[House Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 102-000 deg.
TRAVERSING THE TWISTS AND IMPACTS OF THE HIGHWAY BEAUTIFICATION ACT
UPON SMALL BUSINESSES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON RURAL ENTERPRISE, AGRICULTURE, & TECHNOLOGY
of the
COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
WASHINGTON, DC, MAY 15, 2003
__________
Serial No. 108-16
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Small Business
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
house
______
92-598 U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
WASHINGTON : 2003
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COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois, Chairman
ROSCOE BARTLETT, Maryland, Vice NYDIA VELAZQUEZ, New York
Chairman JUANITA MILLENDER-McDONALD,
SUE KELLY, New York California
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio TOM UDALL, New Mexico
PATRICK J. TOOMEY, Pennsylvania FRANK BALLANCE, North Carolina
JIM DeMINT, South Carolina DONNA CHRISTENSEN, Virgin Islands
SAM GRAVES, Missouri DANNY DAVIS, Illinois
EDWARD SCHROCK, Virginia CHARLES GONZALEZ, Texas
TODD AKIN, Missouri GRACE NAPOLITANO, California
SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia ANIBAL ACEVEDO-VILA, Puerto Rico
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania ED CASE, Hawaii
MARILYN MUSGRAVE, Colorado MADELEINE BORDALLO, Guam
TRENT FRANKS, Arizona DENISE MAJETTE, Georgia
JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania JIM MARSHALL, Georgia
JEB BRADLEY, New Hampshire MICHAEL MICHAUD, Maine
BOB BEAUPREZ, Colorado LINDA SANCHEZ, California
CHRIS CHOCOLA, Indiana ENI FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
STEVE KING, Iowa BRAD MILLER, North Carolina
THADDEUS McCOTTER, Michigan
J. Matthew Szymanski, Chief of Staff and Chief Counsel
Phil Eskeland, Policy Director
Michael Day, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Witnesses
Page
Kothe, Sarah, House of Os Bed & Breakfast........................ 5
Taylor, Professor Charles R., Villanova University............... 7
Byrnes, Chris, Defenders of Property Rights...................... 8
Gorin, John P., National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds. 10
Eck, John P., National Association of Truck Stop Owners.......... 12
Martin, Joe, American Hotel and Lodging Association.............. 13
Maguire, Meg, Scenic America..................................... 15
Appendix
Opening statements:
Graves, Hon. Sam............................................. 23
Prepared statements:
Kothe, Sarah................................................. 26
Taylor, Professor Charles R.................................. 30
Defenders of Property Rights................................. 35
Gorin, John P................................................ 44
Eck, John P.................................................. 47
Martin, Joe.................................................. 51
Maguire, Meg................................................. 55
Huber, Karen................................................. 71
Frantzis, John............................................... 73
(iii)
HEARING ON TRAVERSING THE TWISTS AND IMPACTS OF THE HIGHWAY
BEAUTIFICATION ACT UPON SMALL BUSINESSES
----------
THURSDAY, MAY 15, 2003
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Rural Enterprises, Agriculture and
Technology,
Committee on Small Business
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 12:59 p.m. in
Room 2360, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Sam Graves
[chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Graves, Ballance.
Chairman Graves. I think we will go ahead and get started.
The Ranking Member, Mr. Ballance, had to go to the Floor for a
few minutes. He should be back very shortly and join us.
I do want to say good afternoon, and welcome to the Rural
Enterprises, Agriculture and Technology Subcommittee on the
Small Business Committee. We are going to, in the interest of
time, try to keep everybody's testimony to five minutes.
We do have a vote scheduled for 2:00. Depending on whether
or not that is hit or not, when that vote hits we will probably
lose everybody or most everybody in the room, so we are going
to try to get through all the testimony first because that is
the most important thing is to have testimony on record, and
then we will see about questions. Hopefully we will be able to
get to those, too, but we do want to get through all of the
testimony, so we are going to try to keep everybody to the five
minutes.
I might explain the lights down there and how they work.
