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 The Central Coast congressman speaks about the challenges ahead for our country
Life after Bush is coming, but what does that mean? Sam Farr is not one of those politicians who gets a journalist’s heart rate up. That’s not because of his personality—he’s an engaging person, and one of the rare national representatives who is willing to talk to anyone, anytime. It’s just that he doesn’t lie, cheat, or steal. In fact, combing his voting record is an exercise in consistency that verges on boredom. For anyone who assumes all politicians promise one thing and do another, Farr seems to be the exception to the rule.That said, the nation hasn’t been doing so well this decade, so there are still tough question to answer about the state of the nation and the possibility of change in the future. GT sat down with the congressman for a half hour chat, and covered a gamut of issues from health care to the skirmishes on terror. Here are the highlights: We’re getting a new administration one way or another. What are the biggest priorities of things you’d like to float again that didn’t work before, given the current administration’s fondness of veto power?The Barack Obama administration is going to be faced with the largest problematic crisis when they walk into the White House. It’s very difficult to plan when you have to put out fires. Regardless, what I really hope is that the Senate elects enough Democrats to be able to accomplish what we’ve started in the House. There were 270 bills in this Congress, one of the most productive sessions in modern history, and they all stuck in the Senate. You don’t really have to start a new administration to finish the initiatives that have been around for a long time. A lot of this depends on how strongly he wins, because you can’t lead this nation without having the backing of the public. The Republicans tried to lead the nation into impeaching Clinton, and the people said you can’t do this, Congress, because we elected him. If the people are behind the President, he can get a lot done. One of the things that did get through both houses recently only to be struck down by a veto last summer was a stem cell research bill. Is that something you’d like to put back on the table?In terms of priorities, first of all we need a plan to get out of Iraq, to get out of Guantanamo, to implement national health care insurance, to deal with the energy crisis, and then to focus on science, including stem cell research, so America can get back ahead in the brain trust race. These things are all natural for America to do, but it takes leadership to get things done. If the president gets elected by an overwhelming majority it shows confidence in the vision, and it’s the same folks who elect the House and Senate. If it’s a marginalized election, the minority can attack the momentum and get things in gridlock again. Speaking of national health care, what plan would you lean toward backing?You have to have some national policy as we have with Medicare. There’s a single payer plan which is what I’ve always backed, or something like what public employees get, a health care plan that allows people to select which insurer they’d like. You’ll probably get a combination of those two. You backed a bill that did not pass called the Oil Exploration Bill. You’re strongly opposed to offshore drilling, so what did that bill aim to do?It’s silly to think extra drilling will bring down prices. If they did, then the 70 or 80 million acres we’ve already sold would be getting drilled. They bought the goods but they’re not using them. We called that bill the use it or lose it. The federal government only owns 26 percent of the protected oil land. To think that drilling on federal lands is the answer to the energy crisis … 26 percent is not going to solve the problem. Of that percent, 68,000 acres are already leased. So we said, don’t give them another lease until they exercise the ones they have. Even though that bill’s stuck in the Senate, it’s now part of the compromise Comprehensive Energy Plan. I could take the compromise of allowing home state governors to veto federal drilling deals, if Governor Schwarzenegger doesn’t want drilling here. But basically, the bill would say that oil companies wouldn’t be eligible to apply for new leases until they’ve used the ones they’ve already got. We’d also take that new lease income and tie it to parks and environmental programs. What else is on the horizon for energy planning?Before you were born, there were billboards advertising for people to buy gas ranges, and other billboards for electric ranges, and everyone was encouraged to choose which kind to put in their homes. We could have that same plug in a garage, with the choice to fill up the car with natural gas or charge the batteries with electric. But until we get off this incredible dependence on oil for vehicles … my friend Earl Blumenhauer, the representative from Portland, Ore., says, “The problem with America is we’re stuck in traffic jams driving our SUVs to the fitness center so we can ride a stationary bike.” I think the immediate way to influence the market, is failing a mandate to go electric, we