Sierra Vista Herald –
By U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
A leading national business magazine has crowned Arizona the nation’s Solar Energy King — a prestigious honor that portends explosive growth in our state’s rush to embrace power from the sun instead of power from petroleum.
CD 8 Republican primary candidate Jonathan Paton has launched an ill-informed and misguided attack on Gabrielle Giffords for her work to save the lives of servicemembers and countless taxpayer dollars by strengthening the U.S. Defense Department’s long-term strategic energy position in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Paton, the longtime payday lending lobbyist and former state legislator, was so quick to attack Giffords on Monday that he misspelled “soldiers” in his sloppily written release. More importantly, he completely fails to understand why our nation’s top military leaders consider our dependence on fuel a strategic disadvantage, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Dear Friend,
March is such a wonderful time in our desert – and particularly this year! With the explosion of wildflowers everywhere, it has been a special time to celebrate family holidays and enjoy our brief days of spring. With the bright colors and fragile blossoms, the flowers remind us of everything we value about our Sonoran Desert – its ability to come back through dry, harsh times and bring us a moment of quiet beauty.
Last month, in Congress, we made a difference for the millions of Americans who have struggled over the years without affordable health insurance. This was a tough battle – not unlike our Arizona summers – but we succeeded as a nation to affirm those great American values again with the passage of health care reform, strengthening and defending all of our citizens against a broken system. I was proud, with my vote, to help make this country a better place than it was before.
I saw many of you around the district over the past month: from the incredible second annual Tucson Festival of Books, to the viewing of the copy of the Declaration of Independence to the wonderful Founder’s Day in Marana.
I especially appreciated the multitude of expressions of support that I have received as the 2010 campaign picks up steam. Read below about some of the exciting things that have been going on this month – and then make sure to come on by and join our Cactus Roots team!
Sincerely Yours,
Gabrielle
The Arizona Republic, Oct. 29, 2009
If you want to be sure of reaching a destination, you need a map. It’s the same with an ambitious goal like ramping up solar energy in America.
Last Thursday, the U.S. House approved a bill to create a “Solar Technology Roadmap” that would provide much-needed focus and resources.
A committee, including representatives of the solar-power industry, would lay out the research-and-development needs for the next 15 years. The roadmap would be updated and revised regularly. The bill would authorize funding for R&D and demonstration projects, ramping up from $350 million in fiscal 2011 to $550 million in 2015.
For Arizona, solar power is a double economic opportunity: developing a solar industry and diversifying our power sources with a clean source of electricity. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a second-term Democrat who is a champion of solar power in southern Arizona, sponsored the bill, HR 3585.
Other countries have sped ahead of the United States in developing solar power, and China is making a major push. If we don’t adopt better policies and support innovation, Giffords warns, America will go from importing foreign oil to importing solar panels.
This isn’t an easy time to argue for spending more money. But the bill picked up bipartisan support for a reason.
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, a Maryland Republican who describes himself as a fiscal conservative, a scientist and an engineer, argues that the bill would not use too much money. The funding level, he explains, “only begins to reverse 20 years of underinvestment in solar power.”
The solar roadmap is modeled on a previous effort to develop semiconductors, which spurred two decades of technological advances. The bill still needs a sponsor in the Senate. It would be a real stretch for Sen. Jon Kyl or John McCain to back a bill that was opposed by Arizona’s three Republicans in the House. But they should take a look.
KGUN9.com, October 7, 2009
Written by: Marcy Jones
WASHINGTON -The Solar Technology Roadmap Act , headed by U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is currently on its way to the full House, after earning powerful bipartisan support today from her colleagues on the Science and Technology Committee.
The voice-vote approval of the bill was held this afternoon and was eagerly welcomed by one of Arizona’s finest solar energy researchers, Dr. Roger Angel.
Angel who is currently a professor of astronomy and optical sciences at the University of Arizona, said “The United States has the potential to produce much of its electricity from solar energy in Arizona and the deserts of the Southwest.”
