February 9, 2012

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King has proposal for Keystone pipeline

January 21, 2012 By

Republicans in the U.S. House might soon try to force action on the Keystone oil pipeline from Canada after President Barack Obama said Wednesday he had environmental and safety concerns and would not approve the pipeline.

 Iowa Congressman Steve King, a Republican from Kiron, says there could be legislation to move the pipeline ahead, but he says the president still stands in the way.

“Anything we might pass through congress faces a presidential veto and requires a two-thirds majority to override a presidential veto,” King says. “That’s possible that that could happen in the House of Representatives, but it’s very, very unlikely that it would happen in the Senate.”

King says there is an alternative to get around the president’s decision. “My suggestion would be this — and it might be a bit of brash recommendation — that we really just need the permit, everything else is cleared as I understand this, we need the permit to go across the border with Canada,” King said.

“Why not just build that pipeline right on up there to Canada and lay that last section of pipe out on there ground in the United States. I’ll go up there myself and swing that piece into place when we have a president that’ll sign that agreement with Canada.”

King said earlier the President Obama’s decision to stop the pipeline was a political one made under pressure from environmentalists.

By Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City

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Congressman King reacts to Keystone pipline decision

January 19, 2012 By

Congressman Steve King

Iowa Congressman Steve King is among the Republicans upset with Democrat President Barack Obama’s decision to reject the Keystone XL oil pipeline project.

 ”Well, it’s just a completely illogical decision when you look at a country that needs jobs that needs energy, the price that gas is today compared to the day that Barack Obama took office. All of these things scream for us to build the pipeline down from the oil sands region in Northern Alberta down into the United States,” King says.

The president issued a statement saying the decision to reject the pipeline was based on the need to gather more information on the safety of the pipeline. King says the decision is simply politics. “The president has had difficulty making a decision between his environmental extremist base and his labor union base, he’s decided to side with the environmental extremist base,” King says.

“It is not I don’t think, an analytical decision, it’s a political decision on his part. And the American people are going to have to make a political decision next November. If we can have jobs and energy blocked like this, we pretty well know that politics trumps the American people’s best interests.”

King believes Obama made the decision now so it wouldn’t be hanging over his head before he gives his State of the Union address. The pipeline would extend from Canada to Texas, covering six states. Nebraska is the closest state to Iowa that would be on the pipeline route.

 By Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City

Statement by the President on the Keystone XL Pipeline 

Earlier today, I received the Secretary of State’s recommendation on the pending application for the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. As the State Department made clear last month, the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment. As a result, the Secretary of State has recommended that the application be denied. And after reviewing the State Department’s report, I agree.

 This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people. I’m disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision, but it does not change my Administration’s commitment to American-made energy that creates jobs and reduces our dependence on oil. Under my Administration, domestic oil and natural gas production is up, while imports of foreign oil are down. In the months ahead, we will continue to look for new ways to partner with the oil and gas industry to increase our energy security –including the potential development of an oil pipeline from Cushing, Oklahoma to the Gulf of Mexico – even as we set higher efficiency standards for cars and trucks and invest in alternatives like biofuels and natural gas. And we will do so in a way that benefits American workers and businesses without risking the health and safety of the American people and the environment.

 

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Congressman King discusses Missouri River management

December 1, 2011 By

A U.S. House subcommittee held a hearing Wednesday to discuss the management of the Missouri River. Iowa Congressman Steve King has introduced legislation that would require the Army Corps of Engineers to revise its management policies to increase the total amount of storage space within the Missouri River reservoir system that is allocated for flood control.

King told the panel Corps officials initially stated they would not alter their policies because they felt the flooding this past summer was a “500 year flood” event.

“I want to emphasize that we have 150 years of records and they’re declaring a 500 year event,” King said. “If you had 10,000 years of records and (flooding) happened a couple times a millennia, you might be able to say this is a 500 year event. No mortal can tell you it’s a 500 year event.”

The Corps announced in early November that it would change how it manages the river. King believes Congress should still take charge of flood control in the Missouri River basin. “We have to tell them…if we don’t tell them, (the Corps) will slide back to being run by the environmental interests as opposed to the first priority, which should be protection from flooding downstream,” King said.

