May 8, 2008
By Jesse Roman, Stowe Reporter
Peter Welch?ÇÖs biggest surprise as Vermont?ÇÖs lone congressman? How smooth the transition was from Vermont Senate leader to rookie congressman.
The stage is bigger and the stakes are higher, but Welch, 61, says the game is the same.
Eighteen months into his first term, Welch has helped close financial loopholes for big oil companies, was appointed to the influential Rules Committee and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and is earning a solid reputation. An article in this week?ÇÖs National Journal calls Welch a savvy congressmen who is well ahead of the learning curve of most freshman representatives.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the oversight committee, has said Welch is ?Ç£smart and takes the initiative. He speaks with a great deal of authority. He has a very bright future.?Ç¥
Welch says he tried to understand how the river flowed in Congress, and get himself into the current. When he did that, he found, other, more senior representatives were willing to make room for him.
?Ç£Some (new members) are tentative, some aren?ÇÖt. I don?ÇÖt need permission from the speaker or majority leader just to start doing things. ?Ǫ It?ÇÖs about getting involved,?Ç¥ Welch said in an interview last week.
?Ç£Legislation is legislation; it?ÇÖs about understanding the issues and listening to people.?Ç¥
Welch visited Stowe to talk with government officials, business leaders and the Stowe Reporter; he listened to concerns, offered opinions and got advice.
?Ç£I want to find out what federal issues you see that are impacting you here,?Ç¥ he said to a dozen or so people at a round-table discussion at the Akeley Memorial Building. In his Stowe visit, Welch talked about everything from immigration reform to Iran. Here?ÇÖs a roundup from an interview with Welch, and his discussion with town leaders.
Energy woes
?Ç£Last year, everyone was talking about Iraq. This year, it?ÇÖs gas prices,?Ç¥ Welch said. ?Ç£It is really hard. $80 per week is a lot on the family budget. It is an urgent issue that has a significant impact on the economy.?Ç¥
Fuel prices are now above $3.60 per gallon in Stowe and some economists are saying prices could go over $4 this summer.
Welch said Congress ?Ç£needs to be aggressive in both the short term and long term.?Ç¥ In the short term, he favors increasing supply by suspending deposits in the federal oil reserve, which is already 96 percent full. That alone could lower prices up to 24 cents a gallon, Welch said.
Second, Congress needs to stop pandering to oil companies and get back to regulating the industry, he said.
Just before Welch was elected, Congress passed legislation that ensured $13 billion in tax breaks for big oil companies, at a time when they were posting record profits.
?Ç£This is the kind of stuff you can?ÇÖt make up. All the worst stuff is legal,?Ç¥ he said. ?Ç£?Ǫ It is pretty frustrating and defies reason. Big oil is in control of Congress through campaign contributions.?Ç¥
Tax-break supporters said they were needed to provide incentive for oil companies to drill for new sources of oil ?Çö as if $119-per-barrel prices weren?ÇÖt incentive enough, Welch said.
This year, the House passed a bill to cancel the tax breaks and invest the $13 billion in clean energy research, but the bill stalled in Senate.
Welch said opponents argued that ?Ç£the way to address the energy problem is more production. These folks advocate for coal and for incentives for more drilling. This shortsightedness is damaging to our future. The weight of the evidence says overwhelmingly that we can?ÇÖt sustain this, environmentally or economically. We need an adult approach for dealing with what is a serious problem.?Ç¥
Further, he says deregulation of oil-futures trading has added 20 to 80 cents to the price of a gallon of gasoline, the cost of allowing speculation in the energy market. At one point, he said, a single hedge fund owned 80 percent of the energy futures in the U.S. market ?Çö a dangerous over-concentration.
Many in Vermont agree something needs to be done.
?Ç£Until the problem is solved, the economic situation in the country won?ÇÖt improve too much,?Ç¥ said Stowe farmer Paul Percy. He also criticized congressional support for making ethanol out of corn, which analysts say has boosted food prices around the world.
?Ç£That?ÇÖs a brainy idea, to make ethanol out of corn,?Ç¥ Percy said sarcastically. ?Ç£That affects everything. If you can make so much money off of corn, you?ÇÖll stop growing wheat, rice, cotton, etc.?Ç¥
?Ç£This may frighten you, but people in Washington are starting to agree with you,?Ç¥ Welch told Percy. ?Ç£We are heading in the direction you recommend, just probably not fast enough for you.?Ç¥
Bush and war
Welch has refused to support legislation to impeach President George W. Bush, but made it clear what he thinks of this administration and its policies.
