Sen. Ron Wyden addresses local, national issues

Wyden was introduced by Hood River Mayor Paul Blackburn. “When Sen. Wyden is in Washington representing all of us in the U.S. Senate, he is chair of the Senate Finance Committee. He’s also a member of the Senate Committees on budget, intelligence, and energy and natural resources … In Oregon, we know Sen. Wyden as a senator that listens.”

“At the end of the day, this is basically about shortening the distance from here to D.C.,” Wyden said.

Many of the questions posed to the senator had overarching themes: Immigration, affordable housing, healthcare, the environment and military spending.

Asked about housing support for farmworkers and the immigrant community, Wyden said he backed help with farmworker housing, and that he had voted to expand low-income housing tax credits. “I’ve also been supportive of allowing more farmers to get short term labor from overseas,” he said. “This has been a big issue for a lot of communities — they just don’t have enough workers. I support expanded farmworker housing for people who are here. I support flexibility for farmers who need more short-term help.”

Additionally, he supports DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) reform, “which is so important for our young people to have hope.” He called the current immigration system a “broken-down mess.”

“The immigration issue is so polarized,” Wyden said. It was polarized, before Donald Trump became president. And when Donald Trump used the language that he used about some of the countries … it made it harder. But there are a group of us Democrats and Republicans [who] are trying to get on track again.

“… I feel very strongly that this country is better and stronger because of immigration,” he said, sharing that his parents fled the Nazis in the 1930s.

Wyden also addressed environmental issues such as the removal of dams to save native salmon and steelhead from extinction, as well as climate change.

“Talking about Snake River dams, we know that this is an issue with respect to international trade,” he said. “It’s an issue of power. It’s an issue of fish. Of course, it’s an issue of agriculture … and my message to everybody is, it is now time to speed up these listening sessions so the northwest can get into the acting sessions.”

He said that he always looks to find common ground in the Senate, “but sometimes you can’t. And that was the case on the climate bill. That’s too bad because Mitch McConnell could have had Republicans working with us. I said to the Republicans again and again, ‘You give me an example of reducing carbon emissions in the private sector in your community and I will make sure you’re included in the incentives package,’ point blank, three or four times … and Mitch McConnell went to the floor and said, ‘You know, Western civilization is going to end if we do something like this.’”

He talked about Medicare patients and those who rely on other insurance. “As you may have seen on Wednesday last, I had a hearing on those big insurance companies, these big mental health insurance companies, and many of them are running what are called ‘ghost’ networks, which means that they don’t have any providers. They don’t have anybody there to make an appointment for somebody. And the ultimate indignity is they don’t have providers, and when they sent somebody out of network, they made that person pay for the out of network part they should have been paying for in the first place. It’s really outrageous.”

On military spending, Wyden said he is leading an effort to audit the Pentagon with Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont) and Joe Manchin (D-W. Virginia).

“[It’s] arguably the only place in government that does not get audited,” he said. “The money that they spend is out to military contractors and all kinds of powerful interest groups. And it’s not even audited … I think I was one of nine senators who voted against the military budget. This time, even though I support our troops, I voted against the budget, primarily because the audit situation is so absurd. I’m just not going to shovel all this money out without any accountability.”

Wyden was additionally asked about funding for the proposed new Hood River-White Salmon Interstate Bridge.

“Sen. Merkley and I work very closely with local governments for congressional designated spending,” he said. “We have a lot of competition from around the state for congressionally designated spending, but Sen. Merkley is a very influential member of the Appropriations Committee. I’m chairing the Finance Committee. We’ve had pretty good luck in getting some help for people.”

Wyden closed after a question on the status of Justice Clarence Thomas. “Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day,” he said, referring to the May 8 deadline given to Harlan Crow to provide a list of gifts he’s given to Thomas over the past two decades. (As of May 10, Crow had refused to comply with the Senate Finance Committee’s request.)

“You have been raising concerns about the military, or healthcare, or what have you — I will tell you that even with all these challenges, and all these problems, as we wrap up this town meeting, there are people from all over the world who want to come here,” Wyden said. “There’s hardly anybody from here that wants to go there … I don’t have all the answers. But Hood River County, thanks for giving a good name to this whole effort, this whole American experiment. As long as I have the honor to represent you, this is the way we’re doing it.”