Adding that “Congresswoman Giffords’ Solar Technology Roadmap Act will help turn this dream into reality with the creation of a plan to guide solar energy research. Among the many beneficiaries of this plan would be the University of Arizona, where we are already working to develop sustainable photovoltaic technology optimized for very large scale production.”
Giffords’ legislation requires that the U.S. Department of Energy to appoint a group of experts to create long-term tactics to “guide solar energy research and its transition into commercial uses”.
The group would not only identify specific research and development that is needed to enhance the performance and consistency of solar technologies, but also decrease cost, reduce water use, and mitigate any negative environmental impacts.
The group’s itinerary would consequently be subject to a comprehensive revision every three years to keep it current.
In part, the legislation also authorizes a budget of $2.25 billion for solar research, to be used over the next five years.
In observations of the committee before today’s vote, Giffords compared the nation’s solar industry today, with our semiconductor industry of the 1980s.
“Twenty years ago, the U.S. was in danger of losing its semiconductor industry to Japan,” the congresswoman said.
“In response, the industry created the Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors. The focus of this initiative was creating a roadmap to guide research and development efforts across the industry. By increasing communication between the diverse members of the supply chain, the U.S. semiconductor industry was able to develop standards and avoid the duplication of research efforts. These organized coordination efforts gave rise to U.S. semiconductor giants such as Intel and AMD, and the U.S. continues to lead the world in semiconductor development.”
Also stating that “Today, solar researchers in the U.S. are in a similar situation,” she said. “To maintain a competitive advantage they must come together to meet their common, precompetitive goals – whether in simulation, developing new materials, energy storage, power and grid management, mounting, or even weather forecasting.”
Giffords then noted that her bill would require the Department of Energy to engage more diverse stakeholders in the solar community and work across programs to create a comprehensive plan, “a roadmap” in which to guide funding for the research needed to make the U.S. the global center for solar innovation.
“The roadmap would be required to identify short-, medium- and long-term goals and make recommendations for how to channel research and development resources to meet those goals,” she said. “It will make the Department of Energy more responsive to our solar industry’s needs and encourage increased collaboration and communication across technologies with well-vetted strategies” Giffords concluded.
U.S. REP. GABRIELLE GIFFORDS ADDRESSES SOLAR ECONOMICS FORUM
Arizona lawmaker says solar can help meet our energy needs
Wilcox Range News – September 16, 2009
WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords this week outlined the future of solar power and its potential for growth, telling a conference in the nation’s capital that energy from the sun is becoming cost-competitive with traditional energy sources.
Giffords spoke Thursday at the Solar Economics Forum USA. The event, held at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, was an opportunity for policymakers, investors, utilities and solar companies to explore the economics and debate the viability of solar power as part of the U.S. energy mix.
Giffords, a member of the House Science and Technology Committee, told the forum that solar power has made tremendous strides in recent years – even recent months. But she pointed out that most people, including many of her colleagues in Congress, are unaware of solar’s exciting recent advances.
The Arizona lawmaker said the biggest hurdle now facing the solar industry is not so much technological as psychological. She said the solar industry needs to do a better job of telling its story so more people understand how it can make a serious contribution to meeting our nation’s energy challenges.
The text of Giffords’ prepared remarks is below.
Solar Economics Forum – “Telling the Solar Story”
U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, September 10, 2009
Good morning everyone. It’s great to be with you all today to take part in this important discussion on the future of solar energy.
As many of you may know, I’m relatively new to Washington. I was first elected to Congress in 2006 and I am now serving my second term. I’m proud to say that I have been a strong supporter of solar power since the day I arrived, and it is one of my highest policy priorities.
As a member of the House Science and Technology Committee, I have had an especially good position to advocate for increased solar research and development. In fact, I am working with the committee right now on a bill to reauthorize the solar R&D program at the Department of Energy.
I have been a strong advocate for other pro-solar policies as well, including the investment tax credit, a renewable electricity standard, a manufacturing tax credit, loan guarantees, and workforce development programs. I have also been promoting solar in my other committees, especially the Armed Services Committee, where I have been an outspoken supporter of renewable energy leadership by our military.
