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♪ Lakeland Currents, your public affairs
program for north central Minnesota. Produced by Lakeland
Public Television with Host Ray Gildow.
Production funding for Lakeland Currents is made possible by Bemidji
Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-St. Paul
International Airport. More information available at
bemidjiairport.org. Closed captioning for Lakeland
Currents is sponsored by Nisswa Tax Service. Tax preparation
for businesses and individuals. Online at
nisswatax.com.
Ray: Hello again everyone and welcome to Lakeland Currents.
The eighth congressional district is a
geographic huge place.
27,500 square miles if you can imagine how big that
is. The anchor of this is
the city of Duluth which is Minnesota's fifth largest city
and about 63/64 percent of the people
who live in the eight district are considered to be urban
not...or are considered to be rural rather not urban.
And it's my great pleasure today to have the congressman
from the eighth district here, Rick Nolan. And
welcome to Lakeland Currents. Rick: Well, thank you I'm delighted to be here.
It's great program, great show and a
great congressional district. By the way, it's bigger than 10 states.
Ray: Is it really? Rick: Yeah, yeah. It's huge. Ray: Wow! I can believe that cause it's
long. Rick: It's pretty hard to go anywhere without getting
you know, at least three or four hours coming and going
in the car. Ray: And you know, at one time it was
completely democratic when it was a little bit of a different geographic
stretch than it is now. [Yeah] And over the last few elections it's
been a lot closer balance between republican and
democratic. But the Iron Range
area, the Duluth area, still I would guess is pretty much
democratic. That's probably where...Rick: Well, it is pretty good although
you know, there's this Nate Silver, he's kind of
the quintessential guru of campaigns
and election analysis. And he analyzes
every district in the country for their competitiveness.
And he just finished analyzing
194
democrats. He'll do the same for the republicans
but mine is the most difficult race in the
country for a democrat to win. [Wow] And
so, and on a...some of the recent
polling we're seeing on just a generic
basis, you know, we're going to vote for
would you vote for the democrat or the republican? The republican
wins by about six points. Our most recent
polling still shows me winning by about a similar amount
So, but it's a very very competitive district until
this thing in Georgia, it was the most competitive
or expensive in the country. It was well
over 20 million dollars, which is just obscene.
Begs to question, you know, how does this happen?
And we need to fix and change...that.
Ray: During the Jim Obestair...Oberstar
era rather, pretty much reliable district
for the democrats, wasn't it. Rick: Oh gosh! I mean you could never
call any state wide election until the
eight district vote came in. Because it was always gonna
be huge, it was gonna be 60-75 percent democratic
but it's not like that at all anymore. Ray: So now,
from my perspective, whoever represents the district and you are
representing it now in your second term it's just
a tight rope to walk, isn't it? Because if you look at
supporting say, mining issues? You're gonna have the
environmentalists who are against that. [Yeah] And I don't know
if people who don't get involved with politics understand
how challenging that is to balance
these things out. Rick: Well, it...truly is.
And you know, you and I are in the same
age bracket even though you look a lot younger than I do. [Yeah right]
Yeah, um. [laughter] So but you remember when we were kids
I mean the rivers were running sewers and the lakes were catching
on fire and acid rain was destroying the forest.
The narrative then was you know, we can't
have all these environmental rules and regulations or nobody
will be able to do any business. And
unfortunately now that narrative has flopped
they're flipped. And you have people saying
well, we can't do any mining or
manufacturing....
because then we won't have an environment. But there were
many of us then and who continue now myself included,
to say no, no. We've got the brains, we got the science. We certainly
have the needs, just muster up the political will.
We should be able to do both. And we proved
that we could. I mean, and we didn't
know how they were gonna do it, Ray.
But you know the automobile industry came up with a catalytic
converter to scrub the sulphur out of
automobile exhaust. And we stopped the acid rain.
The power companies and the paper mills came up with scrubbers
to take the toxins and other
pollutants that were going into the rivers and the lakes.
And we even have a thing now called reverse osmosis
which we did not have back in the day. You can take a
pump and push some kind of a liquid through
it and you can filter out a virus. You know, how many
parts of sulphur per million do you want? You know,
300, 100, 10, 0? Obviously it gets
more expensive the more you want to dial it
down. But I'm of the view that we still
have the smarts, the brains, the technology
and the technologies keep growing and....
getting better all the time. And
we....have I think a
profound obligation to do both.
