September 9, 2005
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The Honorable John W. Snow Prepared Remarks: Visit to Mobile

Good afternoon. Governor Riley, thanks to you and your team for having us here. I'm glad to be in Mobile with my colleagues from the President's economic team.  I'm looking forward to a good discussion about the needs of Gulf Coast communities as they begin to rebuild in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. 

I really appreciate the chance to hear first-hand ideas for helping communities like Mobile recover from this devastating disaster.  The President has said he wants to seek big ideas and big solutions and we hope our conversation today will help provide those.   That's why it was so important to meet with the terrific community and business leaders here today. 

We want to encourage re-building and do whatever we can to help.  I am pleased to announce that a special effort that should help encourage the economic investment needed to get places like Mobile back on the economic map. 

We will be making a couple of key changes to the existing New Markets Tax Credit Program (NMTC) – a competitive tax-credit-incentive program which currently serves to attract private-sector capital investment into the nation's urban and rural low-income areas – to encourage the financing of community development projects, stimulate economic growth and create jobs in hurricane-ravaged areas.

Treasury will immediately implement two changes to that program's application procedures so that its purpose is broadened to this region.

First, the deadlines for NMTC applications will be extended, on a case-by-case basis, for organizations whose principal place of business is located in counties for which FEMA has issued a major disaster declaration.

Second, the NMTC Program allocation application will be changed so that additional consideration will be given to organizations that commit to target their investment activities to affected counties.

This is a significant first step toward encouraging businesses and investors to come back to this area, quickly, to create commerce and jobs. More encouragement will be needed, and Treasury will be working with Congress on how to achieve that in the coming days and weeks. We'll be looking at short and long-term incentives for economic development. This region will be re-built and it will be stronger than ever – that, after all, is the American way and the American spirit.

There is no doubt that we face a long and challenging road ahead as we help our fellow Americans recovery from this terrible disaster. But good work is being done, more help is still on the way, and I am optimistic that the generosity of the American people will continue to lift up their fellow citizens.

Over the long term, I'm confident that the region will recover and rebuild. We picked ourselves up after 9/11 and other catastrophic events, and we have the will and the resources and the resolve to do so again.  I am confident we will; it's the spirit of Americans to do so.

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