Scott Swanson
Of The New Era
Peter DeFazio is feeling Oregonians? pain as he drives around his Fourth District.
Particularly, apparently, at the gas pump.
The congressman stopped at The New Era Thursday, Aug. 18 during a swing through Linn County, which included town meetings in Brownsville and Albany and a visit to the new training center and healing garden at Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital.
Defazio, who last week announced the reintroduction of legislation to address skyrocketing gas prices, told how he pulled off Interstate 5 in Rice Hill recently to fill up his Ford Explorer with gas.
?It cost over $50 ($54, one of his aides confirmed later),? he said, as he told the story during his stop in Sweet Home.
?This could potentially have a horrible impact on the economy,? he said of the surging fuel costs Linn County residents are feeling at the gas station.
?The unfortunate thing is that the so-called energy bill passed by Congress does nothing to help.?
DeFazio has criticized the energy bill, signed into law by President Bush, saying it will increase the United States? dependence on foreign oil over the next 20 years and will do nothing to increase fuel efficiency in vehicles to reduce reliance on foreign oil.
?I?ve introduced an alternative bill that would impose a windfall tax on oil companies to decrease the incentive to gouge customers,? he said.
His bill, DeFazio said, would authorize President Bush to stabilize oil and gas prices by imposing price caps or other mechanisms in response to market manipulation, and it urges Bush to file a trade complaint with the World Trade Organization against OPEC for illegally colluding to raise oil prices.
It would also encourage development and use of alternative fuels.
?We need to invest in new fuels and technology,? DeFazio said. ?We need to make some major changes and we?re not getting there.?
DeFazio, 58, who is in his 10th term as representative of the Fourth District, which includes Linn, Benton, Lane, Coos, Douglas, Curry and Josephine counties, also said he is seeking ways to fight crime and drugs, to aid the local economy by creating jobs and increasing timber harvest in the naitonal forest, and to help retirees.
?The enduring issue for Sweet Home and my district is the economy,? he said. ?A lot of my efforts in Washington have been working with local and state governments to create jobs ? putting people to work.
DeFazio noted that the $286 billion highway bill signed into law by President Bush on Aug. 10 includes $2.7 billion for Oregon over the next five years, which will provide jobs and stimulate local economies.
?The great thing is we don?t have to borrow money to do it,? he said. ?It?s already in the Highway Trust Fund.?
DeFazio said he?s also continuing to work to get more of the national forests opened to logging.
?There are tens of thousands of acres of second-growth timber that need thinning,? he said. ?I?ve been trying to get both the past as well as the present administration reconnected with this issue. We?re still in the Clinton forest plan which, I predicted from the beginning, wouldn?t work.?
The government, he said, has traditionally focused on going after the largest trees, ?where most mills would be thrilled to have trees that are 12 to 16 inches at breast height.?
DeFazio, who sits on the House Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health, said that trying to get action out of the U.S. Forest Service to move on the 6 billion board feet of timber he said needs to be thinned ?is kind of like trying to turn a very large ship with a very small tiller.
?I?m continuing to pound away at that,? he said.
The congressman said he expects the fight over the privitazation of Social Security to be fully engaged next month.
He also predicted that seniors will soon be seeing ?piles of mail? marketing different health plans this fall, a result of the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit.
He said he expects people will be confused by the variety of prices, deductibles and plans that will be thrust upon senior citizens.
?I think they could have come up with one standard plan,? he said.
DeFazio said he?s also concerned about the level of law enforcement in the state.
?We have half the state police we had 25 years ago when the state was half the size it is now,? he said, adding that he blames part of that problem on the state initiative that took gas tax funding away from the state police.
He said that the federal government needs to take bigger steps to address the methamphetamine problem plaguing the state.
The law that Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed Aug. 16, which will make Oregon the first state to require prescriptions for everyday cold and allergy medications that can be converted into methamphetamine, will ?make a difference in local stuff,? DeFazio said, but the real problem is an international one.
?Mexico is buying twice the precursors (to meth) that they need,? he said. ?Our government needs to take steps to restrict how that stuff is sold on the world market.?
He said the federal government should also invest more funding in treatment and prevention of meth use, particularly in young people.
?I think there are some positive steps we can take,? he said. ?Oregon?s steps are baby steps.?
Scott Swanson can be reached at [email protected] or by phone at 367-2135.