Pennsylvania District 9
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District 9 Representatives
Greg Wegman
Gary Wegman is a dentist and a former farmer.
Wegman seems to have is priorities straightened out for his ideas on making District 9 a greener and more sustainable place to live. For starters, he is a farmer, so he has the insider’s perspective necessary to move the agriculture industry away from harmful practices, and into a greener lifestyle. Wegman focuses on three main issues to move into green agriculture.
His first suggestion is to introduce hemp processing plants. Since hemp is a universally used plant with a many different benefits it would make sense for a hemp processing plant to be introduced to District 9 to alleviate the blockade of getting useable hemp out of the district. Since many farmers have land that would be ideal for growing hemp, this would be an economic boon and create more jobs while stimulating the economy and moving into a greener, more sustainable future.
His second suggestion is to incentivize green agriculture. Moving into a sustainable agriculture business will take time and money, and Wegman wants to make that transition easier with private-public partnerships. He suggests small cooperatives build methane digesters to share, which would repurpose manure. He also suggests taking advantage of tax abatement and exempt areas so that farmers can repurpose unused land for solar fields.
Wegman’s third suggestion is to create cheese and yogurt processing facilities. Since milk does not have as high of a consumption rate as in previous decades moving dairy production away from just milk processing is essential to the survival of dairy farmers. Yogurt and cheese are products that are in high demand, so preparing farmers to meet those demands and to avoid waste is in the best interest of not only farmers but also workers in the trucking industry, as commerce will pick up.
Wegman also has a few things to say on climate change. He wants America to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreements, he supports a fee-and-dividend carbon structure where companies pay for the carbon emissions they create, and he doesn’t support fracking. These all make him an excellent candidate in our eyes.
Dan Meuser
Dan Meuser has been an incumbent since 2018. His LCV scorecard rank is at 7%.
Meuser has an abysmal green voting record. In his tenure in Congress he has only voted positively on two pieces of sustainable legislation, which include a ban on shark finning, and a bill to permanently reauthorize the Land and Water Conservation Fun. His support of the LWCF is ironic, though, because he has voted against keeping public lands and nature preserves across America free and open and protected from oil drilling and fracking. For every dirty energy bill that has gone through the House of Representatives that would expand the influence and area of oil, he has voted to let the environment suffer. Sounds a lot like he’s a bought and paid for vote by Big Oil, and we want our representatives to be making decisions based on their constituents needs, not big oil lobbyists.
As far as agriculture goes, Meuser has some bad stances on how to make agriculture better for the environment. He can acknowledge that farming practices as they currently stand are bad for the environment, but he’s uninterested in tackling that issue. He also blames Obama for a decrease in demand for milk, when in reality, the trade ward caused by the Trump administration have proved much more devasting to Midwest and Pennsylvanian dairy farmers.
There are so many bad things to say about Meuser’s stances on sustainability. Overall, his lack of innovation and ability to think outside the box to make sure farmers are cared for and the environment is sustainably harvested have really made him an unappealing candidate. He against basically everything good for his constituent’s well-being, including clean water, clean air, and reducing methane pollution, and on top of it all he denies climate change. If Pennsylvania wants to avoid the major natural disasters that are plaguing other major farming states, District 9 needs to vote Meuser out of office.
Laura Quick
Laura Quick is a UPS package driver and an ex-teacher.
Quick does not have any information available on her stances on sustainability and clean energy.