some abuses and those are in the courts today as we speak. SMCRA has been a good law and I fully support it. But it must be said that those lawsuits pending today are based on the Clean Water Act, not on SMCRA. Where the lapses have been, have been in the regulatory enforcement where some, not a majority, a very distinct minority, have pushed the envelope a little too far to see how much they can get away with. And now they’re facing lawsuits.
“Mountaintop mining, when done in the proper way, when reclaimed as the law provides for, can provide jobs for our people, not only in the mining process, but it also can provide jobs in the reclamation process for our people.”
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