Asked if he worries that the United States will attack Iran before the November elections, Welch replied:
?Ç£There is nothing I would put past Bush and Cheney in the saber-rattling department,?Ç¥ he said. ?Ç£There would be dire consequences to that. I am hopeful that won?ÇÖt happen, but there are a lot of us in Congress who are worried.?Ç¥
He called Bush tax policies ?Ç£very inverted,?Ç¥ saying, ?Ç£These last 10 years have been a very good time to be wealthy, and not such a good time to be in the middle class.?Ç¥
He blasted the Bush administration for a laissez-faire attitude toward oversight and government regulation.
He blames the administration for lead-laced toys coming in from China, and for the subprime mortgage crisis, both of which ?Ç£could have been averted by regulatory oversight.?Ç¥
?Ç£Bush abandoned the regulatory role, and that has had drastic consequences for families,?Ç¥ Welch said.
As for the Iraq war, Welch ripped the president?ÇÖs approach.
?Ç£It?ÇÖs outrageous; we?ÇÖve put the entire war on a credit card. We?ÇÖve appropriated $700 billion and not paid a penny,?Ç¥ Welch said.
?Ç£It is unconscionable that the chief executive does not accept the burden or responsibility of paying for something that has now been going on six years. ?Ǫ We?ÇÖre pretending that economic rules don?ÇÖt apply. It?ÇÖs appalling.?Ç¥
Urgency for the future
Welch said he wants Barack Obama to be the next president because his personality would help reopen a real political dialogue and start to heal wounds inflicted by the Bush administration.
?Ç£That is essential to the democratic process,?Ç¥ Welch says.
So far, no one has emerged to challenge Welch for re-election this November. If he is re-elected, he said, his agenda will center on the energy crisis, a failing health-care system ?Çö ?Ç£we spend more and get less than any other (developed) country?Ç¥ ?Çö and the plight of the middle class.
Welch is optimistic that the November election will produce a working majority for Democrats in both the House and Senate. He said important reforms that passed the Democrat-controlled House stalled in the Senate, which has no clear majority.
?Ç£We voted to take away tax breaks for oil companies and legislation to take the troops home, only to watch as the Senate refuses to take it up. I get frustrated,?Ç¥ Welch said. From the public?ÇÖs standpoint, ?Ç£it doesn?ÇÖt matter that the House passed something and the Senate didn?ÇÖt. The point is, the job didn?ÇÖt get done. ?Ǫ
?Ç£When you?ÇÖre in my position, you can start to see the effort you put in as sufficient, because you?ÇÖre trying. But it is not sufficient unless (your efforts) are working. The electorate expects you to succeed, not to just put in the time. That is the sense of urgency legislators must have.?Ç¥
Visa problem
Many Stowe employers are upset that Congress has refused to renew a law allowing foreign workers to return to the United States for seasonal jobs they have held in the past.
?Ç£H-2B visas are the ultimate nightmare,?Ç¥ Chris Francis, owner of the Ye Old English Inn, told U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., who met Friday with Stowe business leaders. ?Ç£Owners and staff had to work twice as hard this year because we were hundreds of (employees) shy.?Ç¥
H-2B workers have been ski instructors, hotel workers, and have held myriad other tourist-related jobs
By hiring H-2B workers, ?Ç£we?ÇÖre not depriving (citizens) of employment opportunities; the workers are just not here,?Ç¥ Francis said. ?Ç£If you can?ÇÖt get enough people, you can?ÇÖt do the job properly and the spin-off is a bad product.?Ç¥
?Ç£The message is out there: This is a crisis for the Vermont economy,?Ç¥ Welch said. ?Ç£This is all over the country. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are desperate to bring relief back home.?Ç¥
But Welch said the H-2B visa issue has been lumped into the broader issue of immigration reform, and Congress has been unwilling to act.
Many representatives have taken an ?Ç£all or nothing?Ç¥ approach to immigration legislation, making it hard to make progress, Welch said.
?Ç£I wish I had an answer. I can?ÇÖt tell you I?ÇÖm optimistic that we?ÇÖll have this resolved by the end of the year,?Ç¥ he said.
?Ç£Anytime you stick your head above of the foxhole on immigration, it is politicized with the amnesty argument?Ç¥ ?Çö the dispute over whether to grant legal amnesty to illegal immigrants already in the United States.