Ray: You and the governor both have supported now the mining
project up in north east Minnesota.
And could you just talk a little bit about that? Rick: Sure, sure.
Before I do, I want to point out one thing. I just attended
a lecture here recently by a doctor
Jim Boyer, who's written a book called "The
Irresponsible Pursuit of Paradise".
And he talks about how dependent we are
upon the import of so many of these
extracted minerals that are responsible
for our communications, responsible and
necessary. Ray: Copper, uranium. Rick: Yeah, copper, nickel, iron
ore, you name it. And we're actually
exporting....
the need for these minerals
to developing countries around the world where they have no
enviro...virtually no environmental rules and regulations.
And a great deal of human exploitation.
And that's something that people I think have to start
thinking about. We don't want to be a bunch of...a nation of
nimbies exporting
and degradating everybody elses environment in the world.
Especially when we have the capacity and we have the most
rigorous rules and regulations anywhere in the world. We have the capacity to
do it here and do it well. Polymet
is a good case and point. They've
undergone 12 years of scrutinization.
They've been approved by the EPA
by the Forestry
by Interior by the DNR
by the PCA, by Fish
and Wildlife Services. And time and time and again
they've been asked to go back to the board
and to demonstrate what kind of abatement procedures
they're going to use. And demonstrate their
effectiveness. And
so I've been the same ol' guy I always was. I've
been an ardent supporter of the environment but I'm an ardent supporter
of mining as well.
And....I gotta tell you something else
that people haven't thought about in this. Of course it's important
for the jobs and the economy in northern Minnesota.
But guess what, Homeland Security just did a
study recently and they found
that 13 percent of the nations gross national
product goes through the lochs
at the Sioux Narrows. Now why is that relevant to us? That
that's how Lake Superior gets into the Great Lakes.
And the bulk of that material
is iron ore from MInnesota's range going
through the port of Duluth. And
the study concluded that if those lochs failed
it would throw the country into a great depression. [Wow] Because
that ore supplies all the Great Lake steel mills
and they supply the automobile industry and all the heavy
industrials. Which is why we have
military protection there. Because again if that
failed because we shut down the mines or the
fail just from obsolescence
and or they were some kind of an asymmetrical
or overt military tact, it would throw the country into a great
depression and put seven million people
out of business. So,
bottom line is you know, I've been working to get the
and I've gotten a considerable amount of money to do a feasibility
study cause the lochs are obsolete and they're causing a lot
of trouble. But more
importantly this mining here in northern MInnesota is of
course important for us. But it's important for the whole country. Our national
security, our national economy. And
tourism is important too. So we have to make sure that
we impose and insist on these rigorous state
and federal standards. But for the most part, industry
is ok with that. You know, they used to fight that. They now understand that
American people expect you know, good strong
standards. So as long as we have those good standards in place there's no reason
why we can't do mining and have
continuous of the clean water and healthy
atmosphere we have up here in the eighth district. We have the cleanest water
in the state, by the way. Ray: In the eighth district. Right. Rick: We want to keep it that way, yup.
Ray: Some of the key issues facing
the eighth district are the same issues facing all of Minnesota.
Health care is certainly one of them. [Yeah] And now
this week as they start negotiating the tax
bill, at least on the senate side or the
house I can't remember which is, it looks like they might
start looking at that American health care or the
American... Rick: Yeah the ACA.
Ray: ACA. And taking... Rick: Yeah, American...otherwise known as Obamacare. Ray: Taking out
the requirement that you have to have insurance. Rick: Yeah, yeah.
Ray: What's your take on what's....[Yeah]
it's hard to figure out what's going on. I don't believe... Rick: Yeah, well it's a
moving target. It's just changing. Ray: I suspect that you are the answer to all this.
Rick: No, no. It's changing from day to day. But
the essential challenge
here is is that under
the current system, outside
of Medicare and some Medicaid
everybody in America has got a different insurance policy.
Depending on how old you are, what your health is, what
your income is, how many children you have, how many
dependents you have, what's your zip code.
And it's become an administrative nightmare.
I introduced the...one of the
first single payer proposals when I had served
in the congress back in the 70's. There were only four of us
that supported it at the time. Ray: And what is single payer?
Rick: You know, first of all it's what most of
the rest of the wor...developed countries in the world do.
