Sending A Competent and Intelligent Man to Congress

Art Robinson PhD is a winner of the prestigious Al Fin Portrait of Competence Award. Dr. Robinson has already proven himself in the fields of science research, energy journalism, business, education, and ranching. But now that his six children all have their doctorates (or nearly so), it is time for a new challenge -- saving the US from the predators who are devouring the country from within. Art Robinson is running for US Congress, Oregon District 4.

ODE: How would you describe yourself as opposed to incumbent Congressman Peter DeFazio?

Robinson: There couldn’t be very many similarities. Generally I prefer smaller government, more freedom, fewer government programs, more free enterprise programs. DeFazio is really on the opposite side of that — he favors larger government and he’s known as one of the most liberal, or as they say, progressive, congressmen, so as he voted for the health care bill I would not have done that. He’s anxious for the government to regulate energy and fuel, and I think that’s a bad idea. In a general sense, DeFazio favors big government solutions to things and diminished freedom, and I favor small government and more freedom.

ODE: With that perspective, politically and economically, how do you view the recent financial collapse in America, because a lot of voices are calling for regulation now?

Robinson: I think they are making a mistake. Clearly the United States has got economic problems. They stem from several causes: One is a simple failure of the United States government to balance its budget. We have $14 trillion in interest-bearing debt — that’s roughly $40,000 for every American family. The private sector misbehaved, and the public sector misbehaved ... the government not only has a lot of debt, but it’s gotten to the point where it can’t incur any more, it just can’t do it. So the government has gotten itself terribly in debt, but so have the people. The people have made an error, but they have been induced to do this by irresponsible businessmen, bankers, people on Wall Street. Generally, if someone makes a mistake, you let him go down, so I don’t think the taxpayers should have paid a dime to bail out Wall Street ... We certainly shouldn’t further indebt the public sector to save the private sector. Ultimately, if things keep going like this, the public sector is going to have to declare bankruptcy too, and that will have to happen to clean things up....

ODE: You published a report on global warming that was somewhat controversial- where do you stand on the climate change debate today?

Robinson: Climate has changed forever. Greenland is so named because it was green in the middle ages, and they were growing crops there; that’s why its called Greenland. Now it’s covered with ice, because it’s cooler than it was in the middle ages. Fluctuations in climate occur all the time.

ODE: So climate change is not something we should be concerned about?

Robinson: No. It’s something that, basically, you have a field of endeavor in which scientists try to understand the changes and predict them, because there is certainly an advantage in being able to predict ... and it was fine, and then the field got hijacked by the politics and the hijacking didn’t do anything except obscure the good science. And, interestingly, if you look at what man can do to Earth temperature, if we wanted to be prepared for temperature change in the Earth we should hope that it gets too warm, because we can cool it. If it gets too cool, we can’t warm it. If the Earth gets too cold for us, there is nowhere to get the energy to warm it. It’s just not possible. If it gets too warm, it’s very easy to block enough sunlight to cool it, and several scientists have shown very economical ways that that could be done. I don’t advocate doing that today, but mankind can cool it to any extent it wants by blocking the sun, they can’t warm it at all. So if fluctuations go on, and uh, we had our druthers, we better get it too warm because that we can fix. I’ve read every paper in this field; I’ve studied this for ten years, and I can tell you — there is just nothing there. It’s a political front, unfortunately, that’s just what it is.... _OregonDailyEmerald

Dr. Robinson proposed a rather unusual series of debates to his incumbent opponent, Peter DeFazio. Robinson proposed to meet DeFazio in seven 2 hour debates -- one debate for each county in the district. Each candidate would speak for three minutes, followed by his opponent speaking for three minutes...and so on, for two hours. If anyone was still in the audience at the end of that time, they could ask any question they wished. Not a typical Washington style capaign debate -- particularly in this era when most democratic politicians are wisely hiding from their constituents. Not surprisingly, DeFazio declined such a highly exposed and public debate structure.

National politics in the US is marked by its blatant dishonesty, its under-the-table connections to special interests, a preponderance of Washington insiders who have become too comfortable in positions of privilege and power, and the increasing tendency to put the US in an unsustainable economic posture.

Can intelligent and competent persons such as Robinson save the country from the criminals and opportunists who are feeding on its carcass? Probably not. But perhaps if there were enough of them, they could slow the collapse enough to allow more thoughtful and prescient persons the time to prepare for what is likely to be coming.

Robinson's Access to Energy Monthly newsletter

The Robinson Curriculum

2001 American Spectator profile of Robinson

Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine