When he visited the Vineyard on Monday, 9th District Rep. William Keating’s itinerary included a community forum at the Hebrew Center in Tisbury, a meeting with Superintendent of Schools Matt D’Andrea and Assistant Superintendent Richie Smith, a meeting with selectmen from Edgartown and West Tisbury, and a visit to Cronig’s Market owner Steve Bernier in recognition of the upcoming 100th anniversary on March 10 of Cronig’s Market.
After a spirited community forum, Congressman Keating stopped by The Times to review a range of topics — the future of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the status of the National Flood Insurance Program, and the state of national security and foreign affairs, as he sees it all from his perch on the House committees on Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs.
Earlier in the day, President Trump had issued his second Executive Order on immigration, titled Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States. The order further marginalized legislation co-sponsored by Mr. Keating — called the Statue of Liberty Values Act of 2017— to “make null and void” President Trump’s first Executive Order on immigration.
Typically gregarious and self-possessed, Mr. Keating appeared concerned about his legislatively handcuffed Democratic Party, and about the security of the nation. The operative word was “uncertainty.”
Moving landscape
“Uncertainty is much greater than it should be, to our own citizens here and to our allies around the world, and that’s got to be reckoned with,” Mr. Keating said. “People are looking for clarity, and they’re getting a moving landscape. There’s 180° turns. In [the Address to a Joint Session of Congress], the president says he’s OK moving toward, maybe not citizenship, but legal status, and all of a sudden, today, he backtracks. We had [Homeland Security] Secretary Kelly saying what his priorities are, then the president says something else. There’s a problem within his own administration. There are battles and contradictory information. That’s not good for national security, which is supposedly what these Executive Orders are for. If we hit a real crisis, I can say from experience on the Foreign Affairs Committee and Homeland Security that our enemies know what we say makes a huge difference. We had some troubles before, and it’s worse now.”
EPA
A good slice of Mr. Keating’s 9th District lives on or near the Atlantic Ocean, and he believes that balancing commerce and environmental stewardship is crucial to the economy. With less federal money for stewardship and less regulation on commerce in the offing, Mr. Keating said, that balance may be severely tested.
“There is good reason to be concerned about the environmental side of things,” he said. “I do think some of the regulatory work will be affected. The amount of federal money for environmental protection and research will definitely suffer. The Cape has been a laboratory for wastewater treatment and nitrogen [mitigation], and some great work is being done. We’re going to fight to keep that going. But I’m also concerned about funds to Woods Hole [Oceanographic Institute] being cut. The same with SMAST [UMass Dartmouth’s School of Marine Science and Technology]. These places have helped develop marine commerce, like the growing aquaculture businesses we’re seeing on the Cape and Islands. What some people [in Washington] don’t understand is that economic and environmental [health] can be bridle to bridle.”
Flood insurance
Sea level rise poses a threat to the district’s well-being. The recently revised Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRM) designated 311 new structures and 166 acres of land as in a high-risk flood zone in Oak Bluffs alone. With storms increasing in intensity, and the eroding Island sitting smack in the middle of a hurricane corridor, need for flood insurance from the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) will increase, but its future availability is uncertain.
Mr. Keating played a key role in the drafting and passing of the 2014 Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act (HFIA). HFIA repealed and modified a number of provisions in the 2012 Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act, which put many Keating constituents in a bind — homeowners who’d never been designated as in a hazard zone suddenly found themselves with crushing flood insurance bills. Insurance rate-hike horror stories were legion.
HFIA restored affordability to homeowners in 2014, but it will expire later this year.
Mr. Keating told The Times that opposition to renewing the HFIA is building.
“There’s already outside pressure against renewing it, and I would urge people to take advantage of it, if they haven’t already,” he said. “There’s more private insurers getting into the game, which is good from a competition standpoint.”
On a positive note, Mr. Keating said there has actually been cooperation across the aisle on the HFIA. “[House Majority Whip] Steve Scalise (R-LA) and I are working together on this. As more inland areas are being affected by flooding, people are realizing it’s not just a coastal problem. I’m optimistic about the outcome. It will probably go to the 11th hour, as often happens in Washington.”
Repeating a point he stressed in a 2014 interview with The Times, Mr. Keating also encouraged towns to apply to the Community Ratings System (CRS), a FEMA program that rewards communities that take action to reduce potential flood damage, and reduces flood insurance rates to property owners. As of October 2016, no Island towns were participating in the CRS, according to the FEMA website.
Islanders can get help with flood insurance on a case-by-case basis from Mr. Keating’s staff by calling the Plymouth office at 508-746-9000 or the Hyannis office at 508-771-0666.
National security
From his perspective on House committees, Mr. Keating sees firsthand what he calls the uncertainty created worldwide by President Trump’s penchant for rattling postwar alliances while lauding President Putin and Russia.
“Our allies are also concerned. I met with our allies in South Korea and Japan in December; there’s great concern,” he said. “I’m on Foreign Affairs, dealing with terrorism, and they’re very concerned in Europe. This is a place and time when the John McCains of the world have to step up. He has, but he can’t be the only [Republican].”
Mr. Keating’s remarks heated considerably when he talked about Russia. “We were invaded by a hostile country,” he said, referring to Russian cyberattacks on the U.S. “The response to that was to undercut and undermine. A very high-level person resigned. Three people, including someone who allegedly got at least $12.7 million from a puppet of Russia, resigned. [Trump foreign affairs advisor] Carter Page resigned. This is serious. People are forgetting. They’re focused on who met the ambassador. We’re losing our focus here. We were attacked by another country. A hostile country with an opposite agenda and values to our own. That’s the context. Not who you met and who you didn’t meet. These same attacks are taking place in France and Germany and in the Baltic states.
“They view us as a leader, which we are. When alliances start breaking down, it creates great security problems for us. We have to fight terrorism globally. We were successful with sanctions against Iran because our allies in Europe joined us. We’re in a stronger position with the EU joined with us. ‘Brexit’ and [further fragmentation] is something that Russia wants. These are very critical times, and our security is aligned with theirs.”
Communication
Uncertainty is widespread across the nation, and Mr. Keating’s colleagues are also hearing it. Jan. 31, Feb. 1, and Feb. 2 of this year were the busiest in the history of the Capitol switchboard, according to a March 6 article in the New Yorker. Since President Trump was elected, Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey has reported a 900 percent increase in constituent contact compared with the same period last year.
Mr. Keating said he’s hearing more from his constituents, but not to that extent. “We do have an increase in our district offices and in D.C., and that’s good,” he said. “Our office is the most local point of contact to the federal government for the people I represent. Communication is a two-way street. More than ever, people need a more unfiltered means of communication. The fragmentation of the media makes it so difficult. You see a story on MSNBC, and you turn on Fox and it’s 180° difference. We’re not just being responsive, we’re giving out a lot of information daily.”
Congressman Keating said phone calls and emails to district offices are sent on Washington, D.C., and will be answered. Contact information is at keating.house.gov, where constituents can also sign up for a regular newsletter.
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