People sometimes ask me why I’m such a big fan of solar power. Well, there’s no doubt that it helps to represent a district in Arizona, a state with some of the highest solar potential in the world. In my hometown of Tucson we are blessed with over 300 days of sunshine every year and solar power is very popular with my constituents.
But the fact is that our entire country has great solar potential, not just the desert Southwest. Anyone who has ever seen a map showing the solar energy levels received by different areas of the U.S. knows that our entire nation can make effective use of solar power.
So there’s lots of solar potential out there. Does that mean tapping it is necessarily a good thing to do? I firmly believe the answer is ‘yes’, and I’ll tell you why.
Since I became a member of Congress, I wake up every morning, and I go to bed each night, thinking about the major issues confronting our nation. Among the largest challenges we face are:
· How do we create good jobs and get our economy moving again?
· How do we ensure our national security in a dangerous world? and
· How do we protect our natural environment – especially from the threat of catastrophic climate change?
Ultimately, the reason I get so excited about solar power is that it offers a viable solution – at least in part – to all of these major challenges. Economic competitiveness, energy independence, and climate protection: solar is truly a win-win-win.
As I was preparing for today and looking through the brochure for the conference, a few lines of text caught my eye. I’d like to read them to you:
“The U.S. solar industry could become the largest solar market in the world and solar can play a significant role in the U.S. energy mix, providing a viable option that addresses environmental and security issues.”
That’s a true statement, of course, and it’s not really surprising to find it on a brochure for a solar conference. But it is exciting: “solar can play a significant role in the U.S. energy mix…” In my experience, most people simply don’t know this!
Over the past several years I’ve had the privilege of speaking with scores of people working on solar power: researchers, manufacturers, investors, project developers, people from private industry, the Department of Energy, the military, and the non-profit sector. Their message to me has been clear: Solar technology works, it is rapidly getting even better, and it can contribute significantly to meeting our energy needs.
Given what I was saying earlier, about solar’s potential to help address some of our most serious challenges, that is fantastic news. There’s just one problem: many of my colleagues in Congress don’t believe it!
Well, that’s not quite true. It’s not so much that they don’t believe it as they just don’t know it. They don’t know what solar is capable of.
Most of my colleagues haven’t spent as much time as I have keeping up with this industry. They are not aware of the amazing strides solar technology has made in recent years. As a result, their view of solar power and its potential is several years behind the curve.
Many policymakers still see solar as a niche technology, suitable for limited applications. They view it as expensive and unreliable. As for making a “significant contribution to our energy mix,” most don’t view solar as up to the task. They talk about solar being great sometime in the distant future. But right now? No way. They just don’t think today’s solar has the muscle to power our industrial economy. They don’t see solar power as serious energy.
This view is mistaken. Solar is very serious. Between solar hot water, concentrating solar power, and photovoltaics, solar technologies have the potential to make a dramatic contribution to our energy challenges right now. What’s more, many countries in Europe and Asia see solar technology as a great emerging industry in its own right.
But as they say in politics, perception is reality. That, in my view, is the number one challenge facing the solar industry in the United States.
The inaccurate perception of solar power’s capabilities can have serious repercussions for U.S. energy policy. Let me give you just one recent example. You all know the House passed a large energy bill at the end of June: the American Clean Energy & Security Act. Among the primary goals of this bill was to establish a program to mitigate climate change. Given that one of the major benefits of solar power is emissions-free electricity, one might think it should figure prominently in the bill.
To be fair, there is significant support for renewables and energy efficiency in general, including a Renewable Electricity Standard and funding for states to implement efficiency and renewable projects. If we use EPA estimates for the value of emissions allowances, the bill would generate about 90 billion dollars between 2012 and 2050 for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs. Unfortunately, none of that is specifically dedicated to solar – or any other renewable for that matter. But given that solar is not the least-cost renewable, there are some concerns about how much of that support solar will ultimately get.
By contrast, the bill provides up to 60 billion dollars specifically for the development of “clean coal”- a technology that even its supporters concede will not be ready for at least a decade, if ever. Now I’m not opposed to providing some R&D support for coal, but what I find stunning is the difference in levels of assured support.
