Rep. Peter DeFazio met with 25 students at Carson Dining Hall on
Thursday afternoon to hear a broad political spectrum of student
concerns and to speak about his 12 terms of experience in Washington.
The luncheon was part of University Housing's Lunch with Leaders
program and allowed DeFazio to discuss with students what they can do
to make their voices more audible to legislators. DeFazio explained the
difficulty of communicating with constituents in Washington, D.C. and
encouraged students to write personal letters to legislators instead of
submitting formula letters with signatures.
OSPIRG came prepared to send its message to DeFazio and presented him
with a 10-foot homemade poster with footprints thanking the
representative for his leadership on environmental issues.
DeFazio spoke about his perspective on a new "Cap, Regulate and Reduce"
program that, unlike simple cap-and-trade programs, would require
businesses to cut their carbon emissions or pay heavy fines. Unlike cap
and trade, the regulation program does not allow Wall Street to get
involved in trading carbon credits and requires businesses to take full
responsibility for managing their pollution.
Other students voiced concern about the stimulus package's lack of
funding for higher education. University junior Demic Tipitino asked
DeFazio if he were governor, would he have chosen to allocate the money
entirely to K-12 education like Gov. Ted Kulongoski had.
"There are inadequate levels of funding for education at all levels. It
is a tough decision to make. The truth is we need a bigger pot than we
have available to us," DeFazio said. "We need to have a serious
discussion about taxes in this state and I think we might find a
solution there."
Despite DeFazio's avoidance of a student question addressing the rumor
of his running for governor in 2010, his concern for students' issues
was well-received.
"I am a registered Republican, so I inherently disagree with DeFazio's
politics, but I respect how independent of a Democrat he is," Tipitino
said. "He stands up for what he thinks is right even if it isn't what
Clinton or Obama agree with, and I think that is really admirable."
