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PAUL SMITHS - On the campaign trail four days before Election Day, U.S. Rep. John McHugh visited Paul Smith's College Friday. After a luncheon on the first floor of the student center sponsored by the Saranac Lake Chamber of Commerce, he met with about a dozen Paul Smith's students and faculty members in the Bobcat Cafe upstairs.

"How scary can it get?" the Republican from Pierrepont Manor asked the students. "Talking to a politician on Halloween! And in an election year!"

According to college President John Mills, about 25 percent of his students come from McHugh's district. McHugh praised the students for their choice of a "great physical location" to go to school, "although snow in October is a little too early for me."

McHugh is running for a ninth two-year term against Democrat Mike Oot of Munnsville, near Syracuse.

"As a second-year New York state senator, I was still paying off college loans," McHugh said. He said that "painful memory" is why he supports increasing federal aid to help with student tuition, even though many other Republicans oppose such measures.

Tom Huber, director of student support services at the college, asked McHugh why $50 million that was supposed to be appropriated under the Higher Education Sustainibility Act of 2008 to give grants to universities has not been appropriated yet. This money would be used to support a variety of programs, including green building and energy management projects.

McHugh answered that, except for military funding, no new funding bills have been signed into law. He said the funding would probably be released by the next Congress after it convenes in January.

One student, who left before his name could be obtained, asked McHugh if he was a Republican or Democrat, and what office he is running for. McHugh explained that he is a Republican running for the U.S. Congress.

The same student then asked McHugh his views on energy.

"The one thing I fear is, because prices have come down so much, Congress will put aside its focus on alternate energy development and focus on other things," McHugh said. "We have to, in the long term, get off carbon fuels. I've been there 16 years. If something isn't about to take your head off in Washington, you can deal with it later. This is a monster stepping into the closet to take a breather. It's not going away."

McHugh said he supports increasing domestic drilling in the short term, and increasingly using domestic sources of carbon fuels, or at least oil from friendlier countries, as we make the transition.

"You can lessen your foreign oil dependency in the short termn, but it has to be a bridge, not a highway," he said.

He said the increase in tax revenue from domestic production could be used to help fund development of alternate energy sources. However, he said he thought Americans should increase work on alternate sources as soon as possible, whether or not domestic drilling becomes a profitable reality.

"We need to make that investment independent of domestic energy expansion," he said.

McHugh also said he favored taking some measures, even incremental ones, to combat acid rain and global warming by reducing pollution, and said debating "peripherals" like the cause and the responsibility is leading to inaction on the larger issues.

"It's happening," he said. "If it is happening, why should we waste time debating whether the human factor is the main driver?"

Amy Tuthill, who has a son in the Reserve Officers Training Corps, asked McHugh his views on military funding. McHugh, who is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he pushed for, and got, a 10 percent increase in funding for the Veterans Administration's health-care programs this year.

McHugh also condemned Barney Frank, who recently called for a 25 percent cut in military spending. McHugh said it was a "reckless" thing to say when this country is "asking young men and women to go overseas and be shot at" and said such a cut would make it difficult to buy necessary equipment.

"These are not luxury vacations in Aruba," McHugh said. "These are necessary items."

Contact Nathan Brown at 891-2600 ext. 26 or nbrown@adirondackdailyenterprise.com.