On the one hand we have solar, a proven suite of technologies built by an emerging industry; on the other hand we have “clean coal,” an unproven technology supported by a mature industry. To deploy either one will require building new infrastructure, so coal offers no particular benefit in that respect. As for prices, the trend for solar is consistently down, while the trend for coal is persistently up. Despite these circumstances coal received tens of billions in assured support. Solar, meanwhile, is eligible for funding, but received no explicit assurances of any deployment support at all.
We are in a race – actually two races – against time. One is to firmly establish the United States as a solar industry leader before other countries open up an unbeatable lead. The other race is to transform our energy system and reduce emissions soon enough to prevent the worst effects of climate change. In these two races, where time is of the essence and financial resources are finite, our lopsided energy policy threatens to have significant consequences.
There are reasons, of course, for why the bill contains such different levels of assured support, and the differences come as no surprise to veteran Hill watchers. We all understand the role of lobbying in our political system. The coal industry has deep pockets and significant resources to get its message out. That probably helps explain their success in this bill.
The solar community, by contrast, is not protecting the status quo – it is selling a vision of the future. It is painting a picture of something that could be, but isn’t yet. As such, its resources and its base of support are much smaller.
But I believe the biggest problem solar has is one of perception. It is too easy to marginalize solar because not enough people take it seriously yet. Many people believe what they’ve been told: coal is up to the task of powering our country and renewables are not. In my opinion, solar will never receive the support it needs to achieve its full potential until the conventional wisdom changes about what it can do.
If lawmakers understood that solar offers a serious energy solution, its political support would increase substantially. Solar would cease to be a side project and would become a strategic investment. Policymakers would be more likely to discuss the full suite of policies necessary to ensure solar can meet its potential.
Today’s solar industry is populated mostly by small companies, each one engaged in a daily struggle to survive. New technologies are still emerging, and while there are some dominant players it is not clear whether they will stay on top. Everyone is busy jockeying for position and growing their own companies.
That’s fine. That’s capitalism. But we also need to create space for cooperation on a common message. Every solar company, big and small, is affected by the current policy bias toward traditional energy. Consequently, every solar company has a vested interest in updating the conventional wisdom regarding what solar can do.
This challenge is more fundamental than changing policy – it is about changing minds. Once the conventional wisdom changes, the policy will follow.
In short, the solar community must get better about telling its story. It must get into the offices on Capitol Hill and share the exciting news about the tremendous strides made in recent years, and what this industry has to offer America.
This will not be easy – there’s a lot of competition for Members’ attention on energy these days. But don’t get discouraged! Yes, solar is a young industry that can’t possibly match coal and oil dollar for dollar. But that just means other means of communication become more important. Individual companies need to establish close relationships with their Representatives in Congress. A visit from a constituent is almost always more effective than a lobbyist visit anyway. Visit often and keep Members and their staffs updated. Make sure they understand the benefits that solar has to offer their communities and their constituents.
Considering the limited financial resources, solar policy has made remarkable progress over the last year. The fact is, solar is popular.
But people need to know that solar is also practical, that it can meet multiple needs of individuals and society at a reasonable cost. I know the industry is working hard, but more effort is needed to spread this message.
Most solar companies tend to view their primary competition as other solar companies. They pour their efforts into developing the best technology. But when it comes to public policy, the entire industry is in the same boat; every solar company currently takes a back seat to fossil fuels. By joining together to get the word out, every solar company will ultimately benefit.
To finish up I’ll just share a little bit of what we are working on in my office to spread the word. As I mentioned before, solar is one of our top priorities, and our advocacy efforts extend well beyond introducing legislation.
On the education front, my district office delivers free “Solar 101″ seminars across Southern Arizona. These events are designed to help people understand how to go solar themselves, and they often draw standing room crowds. We have also helped organize day-long solar conferences in southern Arizona and in Phoenix.
Many of my recent efforts have involved working with the military on energy. The military is not only one of the largest landowners in the country, it is also one of the biggest energy consumers. So there is tremendous potential for the military to lead in the deployment of solar and other renewables. They are already doing great things and I like to encourage them to move even more aggressively. This will help create demand, drive down costs, and improve our national security in the process.
