Q&A with 6th Congressional District Candidate Amie Hoeber

This is the first of individual interviews with the two major party contenders

October 22, 2018 12:00 p.m.

 

As a candidate in 2016 and previously, Mr. Trump described the problem of man-made climate change as a “hoax.” Do you regard it as such?

No, I do not think it’s a hoax. I think that people’s actions contribute to climate change. There are also cycles, and there have always been cycles. But I think there are clearly things that people do that exacerbate the difficulties. [In terms of reducing carbon emissions], I think the move toward more solar energy, particularly in the 6th District, is a very good one. If you go out to Washington County and Allegany County, there are huge solar power farms. I think that’s a good use of land. We ought to do those sorts of things.

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I’m strongly an advocate of nuclear power, and I think we are doing very badly in this country toward taking care of our nuclear power. And for some logical reasons: The fact that the Yucca Mountain project to get rid of the nuclear waste was stopped in the prior administration has hampered the nuclear power industry here. [Editor’s note: In response to 1982 legislation requiring a national depository for long-term storage of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, Yucca Mountain in Nevada was initially selected as the site for that. Work on the project was halted in 2009 following many years of controversy. The House voted in May to revive consideration of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste storage site.]

On an environmental matter close to home, you were quoted during your recent radio interview on WAMU as noting, “The Chesapeake Bay is not in my district.” Someone quickly pointed out that the Potomac River, which is in your district, is a major part of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

But I think the environmental problems in the Chesapeake Bay are largely caused by the urban areas—primarily Baltimore, and things like the sewage overruns when we have had the flooding. I think the pollution problems in the Chesapeake Bay don’t really stem from [Congressional District] 6.

Several members of the Maryland congressional delegation successfully worked to restore funding for the federal initiative to clean up the Chesapeake Bay after the program was proposed for elimination by the Trump administration. Would you have worked to restore the funding if you had been in Congress?

I would restore it. I think we need to take care of our environment, and that would be part of it.

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You have previously noted that, while deputy under secretary of the Army, you were involved in the environmental cleanup of the Edgewood Arsenal of the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, which is along the shore of the Chesapeake Bay.

Yes, that is where the mustard gas was [stored]. I would like to make a comment on this. … My opponent [Democrat David Trone] has referred to me as being supportive of chemical weapons. That’s not entirely accurate—and I object to his characterization. What I actually did was support chemical warfare defense and biological warfare defense. I helped develop the gas masks and boots and antidotes and things like that. And I also was in charge of the whole program that demolished all of the U.S. chemical munitions—and the Russian ones, for that matter.

In another issue close to home … while discussing strategies for dealing with improvements to I-270 during the 2016 campaign, you said: “My problem with most of the proposals is that they are essentially increasing taxes. A toll lane is by definition, in my view, a tax on people who work.” Gov. Hogan has since come out with a proposal to widen I-270, and help pay for it with toll lanes. Your view of the governor’s proposal, given your past sentiments?

I actually agree with what he’s doing, because I think balancing it out with a private/public partnership helps. It will have the same impact as we’ve had in Virginia: It will relieve some of the traffic congestion. Yeah, toll roads are a tax on the people that use them, but if you relieve the congestion in the non-toll lanes, you’ll do much better.

I’m … concerned with the American Legion Bridge—which, in my view, is an issue that can’t be solved except at the congressional level because it crosses the state line. My personal opinion is that I would double-deck it. I’ve seen double-decking done in both New York and San Francisco, and I know it can be done. [A proposed second Potomac River crossing] would cut through the Agricultural Reserve [in Montgomery County], and there’s vehement opposition to any sort of development in the Agricultural Reserve. I’d be skeptical it could be done in my lifetime—there would just be too much controversy. Which is one reason why I like the idea of double-decking the [American Legion] Bridge if it could be done—because then you aren’t doing any serious amount of taking [of property] in protected areas.

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In the wake of several deadly shooting rampages in the past year—both in Maryland and elsewhere in the United States—do I understand correctly that you have advocated increased background checks for gun purchases?

Absolutely. I think today we are not doing nearly enough in terms of background checks and in terms of maintaining a database of criminal and difficult [mental] activity that would eliminate allowing people to buy guns.

I would certainly entertain looking at limits of things that would be called military weapons. The problem in my view is a definitional one: How would you define something to be banned today when somebody could develop something slightly different the next day that wouldn’t be banned under that regulation? I don’t want to go too far in regulating this; it is a Second Amendment issue. I fully agree with [late U.S. Supreme Court] Justice [Antonin] Scalia, who said it’s like the First Amendment—it is not without the possibility of some limitations. But, particularly when we’re getting into an era of 3-D [printer]-created guns, it’s going to be hard to define something that makes sense and has any real effect.

On the latter issue, the Obama administration went to court in an effort to halt dissemination of instructions for utilizing 3-D printers to make guns; the Trump Justice Department dropped that legal effort. Who was correct?

My feeling is that the Trump administration was correct to drop it, because essentially what you’re doing is that you’re limiting intellectual thinking about something, and that’s a little hard to actually implement.

I think the school shootings in particular could best be addressed by … things other than gun regulation. You need to lock the doors; I note that in Parkland [in Florida] and in the Sandy Hook [Connecticut] case, the doors were not locked. Most schools are beginning to lock them. There were even reports in [this morning’s] paper on the active shooter training that teachers are beginning to undergo.

I do not agree with arming teachers; my mother was a teacher, and I would be horrified to see her with a gun. But I do think we need some measures, just like fire drills, where schools rehearse what to do in the event of an emergency. When I was a child in California, we had earthquake drills on a regular basis—because that was a known possibility. There’s no reason not to have those sorts of emergency drills, to lock the access, and to have more mental health attention paid—maybe more resource officers. There are measures other than [those involving] the guns that address the problem.

What do you feel Congress needs to do with regard to the nation’s health insurance system? Two years ago, you indicated that, if elected, you would vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act—so-called “Obamacare.”

Under the way Obamacare was written, I don’t think it solved the problem. I would vote to repeal it, but I would like to have something designed to replace it. You can’t go back to the system the way we had before, because I believe the execution of the Obamacare plan essentially damaged the existing system at that point, and so we need to figure out what to do next. One of the things that’s happening in this country is a huge deficit in the number of doctors, and that’s only going to grow worse. I certainly oppose the single-payer system, because that’s going to reduce doctors even more; it will reduce the incentive for people to go into that world.

I think there are things that can be done to change the private market that would make it much better, like allowing the insurance companies to compete across state lines. You end up with a bigger pool [of potential participants], but you also end up with incentives to reduce the cost of the insurance. By definition, competition reduces costs to a more manageable level.

That’s the first thing that I would institute. The second thing I would institute is a better understanding of where the money is being spent today relative to its effectiveness. Because I think the fact that you have an increased number of people who have insurance [under the Affordable Care Act] doesn’t mean they’re getting better care.

In the 2016 campaign, you won an eight-way Republican primary in which you were the sole candidate not to adopt an anti-abortion stance. Is it fair to describe you as a supporter of the 1973 Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision?

In my view, it’s established law. The Supreme Court may review it, or may not. My statement on that [issue] is that I personally would not have one, but I don’t think the government has a role. It’s a difficult issue, and I don’t want the government telling either me or anyone else what to do.

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