March 2, 2005

Mr. President, I rise today to speak about two bills I will introduce later today and to speak out in support of rural Colorado and rural America. The two bills – one to increase investment in broadband technology in rural areas and another to permanently fund the payment in lieu of taxes program – are the first bills I am introducing as a senator. I am proud they are both targeted at rural Colorado.

Over 400 years ago, in 1598, my family helped found the oldest city in what is now these United States. They named the city Santa Fe – the City of Holy Faith – because they knew the hand of God would guide them through the struggles of survival in the ages ahead.

For the next four centuries, that faith in their future guided them to overcome extremely painful and challenging times. As humble and poor farmers, the circumstances of their lives forged the priceless and timeless values my father Henry and mother Emma instilled in their eight children.

My family has now farmed the same lands in southern Colorado – 110 miles north of Santa Fe – for almost 150 years. On that ranch, we did not have a telephone, and the power lines did not reach our ranch until 1981.

Although we were poor in material goods, we were rich in the spirit and values of my parents. My parents were part of the World’s Greatest Generation – my father a proud veteran of World War II and my mother a proud servant in the War Department.

Although neither had a college degree, they taught us about the values and promise of America. All eight of their children became first generation college graduates, inspired by their dedication to God, family, community and country.

As Colorado’s United States Senator, I am proud of my values and roots in rural Colorado. Rural America is the heart of our great nation.

The values my parents taught me are the fundamental values that make this country the place I am privileged to call home.

Unfortunately, the America where I grew up is vanishing today, left behind by a Washington DC that has lost touch with what is important to the people of the heartland. I fear that rural Colorado, like the rest of rural America, has become “the Forgotten America.”

Rural America has given up its sons and daughters to the cause of freedom without hesitation and in numbers that far exceed its proportion of the country’s population. It has worked quietly to put food on our tables, and remains humbly grounded, seeking neither praise nor thanks.

Yet when the President reported on the State of the Union, there was not a word on the state of the more than 3,000 counties that make up rural America. Not a word. And the Administration’s budget? The programs and investments vital to those communities – PILT, block grants, conservation programs, investments in animal and food safety, and investments in technology, schools and law enforcement – were drastically cut.

Last week, I had the honor of travelling nearly 2,000 miles to every corner of Colorado and convened 17 meetings with elected officials representing Colorado’s 64 counties.

In those meetings, I heard the state of rural America in the words of the people who are fighting for their families everyday.

The state of rural America is sadly the state of the forgotten America.

In rural Colorado, residents face lower incomes and are far more likely to be unemployed than people in urban and suburban areas.

In Crowley County, east of Pueblo, there is only one nurse practitioner to serve a county of nearly 6,000 people. If you get sick in Crowley County, you have three choices: wait, go to the Emergency Room or simply hope that you get better.

In Routt County, veterans have to travel nearly 200 miles to Grand Junction to see a doctor in the VA clinic. A few months ago, there was no waiting list to see a doctor. Now, there’s a waiting list of 400 … which means veterans in western Colorado wait five months to see a doctor.

The Dolores County Sheriff, my good friend Jerry Martin, has to make hiring decisions based not on public security needs of Dolores County but on the ability of his Department to provide health care to the prospective employee. Health care premiums for Sheriff Martin have risen 20 percent each year for the last three years in Dolores County.

Across the state, people told me that their health care premiums dwarf their mortgage payments because in many cases they pay over $1,000 per month for health insurance for their families.

Between 1996 and 2000, one in three of our rural schools saw its enrollment drop more than 10 percent.

Though they continue to excel on state tests, too many of our rural schools have been forced to divert valuable resources to fulfill the unfunded mandates of No Child Left Behind.

In Kiowa, Moffat and Custer counties, our teachers are paid much less than teachers in the big cities. In Kit Carson County, where teachers sometimes teach two and three subjects, only half of our teachers right now would meet new federal standards requiring them to be certified for each subject.

And in the town of Rico, half of the main street is boarded up: there’s a liquor store, but not much else. According to the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, that is indeed a larger trend: Main Street in rural Colorado is losing its storefronts and its vitality.

Compare those needs to the budget the Administration recently proposed.