To improve communication in Arizona, I have recently begun a weekly call with solar leaders across our state. We call this our Solar Hot Team, and the regular communication has been invaluable. It is a great help to know what everyone is working on. Currently, the Hot Team is developing outreach initiatives to educate business and community leaders across the state in the possibilities of solar.
Finally, we are planning the launch of a monthly solar newsletter soon. If you’d like to receive it, I encourage you all to check my website. We will have a sign-up form there soon, and in the meantime you can see all of what we are working on. Just click on the link to “solar news.”
If the solar industry is to achieve its full potential in the U.S., good technology will not be enough; we must get the policy right as well. To do that, we must have broad support; and to get that support, people must understand what solar can do.
Solar technology, and the industry as a whole, has made tremendous strides in recent years. Prices continue to fall, performance continues to rise, and real progress is being made on storage. Challenges remain, but the fact is that solar is ready to start making a serious contribution to our nation’s energy needs right now. Policy makers need to know that solar is serious energy.
My mission as an elected official is to help move solar policy forward so this country can secure all the benefits solar energy has to offer. We can create good, domestic jobs and get our economy moving again; we can bolster our security and reduce our dependence on foreign energy; and we can protect our natural environment for our children and grandchildren. We can do these things, and we must. Solar makes it possible!
Thank you for being here today and thank you for all that you are doing to move solar forward. Our challenge now – for all of us – is to take our efforts to the next level. We must communicate what this industry is all about and what solar can do. I look forward to working with you!
Arizona Capitol Times, July 10, 2009
By Jeremy Duda
Between the recent cap-and-trade bill and the alternative energy provisions of the stimulus act, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has seen some of her top priorities take center stage in Congress this year.
But with issues like comprehensive immigration reform and a massive health care overhaul on the horizon, Giffords and her colleagues have a lot on their plates, and there are no obvious answers. On health care, Giffords is talking to constituents, listening to the experts and even hobnobbing with the president in search of the best solution.
In a telephone interview that required a half-dozen breaks so Giffords could run back out to the House of Representatives floor to vote, Arizona’s motorcycle-riding Blue Dog Democrat spoke with the Arizona Capitol Times about energy independence, Congress’s ambitious agenda and whether Arizona can look forward to another stimulus package.
What is the likelihood that there will be a second stimulus act, and would you support one?
At this moment I’d like to see the stimulus dollars distributed to the states, put into action and the jobs actually created. The stimulus bill that we passed a few months ago was about an $800-billion piece of legislation, and approximately 40 percent of the bill went for tax cuts, but a significant amount went into reinvesting in our nation’s infrastructure.
A lot of shovel-ready projects were funded, as well as our education system, including community colleges and universities, also the K-12 system, and a lot of our research institutions that had been underfunded for many, many years. So at this point, I don’t believe that members of Congress have an appetite to pass an additional stimulus bill until we actually see the dollars in the first bill distributed to the states and the jobs created that we had anticipated.
How effective do you think the first stimulus act has been?
I think in some ways it’s been effective in terms of allowing the American people to know that these resources are being made available. The challenge right now is that the money has been very slowly distributed to the states, or the states have not, because of their own budget crises, not been in a situation, like in the case of Arizona where we haven’t actually been able to pass a budget, been able to take advantage of those dollars.
So I know that additional funding to the science agencies has been helpful. I know that, in terms of states shoring up their overall budgets, they can look to the federal dollars and know that they’re there. But the reality is that we’d like to speed up the process. So like I said, going back to passing another stimulus, at this point in time we need to make sure the first stimulus works before we add an additional piece of legislation.
What more can the federal government do to help the economy recover?
Obviously we’re fighting two wars right now, so in terms of redeploying our troops from Iraq and assisting the Iraqi people to secure their nation so that we can leave that country, we are refocusing a lot of our efforts on Afghanistan. The resources that have gone toward these wars have been very large, so not having to spend that money in Iraq and Afghanistan – or specifically in Iraq. Afghanistan’s budget is not nearly as (big) as Iraq’s – that will be important.
