Robert James Act of 2008

I thank the gentlewoman, the Chair of our Water Resources Subcommittee, for standing in and carrying on while I was actually returning from Appalachia. And I thank the gentleman from Missouri, our ranking member on the subcommittee, for his strong support of all of the issues before our committee, and particularly these matters today.

I was in Sunbury and Shamokin Dam in Pennsylvania with our colleague, Congressman Carney, in his portion of the Appalachian Regional Commission looking at the Economic Development Highway Program of ARC.

Well, it's a long stretch from Minnesota to Appalachia, but the Appalachian region is an area that I have been associated with legislatively since I started here in the Congress 44 years ago as clerk of the Subcommittee on Rivers and Harbors, to the Committee on Public Works, predecessor to our Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

I was engaged then in the earliest stages of forming what we know today as the Economic Development Administration and the Appalachian Regional Commission. It was close on the heels of the designation by President John F. Kennedy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr. to travel throughout the Appalachian region to assess the conditions of distress, to listen to the concerns of the communities throughout the 13-State region, and to provide him with a report and a road map on dealing with the needs of Appalachia.

When John F. Kennedy went into the region, he found a region of poverty, a region of desolation. It struck him as worse than anything he had seen; a region he described as exploited by the coal barons, neglected by government and laid bare by ravages of the boom-and-bust cycles of coal mining.

In President Kennedy's words: ``This is an area rich in potential. Its people are hardworking, intelligent, resourceful, capable of responding successfully to education and training. They are loyal to their homes, to their families, to their States and to their country.''

``The Appalachian region,'' he said, ``is well-endowed with potential water, mineral, forest and scenic resources. This region, properly developed and assisted by the Federal Government, can make a contribution to the Nation's well-being.''

That was in 1960. Following the report of Franklin Roosevelt, Jr., President Kennedy shaped what we know today as the legislation that created the Appalachian Regional Commission, engineered into law by then-President Lyndon Johnson, authored in the Senate by Senator Jennings Randolph, and many cosponsors in the House, including my predecessor John Blotnick. At the time that John F. Kennedy made those observations, the way up for most people in Appalachia was a bus ticket north to Detroit or Chicago.

The economy of Appalachia could well be described in those days as 80 acres and a mule. When I traveled as a staff member into the region and saw that people were living in the hard pan areas, where there was no ground filtration for the sewage they were discharging into the creeks and streams, and in many places, generations of dysentery, where people were drinking their own sewage.

The area needed highways, airports; it needed vocational training centers; it needed education systems; it needed health care centers; it needed the structure of what 150 years of neglect had denied that area. And through the establishment of the Appalachian Regional Commission and the Federal/State partnership that resulted from it, an area that in 1960, whose income amounted to 45 percent of the national average, today is up to 75 percent of the national average. Where homeownership was a luxury, it is now a reality. Where job creation was nonexistent, it has now returned to this area, fulfilling President Kennedy's promise that the region can make a contribution to the Nation's well- being. And so it did exceedingly well.

Over many years, there were efforts to kill Appalachia. I remember so vividly during a hearing that I conducted as Chair of the Economic Development Subcommittee many years ago that we held in eastern Kentucky and brought witnesses from throughout the region, including from Tennessee, and I remember Ms. Tilda Kemplan, director of a child resource center, testifying at our field hearing and saying, ``Gentlemen, when you go back to Washington, try not to look at that dollar and see George Washington, but look over the top of the dollar and see a child and see our future.'' And that is what Appalachia has done. The Appalachian Regional Commission has caused us to look over the top of the dollar and to see a child and to see the future of the region.

In another community we talked to members of the city council and the chamber of commerce. One of them said, very touchingly, ``Before the ARC, we were so far down we had to look up to see bottom, but now we see a future.'' And in another community in West Virginia, the mayor of the town took us to his small business. Congressman Nick Rahall was along, this was his district. And as the mayor and businessman explaining his operation and the need for road, for airport, for rail transportation, describing the needs and the good things that had been accomplished so far with the ARC, I looked at the wall behind the cash

register, and there was a sign that read: ``God never put nobody in a place too small to grow.''

Appalachia has been growing, the counties throughout this region, growing and overcoming 150 years of neglect and decline; making investments, creating opportunities, building for the future. One of the reports about a decade ago by the commission, their annual report on progress, said: ``Halfway home and a long way to go.'' Well, there's still a long way to go, but the march forward has been much improved, vastly improved by the investments we have made in partnership with the States throughout this region.

Continuing the investments, as we have done in the SAFETEA-LU Appalachia Backbone Highway Program at $470 million a year, continuing with the more than $400 million over the 4 years of the authorization in this bill, we will continue that partnership with the States, the communities, the neighborhood, the people of the Appalachian region. It is an investment of which all America can be proud, and of which all America has benefited.