While we are facing a shortage of qualified and trained health care employees, the administration budget this year cut health professions training by almost two thirds - $290 million;

While our state tries to deal with a devastating budget crisis, the Administration drastically reduced funding for the Community Development Block Grants. These grants are the funds which towns, from Greeley to Grand Junction to Denver, depend;

For the fifth year in a row, the Administration’s budget fails to fulfill the funding promises made in the No Child Left Behind law, but still heaps mandates on local schools, especially those that can least afford it now in rural America;

Moreover, the proposed budget eliminates low-interest loans for students who have the grades but can’t afford to go to college and eliminates funding for vocational training that many rural Colorado students use;

The proposed budget cuts $250 million from one of the most successful small business investment programs and decimates USDA investments in rural economic development; and

While we combat methamphetamine production and invest precious resources in meth lab clean up, the budget cuts Safe and Drug Free School grants, the COPS program by nearly $500 million, and state and local homeland security training programs are cut by 60 percent.

That is the wrong way to go.

I want to propose two small steps in my effort to reinvest in rural America. In coming months I intend to introduce measures to strengthen rural law enforcement, revitalize rural health care, invest in Main Street, strengthen rural education, help ensure efficient and equitable sharing of water resources and underscore the values that shape every rural community in Colorado.

The first bill that I will introduce today is on the PILT program. I know that education in rural America is funded through a variety of means, including through resources passed to rural counties through the Payment in Lieu of Taxes program.

The idea behind the PILT program is simple. It makes sure that local communities in states like Colorado – states that have seen large parts of land set aside by the federal government for public use for more than a century – do not lose valuable resources from foregone property taxes. Those resources fund programs from education to law enforcement.

Unfortunately, this year the Administration’s budget is again proposing to cut that funding. Thanks to the efforts of my Democratic and Republican colleagues, like Senator Bingaman, some of that funding has been won back over the last several years, and I am hopeful we will be able to do that again.

But our local communities should not have to wait and wonder every year whether their resources for schools, roads and law enforcement will make it into the budget, and that is why I am introducing a bill to make permanent the funding for the Payment in Lieu of Taxes program.

I am also introducing a bill to increase investment in broadband technology in rural communities. Bringing broadband to our rural schools will give our students there access to technology that millions of other students around the country take for granted. With broadband will come world class research and access to AP courses at Colorado’s universities. And with broadband we will see the economic development for which rural Colorado has been waiting.

The benefits of this investment do not stop in education and business. Telehealth is increasingly vital in rural Colorado, held back in some cases by the lack of investment in infrastructure. That same infrastructure limits investment opportunities in rural communities.

With this bill I am building on the hard work of others and saying that it is long past time for us to invest in the world class broadband that rural communities need. My bill does that in three ways.

First, it will establish our nation’s first Rural Broadband Office to coordinate all federal government resources as they relate to broadband in rural communities.

Second, it will help broadband providers keep pace with our rapidly changing technology.

And third, it calls on the Congress to live up to its responsibility to fully fund rural utilities.

It has been a long road that has carried me from that ranch in the San Luis Valley, growing up as one of eight siblings and proudly attending college and law school before having the privilege to serve in the United States Senate.

In all of this, I have never forgotten where I come from. I have a sign on my desk that reads “No Farms, No Food.” Every day I look at it, and I am reminded of just how dependent we are on the people of rural Colorado, and in rural communities all across America.

At a meeting with leaders from Colorado’s farmer and rancher community last month, a wheat farmer from southeastern Colorado told me this: “Senator, you’d never believe how many farmers refuse to go to the doctor when they get sick. It’s not that they aren’t really sick. It’s that they can’t afford the doctor.”

Unfortunately, Mr. President, I do believe that wheat farmer, and I know that wheat farmer and the rest of rural America needs our help.

In America, the most powerful, prosperous, idealistic country the world has ever known, we can do better. We can do better for all of our nation.

We can do better at protecting that way of life – in our churches and town halls, Main Streets and living rooms, ranches and independent drug stores – demands it.

Together, we can make sure that no one anywhere in this country feels that he is part of a “Forgotten America” any longer.

###

# # #

• Office and Contact Information

For Press Inquiries, contact:

Cody Wertz, Press Secretary
202-228-3630 (office)
202-674-7656 (mobile)
cody_wertz@salazar.senate.gov

Jen Clanahan, Deputy Press Secretary
303-455-5999 (office)
303-775-3539 (mobile)
jen_clanahan@salazar.senate.gov