The best way that we are going to get out of this crisis is by re-growing our economy. And looking at manufacturing in this country and trying to keep a solid infrastructure – for example, the auto industry – was something that we thought was a priority from the national security standpoint, and also from an economic standpoint.
Now, I voted against the auto bailout bill because I didn’t believe the auto companies had provided sufficient information or a good enough plan. … But now that we are a majority shareholder in GM and Chrysler, we’re talking about really millions of jobs when it comes to the indirect effects of the auto industry. So one (way the federal government can help) is looking at manufacturing in this country and those sorts of jobs.
When you understand that right now we are exporting about $400 billion a year to pay for foreign oil, being able to produce America’s energy in America not only will save us money when it comes to the investments that we’re making abroad and the money that we have to borrow in order to secure those energy sources, but the money that we could create by taking advantage of this new energy revolution. And that’s one of the reasons I’m so passionate about solar energy.
And the third way is the money that we’re planning to save with health care. Right now, approximately one in every five dollars spent in our economy goes toward health care. So one of the reasons we’re having such a vigorous debate right now on health care reform is because we have close to 50 million Americans who don’t have health care. The leading cause of bankruptcy in our nation is because of health-related emergency. We spend well over 50 percent more than the next country behind us when it comes to costs associated with health care. Yet almost 50 million Americans don’t have access to it, and another 20 million are currently underinsured. So in terms of helping our economy as well, having a healthy work force is absolutely critical.
What type of health care system would you like to see passed by Congress? Do you support a public option?
Right now, because I’m not on any of the three committees with jurisdiction, I’m currently weighing in through my involvement with the Blue Dog Coalition, and also through the New Democrats. And right now we’ve seen a couple of drafts and we’ve had meetings almost morning, noon and night on health care reform. I’m weighing in largely from the perspective I’ve gathered from my constituents. I had a health care town hall a couple weeks ago where we had over a thousand participants.
Arizona has some really unique challenges. We’re directly on the border. We are disproportionately impacted with the costs of illegal immigration. We have a large retirement community. And my district has a lot of lower-income individuals. So the challenges associated with us in Arizona are just different than the folks in Connecticut.
One of my top priorities is no matter what we do that it’s paid for, that we don’t push the bill off on future generations. My second top priority is that if we do something that it encompasses all Americans, that we don’t rack up a $1.5 trillion bill that will only cover 11 million additional Americans.
That’s not acceptable.
Obviously cost will be a major issue in the debate. How can we pay for health care reform?
As a Blue Dog, I’m very committed to PAYGO. The president has said that he’s committed to PAYGO. So that will be one of the largest obstacles that we will have to deal with if we’re going to pass something out of the House with support from the Democrats.
And I also feel strongly that the bill has to be bipartisan. Health care should not be a partisan issue. Democrats and Republicans should work together on this legislation and own this legislation.
The recent vote on cap-and-trade legislation, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, split Arizona’s Democratic delegation, with Reps. Ann Kirkpatrick and Harry Mitchell voting against it. Why did you vote for the bill?
This legislation has the ability to – and it’s a broad piece of legislation – to truly transform our dependency on foreign oil. It’s critical to our national security.
Arizona is a real winner in this legislation. In CD8, the cost of this legislation, and this is after the 2012 implementation, will be about 46 cents a day, and the efficiency that we’re looking at saving will be a household reduction by 2020 of over $130. It’s also estimated, because of our solar resources and wind and other renewables, that the potential is to create 30,000 jobs in this state. I look at it as a jobs bill and a national security bill as well.
And there’s a lot of emphasis on new technology. For example, a piece of legislation that I worked on last year is called ARPA-E, and it’s modeled after DARPA, which was the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. It was the agency that developed the Internet and developed the stealth bomber. Some of the coolest stuff that we’ve ever developed in this country has come out of DARPA, and this agency, which will be housed in the Department of Energy, is very similar. It’s for the most cutting-edge advanced-energy research.
I was also able to add language into the bill that will be very helpful for increasing the use of renewable energy resources by the federal government, because currently about 80 percent of the energy used by the federal government is used by the Department of Defense.