Many lawmakers have blamed the Corps of Engineers at least in part for the severity of the flooding that destroyed or damaged hundreds of homes and reduced miles of highways and interstates to rubble. Congressman Leonard Boswell said the flooding “requires us to change our policies.”

By Jerry Oster, WNAX, Yankton

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King says race against Christie Vilsack in “top five” nationally

November 25, 2011 By

Republican Congressman Steve King says he does not anticipate voluntarily going back into the business world.

King, who is 62 years old, owned and operated a western Iowa earth-moving company when he was elected to the state senate in 1996. He’s been a member of the U.S. House of Representatives since 2003.

“I don’t anticipate going back to the private sector. I’m all in on public service,” King says. “I love this work and I’ve told people a number of times that this is nine years in congress — it’s gone by like it was a single year.”

King plans to seek reelection to congress in 2012 and he will likely face Democrat Christie Vilsack, Iowa’s former first lady whose husband is a cabinet secretary in the Obama Administration. King predicts the contest will be among the top five most closely-watched congressional races in the country.

“I take the reelection effort for the new fourth district very seriously,” King says, “…seriously enough to put out some effort to raise some money the last quarter.”

King raised over $600,000 in the first three quarters of the  year and had half-a-million dollars cash in his campaign account at the end of September. Christie Vilsack raised nearly $760,000 during the same period and on September 30 had over $545,000 cash on hand.

But there’s a major political event before the November 2012 election — the Iowa Caucuses. King sponsored a forum last February in Des Moines that featured a handful of politicians who said at the time they were mulling a race for the White House. King says there are a “couple of things” that are “holding him back” from endorsing one of the 2012 candidates.

“I don’t yet see a presidential candidate that’s laid out a financial plan for America, that fixes this financial problem that we are in. I am calling upon them to do that, put that plan out,” King says. “The second thing is I haven’t heard yet from any of them the ‘Shining City on a Hill’ speech that lets me understand that they have the vision for the destiny of America. Those two things are a couple of things that could settle me on a candidate, if I heard them.”

King has been a long and ardent critic of the concept of “amnesty” for illegal immigrants and he says the views Newt Gingrich holds on that issue make it “hard” to think of endorsing Gingrich.

King made his comments during taping of the Iowa Public Television program, “Iowa Press,” which airs tonight at 7:30. The video of the show has been posted online.

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Iowa delegation reacts to super committee’s failure

November 22, 2011 By

The reaction from Iowa’s two U.S. Senators to the “super committee’s” failure illustrates the divisions that led to the impasse. Democratic Senator Tom Harkin says Republicans doomed the deficit reduction talks by rejecting all tax increases, and even calling for new tax cuts. Republican Senator Chuck Grassley says the focus needs to be on reducing spending.

“Too many people seem to think that tax increases are a solution to this problem, but tax increases aren’t a solution because the money from higher taxes doesn’t seem to get to be used to reduced the deficit,” Grassley says, citing a study from Ohio University. “For the last 65 years, every new dollar in new tax increases has resulted in congress spending not just that $1, but $1.17.”

Grassley says with or without an agreement, federal spending has to be reduced and that includes cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Grassley also blasts President Obama for “blaming Republicans” for the super committee’s failure. ”But he doesn’t seem to engage or offer credible solutions for deficit reduction,” Grassley says.

From the other side of the partisan divide, Senator Harkin says Republicans “do not care about deficit reduction” and he says the only way to accomplish the goal is trhough “a fair mix of spending cuts and revenue increases.”

Congressman Steve King doubts the 25-percent across-the-board cuts that have been triggered will ever come to pass.

“We should remember that they don’t even start until the first day of January in 2013,” King says, “…after we have a presidential election, after a third of the members of the United States Senate are up for reelection and we have all the members of the house are up for reelection.”

Some members of congress are already talking about ways to act in 2012 to avoid the deep cuts to defense and other federal programs. King, though, suggests the decisions won’t come ’til 2013 — after the 2012 election results. 

“It’ll be a different congress and perhaps a different president that has time, then, to go in and change some of these mandatory cuts,” King says.