And.....and
they get better results and they pay
dramatically less for health care than we do.
It's so fundamentally American. And here's what it is.
Everybody's got the same policy, ok?
So administratively you'd do it for two-three percent.
Instead of 30, 40, 50 percent.
And....and everybody
everybody pays. So...
between...and everybody pays the same rate.
Ray: Nineteen different. Rick: So everybody pays, everybody pays the same rate
and everybody pays. It's a wonderful
formula. And of course it doesn't cover some of the more
exotic plastic surgery but it covers all the
basics. So all the developed countries...and they do that
that's fundamentally what Medicare is. Which is why
a number of people have called you know, for Medicare
for all. Because that's a single payer, it's not a socializing..
it's not socializing medical care. But
it...the doctors remain independent
businesses providing health
services. But I wanted to tell you when I introduced this
there were four of us back in the 70's, ok? And oh my
gosh, the medical community they were so upset with me. My
gosh. It was frightening sometimes to go to a public
meeting. I was afraid I'd get my tongue or ripped out or my eyes
ripped out. And they spent a lot of money trying
to defeat me. Well, here we are you know, quite some
years later. We have 130 sponsors
now. And guess who's contributing to my campaign?
The American Medical Association and the medical doctors. [Really?] Why?
I've had a doctor in Duluth tell me he's spending
90 percent, and I think on average they say they're
spending about 50 percents of their time and their money
in their offices processing all of these
insurance claims. Ray: I've had doctors on the show and they all say the
same thing. Rick: Yeah, and that's not what they went into medicine for. They went
into medicine to....it's a healing
arts profession. They want to heal people and fix people. They don't want to sit
around being medical insurance
process claimers.
So, that's exciting. And we're building more and
more support for that. And we're gonna get there.
And I'm confident that it's just gonna take a little
more time. Ray: I believe last year you were voted
as one of the most successful
congressman in working across the
aisle. Rick: You know, I was. And it....
it actually wasn't a vote
several of the Universities, Virginia and Vanderbelt
they just looked at bills and amendments that
all the members of congress had introduced and followed them
to see how many of them had become law of the
land. And I'm proud to say
that I became...I was the second most effective
of all 194 democrats in
the house. And one of the ten most effective.
And then they concluded from that being that
I'm in the minority and I remind myself and others
that I had bi-partisan support for all
that legislation. And....
you know you and I were talking earlier about
the....
George Washington's farewell address. And how
poignant it is for today. It was kind of a message
for future generations.
Where he said the greatest threats to democracy
were as......
as I recall, one is excessive partisanship. [Correct] We certainly
got that today. [Yup] The other
was the accumulation of massive deficits.
And we certainly
have that today. And the
third one was
influence by foreign governments on our politics. And we
certainly have that today. What
an incredibly visionary view Washington had. Ray: And I think there
was something even about the president
or the whoever is in power, starting to have influence
in the department of justice and some of those people to
use those for their own political game. I think that
was another one. The things he touched on. Rick: Yeah, yeah. One of the things that we needed
to be aware of if we wanted to preserve and protect... Ray: So it's kind of an ironic
Rick: And the other thing about it was is that
you know, he epitomized stability.
And integrity. You know, never tell a lie.
He just....he
made people then proud of our
government and our way of life
and to this day
as our first president he makes us proud.
And there's been a tremendous degradation
of civility and
kindness and integrity in government. And it breaks
your heart to see so many people losing
faith and trust in their governmental processes.
It's a...there's a lot of
things that need fixing and I've got some ideas about how we fix them.
But they definitely need fixing and I think we
can all agree on that. Ray: One of the things you talked about when you
were here two years ago was the pressure that's on
incoming congressmen and senators to
raise money. [Yeah] Is that still...[Oh...]
is that still the same pressure you're dealing with? Rick: Yeah, it
is. It's only gotten worse, Ray. [Really?] Yeah.
They tell....
the new members that they should spend 25-30 hours
a week in the call centers [Wow] across the
street. [Wow]
And then you should have another 10 hours a week
in actual fundraising events.
And you know...
in my case...it's an eight hour trip
out to Washington door to door.
And I go out and come back every week.
So, you know do the math on that. And...