In the big picture, I’m concerned about climate change. And instead of increasing this deficit, the energy act, American Clean Energy and Security Act … is deficit neutral, and it requires the polluters who are currently emitting dangerous carbon emissions to pay. Also included in the legislation are some provisions for rural communities and farmers, folks that I have over in the eastern part of my district, to be able to generate new incomes as well. So I look at this as a bill that will protect consumers and will help Arizona really lead.
What do you think Congress should in regard to the upcoming debate on comprehensive immigration reform?
I was very pleased to have been invited to the White House two weeks ago to be part of the president’s initial discussion on immigration reform. And what the president said is if he has any political capital left over after health care and after the energy vote, that he would put it toward a comprehensive immigration reform bill.
I was really pleased to see both Senator McCain and Senator Kyl at that meeting, because I think they have been and hopefully will be instrumental in passing a comprehensive bill. Even though you don’t hear about the problems with immigration, the problems are still there. Last year, the Tucson sector of the Border Patrol, and I represent part of that area, apprehended 319,000 illegal immigrants. It’s slightly down from around 389,000 the previous year.
So we have the most heavily trafficked part of the U.S.-Mexico border. And because I represent four counties very close to the border, I feel very strongly that the federal government needs to step up and take responsibility for the enforcement of our immigration laws and reimbursing local entities for costs associated with the government’s failure to secure the border.
That includes SCAAP (State Criminal Alien Assistance Program) funding, and we were successful last year when SCAAP provided $17.4 million to the Pima County Sheriff’s Office and other local law enforcement agencies. Out of that $17.4 million, the Arizona Department of Corrections received $12.8 million to house approximately 5,600 criminal illegal immigrants. And Ann Kirkpatrick, Harry Mitchell and I also achieved a major victory earlier this year when we got the House’s support on an amendment that appropriated $400 million toward SCAAP.
So I’m optimistic that with Janet Napolitano heading up the Department of Homeland Security that we’re going to see a smarter border policy. So far, the numbers have gone down in terms of the apprehensions. But the problem is still clearly there.
Speaking of our former governor, what do you think of the job Napolitano has done at DHS?
Janet Napolitano is very smart. She has a no-nonsense approach toward the work that she does. She was a very strong governor for the state of Arizona. I’m sorry to have seen her leave during a very difficult time for us here. But I think that settling into her new position at the Department of Homeland Security provides her an entirely new challenge.
Her successor here in Arizona certainly had her work cut out for her. What do you think of the job Jan Brewer has done as governor?
I know that Governor Jan Brewer is working really hard to try to put a budget together, and it’s very difficult dealing with a divided Legislature and a budget deficit as large as the deficit that we have in the state.
I’m concerned about the future of our state. I’m concerned about our public education system and our health care system and the people that rely on having a solid budget. But ultimately, I think Governor Brewer will be strong and I think that she will realize that she is the governor of the state of Arizona and settle better into her role, and lead the state for the time that she has remaining.
Who knows what’s going to happen in 2010 with her running or not running for re-election, but meanwhile there’s a lot of work that needs to be done in the state.
Brewer has run into a lot of opposition to her tax increase proposal. What do you think of the idea?
There are only certain ways to balance the budget, and she apparently did what she thought was an appropriate step. Because I’m not actively involved with the state budget, I’m not clear what the current options are for closing the hole.
You’re considered by many to be a rising star in the Democratic Party in Arizona. Have you considered running for higher office?
At this moment in time I’d just like to hold onto my seat while I have the passion and the energy to work very hard for the people of southern Arizona. I believe that I’m the first southern Arizonan in our history to serve on the House Armed Services Committee, and with Fort Huachuca and Davis-Monthan in the district and Air National Guard and an Army Guard unit as well in southern Arizona, I am very focused on readiness issues that affect the Air Force and also the Army.
So at this point, I’ve got a very tough district, a district that voted for President Bush twice; a district that did not support Barack Obama in the primary or in the general election, and right now I’m just focused on my job. And so far, so good.
