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Amy in the News

U.S. Senator Klobuchar listens in Lake Benton (Lake Benton News)

January 23, 2008

by Todd Berger

On Tuesday, January 8, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar spent about an hour speaking and listening to a group of about 25 area business people, farmers, and city leaders.

On Tuesday, January 8, U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar spent about an hour speaking and listening to a group of about 25 area business people, farmers, and city leaders.

Klobuchar greeted each person in attendance and spoke momentarily with them. Then she fielded questions from many and spoke about her work in the U.S. Senate.

Dale Johnson inquired about tax-exempt groups buying large areas of land in the Lake Benton area and benefiting from tax-dollars while not contributing to the tax-base.

Klobuchar spoke momentarily about her work supporting the use of switch grass (cellulostic) ethanol production, while also supporting corn ethanol as well. She emphasized that switch grass would need far less fertilizer in comparison to corn production.

Bob Worth thanked Klobuchar for her continued work toward passage of the farm bill. Klobuchar explained that she believes it is a strong farm bill and very good for Minnesota. She added that she is working with Collin Peterson to set the income limits for farm subsidies so they benefit family farmers, not corporate farms.

Klobuchar also spoke of $4.4 million for rural development and infrastructure. Heather Ulrich-Glynn asked about the legislation that Klobuchar helped author that will make it easier, not harder for small towns to gain rural development money. This bill caps the size of the eligible towns at a population of 3,000. This helps smaller towns so they are not in direct competition with larger towns.

She also spoke to representatives from Lincoln-Pipestone Rural Water (LPRW) about funding and the Lewis and Clark project in South Dakota. While the LPRW area does not utilize waters from the Lewis and Clark project, LLRW would benefit from its completion because areas to the south would use resources from the Lewis and Clark, freeing up other water for use by LLRW. There is also concern for the increases in value-added agriculture as greater amounts of water are needed in the production.

Jim Nichols also spoke with Klobuchar and the group about the need for transmission lines for wind energy. The year 2007 was the biggest year for wind energy, and it is still growing. Wind energy is very clean energy and easy to obtain, it needs no mining, pumping or refining like fossil fuels.

As Klobuchar thanked the crowd, Betty Popkes was able to stress to her the importance for housing support in the rural areas, and not just for seniors, but families as well. She said that there are houses in the area that need to be up-graded to make them suitable for a young families coming into the town and sending their children to school here. This kind of rural development helps bring people to the area to live and make a home.

Klobuchar left for her next stop on her listening tour by thanking the people for listening and sharing their concerns.