Ray: Aren't enough hours. Rick: I made a decision I said I'm not
going to go to the call centers. They never used
to exist when I served before or any other point in
history. I just said, look at this stage in my life
being a chance to go and serve and pay it forward
pay it back, because life's been good to our generation. And that's what's
getting away from this country. I said, I didn't go out to Washington
to become a middle level telemarketer. And
dialing for dollars. So I haven't.
So you know, I like to say my success as a legislator
is my ability to reach across the aisle. Find
public partners. But part of it just going to work on the peoples business
instead of going across the street raising money for yourself. [Sure]
It ain't a big secret. And I don't care what business
you're in, if you don't show up and go to work you're not gonna
get anything done. So it ain't rocket science. But I
want to see....this citizens united
reversed. That allows all this dark
money in the politics most of which is negative
and degrading of a camp...discourages good people
from running for public office. I think we need a system of
small donor contribution
supplemented by public financing.
I think we need to fix gerrymandering, the fact that there's 435
seats in the congress and only 24 of them are
competitive. That's not real democracy.
We need to have regular order. Right now I just
saw a report yesterday this
current congress has had more closed rules
than any other congress in the history of the country.
When I served before everything came up under an open
rule. If you had an idea, you offered it. And you debated
it and you argued it and that's how you find common ground.
But this healthcare legislation some
of which would put as many as 25-30 million people
on the streets without health care. And never
been presented and it with an opportunity to
make an amendment. The congress
the house just recently passed the
a tax bill under a closed rule.
Didn't matter if you were Rick Nolan or
Clem Kiddipelhopper you know, from Alabama.
If you had an amendment you wanted to offer you didn't get a
chance. It was voted up or down. [Wow] That's not real
democracy. [No, no] Real democracy is a lot of work.
You have to hear everybody out and make some tough decisions
but now it's mostly just partisan positioning
and one party ruling and shutting
everybody else out. Ray: Let's just talk a little bit about
that tax legislation because that is
the criticism coming from lots of places.
That this is being rushed through you know
after Thanksgiving there was gonna be or was a vote
and it's not involving
people even from industry or people from
the colleges [No] who are experts and economists
and those people when they get a chance to start looking
at the legislation they're pretty much petrified by what
they're seeing. And it's....you know the same
[inaudible] made against the democrats with Obamacare. That that
stuff was ran through. But that took over a
year to develop that legislation. [It did] And this legislation
for the taxes taking them weeks. Rick: We....yeah
we didn't have one minute of hearing on this tax bill
that the house recently passed. And
I am of the belief that if we had a vote
on whether or not kids who are struggling with
their education, well they're no longer kids anymore, they're paying
their student debt. If we had a vote on whether or not the interest
on their loans should be deductible we'd
win that. You know? If we had a vote on whether
or not your state and local taxes should be deductible
we'd win that. If we had a vote on whether
charitable contributions or you name it...you know
we would win those. But we don't have any votes on that.
Everybody that's...contacted me in my office
you know, in the run up to this
tax debate has really
serious problems with it. Our Minnesota commissioners
determine that under the house passed bill
450,000 Minnesotans are gonna get a tax increase.
They found that...
320,000 people would lose the deductibility
on the interest for their college education
loan. Geez, Ray, you know when you and I went to
college it was about a 100 bucks a quarter. Ray: Yeah, it was pretty reasonable. Rick: I mean it was virtually
free. Huh, come on?! Ray: Yeah it was. Rick: So,
and the truth of the matter is if somebody
does get a tax break under this thing in the middle class
although the CBO, Congressional Budget Office,
said anybody making under 70,000 dollars a
year is going to get a tax increase.
If you did it'd be...if you did get a break it'd be enough to
buy a hubcap on a Mercedes Benz. Ray: Not a new car.
Rick: But you know, the upper one percenters you know, they'll
be able to buy the whole Mercedes Benz.
Maybe a fleet of them. There's 1...1.5
trillion dollars in tax breaks for the upper one percent.
Ray: And it's increasing the debt significantly. Rick: And
pass...well....the things most egregious about
this are one, that's passing that debt onto our children,
that's unconscionable, 1.5 trillion
dollars. And then this huge tax
break for the super millionaires and billionaires the
one percenter. I'm sorry, they're not struggling. I don't know
a lot of them but I do happen to know a couple of them.
And they're doing just fine. And
and then it's going to impose a tax
increase on the middle class that's struggling so hard.
