Great Falls Tribune - Transportation, Energy Key Issues for Candidate Driscoll
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Great Falls Tribune - Transportation, Energy Key Issues for Candidate Driscoll
Fresh off his surprising Democratic primary win, U.S. House candidate John Driscoll said Thursday he plans to campaign hard, but spend little, in his effort to unseat Republican incumbent Denny Rehberg.
In an interview Thursday, Driscoll said that in campaigning he will talk about a big public works project to revamp the nation's energy and transportation systems and make them efficient.
Driscoll, 61, also said he wasn't surprised to defeat Helena attorney Jim Hunt, who raised more than $200,000 in campaign funds.
"It's hard for a political newcomer to run statewide, and I'd been in office and was better known," said Driscoll, a legislative leader in the 1970s and a public service commissioner from 1981-1993.
"I will campaign hard, but won't raise or spend any money," Driscoll said, adding he will campaign while making a few family trips he previously planned.
On Thursday, Driscoll, who was visiting family in Great Falls, was interviewed for a possible endorsement by the Montana AFL-CIO's political action committee. Driscoll, who spent time on the PSC "looking behind the socket of energy costs," will make energy and transportation reform a big part of his campaign.
With gasoline prices at $4 a gallon now and possibly going to $4.50 by July 4 and $6 by Election Day, according to some industry analysts, "the interstate highway system is on its last legs," he said.
Politicians from both parties want to suspend the federal gas tax, but that's what pays for road maintenance, he said.
Driscoll said the market value of cars and trucks has fallen 30 percent, and few Montanans can afford to buy $30,000 hybrids.
Meanwhile, Montana farmers, ranchers and other "captive shippers" are paying steeper rates to transport products by rail because of diesel fuel surcharges.
Driscoll proposes the following:
# Electrify parts of the interstate rail freight system, which he said would reduce energy costs by at least 10 percent. The electrified portion of the Milwaukee Railroad through Montana and an electric railroad that served Butte were successful before mergers intensified competition, he said.
# Provide safe, cheap passenger transportation by building high speed (200 mph) and ultra-high speed (300 mph) train lines along interstate highways. Substations every 50 miles could supply or receive electricity from trains and pass them to hybrid or electric cars, he said.
# Firm up Montana's plentiful but sometimes erratic wind power by storing surplus energy produced by wind farms as compressed air in 49 former Malmstrom Air Force Base silos that once housed missiles now being deactivated. Compressed air could be converted back to energy and carried on power lines along electrified railroads to areas needing energy, Driscoll said.
With full use of Montana wind, the state's plentiful but dirtier coal reserves wouldn't have to be burned for energy, Driscoll said. Instead, he suggested research on putting the coal to use to manufacture plastic and other materials.
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