Thursday, October 28, 2010
 |
| Mike McIntyre Staff photo by Allison Breiner Potter |
 |
| Ilario Pantano Staff photo by Joshua Curry |
One has grown up in North Carolina, the other chose to live here, but both Congressional candidates for the 7th District call it home and say they will fight for issues that concern local residents, including beach renourishment.
But incumbent Democrat U.S. Rep. Mike McIntyre and his Republican challenger, Ilario Pantano, have different views on how to continue funding projects to replenish eroding coastlines.
Congressional challenger Ilario Pantano mingles with members of the Fellowship for Christian Athletes at a luncheon on Monday, Sept. 20.
Pantano vowed to try changing the way beach renourishment is funded, saying it’s ad hoc, lumped with pork projects that lead to competition among states and representatives across the country.
"I want to reform the overall process," Pantano said Monday, Oct. 25. "I want to make sure that we’re looking at this as a 10-year cycle."
New freshmen representatives coming to Congress, Pantano said, will want to conduct business in a new and better way.
"Earmarking is going to be going away in one form or another, hopefully, if we’re going to reform our budgetary house," Pantano said. "That’s going to demand . . . that we have an alternative funding mechanism to make sure that we can protect our coasts."
Federal earmarks here or there do not allow county or state planners a real sense of how they need to match funds, Pantano argued.
"When the local governments don’t know when the next shoe is going to drop or when the next check is going to show up from the federal government, that makes it hard to do their work," Pantano said. "I want to see an overhaul of the way that the system is actually funded and implemented."
McIntyre said it was impossible for a freshman congressman to change the system of appropriations funding, and he added that beach renourishment cycles are planned for as many as 50 years out.
Congressman Mike McIntyre speaks to his constituents aboard the Battleship North Carolina following a ceremony on Oct. 12.
"So when he talks about (a) 10-year plan, you need a 50-year plan," McIntyre said Monday, Oct. 25. "That is what we have done."
A decades-long renourishment plan for Carolina Beach, for instance, is approaching its conclusion in 2014. McIntyre said he has already filed legislation to extend and renew it.
Other renourishment plans for different areas are in various stages of their cycles, including Wrightsville Beach, McIntyre said.
"You’ve got to have an understanding of what phase those plans are in," McIntyre said. "That’s why in the annual appropriations process you have to fight for the funding to come through."
An earmark for a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project like beach renourishment is different than other earmarks, Caswell Beach Mayor Harry Simmons, president of the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association, said Monday, Oct. 25. The project goes through a benefit cost analysis and an environmental impact study, he added.
The Corps district in Wilmington has four federally authorized beach renourishment projects for Carolina Beach, Wrightsville Beach, Kure Beach and Ocean Isle Beach, Simmons said, adding later that all four were included in the last 2010 appropriations cycle.
Simmons said he would love to have a beach renourishment trust fund paid for through regular, sustainable funding, but he said sometimes such funds get robbed to balance the budget.
"The system we have is as good as we’re going to get for the time being," Simmons said, adding that he did not see much chance of it changing, primarily because it is so ingrained nationally.
"As far as congressional districts go around the country, Mike McIntyre’s district has gotten as much of the pie as it’s supposed to get, and in some cases more," Simmons said. "We all have to fight for a pie that OMB (federal Office of Management and Budget) and Congress decide is going to be a certain size."
But Pantano questioned why Illinois got more money for beach renourishment for a lake than North Carolina did for its "Hurricane Alley" coast.
"The political machine we all know is broken," Pantano said.
"To compare Illinois to North Carolina is ridiculous," McIntyre said. "He’s not comparing apples to apples." McIntyre added that he represents only three counties on the North Carolina coast.
McIntyre said he has received several awards in fighting for beaches and waterways, including the Admiral’s Circle Award from the National Marine Manufacturers Association and the Congressional Boating Caucus.
Both candidates have criticized the other during the campaign, generally in regard to change versus experience or frustration with big government versus an understanding of local issues.
Pantano said he has focused on national economic issues because he believes that is what drives the local economy, including contractor work and the real estate market.
New Hanover County’s beaches account not just for tourism but also are the underpinning of a tremendous real estate investment that leaps when the national economy does well, Pantano said.
"Very few districts in the country rise or fall more profoundly as a result of our national fortune," Pantano said. "We are the suburb of two of the largest military bases on the East Coast. Are we not directly impacted by a national security policy? Of course we are."
Pantano added that the area is affected by national trade policy with the Port of Wilmington.
A New York native and veteran who served in the Gulf and Iraq wars, Pantano chose to stay in southeastern North Carolina and raise his family here after being assigned to Camp Lejeune with the U.S. Marine Corps.
McIntyre, who grew up in Lumberton, N.C., and has served in Congress since 1996, chairs the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Specialty Crops, Rural Development and Foreign Agriculture, including biotechnology, and he is a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee. He is one of the founding co-chairmen of the Special Operations Forces Caucus. McIntyre is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of conservative Democrats, where he co-chairs the Coalition’s Task Force on Business and Technology.
He has criticized Pantano for a remark he said Pantano had made that it does not matter what district he represents because he would represent the United States if elected.
To fight on a national level, you first have to understand what is good for your beaches, farmers, the local economy in regard to trade agreements and other local issues, McIntyre said.
"Constitutionally we are sworn to represent the people of our district and state, and it does make a difference," McIntyre said. "Otherwise the next time somebody has a local problem—keeping their veterans’ benefits, or someone has a problem on our local beaches when a hurricane strikes, or next time some of our farmers have a concern—then call the congressman in Idaho and see what kind of response you get."
No comments:
Post a Comment