I thank the gentleman from Missouri, and, heck, my colleagues on the Republican side of the committee. Throughout this whole initiative from the 1960s, this has been a totally bipartisan effort. And I recall, especially during the Reagan years when the Reagan administration was proposing to abolish the ARC and Congressman Hal Rogers, the former chairman of the Commerce Subcommittee of appropriations, said, ``We're not going to let them wear us down. We're going to proceed. We're going to prevail. We have prevailed. Appalachia prevails. And America prevails with it.''

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 799, a bipartisan bill to improve the programs authorized by the Appalachian Regional Development Act of 1965 (P.L. 89-4) and reauthorize the Appalachian Regional Commission (``ARC'') for 5 years through FY 2011.

The Appalachian Regional Commission was created to address economic issues and social problems of the Appalachian region as a part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society program. Historically, the Appalachian region has faced high levels of poverty and economic distress resulting from geographic isolation and inadequate infrastructure.

As a regional economic development agency, ARC supports the development of Appalachia's economy and critical infrastructure to provide a climate for industry growth and job creation. ARC programs affect 406 counties located in 13 states, including all of West Virginia, and parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. The Appalachian region covers nearly 200,000 square miles and contains approximately 22 million people. Currently, of the 406 counties included in the ARC, 114 are considered to be distressed counties.

Since its creation in 1965, ARC has administered a variety of programs to aid in the advancement of the region, including the creation of a highway system, enhancements in education and job training, and the development of water and sewer systems. ARC's funding and projects have contributed significantly to employment, health, and general economic development improvements in the region.

Because of its efficiencies in decision-making and service delivery, ARC served as a model for the Delta Regional Authority. ARC is successful because it responds to identified and agreed upon needs, and is extremely flexible in its approach. According to research conducted by Brandow Co. and the Economic Development Research Group, three fourths of ARC infrastructure projects with specific business or job- related goals met or exceeded formal projections. This is a very robust figure.

H.R. 799 builds on more than four decades of economic development successes by providing additional, much-needed Federal investment in the region. The bill allows ARC to continue its economic development activities using such tools as the telecommunication and technology initiative, and the entrepreneurship initiation to improve the quality of life for the citizens of Appalachia. Further, the bill provides authority for the Commission to make technical assistance grants for energy efficient projects or projects to increase the use of renewable energy resources. This bill also authorizes the designation of ``at risk'' counties, which are counties in the Appalachian region that are most at risk of becoming economically distressed, and identifies the percentage of funds for which these counties are eligible.

ARC's authorization expired at the end of FY 2006. During the 109th Congress, the Committee's bipartisan leadership introduced H.R. 5812, a bill reauthorizing ARC through FY 2011. Although the Senate passed S. 2832 to reauthorize the ARC, the Senate-passed bill did not include the anti-earmarking provision of H.R. 5812. The House did not pass S. 2832 and no further action was taken on H.R. 5812. This bill includes the anti-earmarking provision.

I urge my colleagues to join us in supporting this bipartisan bill to reauthorize the Appalachian Regional Commission.

Madam Speaker, I greatly appreciate the remarks of the gentleman from Ohio. He did great service, Madam Speaker, during his chairmanship of the Economic Development Subcommittee in service to the needs of the Appalachian Regional Commission, the ARC, and the Federal Economic Development Administration programs throughout the country. Adding these counties is an appropriate and necessary step to help lift the region further toward the future of continued economic growth. I was very touched by the gentleman's remarks

about education and the increase in education rights. He spoke well and rightly.

I do want to emphasize for the record, though, that included among all the many beneficial provisions of this bill is an important limitation on earmarking of funds within the ARC. In the past, and it has usually happened in conference, but also occasionally in the House appropriations bill, funds have been earmarked for one or another project which has undercut the effectiveness of the Federal-State partnership and the authenticity of the grass-roots up process of project designation, development and implementation. Using the appropriations process to direct funds has disadvantaged the other regions, of the other States within the region, and has devalued the funding that Congress has appropriated. More importantly, it devalues the Federal, State, and local partnership, the very effective grass- roots up process of project selection within Appalachia. It says your judgment doesn't count. We know better. The authenticity and effectiveness of the ARC program derives exactly from its grass-roots initiative.

So I was very insistent in the last Congress on finding a means by which we could thwart the earmarking. We have it in this bill. Our Senate counterparts have concurred that they want to follow this procedure. It will inure to the benefit of the Appalachian Regional Commission.

