News
Walden speaks in Enterprise
|
The congressman also stayed to answer questions and he acknowledged that he had introduced a bill to the Senate to give the old U.S. Forest Service building in Wallowa to the city of Wallowa. The city will in turn dedicate the building to the Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center. Executive director of the center, Gwen Trice of Enterprise, announced that the State Historic Preservation Office has declared the building to be an historical site.Walden emphasized the challenges of the national debt, which is now about $1.9 trillion. The problems are how to manage such debt, how to pay for it and when to pay for it, he said. The government is now printing money 10 times faster than anything historical, he said, while China is buying up commodities such as gold and also oil reserves. As far as being economical and efficient with the budget, “The federal government could learn a lot from Oregon,” Walden said. The Cap and Trade Act has passed Congress. It assigns cost to the carbon footprints that firms leave. It will charge them $25 to $28 per ton of carbon emitted. PacificCorp, which serves 553,000 Oregonians, will in turn see a 17.9 percent increase in cost of generating electricity as a result, Walden said. The biomass provision will exclude most of the woody biomass that we have, Walden said. The only woody biomass deemed as renewable energy would be that which is a late successional stand, but not dead or imminently infested, he said. The hydro power provision of the act calls the power produced by all current dams after 1988 as renewable energy. However, it lists power from new dams as renewable energy only if the dams do not affect the water level behind them. Walden offered an amendment to that, but it was voted down in committee, he said. In another area where it looks like his efforts will be defeated, Walden said, “The county timber payments are going to go away.” Among those asking questions was Evelyn Swart of Joseph. She asked, “What’s the best way to let you know what I’m thinking?” Walden said the best way is to e-mail him or write letters, call him or attend meetings. He said that people spoke up on the Cap and Trade Act issue. Out of 1,000 responses, only 44 were in favor of it. Walden can be contacted through his website at www.walden.house.gov, by mail at 1210 Longworth Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20515, or by phone at 202-225-6230. |
