Senator Klobuchar holds town meeting

02/25/2007

By John Torgrimson
Fillmore County Journal


LANESBORO - Senator Amy Klobuchar has vowed to visit all 87 counties in Minnesota every year. After Tuesday she can knock five off her list.

A member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Klobuchar used a senate recess to make stops in Goodhue, Winona, Houston, Freeborn and Fillmore County. She spent 45 minutes in Lanesboro Tuesday evening talking with about 40 area residents about the war in Iraq, global warming, renewable energy, rural health care and the farm bill.

The senator fielded questions and comments from citizens.

Lanesboro City Council member Joe O'Connor asked when a leader was going to stand up and show how the U.S. was going to become energy independent.

"John F. Kennedy stood up and said 'in 10 years we're going to put a man on the moon.' Who in the federal government is going to do that about when the U.S will be energy independent?" O'Connor asked.

Klobuchar agreed that after 9/11, the administration "squandered an opportunity" to unite the country around conservation and becoming energy independent.

Bob Johnson of Harmony said the United States needed to develop the technology to lead the world in the effort against global warming.

Citing Al Gore's book and movie, An Inconvenient Truth, Klobuchar said that technology, conservation and development of renewable energy, such as cellulostic ethanol, can make economic sense.

Frank Wright of Lanesboro thanked Klobuchar for her floor speech on the Iraq War Resolution.

Klobuchar said that 56 senators voted to oppose the surge in troops in Iraq.

"Tony Blair is expected to announce tomorrow that Britain will start bringing some of their troops home. There is a need for a diplomatic effort, we are not going to solve this by adding more troops," Klobuchar said.

On rural health care, Klobuchar said that it didn't look likely that a single-payer health model was feasible at this time, but she believed that it was possible to develop larger insurance pools for farmers and small businesses to join in order to cut health care costs.

The Lanesboro town meeting was fairly informal with Klobuchar opening the meeting with some brief remarks about what was happening in the Senate. She said she was heartened by the bipartisan attitude in the Senate.

"We are working together pretty well. That said, it was time for a change in Washington," Klobuchar said, referring to the November election.