Saturday, September 18, 1999
Galbraith campaigns in N.Ky.
Candidate for governor attacks tailpipe tests
BY PATRICK CROWLEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer
WILDER — Talking up working people and bashing tailpipe testing, Gatewood Galbraith — the cowboy-hat-wearing politician — brought his Reform Party gubernatorial candidacy to Northern Kentucky on Friday.
Standing outside the Envirotest auto emissions test site in Wilder, where employees weren't expecting him and didn't know about his press conference, Mr. Galbraith told reporters Northern Kentucky vehicles should not have to be tested every other year.
“This is a prime illustration of where the government has over-
stepped its bounds ... under the guise of environmentalism that has resulted in a tax,” he said.
Vehicle owners must pay $20 for the tests.
“And it's another layer of regulation on them that will only be expanded in the future,” Mr. Galbraith said.
Mr. Galbraith said he is not convinced the region needs tailpipe testing to clean up the air. The tests were ordered by the federal government and instituted by the state.
The state should have fought harder against the tests even though the federal government had threatened sanctions by withholding highway money if the tests were not started, he said.
“Other states facing the same situation sued the federal government and didn't start the tests and no sanctions were ever imposed,” Mr. Galbraith said.
After the press conference, he met with workers at Newport Steel in Wilder and Bavarian Trucking in Walton.
“I'm telling working people they are unrepresented in Kentucky politics at this time,” Mr. Galbraith said.
“The Reform Party is going to reclaim that abandoned political territory.”
If elected governor, Mr. Galbraith said, he would overhaul the workers' compensation reform Gov. Paul Patton, a Pikeville Democrat, pushed through the General Assembly three years ago.
Mr. Patton's reform plan has made it more difficult for some workers to prove work-related injuries and receive benefits.
Mr. Galbraith also would propose a collective-bargaining bill for labor unions that would “insist on safe and fair labor practices” when workers are negotiating pay raises and benefits with management.
And he would propose a new health insurance reform bill that would restore compe tition in the insurance market and drive down premium costs.
Over the last few years, the Kentucky General Assembly has tried to reform the state's health insurance system. But the insurance industry largely opposed the reforms and most insurers fled the market, leaving only one company still selling individual policies in the state.
“Once again, when government came to the table and said they wanted to help us, what they managed to do was drive the cost of health care in the state from $175 a month for a family of four up to $650 a month for the same family,” he said.
Mr. Galbraith also said:
• Economic development tax incentives offered by the state to out-of-state companies to move to Kentucky should first be offered to smaller companies already operating in Kentucky.
• Mr. Patton and the legislature were wrong to spend much of the state's $400 million budget surplus last year on projects around the state.
“A budget surplus does not belong to the politicians and the government,” he said. “It belongs to the people and should have been returned to them in the form of tax breaks.”
Friday evening, Mr. Galbraith attended a campaign fund-raiser in Walton.
Mr. Galbraith is running in the gubernatorial race against Mr. Patton, Republican Peppy Martin of Hart County and Independent Hoby Anderson, a state lawmaker from Greenup County.
He ran for governor in 1991 on a platform of legalizing marijuana, receiving 5 percent of the vote in a race won by Democrat Brereton Jones.
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