You will have a green, and then it will go to yellow when you
have one minute left, and then it will show red when time is
up.
I will go ahead and give my opening statement, and then we
will see if Mr. Ballance is able to be here before I am
finished.
Today we are discussing the impact of the Highway
Beautification Act, or HBA, on small businesses across America.
When President Lyndon Johnson signed the Highway Beautification
Act of 1965, he did so with the intent to insure effective
control of billboards along our highways. The bill controls
outdoor advertising along interstate and federally-aided
primary highways.
While the legislation allows for billboards in commercial
and industrial zones, it mandates a state compliance program
that includes the development of state standards and promotes
the removal of illegal signs. The law failed to take into
account its effect on small business, particularly in rural
areas that rely heavily on billboard advertising. These federal
burdens are extremely anti small business.
Seventy to 80 percent of billboard advertising is utilized
by local business, and the majority of this is small business.
In rural areas such as in my district or large parts of my
congressional district, local business utilization jumps to 90
percent. Two-thirds of billboard advertising in rural areas is
for the travel and tourism industry.
In the rural areas, billboard advertisement is the most
effective and cost efficient means of advertising. Since 80
percent of all travel in the United States is by car,
newspaper, radio and TV ads do not capture passing travelers.
Billboard advertisements are the only medium that targets that
market.
Numerous studies all point to the same conclusion.
Billboard advertising significantly contributes to those
businesses that utilize or are allowed to utilize advertising.
Commercially, businesses that have lost signs lose business.
Bob Evans Restaurant did their own experiment on billboard
advertising. They covered up several of their billboards along
interstates to measure the advertising effectiveness. The
impacted restaurants reported a 10 percent loss of sales during
the time that the billboards were out of sight.
Studies show that an estimated 82.2 of small businesses
would lose sales if they did not have access to billboard
advertisement. In rural America, outdoor advertising serves a
variety of functions for small business owners. Billboards
allow small businesses to give directions to their place of
business, information on the products and service that their
business offers and the price of their products and services.
However, small businesses do not have the funds to spend on
extensive advertising. Therefore, they rely on billboards
indicating to the passer by the location of their business. The
outdoor advertising provides convenient information to
consumers who use the directions and the critical product
identification for the businesses who benefit from increased
commercial activity.
The Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of
1991--it was called IST--amended the Highway Beautification Act
of 1965 to prohibit billboards placed on designated scenic
byways that are part of the interstate or primary highway
system. In addition, IST and the subsequent HBA amendments
directed additional federal funds towards billboard removal and
control.
I fear that broad federal regulations have severely
restricted small businesses' ability to remain competitive.
Simply put, small business in rural communities that thrive on
the patronage of their community and those outside their city
limits cannot survive under current laws governing outdoor
advertising.
I would like to recognize--well, he is not going to be
here; he should be here shortly--Mr. Ballance.
This is also an issue that I have dealt with extensively in
my time in the state senate too on the Transportation
Committee, and I look forward to this particular angle from the
small business perspective.
We will go ahead and jump right into statements from our
witnesses. I do want thank you all for being here. I know some
of you have come a long way to be here today.
Before we get started, I do want to ask unanimous consent
to include statements from all the Members in the record. I
think we have that.
[Mr. Graves' statement may be found in the appendix.]
Chairman Graves. Here is Mr. Ballance. You are just in
time. I will go ahead. Would you like to give an opening
statement?
Mr. Ballance. Yes, I would.
Chairman Graves. Okay. I just finished with mine. If you
want to go ahead and go through yours, that would be fine. I
asked for unanimous consent, too, to make sure all the Members'
statements are recorded in the record.
Mr. Ballance. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning to
everyone. I would like to give an opening statement.
The purpose of today's hearing is to review the effect of
the Highway Beautification Act on small businesses. This
legislation, enacted in 1965, controls outdoor advertising
along more than 300,000 miles of the nation's highway system
that allows the location of billboard in commercial and
industrial areas and requires just compensation for the removal
of non-conforming billboards.
