Politics in season at festival
House candidates target growth
Locating businesses in Southwest Virginia, and particularly in the 9th Congressional District, may be easier were it not for federal regulations that hamper economic growth, Del. Morgan Griffith said Friday as he campaigned in Stuart.
While at the Virginia State Peach Festival in Patrick County, Griffith, R-Salem, who is seeking to oust long-time incumbent U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, said many regulations pushed at the federal level are job killers.
In addition, a proposed cap and trade measure is a huge issue that “will not only kill coal jobs but also make our electric bills skyrocket,” Griffith said of an initiative also known as allowance trading, according to www.generationgreen.org/cap-trade.
Under the proposed system, facilities would be given allowances representing the amount of pollutants they could emit. Facilities having less than the allowable limit could sell their leftover allowances.
Boucher initially supported a cap and trade measure that some in his party said will cause electric rates to skyrocket. The measure has been stalled in the U.S. Senate.
As a state legislator and House of Delegates majority leader, Griffith said he also is the vice chairman of the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules.
During meetings with CEOs of some companies, Griffith said company officials remarked that “products are going to be made. Products are going to be manufactured. The question is will they be made in the U.S. or China or India?”
Virginia consistently is ranked No. 1 or 2 nation in the state for doing business, Griffith said.
But “what good does it do for us to be viewed as No. 1 or 2 in the nation if we’re not viewed” as a business-friendly nation, he asked.
Currently, there are many regulations for businesses, and the “rules are changing so rapidly” that many in the business sector are hesitant to build factories or make other capital investments because of concerns the rules will change before the facilities are built, Griffith said.
“We desperately need jobs in the 9th District” and across southwest Virginia, he said. “There is no imaginary line” of separation.
However, “we have been consistently losing jobs and being on the short end of the stick” in economic development “for 30 years. I am tired of that,” Griffith said. He noted that Boucher has been in office for 28 years.
“I always thought members of Congress are judged on” their accomplishments in the district they represent, Boucher said. “Have they helped to promote growth? Have they helped to create jobs?”
Boucher, who did not attend the Peach festival but was in Patrick County earlier in the week to announce a water and sewer project, said he worked to secure federal funding in the form of a grant and two low-interest loans for the project that will spark economic development.
Boucher also said he has worked tirelessly to develop other infrastructure, such as a broadband Internet project that is expected to be completed by the end of 2010 and provide broadband to 90 percent of the county. It also will bring development, he said.
Boucher said he has had little time to focus on his fall campaign because he is “deeply immersed in the congressional calendar.”
After Labor Day, “or such time as we have,” he said he will work on the campaign.
Until then and as needed, “I will continue to do the job I was elected to do,” Boucher said.
In his Showcasing the 9th Tour, Boucher said he has worked with company representatives to get them to locate in his district and created 5,000 jobs.
He was instrumental in Results opening in Stuart, Boucher said of the call center which “is the largest private-sector employer” in the county. Results also announced Friday it will hire up to 150 new employees at its call center in Stuart.
Boucher “likes to talk about his Southwest Virginia Showcase” and his efforts to attract businesses here, Griffith said. But using Boucher's number of more than 4,500 jobs created across the district since 1987 when the Showcase initiative began amounts to only about eight jobs created per jurisdiction per year in the district, Griffith said.
After changing or doing away with regulations and rules that are not conducive to business, “I say, let’s take Southwest Virginia out of the showcase and take it out there and sell it” to businesses that will locate in the region, Griffith said.
Del. Ward Armstrong, D-Collinsville, also attended the Peach festival and campaigned for Boucher, who has “been a great congressman” and had many accomplishments during his tenure.
Boucher “quietly goes about his business and does his job,” Armstrong said. Boucher “has a proven record” and he hopes voters remember that in November, Armstrong added.