should buy. We should use the market. California and the federal government buy more trucks and cars than any other entity if you include the military. If we mandated high mileage standards or alternative fuels for our purchases, the market would build those cars overnight. California’s demonstrated that by the air quality standards. The entire engines of America were built to those specs. There were a lot of new benefits for organic farms in the latest Farm Bill. It’s better than ever, but did it do enough?Politics is the art of compromise. You never do enough. But you have to weigh whether you did better than the status quo, and by that measure, I could argue that we’ve done a lot better. This is the first time that specialty organic crops are being treated fairly and respectfully by research money and marketing money, things that the commodities like corn, beets, soy, rice, and cotton have always enjoyed. We don’t want subsidies, we just want help with research money to grow better crops, and marketing money to help sell them. We’re trying to compete with other countries who are trying to sell their crops in the United States. Subsidies are dying. This will be the last farm bill that will allow subsidies. If Congress won’t kill them, the World Trade Organization will, because we’ve signed treaties agreeing to downsize and eliminate our subsidies. So if we want to continue to compete in the world market, we’ve got to exploit that market, and if we’re going to be able to legally qualify to export, we have to kill subsidies. You’re on the appropriations committee for the Department of Homeland Security. Study after study shows that the airport security theater we go through has no effect on making air travel safer, that reinforced cockpit doors and sky marshals have provided sufficient additional measures, along with an aware public, to prevent another terrorist hijacking. Will the absurd searches and bans at our airports ever end?I hate the Department of Homeland Security. As someone who flies every week, I agree that it’s absurd. According to testimony we received before the committee last week, answering my question of how long we have to put up with this and whether technology can replace it, an expert said we’ll be technologically ready to replace TSA lines in airports in three years. There will still be something to walk through, but they can do the passenger vetting differently. I think we’re going to get your bags at the hotel, and they’ll go to your next hotel or home. The baggage could be delivered and put through security on its own. Most of the clogging at airports is lugging those bags around. Las Vegas is building 100,000 new hotel rooms, and is going to be the first city that will check your bag straight to the hotel, in order to move people through the system faster. What about the civil liberties side of the argument about airport searches?We’ll have to face those and address them. Government isn’t interested in taking civil liberties away. We’ll have to make sure that whatever information is collected gets protected, secured, and remains confidential. It’s all about perimeter security. Ideally, that perimeter is the whole United States. In Europe you don’t take your shoes off and all that stuff, you can move freely from country to country. Where do you see the immigration debates headed?It takes leadership. Bush chickened out about the comprehensive immigration reform when the Lou Dobbs of the world turn the Republicans who were going to vote for it around, and they got cold feet. There’s nothing to be done until after the election, but it’s so broken, that it needs comprehensive reform. Would you support a constitutional amendment to end the electoral college and replace it with some sort of popular election for the presidency?I’ve never been asked that question. I think when I arrived in Congress my answer would have been ‘absolutely,’ but I think we fail to recognize the need to hold the Union together. The majority of the population in America lives in seven states, and if those seven states band together and elect a president, you’ve got 44 states saying we had nothing to do with this. It’s a protection of the minority. Essentially if that’s the way campaigns went, the candidates would only campaign in those seven states. We don’t nominate a president in a normal national process, so it’s a very screwy process. You can’t explain it to anyone outside the country, but I think we have to think about what it does to the long-term consequences of holding the country together as a nation, if the majority of the states get screwed. So now, I think I’d have to see what scholars would say that might do. I was against Iowa until I worked for Chris Dodd this year, and it changed my mind about Iowa’s place in the process. Everyone I talked to there … it was the most informed electorate I’ve talked to in my life. They knew everyone’s voting record and asked technical questions. I think there’s something very healthy about making powerful people crawl on their knees before the caucus. I just wish they had to crawl in New Orleans after Katrina, and in places like that, too.
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