The Committee is holding this hearing because the Act will
be reauthorized as part of the Transportation Equity Act and
because of its importance to the travel and tourism industry,
which our economy depends so much upon.
It is important that as we look at this legislation today
we balance the needs of the travel and tourism industry to
advertise their services with the need to protect the natural
scenic, historic and architectural tourist sites on which these
small businesses depend.
As you may know, Mr. Chairman, I was born on a farm in
rural eastern North Carolina, and I am well aware of the plight
of small business owners in rural America. In fact, 98 percent
of North Carolina's businesses are small firms, and they employ
47 percent of the state's employees.
Clearly, effective advertising is critical to our nation's
rural and small businesses. What I think is important for the
Committee to explore is not only the role billboards play in
rural small business advertising, but also what other tools
exist that can help them get their word out.
Listen to any small business owner, and you will always
hear how they are trying to make ends meet. One of the most
strapped areas in their budgets is advertising, which means
that money spent in this area must give them the most bang for
their buck. When you look at billboard cost in comparison to
other advertising costs at a small business owner's fingertips,
billboards can be prohibitively expensive. The average rent for
a billboard is approximately $2,000 per month.
Effective signage alternatives such as logo signs and
tourist oriented directional signs can increase business at a
lower cost without detracting from the character of the
community. The typical highway logo sign maintained by a state
transportation department costs roadside businesses an average
of $800 per year.
Logo signs and tourist oriented directional signs also
level the playing field for small businesses. Rather than
having to compete with a 1,200 foot McDonald's Value Meal sign,
small businesses can get a value for their dollar by
advertising on these signs, in guidebooks and on the Internet.
Advertising on the D.C. Chamber of Commerce Web site costs
a small businesses between $3.50 and $12.50 per year, depending
on the number of employees. An ad in Missouri's official
visitor's guide costs a small business as little as $16.75 per
year with 525,000 publications being printed.
I take very seriously any federal law that unfairly or
unnecessarily places small businesses in further jeopardy. I
have been acutely aware of the billboard situation in my home
state. North Carolina ranks ninth in the nation for the number
of billboards per state with more than 10,000 permitted
billboards on federal aid highways. This translates to almost
two billboards for every mile, with a person seeing at least 89
bills in an hour long trip.
I am coming to a close, Mr. Chair. Part of the problem
North Carolina is facing is that the federal government has not
provided funding necessary to remove non-conforming signs. I
strongly believe that we should not be going in and taking down
billboards without providing compensation. However, we have
failed to provide the means necessary to do so, and states are
unable to bear the cost themselves.
Keeping this all in mind, what we also need to be looking
at are the positive aspects of billboard control. Removing
billboards does not hurt the economy, but rather increases
business as more tourists flock to areas that preserve their
natural beauty.
For example, in Vermont tourism spending rose 50 percent in
the two years after it became billboard free. In the 10 years
following its ban on billboards, retail sales in Houston,
Texas, increased 100 percent. More than 700 communities
nationwide prohibit the construction of new billboards as a
means to protect community character and quality of life, both
of which directly impact local economies. In my home state,
more than 90 communities prohibit the construction of new
billboards, including prime tourist destinations like Durham,
Kitty Hawk, Nags Head and Sugar Mountain.
Continuing to control billboards through the Highway
Beautification Act will help small business owners attract
tourism to their communities, increase their economic well
being and help their businesses thrive.
Mr. Chairman, clearly small businesses in rural communities
have challenges when it comes to getting the word out about
their services. I want to thank you for highlighting this issue
and the need rural business owners have for assistance.
I look forward to working with you on this issue. I hope
that in our discussions today and in the future we can look
beyond billboards as the answer to small businesses'
advertising struggle and look to issues such as identifying the
best advertising medium for a particular business and ensuring
that small businesses are able to take advantage of the vast
advertising opportunities available through the Internet. Then
we will truly ensure that our rural small businesses have the
tool they need to succeed.
I want to thank the witnesses for taking the time to be
here today. I look forward to hearing their discussions.
Thank you very much.
[Mr. Ballance's statement may be found in the appendix.]
Chairman Graves. Thank you, Mr. Ballance.
