Delco’s McBlain visits White House, advocates for county issues

It was his second time this year being invited to the White House but Delaware County Councilman John McBlain wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass without addressing business – and he made his sentiment clear to none other than Kelly Anne Conway.

The Aldan Republican traveled to the nation’s capital Thursday to participate in a conference for Pennsylvania County Commissioners set up by the White House’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, which was set up to allow county officials to meet federal ones to discuss issues directly relating to running county governments.

“For the first time, you have these agencies reaching out saying, ‘Here’s the person you speak to,’” McBlain said, adding it was the first time he could recall such an occurrence happening. “They want to deal directly with governors, with county commissioners and hear about these issues.”

After receiving a tour of the White House, he was headed to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in the White House complex to meet with representatives from a dozen federal agencies.

“They would tell us about what they were doing and the types of coordinations they would like to see between the agencies and the counties,” McBlain said.

However, during that six and half hour segment during that day, he had two goals in mind – speaking about how the opioid epidemic and the Renewable Identification Numbers are impacting residents here.

When given the chance, McBlain told Conway, “No one in Delaware County has called me about Russia but I get frequent issues from moms, aunts and uncles from people that need help.”

To that, she explained about measures that are being taken from the establishment of the White House commission to combat the opioid epidemic, headed by N.J. Gov. Chris Christie to the $45 billion allocated for opioid and heroin treatment in the health care bill.

“That’s a positive step,” McBlain said. “It was very satisfying to know that they’re on the same page.”

In fact, he said when Conway spoke, she addressed the epidemic for 30 minutes.

“I was thrilled,” McBlain said, “to have a senior advisor of the President say that this is the issue we’re working on ... I was thrilled that it’s obvious that this is one of the largest public policy issues that they’re looking at.”

The other item he wanted to talk about was how the renewable fuels requirement impacts the local refineries of Monroe Energy and Philadelphia Energy Solutions, particularly with the Renewable Identification Number situation.

RINs as they are known are numbers given for each gallon of ethanol made in conjunction with the federal regulations for biofuels in gasoline. Refiners can’t blend ethanol into gasoline, only blenders can, so refiners must buy the RINs from blenders.

For example, McBlain said Monroe Energy alone spent $4 million on purchasing RINs in 2012. This year, he added, they are on track to spent $165 million for them, which is a price higher than the $150 million net price Delta Air Lines spent to purchase the entire refinery.

“That’s money that just goes away,” he said. “It doesn’t go to our families that work there.”

On Thursday, he spoke to the Intergovernmental Affairs representative to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, whom he said promised to have a follow up meeting.

McBlain said the experience was very productive.

“The most important thing is they are establishing this new structure,” the councilman said. “It’s nice to have that direct connection with the federal agencies when something comes up.”

And, that may occur sooner rather than later.

McBlain said an issue has arisen regarding signage in Chester in relation to the Philadelphia Union soccer stadium and he’s going to test the system by reaching out to the U.S. Department of Transportation officials to see it in action.

While this visit was strictly more business-oriented, his first visit to the White House earlier this year was more festive.

McBlain, an advocate for Irish American causes, had been invited for the annual St. Patrick’s Day party – something he had been trying to attend for years.

“It was a fun mix of some of the elected leaders in Ireland and here in the United States,” he said.