Senator Warner traveled to Roanoke today for town hall meetings with employees from Roanoke-based Advance Auto and members of the Roanoke Chamber of Commerce.

“I apologize for taking everybody away from work for about 45 minutes this morning,” Senator Warner joked at the start of his conversation with about 300 Advanced Auto employees. Advance employs about 1,000 local people and has almost 80-year history in the Roanoke Valley.

He began each town hall with a brief report from Washington, and then fielded questions from employees and business leaders.

On health care, Senator Warner said that while the legislative process was “ugly,” he was committed to working with colleagues to monitor the way the initiative is implemented. Senator Warner particularly wants to work to make sure health reform actually drives-down costs for families, businesses and government.

“The most important part, now that the bill is passed, is how we implement it,” he said, “and we need to make sure we look for opportunities to enhance the things that work and revisit the things that don’t.”

On energy, Senator Warner urged the western Virginia business leaders to embrace changes to our nation’s energy mix, which he said will have a lasting impact on our economy similar to the telecommunications and Internet transformations of the 1980’s and 90’s.

“This is the game changer of the next 25 years, and we have to be a leader in it,” he said.