At this time I would like to welcome our first witness, who
is Sarah Kothe. She is the owner and operator of House of Os
Bed & Breakfast. She has traveled out here to Washington with
her husband, Gary, from Salisbury, Missouri, and I welcome you
here.
Thank you for being here, and I look forward to your
testimony.
STATEMENT OF SARAH KOTHE, OWNER AND OPERATOR, HOUSE OF OS BED &
BREAKFAST, SALISBURY, MISSOURI
Ms. Kothe. Good afternoon, Chairman Graves, Ranking Member
Ballance. It is an honor and a privilege to have the
opportunity to share with you my story about my small business
that has been affected economically by the Highway
Beautification Act of 1965 regarding signs along federal and
state highways.
My husband, Gary, and I live approximately seven miles
south of the small, rural town of Salisbury, which is located
in Chariton County, Missouri. It is approximately halfway
between St. Louis and Kansas City. Salisbury is about 12 miles
west of Moberly, which is the home of General Omar Bradley
Airport, and northeast of historical Arrow Rock, Missouri.
Salisbury has a small motel, typically used by construction
workers, but did not have a bed and breakfast. I saw the need
and the opportunity to be successful in opening a bed and
breakfast. After Gary's father's death in 1997, we inherited
his house, which is located just east of our home and the
center of our farm. This was the logical place for my dream to
come true. I named my bed and breakfast House of Os, after my
father-in-law.
We are very proud of our efforts, as we know Os would have
been. We are a very hard-working farm family where many
sacrifices have been made to be able to own and operate our
business. Os loved being with people, having good conversation
and lots of laughter. We feel the bed and breakfast is a
tribute to him, and we enjoy sharing his love of the rural life
with others.
Naturally, we are located in a rural area. We felt in order
to promote the House of Os an outdoor sign was the most
efficient and affordable means to attract and direct business.
My business is difficult, at best, to find without signs
directing the route to my place of business.
I have three children. I am a granny with four
grandchildren and another expected this fall. All of my family
enjoys coming home to the farm where they pitch in to help with
the chores, but also enjoy the relaxing atmosphere and
peacefulness that the rural life offers.
Gary and his father, Oswald--we called him Os--they farmed
together 900 acres until Os' death in 1997. This operation is
labor intensive, and Gary is limited to his daily activity due
to progressive rheumatoid arthritis.
I retired from employment with USDA FSA County Office
approximately three years ago chiefly to be around home to help
Gary with our farming operation. I also had health issues,
which included malignant lumpectomy with maximum radiation
treatment in 1999, along with another bout of cancer resulting
in mastectomy in June of 2002, and I am on continuing therapy.
I had long dreamed of operating the bed and breakfast, so
retirement did not necessarily mean quit working. Instead, I
was able to have the best of both worlds--to run my bed and
breakfast and to be home with Gary.
We inquired of the Missouri Department of Transportation
about permits before installing a directional sign. We were
told by MoDOT employees that as long as the sign was placed out
of the path of their equipment for snow removal, they saw no
need for a permit. We proceeded to install a two foot by four
foot metal sign in the field at the corner of Highway 5 and
County Road 416. We were given permission by the landowner to
place the sign in her field.
All was well until Kaye Stacy, MoDOT Outdoor Advertising
Permit Specialist, notified us that we had 30 days to remove
the sign. I expressed my concern that customers would not be
able to find the bed and breakfast, but to no avail. I was
informed that I had no permit on record, and when I asked to be
forwarded an application for such, I was told I could not
apply.
At this point I obtained an attorney to assist me in this
matter. I was informed that because I was in a rural community
with no commercial business within 600 feet of the sign and
because the sign was not on land contingent with my bed and
breakfast, MoDOT would remove this sign at my expense. Needless
to say, the sign came down, and it remains down.
As a result, my business has suffered drastically. Because
I no longer have any outdoor advertising, even my neighbors ask
me if I am still in business. The resulting effects of the
Highway Beautification Act of 1965 has stifled my business. As
a small business owner, I work hard to fully comply with all
the rules and regulations regarding my business. For rural
businesses, outdoor signage is the most useful and economical
sound means of advertising.
