Tolbert: Cotton Defends Farm Bill Ad, Discusses Energy Policy

Republican Senate candidate Tom Cotton defended an ad he released this week on his vote against the Farm Bill.

“When President Obama hijacked the farm bill, turned it into a food stamp bill, with billions more in spending, I voted no. Career politicians love attaching bad ideas to good ones. Then the bad ideas become law—and you pay for it,” says Cotton in the ad.

But the Pryor campaign is pushing back against the ad saying that Cotton is rewriting history on the Farm Bill. Food stamps have always been a part of the bill they claim pointing to a post from FactCheck.org which claims Cotton is “hijacking history.”

On Thursday, Cotton said he is standing by the ad.

“Just because a liberal reporter calls himself a fact checker does not make anything he says a fact,” said Cotton. “Here are the facts – the Farm Bill shouldn’t be a Food Stamp bill. It’s 80 percent food stamps, almost a trillion dollars in new spending – programs that have almost doubled under Obama’s administration.”

“And the House of Representatives passed a true Farm Bill that respects the needs of farmers and a separate food stamp reform bill. Barack Obama issued a veto threat and Mark Pryor and Senate Democrats said we are just going to accept that. So it is a fact that the Senate is insisting, yet again, that the Farm Bill be a Food Stamp Bill,” said Cotton. “The President issued a veto threat on the legislation passed in the House of Representatives and the Senate accepted that veto threat. I don’t know how much clearer that can be.”

Cotton made the comments following an event at the Clinton Presidential Center in Little Rock hosted by Real Clear Politics that focused on energy policy. Cotton sat down for a discussion with RCP’s Carl Cannon and laid out his priorities for dealing with domestic energy.

“We need to explore all opportunities when it comes to energy but coal, oil, and gas are clearly the most viable options,” said Cotton. “We should let the markets allocate the capital not government regulations.”

Cotton said that new regulations on coal plants proposed by the Obama administration could have a negative effect on Arkansans by driving up the cost working families will pay if the Turk power plant – a coal fueled energy plant in Hope – is forced to close.

“We should be building more facilities like the Turk power plant,” said Cotton who also said we need to expand nuclear energy facilities such as Arkansas Nuclear One in Russellville, which he noted he sees “while running on Mt. Nebo.”

Cotton credited the variety of energy sources Arkansans rely on – including coal, nuclear, gas, and hydroelectric plants – as providing a balance that keeps our energy rates among the lowest in the nation.

As for the difference between himself and Sen. Mark Pryor on energy, Cotton listed several examples saying that he would not have confirmed Obama’s EPA directors, that he would have pushed harder for the approval of the Keystone XL Pipeline, and that he would encourage more liquid natural gas exploration.