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Show Representative Chris Cannon Holds Panguitch Saturday Town Meeting PANGUITCH On Saturday night in Panguitch, Congressman Chris Cannon talked about his own Republican party, Congress and Washington D.C. scene. He also answered several thought-provoking questions for the roughly 30 hardy constituents who bared the nasty weather to hear the Congressman speak at his second town meeting of the day. He openly responded to queries about the Grand Staircase-Escalante Staircase-Escalante National Monument, a possible appointment to the chief Utah Bureau of Land Management post, the buildup of the Chinese military and he outlined his three-point three-point recommendations for the Republican Re-publican Party. Cannon's field coordinator Keith Nash, Provo, accompanied him to Saturday's meetings, the first in Kanab earlier in the day and the eighth and ninth in a series of town meetings throughout the state. Earlier Ear-lier in the week two of Cannon's Washington, D.C. staff people, Peter Pe-ter Valcarce, press secretary and Nathan Na-than Glazier, a legislative assistant over natural resources had traveled to southern Utah for an on-site inspection. in-spection. Postcards announcing the meeting had been sent to residents by Cannon's staff, Among those attending were Panguitch City Mayor Elaine Baldwin, City Manager Man-ager Allen Henrie, and all three county commissioners Louise Liston, Lis-ton, Maloy Dodds and Clare Ramsay. Ram-say. Cannon took the first part of the meeting to outline his agenda and share recent impressions of Congress Con-gress and the Washington, D. C. scene. Cannon was asked to comment about the possible appointment of Pat Shea as Utah's director of the Bureau of Land Management. He said he had a recent in-flight conversation with Shea who asked him what he (Cannon) would think about Shea's nomination for the post, catching Cannon, who had heard nothing, by surprise. The Congressman told the Saturday Sat-urday night group "I am deeply divided, di-vided, deeply divided. I was surprised sur-prised that Hatch came out in support sup-port of him... The reason I am di vided is that Pat Shea is very bright. He's a lawyer and when he does something in BLM, it's going to be thought through well from a legal point of view and it's going to be very hard to change it. Very hard. "On the other hand," Cannon said, "he knows Utah." Cannon asked Commissioner Liston for her view of the proposed nomination. Liston responded, "It's a little scary. I think somebody who is suddenly put over BLM on a national level who hasn't come up through the ranks and really has no experience in public lands policy and issues is a little scary, especially espe-cially if he has an attorneylaw background." Liston said she spoke briefly with Shea just last week and "he seemed very amenable in a short conversation." Cannon said his conversation with Shea was less than 10 minutes. min-utes. "Pat is a friend of mine ... (See Rep. Chris Cannon Holds Panguitch Pan-guitch Meet On Page 4A) Itep. Chris Cannon Holds Town Meeting From Page 1 we've known each other for a long time; we've done things on the same side of issues, we've done things on the opposite side of issues. is-sues. And so I have great respect for his intellect. He's a Catholic, he studied to be a monk; he's a Rhodes scholar, and he speaks Mandarin Chinese elegantly. He's a close friend of my friend John Huntsman, Jr. He is in many ways a very, very interesting guy, but being in control of the public lands of Utah I have not yet made up my mind on that. "Shea," Cannon continued, "is actually a very moderate, credible person, so I don't know what we can do with it, but I am concerned," he said. Cannon said Shea had been "...Wayne Owens' best friend. I mean you clearly have some significant sig-nificant Utahns. You have Wayne Owens, you have Robert Red-ford.. Red-ford.. .and Ted Wilson is actually a close friend of Bill Clinton and Ted is a close friend of Pat Shea. I mean, you have people who have influence with the president." Cannon reported he had the opportunity op-portunity to share with Chris Cox, chairman of the Republican Party's Policy Committee, what he thought the three-point Republican agenda should be. The Utah Congressman Con-gressman would like to: 1) balance the budget, 2) cut taxes, and, 3) put "education dollars in the class-rooom" class-rooom" instead of "bureaucrat's pockets in Washington D.C.". Talking about the make-up of Congress, Cannon said "the last Congress was the most rancorous Congress that ever existed, I think, in the history of America. It clearly rivaled the pre-Civil War era." Cannon blamed that rancor on the Democrats who, he said, after being in control for so many years couldn't believe the Republicans had taken over. "It was really ugly," he said. "It was mean." About Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and the leadership controversy, Cannon said he didn't expect to see new leaders emerge in the Republican Party, but "a group of like-minded people that are going to push legislation that is important. impor-tant. Cannon said. "An air of civility has returned to Congress that I find very refreshing." Regarding the current controversy contro-versy over campaign contributions, Cannon, said he expects to see starling star-ling revelations come forth, now that the "liberal mainstream media" seems to be seriously looking into campaign funding issues. "The Chinese are spending 100 billion dollars a year to build up their military. They want to become be-come a super power. That is the country that's going to challenge us in the future. They are clearly on track to challenge us militarily within the next ten years ..." Cannon Can-non said. "They want to challenge our leadership in every way, but particularly par-ticularly militarily. If you are spending 100 billion dollars a year to build up your military, what's a half billion, a billion or five billion to have a part in setting policy in America? I mean, there is a huge incentive for foreign countries to buy influence in America. And if you are in a position to do so, there's a real temptation to let that happen." "In all good faith, you'll hear people talking about reforming or changing the campaign finance system. sys-tem. People are saying there are abuses but no one is saying that the Republicans broke the law..." "The leadership, some of the leaders of the Democratic Party, have clearly broken the law. And while they are trying to paint everybody eve-rybody with the same brush, it doesn't wash. So, just be aware. This is a major crisis that we're facing fac-ing in American politics." Elaine Baldwin asked why so many U.S. businesses were leaving to do business inforeign countries and what could be (tone about it. "The fact is," Cannon said, "nobody would operate in Malaysia who could operate in the United States. We have the clarity of law, the history of law, we have a work force that's educated and capable. But what's happened is, we're forcing forc-ing out low quality jobs that uneducated un-educated people can handle. But even for those jobs, we could keep them in America if we didn't have the pain and restrictions that we currently have." Commissioner Liston asked Cannon to comment further, pointing point-ing out that oil companies are going go-ing where environmental resrictions are less stringent. " ... There's a lot of oil out there, we're not drilling," he said. "In fact, this year we are going to be importing 48.7 percent of our oil, by far the largest amount since the time of the oil crisis in the 1970's. There's no need for it except ex-cept that we're just not drilling oil here. "In the minerals area, why would anybody build a mine in America given all the difficulties, when you go overseas and in Bolivia Bo-livia they're begging you to come. They've got equipment sitting around, you've got people who are skilled engineers, skilled labor. Why would you do it in America? You'd do it in America if we had a sensible policy. We have a policy that's driven by people that hide." Cannon said that although Katie McGinty took the heat for Clinton's Clin-ton's decision to create the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Monu-ment, "after some thinking, we think that actually the Justice Department De-partment was involved with the decision de-cision ... because that's where you can keep a secret. "The short of it is, when you have a policy driven by people who hide and who have a conspiracy to hide so you can't say, what thought proceses did you go through ..." he left the sentence unfinished. |