Again, thank you, Chairman Graves, Ranking Member Ballance.
I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
I also have with me the correspondence from MoDOT and my
attorney, as well as a photograph of my sign, which has been
removed, if anybody wants to review this.
[Ms. Kothe's statement may be found in the appendix.]
Chairman Graves. Thank you, Ms. Kothe.
We are now going to hear from Professor Charles Taylor.
Professor Taylor is a Professor of Marketing at Villanova
University. He received his Ph.D. in Marketing from Michigan
State University. He is currently president-elect of the
American Academy of Advertising.
Professor Taylor has been selected as a Fulbright Senior
Scholar by the Council of International Exchange of Scholars.
He is listed in Who's Who in American Education and Who's Who
in the World.
Thank you, Professor Taylor, for being here. I appreciate
your testimony.
STATEMENT OF CHARLES R. TAYLOR, PROFESSOR OF MARKETING,
VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY
Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Chairman Graves. Chairman Graves and
Ranking Member Ballance, thank you very much for inviting me to
testify today.
Over the last 14 years, I have conducted extensive research
on outdoor advertising, its regulation and its impact on
business, and today, as you requested, I would like to give you
my view of how the results of my studies impact on outdoor
advertising.
Chairman Graves already mentioned in his opening remarks
that in rural areas billboards predominantly serve small, local
business. This is a well established fact that the vast
majority of businesses in rural areas are small, local
businesses.
There are several specific points I want to make. First
off, billboards provide bottom line value to many small
businesses. A large scale, national survey of billboard users
that I conducted that will be forthcoming in the Journal of
Advertising Research, a peer reviewed journal that is well
respected in my field, showed conclusively that billboard
owners believe that they will lose business if they lose access
to billboards.
The average estimate of lost sales among small businesses
was more than 18 percent in terms of those who use billboards
estimating how much they would lose. Follow-up studies show
that the same is the case in Texas and Missouri. The
overwhelming majority of billboard users indicate that they
will lose sales if they do not have access to billboards, and
small businesses are even more prone to indicate that they will
lose sales.
Another point I want to make is that small businesses use
billboards primarily to provide information to consumers. A
content analysis study that was published in the Journal of
Public Policy and Marketing in 1994 and a follow-up published
in the same journal in 1997 showed that by far the most common
use of a billboard was to provide directions to a place of
business. In fact, nearly 75 percent of the billboards in the
Michigan study I did provide directions to a place of business.
It is also important to mention that in addition to
directions, billboards allow businesses to communicate other
types of important information to consumers. As such, motorist
information panels or TODs are completely inadequate
substitutes for billboards in rural areas.
I say this for three primary reasons. First off, motorist
information panels do not provide adequate ability to give
directions to hard-to-find locations. If you happen to be
located just off the interstate with a big on-premises sign
they might be able to find you, but if you own a small bed and
breakfast that requires a little bit more directions than that
then you are in trouble.
A second key issue and reason why motorist information
panels are inadequate is that these other types of information
are extremely important to communicate to consumers. For
example, you might want to communicate information about the
quality of your product offer. If you are a hotel, you might
want to mention that you give an AARP discount or that the AAA
approves you. If you serve hamburgers, you might want to
indicate that they have 100 percent beef.
You might want to provide information on convenience like
you are open 24 hours on a billboard. You cannot do that on a
motorist information panel in any context that I know about.
You might even need to tell what you offer. If you are a gas
station or mini mart, you might want to note that you sell soda
and sandwiches on your billboard, something again you cannot do
on a motorist information panel.
The third reason why motorist information panels are
inadequate is because they do disproportionately harm small
businesses. A huge business like McDonald's that has invested
millions of dollars in advertising over the years gains from
that brand equity, and people instantly know what to expect at
McDonald's, where if you are Joe's Hamburger Shop they do not
know that.
