SEDONA AZ–“There has been an incredible move towards indebtedness and government involvement in business,” Arizona Republican candidate for U.S. Congress-CD1 Rusty Bowers said. “There are massive new regulations on our businesses. As a small businessman myself, and working with other businesses, I am actually scared for my children and family. I’m worried that we will never get out of debt and it has to stop before we go over the cliff.”

First of all, Rusty Bowers wants to turn some of this legislation back. He has over nine years experience in the Arizona Legislature, albeit nine years ago. Candidate Bowers stated that when he arrived “Arizona was highly taxed.” After eight years of tax cuts and rewriting legislation to make it more effective, CD-1 candidate Bowers feels that they achieved a change in the business climate of the state. He points out that “it worked then and it can be done again. The process requires a representative who understands how to form coalitions and move the legislation forward,” and Bowers believes he is the man to do it.

Coming from a rural district, U.S. Congressional candidate Bowers is particularly concerned about regulations on natural resource use.  “The regulations on our natural resource industry prevent them from flourishing or even existing,” CD-1 Arizonan Bowers said. “This District will never have a baseline industry without natural resource use. Forestry, mining, cattle, water, we need all of these. We need agriculture and grazing as well. These are all being excessively restricted. It is killing entrepreneurial business. People will not reinvest with the new level of regulation. It is suffocating them, they are going to hunker down and wait it out.”

For example, new regulations on dust in the sand and gravel mining industry imposed by the EPA are hurting the industry. There are massive new best management practices on agriculture that may require all 10,000 miles of dirt road in Pinal County to be paved in order to reduce dust, and there simply isn’t the money to do it. In an area like Pinal County, there are natural events, natural dust storms that overwhelm farming related dust but when there is dust in the air, farmers face restrictions on almost all of their activities. The county is frequently non-compliant with EPA targets through entirely natural events.

“There are certain things you have to do to run a farm,” Bowers said. “There are rotation schedules and activities like disking to prevent the growth of pests and it has to be done at a certain time of year. Well, that is when a natural inversion layer tends to trap dust in the lower atmosphere and it is the inversion, not the farming that creates the situation. But the regulations prevent activity during this time and it is the time when the farmers must do this work. The EPA would rather have us reach the air quality standard than grow food.”

U.S. Congressional candidate Bowers believes that we must rein in the EPA and appeal to people with common sense. If a common sense appeal fails, Bowers would withhold their budget. He believes there must be a coalition of conservative legislators or eventually no one in CD1 will be able to farm.  Candidate Bowers would also like to see mining treated fairly for example to proceed with the land exchange for the Resolution Copper Mine which will provide a thousand badly needed jobs in the Congressional One District.

Rusty Bowers approach to natural resources relies upon wise stewardship, not locking the land up so that it can never be used.

Candidate Bowers supports SB1070 and knows that it is important to people of District One. He particularly supports the Cattlemen’s 13 Point Plan which includes; a fence, men on the ground and moving operating bases forward into the area for quick response.

“I want our troops to have everything they need to win, fulfill their mission and come home,”  CD-1 candidate Bowers said. “I don’t think the Army should be in a nation building role. My brother was in Kandahar and we have had family in these conflicts. Our President is not dedicated to freedom or cares if we win. Advertising our movements does not help win the war, it emboldens the enemy. We win by fulfilling the mission. If that is to get the Taliban, then that is the mission. Let’s get the mission done and get out.”

In closing, Arizona’s U.S. Congressional District One candidate Bowers added, “I hope that experience is important to the voters. I think it is important that we have somebody who has taken his lumps and given them back and done it in a conservative and honorable way.”

For more information go to, www.rustycountry.com

 Article by Joni Dahlstrom, sedonaeye.com Staff Writer  JoniD@eSedona.net  Sedona Times Publishing Election Central  c2010