King made his comments during a meeting in Le Mars yesterday. Congressman Bruce Braley says, “partisan ideology is trumping common sense in Washington.” Congressman Tom Latham says Americans have a right to be frustrated by the “rampant dysfunction in Washington. Congressman Dave Loebsack says the super committee is another example of the kind of “brinksmanship” that led the country “to the edge” this summer when the government’s credit rating was downgraded.  Congressman Leonard Boswell calls it “shameful” that the super committee failed to broker a deal.

(Additional reporting by Dennis Morrice, KLEM, Le Mars)

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King moderates Cain/Gingrich forum; Gingrich says it’s no “Mickey Mouse debate”

November 4, 2011 By

Iowa Congressman Steve King will serve as moderator of a debate between Republican presidential candidates Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich tomorrow night in Houston, Texas.

The event’s organizers have said the “gossip” about allegations that Cain sexual harassed former employees in the late 1990s will not be discussed and King doesn’t expect the topic to come up at all. 

“Only if Speaker Gingrich brings it up. I don’t think Herman Cain will and I don’t intend to,” King said during an interview with Radio Iowa this afternoon. “My view is…you’re innocent until proven guilty. We don’t even have the name of anyone who alleges this at this point.”

King said the whole issue should be off limits until “responsible media” produce an “Anita Hill” — a reference to the woman who came forward during U.S. Senate confirmation hearings to say that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her.

“It may well be that these allegations, even if true, are so devoid of substance that the voters would decide they like Herman Cain a lot more,” King said.

Cain and Gingrich have agreed to focus the debate on entitlement reform.”It’s going to be really interesting to see how the two candidates interact with each other,” King said.

Beyond Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, King is prepared to press the candidates to reveal their plans for dealing with the federal budget deficit and the interest on the federal debt.

“I want to see if we can get the presidential candidates, in this case Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich, to address the components of the entitlements and what they would do to slow the growth in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in such a way that we can get ourselves to a balanced budget again,” King said.

The event is billed as a “Lincoln-Douglas” style debate. Earlier this week during an appearance in Pella, Gingrich described the format this way:  “Having two people sit down and have a serious conversation, not a Mickey Mouse debate, not a gotcha — but just talk.”  Gingrich expects to present “three big” reform proposals.

“My guess is that Herman and I are going to have a very interesting conversation that’s very different than most political stuff,” Gingrich said. “That’s what I’m looking forward to is an interesting two hours of the American people seeing people talk about very large solutions at a time when we have very large problems , as opposed to: ‘In 30 seconds, what’s your position on X?’ which, when you think about it, is pretty silly.”

The debate — which will be 90 minutes long rather than two hours –  is set to begin at 8 p.m. Saturday and will be broadcast nationally on C-SPAN. According to the agreed-upon format, King as moderator is to have a limited role, asking just three or four basic questions during the event.

Iowa Democrats have criticized King for “chasing the limelight” and paying more attending to the presidential campaign than to the concerns of his Iowa constituents. King was a panelist at a South Carolina forum for the GOP presidential candidates and this past March King hosted a candidate forum in Des Moines.

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Grassley says trade agreements will create jobs

October 13, 2011 By

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley says the free trade agreements approved Wednesday with Columbia, Panama, and South Korea will help the U.S. economy. Grassley says the National Association of Manufacturers estimates the agreements will create 100,000 jobs, the president says it will create 255,000 jobs.

Whatever the number he says they are good-paying jobs as he says jobs in exports pay about 15% above the national average. Grassley and fellow Republican congressmen Steve King and Tom Latham voted for the agreements. Democrat Senator Tom Harkin and Democrat congressmen Leonard Boswell, Dave Loebsack and Bruce Braley voted against it.

Grassley says agriculture, and especially, Iowa agriculture should benefit from the passage of the trade bills. Grassley says pork producers say the agreements will increase the cost paid by $10 per head and he says the U.S. lost a lot of market share of grain sales to Columbia. He says other countries took the market away from us.

The Democrats in the Iowa delegation say they voted against the bill because it will cause us to lose jobs. Senator Harkin says the loss in jobs outweighs the increases in agricultural trade.

By Denis Morrice, KLEM, LeMars

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