I would also like to mention, to summarize and close, a
couple of brief points. My studies also show that billboard
users overwhelmingly believe that other media are not
substitutes for billboards, and there is nobody better to ask
whether there are substitutes than the billboard users. Every
advertising textbook out there will also tell you that these
other media are not good substitutes for billboards, especially
for small rural businesses.
One other misnomer I would like to address is the notion
that a large proportion of the public is against billboards. In
fact, a meta-analysis study of 36 public opinion surveys of
billboards, every major one I could find recently, shows that
only about 20 percent of the public favors bans on billboards
and that 82 percent of the public--this is an average across
all the studies that have been conducted over time, literally
thousands of observations--agree that billboards help
businesses to attract customers.
Chairman Graves and Ranking Member Ballance, thank you very
much for the opportunity to address you.
[Mr. Taylor's statement may be found in the appendix.]
Chairman Graves. Thanks, Professor Taylor.
We do have a vote that was unexpected at this point. It is
an appeal of the ruling of the Chair, I believe. I think we
will recess just for a few minutes. We will go over and vote
and then be right back over. So if you will just sit tight, it
should not take us very long at all.
We will recess for it. It will take us about 10 or 15
minutes.
[Recess.]
Chairman Graves. We can go ahead and get started again. Mr.
Ballance should be right behind me somewhere.
We just heard from Professor Taylor. Now we are going to
hear from Chris Byrnes. Chris--let me see--Defenders of
Property Rights, which is kind of the angle we always took in
the state legislature, too, so it will be interesting to hear
your testimony. And I appreciate you being here today.
STATEMENT OF CHRIS BYRNES, COUNSEL, DEFENDERS OF PROPERTY
RIGHTS
Mr. Byrnes. First, I would like to thank the Chairman and
the Subcommittee for the opportunity to address the Highway
Beautification Act and the effect of sign removal on small and
rural businesses.
As an attorney with Defenders of Property Rights, I am
deeply concerned about the forced removal of signs and the
implications for the economic and property rights of these
removals on small and rural businesses. Signs, both on premise
signs and billboards, are absolutely essential to the economic
vitality and survival of small and rural businesses. Currently
signs are under siege at the state and local level by
governments seeking to impose a sign-free, aesthetic utopia.
We have heard testimony today about the importance of
signs, so I just sort of want to underscore that. The signs
serve a variety of functions, both economic and non-economic. A
1969 study by the Federal Highway Administration found a high
correlation between traffic safety and high visibility
commercial signs.
Signs also support our $3 trillion-a-year retail industry.
That is $3 trillion in revenues. $250 billion of these revenues
are from advertising and marketing alone, so you can see that
advertising is absolutely key to retail success for big and
small businesses.
This is certainly true in the case of on premise signs. A
study conducted by the University of San Diego's School of
Business Administration found that addition or modification to
an existing on-premise sign increased weekly sales by five
percent. Addition of directional signs on a retail site
increased sales four to 12 percent. This translates into on an
annual basis to I guess a 4.75 percent increase in sales.
Now, sign removal, consequently, would translate into equal
or greater decreases in revenue. This is especially important
for small and rural businesses. Small and rural businesses are
often financially ill equipped to weather a downturn in the
realm of a 10 or 15 percent decrease in revenues.
An argument can be made or had been made that advertising
is really not that important to small and rural businesses in
terms of signs and billboards because they often rely on a
long-established clientele, they remain in the same locations
for years, and that customers can find them without the visual
cues provided by a sign.
This may have been the reality four years ago, but this is
simply not the case today. The increased mobility of Americans,
business cycles spurring new customer bases in and out of rural
areas all the time, they are no longer immune from business
cycles, nor are they remote from most customers. In fact, many
small and rural businesses cater specifically to out-of-town
residents who are unfamiliar with the location, so advertising
becomes even more essential, given the increased mobility and
the specific demographic that they target.
Signs are under siege at the state and local government
level on an unprecedented level. Four states now currently ban
the construction of billboards all together--Hawaii, Vermont,
Maine and Alaska. Rhode Island and Oregon have banned the
construction of new billboards, and localities and communities
in 22 states, many of which include rural areas, have banned
the new construction of billboards.