Madam Speaker, I am today in support of H.R. 799, the Appalachian Regional Development Act Amendments of 2007. This long overdue legislation continues to promote every one of the southern West Virginia counties I represent, and indeed the entire State of West Virginia, as it is the only State which lies entirely within ARC jurisdiction.

``A rising tide,'' President Kennedy told us, ``lifts all boats.'' And so one of President Kennedy's legacies was created in 1965 with a unique mission to serve a unique part of the Nation, the Appalachian region.

Historically, the counties of Appalachia have ``faced high levels of poverty and economic distress resulting from geographic isolation and inadequate infrastructure.''

It was with these concerns in mind that ARC was created and it is these concerns ARC has been addressing vigorously for the past 40 years.

Take for example the area of transportation, a major focus for ARC. ARC was developed, in part, because of the severe isolation experienced in Appalachia and that in order to develop Appalachia and give its people an opportunity to compete, a system of highways was needed. Enter the Appalachian Development Highway System, which was created to serve the transportation needs of Appalachian residents by assisting in the construction of highways so critically needed by Appalachian communities for economic growth and development.

The ADHS now encompasses over 3,000 miles of Appalachian highways and nearly 85 percent of those roads are complete or under construction. The ADHS is truly a success story for ARC and all of Appalachia. Despite the President's recent budget, which requests eliminating funding for the Appalachian Development Highway System, it is my strong conviction that this program be continued at the agreed upon level set forth in SAFETEA-LU.

Before I leave this subject of transportation and the critical value of rural America's transportation network to our urban brothers and sisters, it is my sincere hope that rural America's voice will be loud and clear when it comes to funding schemes that would punish rural commuters and citizens who are forced by geography to drive long distances each day to and from their employment. It is an issue critical to the completion and maintenance of ARC development highways network.

And while a major focus of ARC remains on highways and Appalachian transportation infrastructure, as the times have changed so has ARC.

As much of the United States has been able to take advantage of the technological boom of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Appalachia once again is in danger of being left behind and unable to compete in the global marketplace.

In the most recent FCC data on high-speed connections for Internet access, released on January 31, 2007, you can track the Appalachian mountain range by just how spotty the provider coverage is on the FCC's provider map. In fact, in West Virginia it is significantly below the average in broadband use nationwide.

Again, ARC is there to offer significant support, bringing broadband access to our communities, which is essential to leveling the playing field and giving our communities an opportunity to compete. Schools, businesses, local governments and individual homes all have benefited from ARC involvement in the expansion of broadband access in Appalachia, and continue to do so.

I have been working with ARC, private telecommunications companies and local economic development leaders to bring broadband technology into southern West Virginia. For example, through the E-commerce training initiatives being offered by ARC and others we are working to connect local small businesses to broadband, opening doors to Internet sales and services that just weren't there a couple of years ago.

It is ARC's ability to serve its mission by adapting its actions to fit the times that makes ARC such an invaluable resource to Appalachia and the Nation. From the Appalachian Development Highway System to the E-commerce and broadband initiatives, ARC continues to serve its mission by advocating for and partnering with the people of Appalachia to create opportunities for self-sustaining economic development and improved quality of life.

I am also glad to see the integrity of ARC programs kept in tact by disallowing the use of earmarks in this legislation. I believe adoption of this provision is critical and will benefit all ARC member-states and the long-term viability of ARC itself. Additionally, I am pleased to see the bi-partisan support for this program which was displayed by the rejection of attempts to cut funding for it in the recent House passed FY08 Energy and Water Appropriations legislation.

I applaud the efforts of Federal Co-Chair Anne Pope who, as a native daughter of Appalachia, executes so well the mission of ARC in each of Appalachia's communities. I have said this before and am happy to do so again on the record, Anne is one of the finest Federal Co-Chairs to ever serve the people of Appalachia and I look forward to our continued strong relationship serving the needs of southern West Virginians, together.

I strongly support ARC, its mission and the incredibly successful initiatives it has undertaken to better the lives of the people of Appalachia and West Virginia.

To the distinguished chairman of our full committee, I just want you to know how well your staff is taking care of you today. As we were calling up the bill, knowing you were traveling back, I didn't know you were coming from Appalachia, but Mr. McCarragher came over and said, ``Could you talk as long as possible so we can get the chairman back here?'' And now I don't have to do that, so I don't think I will need the full 5 minutes.

I do want to remark on the ARC, Madam Speaker. No one can stand up and say that the vision of John F. Kennedy implemented by legislation in 1965 by Lyndon Johnson has not been a wonderful success in dealing with the abject poverty of the Appalachian region.

