In the News

By Thomas Lester
© January 8, 2012
Full story here

In the first year of his first term as Ninth District Representative, Morgan Griffith said his notions of business in Washington were close to what he encountered.

“In fairness, it’s been more frustrating than I would have thought,” Griffith said. “The rules and bureaucracy, I knew they were bad, it’s harder to cut through the decades of bureaucracy than I anticipated. We’re making progress but it’s going to take time and we’re going to need additional voices in Washington who want to change the way business is done there. Any time you try to change the status quo, you’re not winning a popularity contest, necessarily.”

Griffith, who defeated longtime incumbent Rick Boucher in 2010, said much has been done in the Ninth District since taking office, and he’s hopeful that more can continue.

Griffith said he’s tried his best to keep a finger on the pulse in the Ninth District in a variety of ways.

“It’s been an interesting year. We opened offices in Abingdon, Christiansburg and Big Stone Gap. We have roving office hours and Town Halls in every jurisdiction and region,” Griffith said. “Every single jurisdiction, we’ve had an opportunity where we’ve called all the households and if they’re home, they can stay on the line if they want to be a part of it. Some of the folks screen the calls; others don’t. If we’re doing one with Carroll and Patrick, we don’t take all calls from Hillsville, we’ll take a call from Hillsville, one from Stuart.”

Perhaps for the first time, the District had a representative in the Congressional Art Contest, in which student art hangs for a year in Washington. Griffith said he hoped to see participation from Carroll County when the contest rolls around in 2012.

“Last year, we did not have participation from Carroll County We’re hoping next year to have participation from Carroll and all counties,” he said. “They get to come to Washington. There’s a whole day of activities where students across the country who won the competition comes in. Their art hangs in the Cannon Tunnel. Everybody sees it; it hangs there for a whole year. The kids get a little money, they come to the capital and they get a whole day and their art hangs there for a whole year.”

One of Griffith’s favorite perks of the job is getting to meet some of America’s military heroes. One particular incident stood out to him.

“That’s been kind of fun. This guy, we gave his medal to him; he was in the Korean conflict. He saved another fellow’s life,” he said. “We were able to cut through some red tape and made sure he got the Bronze Star he deserved. In fairness, one of the Army officers who helped me do the presentation, told me if more witnesses were still alive, he was probably entitled to the Silver Star. Without confirmation from other witnesses, it’s hard to get the Silver Star. At least he got something. Even though I technically was supposed to pin the medal on him, I handed it off to the fellow whose life he saved in the 1950s.”

In the Congressional chambers, one of Griffith’s biggest fights has been in making sure EPA regulations make sense. He said there is a need for regulations, but when those regulations get in the way of creating or keeping jobs, there’s a problem.

One such piece of legislation, which passed the House, is the EPA Regulatory Relief Act of 2011 (H.R. 2250) in response to four interrelated, highly complex, and data-intensive rules setting new standards for more than 200,000 non-utility boilers, process heaters, and incinerators that were published by the EPA. This legislation would direct the EPA to develop achievable standards for boilers, process heaters, and incinerators and extends compliance deadlines to allow facilities time to comply. By the EPA’s own estimates, compliance with its Boiler MACT rules will impose $5.8 billion in up-front capital costs, and impose new costs of $2.2 billion annually. However, the Council of Industrial Boiler Owners estimates that the capital costs alone of the final rules will exceed $14 billion and could put 230,000 jobs at risk, including 10,000 in Virginia.

“We don’t want to go back to the 1970s where we had very few regulations and we had an air issue and water issue,” Griffith said. “In the case of coal fire plants, they’ve already cleaned 85 percent of their emissions. We need to do this in ways that are reasonable. I”m not sure if it’s something that has to be done three or four years to each power company. They just pass those costs on. That affects the consumer and it affects jobs. You make homeowners pay more and you make factories pay more and you wonder why our economy is stagnant.”

Another initiative that Griffith is contesting is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that was championed by President Barack Obama.

“We voted to repeal it. We voted on a number of things to tweak around the edges that would squeeze some of the more onerous parts,” he said. “We’ll work to continue to repeal Obamacare in the coming year.”

Griffith also introduced a bill that would cut Congressional pay by 10 percent as part of the effort to cut spending.

“I believe we can make cuts in government. That’s what’s so frustrating, they have the money. When you see them spending money, it’s getting through somehow but it’s not easy to sort through it,” Griffith said. “We’ve cut it but we’re still going to have a $1.3 trillion deficit. We were looking at $1.6. We’ve made progress. I’m not sure it’s going to stave off financial disaster for long. Hopefully we can cut more. We need more likeminded people, in the Senate, especially, who understand we can’t continue to live this way.”

In an effort to foster job growth, Griffith has fostered a “One More Job” initiative, in which people in the Ninth District with ideas for job creation can bring those ideas forward. He’s also hopeful that the hard work done locally concerning the Wildwood Commerce Park bears fruit with large-scale job creation in the near future.

“Anybody who has ideas, please let us know. That’s one thing we want,” Griffith said. “We have worked with economic development people. I have made it clear, if you have somebody who wants to talk to the Congressman, we’ll make it happen. I don’t care if it’s three jobs. Every job we create in our area is money that circulates around. If you have people creating jobs, even if it’s one, three, five at a time, you shouldn’t overlook that. If we can figure out how to get a 300-job employer in, we’re going to do it. I will help in any way that’s legally and ethically possible.”