Short of outright bans, a lot of communities have resorted
to far more subtle methods of removing signs and billboards
through a scheme called amortization. Luckily, the Highway
Beautification Act sort of forecloses this as an option for
signs and billboards near federal aid highways by mandating the
payment of cash compensation.
However, the threat still remains at the state and local
level where a sign is declared non-conforming, the sign owner
is given time to remove it, but the town or locality removing
the sign does not pay just compensation as required by the
Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.
The argument goes well, the market will reimburse the owner
for any loss of property from removal of the sign because the
time period will allow him to recoup his investment. That is
simply not what the Constitution mandates. It mandates that the
government pay just compensation for the removal of the sign.
Signs are absolutely essential to a free market economy and
a free society, and Congress should certainly keep those
concerns in mind when considering any changes of
reauthorization to the Highway Beautification Act.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this issue. I
would be happy to answer any questions you may have.
[The statement from Defenders of Property Rights may be
found in the appendix.]
Chairman Graves. Thank you, Mr. Byrnes.
We are now going to hear from David Gorin, Gorin & King
Associates. David, thank you for being here.
STATEMENT OF DAVID GORIN, KING & GORIN ASSOCIATES, NATIONAL
ASSOCIATION OF RV PARKS AND CAMPGROUNDS
Mr. Gorin. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good
afternoon.
My name is David Gorin. I am a government affairs
consultant for the National Association of RV Parks and
Campgrounds. I was the president of that association for 15
years before retiring recently, and in my past I have also
served as the national chairman of the Small Business
Legislative Council and have owned small businesses and do so
today.
I want to congratulate both you, Mr. Chairman, and Mr.
Ballance on your opening remarks. I think your comments and the
statistics you have quoted were right on target and need to be
heard more in the business community and among those people who
have different views on the effectiveness of billboard
advertising.
It occurred to me listening to your comments that one of
the most effective kinds of research you can do in the small
business community is simply to look at what small business
people do. They do not spend their advertising dollars lightly.
The number of billboards operated and owned by small business
is probably the best kind of research as to the effectiveness
of those particular billboards.
The National Association of RV Parks and Campgrounds, or
ARVC as it is usually called, has a long history of support and
recognition of outdoor advertising or billboards as a key
element in the marketing and advertising strategies of our
members in particular, of travel and tourism businesses
specifically and small businesses in general.
As an industry comprised predominantly of family owned
smaller businesses catering to highway travelers and tourists,
our members constantly seek cost effective ways to reach that
difficult moving target audience. A great deal of the industry
has been built on the broad shoulders of large and small
billboards along the highways with attractive graphics catching
the attention of the traveler and ingenious copyrighters using
an absolute minimum of letters to craft enough of a message to
capture the mind of the viewer whizzing by at 55 miles an hour
or faster.
Let me also emphasize that our comments today are endorsed
by the National Travel, Tourism and Recreation Coalition for
Surface Transportation. This coalition is comprised of national
tourism and recreation organizations that support enactment of
strong and adequately funded reauthorization legislation that
reflects the interests and needs of the tourism and recreation
industries.
It is important to note that for small businesses that
serve the traveler, the choice of advertising media to reach
that market is limited, and the importance of billboard
advertising is very significant. Unless the highway traveler
has had the opportunity to research their food, fuel,
accommodations and attraction options in a particular area, the
typical print, radio and television media serving an area is of
no value to the small business or to the traveler.
While there are advertising options such as directories,
brochure distribution in visitors centers, travel magazines and
guides, Web sites and other various media, studies have shown,
as you have indicated yourselves, that billboard advertising is
among the most effective way for a travel or tourist oriented
business to reach its market.
Studies conducted by various state tourism departments, as
well as the outdoor advertising industry, indicate that highway
travelers generally start considering their dining,
accommodations and entertainment options approximately 30 to 60
minutes prior to the time they wish to make a stop. Without the
important information provided by billboards in many parts of
the country, the traveler is simply left to their own devices
to find the necessary travel services they may require.