The chairman rightly talked about the infrastructure part of our committee's assignments. But one of my favorite hearings, when I had the pleasure of being the chairman of the subcommittee, is when the ARC stakeholders would come in and talk to the Republicans and Democrats on the subcommittee. And aside from industrial parks, aside from roads, aside from bridges, aside from safe drinking water, they beamed with pride about how their graduation rates had improved and how the young people in their region were now taking pride in the education they were receiving, and they were graduating from high school at record numbers, something that would not have happened had it not been for the ARC.

I came to the floor this afternoon to specifically thank the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Oberstar, and also the chairman of the subcommittee, Ms. Holmes Norton, together with Mr. Graves and Mr. Mica. One of John F. Kennedy's most oft quoted quotes is: ``A rising tide lifts all boats.'' And so Congressman Tim Ryan and I looked around and we saw, boy, everybody around us, to the east, to the south, to the west, seems to have participated wonderfully well in the Appalachian Regional Commission. And if you put a map of the Midwestern United States up, there's only a few little white squares, and they are regions that Congressman Ryan and I represent, Ashtabula, Trumbull and Mahoning County. We had a discussion with Chairman Oberstar during the course of the markup of this legislation, and it seems that Congressman Ryan and I weren't the only ones interested in this. And as a result of those discussions, Chairman Oberstar has added 13 additional counties to the purview of the Appalachian Regional Commission.

So I came down today, Madam Speaker, to thank the chairman for working with us. And I firmly believe that the addition of these three counties in Ohio, together with the 10 counties located throughout the region, are going to permit our people in transitional counties to benefit the same way as other counties have benefited since 1965.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 799) to reauthorize and improve the program authorized by the Appalachian Regional Development Act of 1965, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in strong support of H.R. 799, as amended, the Appalachian Regional Development Act Amendments of 2007, and thank Chairman Oberstar and Ranking Member Mica for their hard work and leadership in helping to bring this bill to the floor.

The Appalachian Regional Commission, the ARC, strives to ensure the people and businesses of the Appalachian region have the knowledge, skills, abilities, and access to services necessary to compete in basic economic activities of the United States.

Since its inception in 1965, the commission has been highly effective in meeting the goals of its mission. There is no doubt that it has compiled an impressive record of accomplishment in creating economic opportunity in Appalachia. Just as it has done since its inception, the ARC has proven it provides a fair return, both socially and economically, for the Federal Government's investment in the people of Appalachia.

Consistent with the congressional leadership and interest in energy programs, H.R. 799 authorizes the ARC to

provide technical assistance, make grants, enter into contracts, or otherwise provide amounts in the Appalachian region for energy- efficient projects or projects to increase the use of renewable energy resources.

This bill also authorizes the creation of at-risk counties, and further outlines the percentage of funds for which these counties are eligible. The authorized amounts build on the funds authorized in Public Law 107-149 and adjust the annual amounts for inflation. The bill authorizes appropriation for the commission's programs and expenses through the fiscal year 2011.

H.R. 799, as amended, has strong bipartisan support, which acknowledges the ARC as a well-run and highly effective Federal/State partnership commission.

I urge the passage of H.R. 799, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to our chairman of the committee, Mr. Oberstar of Minnesota.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Oberstar) for closing remarks.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, H.R. 799, as amended, reauthorizes and improves the Appalachian Regional Commission, the ARC. The ARC has been a successful program for the last 40 years. It has helped reduce the Appalachian region's poverty rate. It has cut the infant mortality rate. It has increased the percentage of adults with a high school diploma. It has provided water and sewer services to a significant number of households and businesses and created new jobs.

H.R. 799, as amended, reauthorizes the ARC for 5 years. The bill includes a couple of very important reforms. It helps focus funding on distressed and at-risk counties, and it includes language that will deter earmarking of the program.

Currently, the ARC has four statutory designations which are determined by the unemployment rate, per capita income and the poverty rate of each ARC county. This bill creates an additional designation to assist counties that are at risk and don't fully qualify as distressed.

At-risk counties are fragile economies making it difficult to meet the 50 percent match rate to participate in the program. In many cases, at-risk counties are recently distressed and eligible for an 80 percent Federal match. The addition of the ``at-risk'' designation will fund projects in these counties up to 70 percent of the project cost as they continue the transition from the ``distressed'' to the ``transitional'' designation.

The ARC is viewed by most as a successful model for economic development. The ability to leverage a large amount of public and private funding makes the ARC a very valuable tool for economic development in Appalachia. We must ensure continuation of this successful program and further express our support for the hardworking people in the Appalachian region.

I would encourage my colleagues to support H.R. 799, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I would reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the chairman of the committee, Mr. Oberstar, for his remarks. They are very well put.

I would now like to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette).

Madam Speaker, I have no other speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.