Grassley visits Kalona for a town hall meeting

    The Chamber of Commerce building in Kalona was packed with people Wednesday evening for Iowa Senator Charles Grassley?s town hall meeting. A crowd of over 100 people listened to Grassley field questions about cap and trade, biofuels, and the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, among other issues.

    Ray Tinnian, a defense attorney in Kalona, asked the Republican senator to give his thoughts on what rights foreign detainees have.

    ?I?m not a lawyer like you are, so I can?t give you all the legal background. Actually, I?m almost afraid to talk to you,? said Grassley, whose remark elicited laughter from the audience. ?I?m opposed to bringing the people from Gitmo to the United States. I don?t think we should be trying them in New York.?

    Grassley told the crowd that he would vote against any spending that had to do with bringing the detainees to the United States or providing them trials.

    ?We?re going to have a vote to spend the money to send them to Thomson, and I?ll vote against that,? said Grassley. ?If they need to spend extra money on the trials in New York, I would vote against that, too.? 

    On the issue of reducing carbon dioxide emissions through a cap and trade system, Grassley said he would vote against the current legislation to curb emissions.

    ?If we?re going to do something about global warming, it would need to be done through an international agreement,? said Grassley. ?If you don?t have an international agreement, and China doesn?t have to meet the same requirements we do, we would lose our manufacturing to China.?

     Grassley also said that a cap and trade bill would be especially bad for states that rely on coal fired power plants.

    ?Even if we had an international agreement, we would still have an unlevel field in the United States because the Midwest and the Southeast, heavily dependent on making electricity from coal, would be at a disadvantage compared to the rest of the country,? said Grassley. ?In fact, California makes out very well under the bill that passed the House.?

    Kalona resident John Roetlin told Grassley that he saw him on a television program recently in which Grassley gave President Barack Obama bad marks for his job performance. However, Roetlin said he was surprised to hear Grassley say he thought Obama was right about a number of things.

    ?What I?d like to know is, what were those things that you thought Obama did well?? said Roetlin.

    Grassley responded by saying he liked President Obama?s advice to parents about the importance of taking an interest in their children?s education.

    After the meeting, Roetlin said that was not the answer he was expecting from Grassley.

    ?When I asked the question, I thought Grassley would talk about policy agreements with Obama,? said Roetlin. ?Educating children is important in a family, but that wasn?t what I had in mind.?

For the full article, see our Jan. 14 print edition.