Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Wichita, who is making his name as a crusader against the Environmental Protection Agency, now aims to defund EPA minority student internships and fellowships with a proposed “EPA Student Nondiscrimination Act.” The EPA says the program provides “student internship opportunities focusing on environmental justice.” But Pompeo said: “At a time when millions of Americans cannot find work and are saddled with record deficits and crippling environmental regulations, spending $6,000 of taxpayer money per student to act as tools of this administration’s radical policies is clearly not acceptable — nor is it ever the role of the federal government to indoctrinate.” Pompeo’s legislation also would prevent funding for “programs related to the study of greenhouse-gas emissions.”
Good for Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., for pushing for the approval of trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia. The agreements were reached during the Bush administration but have been held up by labor concerns and by the GOP’s defunding of a program that helps workers and companies negatively affected by trade deals. But as Roberts noted last week, the delay is causing U.S. businesses and producers to lose out. “Other countries are not waiting for the U.S. to get into the game,” he said. “They are enacting trade agreements without the United States. It is not without consequences. For the folks on the farm, export markets are critical to their bottom line.” The Kansas Farm Bureau estimates that the three agreements would increase total direct exports by $129.5 million for Kansas agriculture producers. Kansas planemakers also stand to benefit from the agreements. “The bottom line,” Roberts said, “is U.S. companies must be able to compete in foreign markets to survive and grow.”
“We don’t need your stupid stimulus dollars.” — Steve Baccus, president of the Kansas Farm Bureau, about the federal government
“Let us do the cutting with a scalpel, not a Lizzie Borden ax.” — Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., on farm subsidies, also suggesting existing congressional committees, not a supercommittee, should be identifying cuts
“Many in the Kansas arts community felt they had been poked in the eye with a stick.” — Gwyn Mellinger of Baker University on Gov. Sam Brownback sending his chief of staff to read a congratulatory proclamation at the grand opening of a Kansas City, Mo., dance center
Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Wichita, who is making his name as a crusader against the Environmental Protection Agency, now aims to defund EPA minority student internships and fellowships with a proposed “EPA Student Nondiscrimination Act.” The EPA says the program provides “student internship opportunities focusing on environmental justice.” But Pompeo said: “At a time when millions of Americans cannot find work and are saddled with record deficits and crippling environmental regulations, spending $6,000 of taxpayer money per student to act as tools of this administration’s radical policies is clearly not acceptable — nor is it ever the role of the federal government to indoctrinate.” Pompeo’s legislation also would prevent funding for “programs related to the study of greenhouse-gas emissions.”
