A question of service
Rep. Glenn Thompson has announced his re-election bid and asserts that he is all about service (CDT, Jan. 19), but who is he serving?
His voting record is one of undoing, rather than one of doing. He and his Republican colleagues continue to try to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, which has brought health care coverage to thousands of previously uninsured Pennsylvanians.
His most recent votes were to shelve a new federal rule aimed at protecting streams and drinking water from pollution caused by mountaintop removal coal mining, running the risk of central Pennsylvanians having polluted drinking water, such as one sees happening in Flint, Mich.
When an amendment was introduced to expedite the rule on health grounds, he and his “twin,” Rep. Bill Shuster, voted against that. Thompson and Shuster then voted to void a new EPA rule that protected headwaters, wetlands and waters upstream of navigable waters.
In a region filled with fishermen, who is Thompson serving? Certainly not a majority of his constituents, as Thompson and Shuster continue to serve industries that pollute and destroy our environment.
Can’t the voters of central Pennsylvania do better than this? I certainly hope so and hope we can send Thompson back to serving the large corporate entities that support him and out of the U.S. Congress.
Murry Nelson, State College
This story was originally published January 25, 2016 at 9:00 PM with the headline "A question of service."