Photo by MIKKEL KELLY U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter responds to a question with one of many people who signed up to talk issues one-on-one Saturday in Arvada.

U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, who represents the 7th District, met with residents Saturday morning at the Safeway store in Arvada, 12680 W. 64th Ave.

Each person who signed up was given 10 minutes to discuss issues one-on-one with the congressman.

Perlmutter also answered several questions from editor Mikkel Kelly for purposes of the following Q&A.

Q) What topics are you hearing from your constituents?

A) Well, we did a telephone town hall on Thursday night. We heard about jobs, we had some people who wanted to discuss foreclosures up in the Brighton area, we had some folks from Aurora, some disabled veterans called in, just concerned that the cuts might affect their care.

We talked a lot about the VA hospital, the medical center that's going in at Fitzsimons. I don't have all my notes from the other night, but it was a wide range of things. We talked about Afghanistan … We had a SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) question, and there were several education questions.

Q) What is your take on the Protect IP Act that was postponed in the Senate and SOPA?

A) The SOPA. I haven't decided what I will do. I am probably going to be a no vote, but it depends on how it is written.

The basics are that songwriters, actors, publishers, authors are concerned that their works are being made available, and their copyright is being violated. So it starts out with the copyright laws.

But what it would do is block search engines from being able to do what they do by letting people say OK here is this subject and that subject.

So the Internet community is saying wait this is tremendous censorship, it can block us from doing what we need to do. And the entertainers or the folks that produce these things — the books, the movies, the songs — are saying but we are entitled to our copyright and our royalties. So there is a real issue there.

The bills that have been drafted so far go — in my opinion — too far in allowing the search engine, who is not really breaching the copyright, but they are going to pay the penalty for it. So it is misguided at this point. We'll just have to see how they are redrafted.

Q) What is your take on employment and recent trends?

A) I am feeling better about what is happening in terms of the job market. We still have a long, long way to go, but nationally unemployment is dropping and in terms of our state and in our area, unemployment is dropping.

The private sector seems to be a little stronger. The stock market seems to be a little stronger. Foreclosures are down.

We'll just have to see how some of the cuts that are probable under the federal budget play out, see if that sort of starts things, starts the unemployment back up again.

But so far the trends are positive. They are good. What we have seen at our career fairs, is we had more employers at each career fair — the employers who are there to talk to people, that group has grown.

We have actually seen the number of people seeking employment shrink a little bit. There are still a lot of folks and a lot of sort of middle-age guys who were laid off in the depth of the recession and are still trying to find work. So we still have work to do.

Q) What is your take on NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) and clean energy jobs?

A) For me there are three things. We have got to continue to focus on innovation, education and cooperation, working together.

And one of the stories that you guys wrote, and it was a big story for the metropolitan area was at NREL, the invention, the invention of this thin film solar that then PrimeStar took to Wheat Ridge with just a few guys from the lab plus venture capital, they refine it, it goes to Arvada, they build the plant, and they refine it more, General Electric comes in and says we are really going to run with this thing, and they are building this big operation in Aurora.

And so that is innovation, and NREL was brought to our area cause we have a good education system in Jeffco Public Schools, the university system, the Colorado School of Mines and then the cities and the state cooperated, Democrats and Republicans cooperated, and we were able to track GE, and they are going to build this thing here.

So for me, the clean energy industry is all about jobs. And NREL just did a new report, between what they have and the subcontractors and suppliers, it's about 6,200 jobs, just related to the lab itself. So it's good jobs, it's about the future, you know, a new energy system, and I really want to fight for NREL, that's the bottom line.

Q) I want to try to bundle two questions. You recently made a comment about the Tea Party and mentioned brinkmanship, if you will comment about that, and on the other hand, how do you see the Occupy Wall Street movement playing into the upcoming election?

A) Well they are sort of at the opposite ends of the spectrum. And I think people have generally have not been happy with some of the brinkmanship that they have seen some of the Tea Party congressman, who are elected in that last election and who say this is the only way we are going to do it, and unless it is done that way we'll to shut everything down.

And it happened, and we came within about an hour of shutting down the federal budget and federal government in April. We came within an hour or two of defaulting on the credit of the United States, the full faith and credit, for the first time in 235 years.

That happened in August, and then the same thing occurred with this payroll tax cut right before Christmas, and people don't like that, they expect leaders, members of Congress, to you know, you are not going to get a perfect solution but you want to advance the interests for America. And there has been this feeling that's not occurring.

And then on the other side, you have the Occupy Wall Street, where they are saying Washington has only been looking out for Wall Street in effect. And you know the wealthiest people in America are protected, and the 99 percent are not. So their whole fight is about rebuilding the middle class, and I agree with that.

I think the middle class in this country needs to be strengthened and grown and that starts with education, in my opinion, and the opportunities that that provides. So innovation, education, we can't shrink or shirk our duty to have a well-educated people, and then the last part is we need to work together, we have a lot of tough problems and only by working together do I believe we will solve them.

Q) What are your thoughts on the Jefferson Parkway, and then anything else you'd like to add.

A) Well, you know the Jefferson Parkway, it seemed like things were moving towards some kind of an agreement and then apparently it's fallen apart, and I haven't really stayed in the middle of that because I wanted the local guys to see if they couldn't work something out. Now it's in the courts and we'll just see where that goes.

And then you know the last thing is that I believe we are really getting on the right track. We fell very far in that fall of 2008. That was a crash. You haven't seen the likes of it. I haven't seen it. And it's going to continue to be a task that we are all going to have to focus on to continue to improve this economy and rebuild the middle class.