US Rep. opens field office

U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-District 4, returned to Hot Springs Saturday to visit his new office located in the Hot Springs National Park headquarters building, 101 Reserve St.

Having grown up in Hot Springs and seeing the things that have happened downtown with the Majestic Hotel fire and the emphasis to revitalize downtown, Westerman said he approached park Superintendent Josie Fernandez several months before the election to see if there was office space available on Bathhouse Row.

"The way I think downtown can be revitalized is when people do small things to make that happen and I think it's a small thing under my control that I could make happen. Better than that, I think it puts the office where the people are, instead of making people come to the office. The Federal Building, where some of the offices have been in the past, is a little hard to get in and out of and it doesn't have quite as much visibility.

"I'm very pleased with that office location and we ended up in the park superintendent's office. That is what worked out best for them and great for us," he said.

Fernandez said that while having the office in the headquarters building is a first for Hot Springs National Park, it is not the first for the National Park Service, which has provided space for U.S. Sen. Richard "Dick" Durbin, D-Ill., and others in the Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, Ill., for a number of years.

"Everyone knows we have a very active leasing program in Hot Springs National Park, so when Mr. Westerman was running for office, he approached us about the possibility of locating his office in Hot Springs National Park if he was elected," she said.

After Westerman won the election, Fernandez said they began putting a lease agreement together, which was executed in December, for $18,000 a year.

"That is pretty much in keeping with leasing rates for similar offices in Hot Springs," she said.

Westerman said Congress, which convened the 114th session Jan. 6, was already hard at work, and serving in the nation's Capitol is quite different from serving in the state Capitol.

"I'm finding out about a new kind of busy up here," he said during a telephone interview with The Sentinel-Record.

"I was sworn in a week ago and we're getting busy passing bills and getting ready to pass some more bills," he said.

Westerman, the former state representative for District 22 and majority speaker in the House, was elected to fill the U.S. House seat previously held by Republican Tom Cotton, who defeated incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor in November.

He has co-sponsored several bills in the short time he's been in Washington, D.C., but said he is looking at some issues that he expects to sponsor.

"One of the things I learned in the state Legislature is that before you put something out there it's good to visit with people and get buy-in on it, and find some co-sponsors. I've got some things I'm looking at and working on, plus there is so much going on with good legislation that others are filing, I'm just trying to research all that and get up to speed," he said.

Westerman said he hopes to co-sponsor more legislation in the days to come, and get behind and support some of the good ideas that have been presented with the hope of getting them passed not only in the House, but the Senate, and getting some legislation on the president's desk.

In the 114th Congress, he will serve on the House Committee on Natural Resources, House Committee on the Budget, and House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. He was also appointed to the Public Lands and Environmental Regulations, and Oversight and Investigations subcommittees under the Natural Resources committee. He was also appointed as vice chairman of the subcommittee on the Environment, which is part of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.

"Right now there is a big focus on jobs and the economy and doing things that can help the private sector do what they do best and that is create jobs. We have passed bills dealing with the 40-hour workweek to incentivize the hiring of veterans by taking away a penalty that is in Obamacare on the number of employees a company can hire.

"We've also passed a bill on the Keystone pipeline, which will help our country with energy independence, and directly create jobs when the pipeline is built, plus it will help businesses going forward with lower energy costs," he said.

Westerman defended his vote for Rep. John Boehner to be Speaker of the House by stating that when he was on the campaign trail and asked who he would vote for, his response generally was he didn't know who would run for speaker and wouldn't know until they got to the conference meeting after the election.

"I assured people that I wouldn't vote for Nancy Pelosi for speaker," he said.

"I got through the election and came up here and met in conference, which is where all the returning and newly elected Republican congressmen met and approved rules and amendments to the rules for the conference. And, we also nominated a speaker. Everybody in the conference, including me, could have run for speaker to get the nomination, but at the time, John Boehner was the only one who stepped forward to run for speaker. I heard no dissenting vote when the vote was called for on whether he would be the nominee of the conference," Westerman said.

He said he had been through "speaker drama" before as a member of the state House when the speaker was changed just a short time before beginning a session.

"But this (the U.S. House) is a large organization and it takes planning and management to make the place run. I don't think we needed to switch horses the day that Congress began if we wanted to be effective here. Plus, the things John Boehner has laid out, as far as moving the country in a more conservative direction and reversing some of what I believe has been bad policy over the past several years, seems to be a pretty good plan.

"I think the proof is in the pudding, and if you look at the bills we're voting on and will continue to vote on, they are the things that make a whole lot more difference than who is sitting in the speaker's chair," he said.

Westerman said his tenure in the state House prepared him for the U.S. House but there are some differences.

"I guess we could use the sports analogy of farm team and big league. Being in the state Legislature was obviously a great preparation for coming here and understanding how the legislative process works. Some of the terms and acronyms are different but at the end of the day, you file bills, debate them in committee, bring them up on the floor to vote on them, and hope you can get the Senate and president to agree so you can make law," he said.

Westerman said he also plans to continue the practice of his predecessor Mike Ross and be on the first plane out of Washington on Friday afternoon.

"Hot Springs and the 4th District are my home and that is where I need to get back to and interact with the voters to see what they are talking about. This is my job here and I'll come here and do this job many hours a day while I'm here, but the first chance to get back to the people of Arkansas, I'm going to be on that airplane," he said.

Local on 01/18/2015

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