RSSRep. Hastings cool to global warming fears
Yakima Herald-Republic
E-mail
Print
More 'Local'
- The paraeducator dilemma
- How well did you read last week's YH-R?
- Sunnyside jail escapee caught after three years
- Wilson Building has an old look, but a new life
- City spends $16,000 defending Ensey
- Keeping weight off the bigger challenge
- Chinook Pass closed due to heavy snow, avalanche danger
YAKIMA -- U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings took aim Tuesday at believers in global warming, telling Yakima Rotarians that "the same people" who want to reverse the planet's climb in temperature also want to tear down the dams and prevent a revival of nuclear power.
Hastings acknowledges the planet is heating but said scientists are far from an agreement that humans and their carbon footprint are the main cause.
"Count me as being skeptical," said the Pasco native, who is in his seventh term as representative of the sprawling 4th Congressional District. "Global warming is a political battle."
Hastings has been touring the district nearly nonstop during the two-week Congressional spring recess, which ends next week. His talk at the Southwest Rotary at the Clarion Hotel was unmistakably conservative, and the surest sign yet that Hastings, a Republican, will run for an eighth term against Tri-Cities Democrat George Fearing, who has announced his candidacy.
Hastings, 66, hasn't made a formal announcement but has also said there's no reason to think he won't be running.
Pointing out what he called "inconsistencies" in the environmentalist point of view on energy, Hastings complained that nuclear power using recycled fuel rods isn't viewed as "green," and that hydropower doesn't qualify as renewable under a 2006 voter-approved ballot initiative.
"If solar power and wind generating electricity through a turbine are green, why isn't water running downhill?" said Hastings, referring to the new law, which requires utilities with 25,000 or more customers to meet specific renewable energy goals by 2020.
In his talk, Hastings also criticized the House Democrats' budget bill, which doesn't renew the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts. Set to expire in 2010, the measures cut taxes on dividends, capital gains and inherited wealth while doubling the child tax credit and reducing the marriage penalty. Critics say the cuts benefited the wealthy, drove up taxes on the middle class and did little to help lower-income workers, who don't pay much in taxes anyway.
But Hastings has maintained that the cuts are responsible for the economic recovery after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. To eliminate them would be to raise taxes, he said.
"The budget blueprint says these tax cuts will go away, and in my view that's a tax increase," he said.
Health care policy will be a welcome topic of debate during the presidential campaign, he said. "Frankly, I think we need it."
But he said anything that gives the federal government a greater role in health care would be a mistake.
One member of the audience spoke up in support of the publicly funded health care system in Canada, pointing out that the United States ranks low on several measures of health, including low birth weights.
But Hastings wasn't buying the Canadian model. He noted that a Calgary woman last summer delivered four identical girls at a hospital in Montana because of a shortage of neonatal beds in Canada.
If he were to look to another country as a model for anything, Hastings said it would be France because it relies heavily on nuclear power.
* Leah Beth Ward can be reached at 577-7626 or lward@yakimaherald.com.
