Tuesday, February 14, 2012NEW WILMINGTON, Pa. -- The federal government needs to step to the side and allow states to manage energy resources such as the Marcellus shale, development of which can create jobs and provide funds for infrastructure improvements and other needs without having to raise taxes on people and businesses, says U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly.
"The states have sovereignty over this. They have to decide how they're going to regulate it and how they're going to set the parameters for safety. The federal government needs to take a step off to the side, let the states develop their program," said Kelly, R-3 Pa. "What will happen eventually is as these businesses and these industries rise to the top, there will be more revenues to help run our government, locally, at the state level and at the federal level."
In his first term in the U.S. House of Representatives, Kelly was the featured speaker Monday at Westminster College. The breakfast event was jointly sponsored by the Greenville Area, Grove City Area, Lawrence County, Mercer Area and Shenango Valley chambers of commerce, Lawrence County Economic Development Corp. and Penn-Northwest Development Corp.
"We don't have to go outside of our country to buy anything or gain anything, certainly not for energy. We have it all right here," Kelly said.
Kelly, who supports what he called "aggressive energy exploration," praised Pennsylvania lawmakers for passing Marcellus drilling legislation that "makes sense," helps communities, helps to rebuild infrastructure and creates jobs not just in extraction but in protection of the environment.
The freshman Republican also called for moving forward on the Canadian Keystone XL pipeline. "Canada isn't going to wait for the White House to make a determination. They have a product for sale. Who are they going to sell it to? Whoever wants it," he said.
Kelly told the business leaders his decision to enter politics came when he received a letter from General Motors Co. informing him that he would no longer be a Cadillac dealer, as the automaker sought to reduce the number of dealerships as pat of the government-assisted restructuring of GM. Kelly took the issue to arbitration and won. Today his son runs the dealership, which the family started in 1953.
"That set me to thinking -- if they could do that to Mike Kelly and Butler, Pa., they could do anything to anybody, anytime they wanted," he said.
Kelly, who has been a vocal critic of the Chevrolet Volt, said his problem isn't with the vehicle itself but with the "taxpayer money" being infused into the operation. He said the Volt represents science "way ahead of the market," and he would rather see focus put on "what we have right now -- things that are affordable for the people I represent."
Asked how things are going in Washington, Kelly said he typically responds they are going as designed, with "heated and vigorous debate" in the House before legislation is sent to the Senate.
"The Senate's supposed to do the same thing in order for it to function. Well, we can't get it through the House of Representatives and then get it to the Senate and then have it tabled and then somehow think it's going to work its way out from there," he said. "This is not a complaint. It's a declaration of how the system actually works. If the system is broken, it's broken because there's a logjam in the Senate."
Since the 2010 election, the House has been controlled by Republicans while the Senate remained under Democratic control.
"I'm not calling the Senate obstructionist. They're just not doing their job," he remarked.
Kelly said President Obama's policies "are destroying our country. And it wasn't Democrats that ruined us, that put us so far under the bus that we can't see the light of tomorrow. It was the parties acting together -- irresponsibly spending money they haven't had for many, many years." The debt the country is mounting is "unsustainable," he said.
He was also critical of the administration's position in the debate over language in the Affordable Care Act requiring Catholic institutions to include birth-control coverage in health plans. "While it was an affront to many Christians and to the Catholic Church, in particular I think it should be an affront to all Americans," he said.
During a question-and-answer session, Andrew Tommelleo, director of the Lawrence County Career and Technical Center, called for members of Congress and other politicians to do something on behalf of vocational education. The Lawrence County center, he said, is constantly focusing on meeting a budget rather than education.
"We’re talking about jobs, we're talking about technology, we're talking about the energy and shale and so forth," he said. "We're the future of those jobs." But the emphasis at the federal and state levels is on meeting the requirements of No Child Left Behind and sending students to colleges. "We're the future of these jobs and yet there's nothing for us."
A member of the audience who identified himself as representing the agriculture community complained about issues with the U.S. Labor Department involving restrictions of child labor on farms, and with the Environmental Protection Agency.
"Most of us have the same feeling when it comes to almost any of the agencies … the alphabet soup of what's out there when people who aren't elected have more power and authority than the people that you elect and sent to office," Kelly remarked.
"Look, we all want clean water, we all want clean air but we just don’t want it at the expense of our economic freedom," he added.
Copyright 2012 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.