Peg Ellsworth, center, the executive director of the Margaretville-based MARK Project, asked U.S. Representative Scott Murphy a question after his speech in Margaretville on Saturday. Elsworth asked Murphy for funding for the National Housing Trust Fund and the Preserve America grant program. Photo by Simona David.
Margaretville, NY – 06/19/10, 3:30 pm, Village Pavilion
On Saturday, June 19, Congressman Scott Murphy (NY-20) spoke at the Village Pavilion on Main Street about his plan to revitalize the upstate economy, dubbed Renew Upstate New York.
“We’ve got to do economic development, but you’ve got to do it thoughtfully, with an eye toward what the impact on the environment is going to be,” he said, when asked about how to reconcile economic development with environmental conservation in the Catskills.
“I don’t think they have to be opposed to each other,” he said.
When Murphy won a special election last March to serve as the U.S. Representative for the the 20th Congressional District, he promised to hold public town hall meetings in each of the 137 towns in his large, rural district, which spans ten counties and runs from Dutchess County all the way up to Lake Placid. On Saturday, he said that he has been to 65 towns so far this year.
Most of Murphy's prepared remarks were dedicated to the four main planks of his Renew Upstate New York Program: infrastructure, small businesses, education and energy.
Infrastructure
Regarding infrastructure, Murphy focused on the issue of high-speed Internet in rural areas.
“Those are places where I think it makes a lot of sense for public investment,” he said, adding that he has been fighting for upstate New York to get stimulus funds for rural broadband.
“We’ve got some money in the first round for a big network in upstate New York,” he said. “We’re trying to get some more money.”
Small Businesses and Farms
Murphy touted the success of the Small Business Administration's (SBA) loan program, pointing to the SBA as a model private-public partnership. “The government helps, but the banks make the credit decisions,” he said.
Murphy also spoke about farms, noting that farmers get help from the USDA with planning, education and soil management. As a member of the House Committee on Agriculture, Murphy said that he has worked to help the dairy industry across New York, and that he wanted to make sure that small farmers get a fair price.
Education
Referring to the student loan law passed by Congress earlier this year, Murphy said, “The federal government this year made a big change in the way we help people with student loans in college.”
He called the plan “a great step forward.”
Energy
Murphy spoke in favor of domestic sources of energy, including gas, wind and nuclear energy. He did not specifically mention hydrofracturing, a form of gas drilling that is currently a flashpoint for controversy in New York state.
He said he supports offshore drilling, but gave a nod to the Deepwater Horizon BP oil spill, saying that oil exploration should only be done with safety regulations and a disaster recovery plan in place.
“There is fault for everybody” in the BP disaster, he said. “What we were doing in the Gulf was incredibly technologically amazing,” but “we lost our common sense.”
The Watershed Post welcomes our new correspondent, Simona David. Read more about and from Simona on her blog.
