Focus on national security, energy
Steve Day of Washington talks to Sen. Pat Toomey about his concerns at a campaign stop at President’s Pub in Washington. Toomey gave a short speech before taking questions at the event Thursday.
Sen. Pat Toomey speaks during a campaign stop at President’s Pub in Washington on Thursday.
Senator Pat Toomey talks about the sanctuary city issue while speaking at President’s Pub in Washington on Thursday.
Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey traveled to Washington and Waynesburg on a campaign swing through the region Thursday to discuss a variety of issues facing local voters in the November election.
Toomey, who will face off against Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Katie McGinty in the upcoming election, discussed issues facing the region, including the changing landscape of the energy industry, the opioid epidemic and national security.
In his talk with supporters in Waynesburg VFW Post 4793 and Presidents Pub in Washington, Toomey said he and McGinty are the most “starkly contrasted candidates running for Senate” in any race across the country this year.
“The other side, they’ve outspent us. They have spent more attacking me than any other state and I think it goes to the importance of this race,” he said. “As this senate race goes, so too might go control to the senate.”
Toomey, who tied McGinty to Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, blamed President Obama for “shutting down the coal industry” and said Clinton and McGinty would continue environmental regulation that would cause more trouble for the energy sector. He added that the federal government should not get in the way of developing the Marcellus and Utica natural gas shale plays that permeate the region.
“These guys don’t get the tremendous low-cost energy we have in abundance here,” he said.
About three-dozen people came to the VFW Post in Waynesburg to listen to Toomey speak for a half-hour before he left for the other stop in Washington. Larry Yost of Waynesburg said he was concerned about Toomey’s position on certain issues, including universal background checks for gun purchases.
“I know it’s important for people in Greene County to keep their guns, even the assault weapons,” Yost said, standing just a few feet from Toomey. “I’m not going to vote for McGinty, but I need you to move a little further to the right.”
Toomey said he is a “big believer in the second amendment” and owns guns himself, but that he thinks there still should be background checks for buyers and that people who are on the federal “no-fly” list should be prohibited from immediately buying a gun.
“I’m a gun owner and I go shooting with my son, and I’ve voted consistently for the second amendment,” Toomey said. “Where people disagree with me is that I think it’s OK to have a three-minute background check.”
More than 60 people attended the Washington event in the upstairs banquet room of Presidents Pub and Toomey was flanked by Congressman Tim Murphy, R-Upper St. Clair. Toomey touted his bipartisan bill, “Stopping Medication Abuse and Protecting Seniors Act” that would “lock in” Medicare patients to one physician and one pharmacist if they are going to more than one physician to get opioid prescriptions.
“This would at least modestly diminish volume (of opiates) available,” he said.
Toomey also addressed the Iranian nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration – which he called “a complete disaster from the beginning” – and impending closure of Guantanamo Bay.
On Tuesday, 15 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, or “Gitmo”, were transferred to the United Arab Emirates in the largest release by Obama since taking office.
“What do we know for sure? Some of them are going to rejoin the battlefield. That’s what they do. These people don’t change their minds about us at Gitmo and decide they’re going to be peace loving. They’re still terrorists,” Toomey said. “I have only one criticism about Gitmo – too many empty beds.”
He used the release to springboard to a topic he has been railing against, “sanctuary” cities that have policies to not prosecute solely on the basis of being an undocumented immigrant. He referred to the 2015 murder of a woman in California by a man in the country illegally.
“This is not about California. This is not an issue with San Francisco. Here in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia is arguably the most radical sanctuary city in America,” Toomey said. “I just feel very strongly we are not taking our own security seriously if we knowingly release violent criminals because they’re here illegally.”