It's a terrible bill, terrible bill. Bodes very poorly
for our countries future. At a time when the rich are getting
richer in degrees unparalleled. The middle class is getting
crushed every which way they turn. And
and the poor just getting poorer. And
the disparity in wealth has never been
so great in this country since just before
the great depression. So that does not bode well. Ray: So...
when you have private conversations with your peers,
across the aisle, they must feel some of the
pressure of dealing with this too. Even though maybe they
have to take the party line. Rick: Oh, they do, yeah. Ray: Because my experience
has been when you get politicians in the back rooms and they're
alone they're just like we are. Rick: Yeah,
you know Mark Meadows heads that
tea party liberty conference or caucus.
He's one of my better friends there in the congress.
And you know what? He and the tea party's
not happy about the fact that everything's being decided in
the speakers office. You know, they didn't come there for the photo opp
either whether you agree with them or not.
We can find agreement on the fact that we need regular
order where everybody's got an opportunity to
offer their amendments and they have them argued and debated
and voted on. You know,
generally I talk to my republican colleagues, you know what's going to
happen next week or next week or what's gonna be in the bill
and they say, I don't know. You know, they're not included.
Ray: That's pretty discouraging. Rick: It's very discouraging. Ray: We're down to
our last few minutes and I know you wanted to talk a little bit about
aquatic invasive species cause I think you've done some work in that
area. Rick: Yeah I have. I most recently got
an extra million dollars
for a....aquatic invasive species
research. You know, we've seen here in the
Brainerd lakes area how rapidly zebra mussels
have expanded. And to the extent that that can
continues, it bodes very poorly for
you know our sport fishing. Which is such an integral
important part of our life and our economy.
We've....
gotta find ways, better ways, to
abate this. We've gotta do more research. You know, to
find ways to stop it
and limit it. And that's just one of 100 or more other
invasive species that have come in who are threatening
our tourism, our sport fishing.
You know, I don't know about what your dad but my dad always
said you know, Richard, if you think you don't have time
for fishing you're just wrong. [laughter] And I said,
how's that dad? It's cause he says, everyday someone goes fishing
adds a day to their life, it doesn't count on their span of life. Ray: Ah, that's very good
philosophy yes. Rick: And we've got to do a better job on
that. Ray: That tourism is so huge
in Minnesota. [Yeah] And the spiny water
fleas, zebra mussels, you name it...
it's exploding. It's growing and growing.
CWD in our deer. [Oh yeah]
I just talked to a friend who just came back from Montana,
22 percent of the deer tested in Montana have
CWD. [Wow] You know, it's not an invasive species
they don't really know. It's a....
it's effecting the nervous system. Rick: Some kind of a parasite. And it's threatening
the.... Ray: It's like the mad cow disease almost. Rick: Yeah, threatening the moose
population as well. [Yeah absolutely] By the way, I was just saying also
you know how important the loon is...I mean
what an iconic....
bird and symbol for the beauty of our great
lakes in northern Minnesota. Crosslake Minnesota
is busy with an initiative to create a
national loon center. Ray: Oh really? Rick: I just had lunch...yeah.
I just had lunch with the president
of the Audubon Society and believe
it or not, the loon is on their list
of 300 species
most likely to be extinct by the
end of the century. [Wow] Zebra mussels,
they have a parasite in them, there were 10,000 loons
have lost their life from zebra mussels. So...
Ray: Pretty sad. Very sad. Rick: Yeah, so we gotta get going
and so much of this involves research.
And you gotta put the money up there to do the
research to find how you abate these, how you protect our
important species. Ray: We've run out of time. Rick: Dog gone it! Ray: I appreciate
your jumping on with us and sharing some of this
information. How do people get in touch with you if they want to? Rick: You know,
just go on the web and just put in there Richard
Nolan, member of congress. Ray: Congressman eight district. Rick: Yeah.
And they can get our...we get...I get
anywhere from a 1,000 to several thousand communications every
week. [Wow] And I value it, I appreciate it. My
staff gives me a report on every single one of them.
I look forward to...that's one of the first things I do every Monday
when I come into the office is look at the correspondence. Ray: Thank
you very much for appearing on the show. Rick: Thank you, Ray. Ray: You've been watching Lakeland
Currents where we're talking about what you're talking about. I'm
Ray Gildow so long until next time.
♪
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