With over 80 percent of all travel in the U.S. being done
on the road, providing information to the highway traveler is a
big and important job. While new technologies and new
advertising concepts may be helpful, none has proven as
effective in both reach and cost as billboards.
We are well aware of the importance of the highway logo
sign program in effect on most interstate highways. However, we
do not consider that program as a viable alternative to
billboards. Logo signs are small. They convey no message of
value to the consumer other than to give notice that a
particular business is located off the next exit.
They are of little value to a non-branded business that is
not quickly recognized by the consumer, and they are located so
close to the exit and are intended to provide some guidance for
last minute or changed need or to merely provide a reminder of
direction for a consumer who made a decision many miles before
by virtue of a billboard.
I would at this point just point out the rest of my
statement where we discuss a number of other issues related to
the upcoming reauthorization of the highway bill and would
encourage this Committee to look at other options of importance
to small business in that particular bill.
Thank you.
Chairman Graves. Thank you, Mr. Gorin. I appreciate it.
[Mr. Gorin's statement may be found in the appendix.]
Chairman Graves. We are now going to hear from John Eck,
who is the owner of Servicetown Plaza in Fredericksburg,
Virginia. John, thanks for being here.
STATEMENT OF JOHN P. ECK, OWNER, SERVICETOWN TRAVEL PLAZA,
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF TRUCK STOP OPERATORS
Mr. Eck. Thank you, Chairman Graves, Ranking Member
Ballance. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on the
effects of the Highway Beautification Act on small businesses.
My name is John Eck, and I am the owner of Servicetown
Travel Plaza in Fredericksburg, Virginia. I have been an
independent travel plaza owner/operator for the past nine
years. I employ approximately 70 people. We are located on
Interstate 95 at Exit 133, approximately 50 miles south of
Washington.
I am testifying today on behalf of NATSO, the national
trade association representing America's travel plazas and
truck stops. I also serve on the Virginia Department of
Transportation Roadway Signage Advisory Committee.
The interstate highway system was built to efficiently move
people and goods across the country. Without billboards,
interstate travel becomes less efficient. People traveling from
state to state need to know where they can stop for a meal, to
fuel their cars and, in my case, most importantly, trucks and
rest. Our businesses depend on the interstate motorists, and
they in turn depend on us for food, fuel and rest.
We have heard countless of NATSO members who have seen the
benefits of billboards, and in fact many NATSO members have
stated that their business has experienced a significant drop
in sales following a storm that damaged their billboard. A
recent survey of NATSO members revealed that travel plazas
consider billboards extremely important to the success of their
small businesses.
More importantly, billboards are information tools for
interstate travelers, and labeling billboards as merely
advertising tells only a small part of the story. Billboards
are critical links to service providers for drivers in
unfamiliar territory.
For the long haul trucker spending many nights away from
home, highway signage is an absolute necessity. Professional
drivers require information about highway businesses. They
cannot just stop anywhere. They need to know what facilities
can accommodate their trucks, where they can fuel and eat, and
they may not be familiar enough with an area to make shopping
choices without highway signage to guide them.
Highway signage is particularly important to the truck stop
and travel plaza industry and those that it serves. Truckers
and other highway travelers account for approximately 90
percent, and often more, of an interstate based travel plaza's
business. A significant portion of these drivers are unfamiliar
with an area and significantly rely on signage to locate places
to stop for fuel, food and rest breaks. In fact, a recent
industry survey of highway travelers found that two-thirds of
those who were new visitors to a particular area reported that
they observed highway signage.
Travel plaza operators spend most of their advertising
dollars on billboards because it has proven to be most
efficient in relating information about services to the
customer base. It is estimated that the truck stop, travel
plaza and truck fuel stop would lose 15 to 25 percent in sales
if billboards were banned. This is particularly true in states
where trees and shrubbery prevents motorists from seeing the
travel plaza or even high-rise signage from the interstate. For
an industry that generated $60.2 billion in sales in 2002, that
would mean a loss of $9 billion to $15 billion each year.
Billboards are very important to truckers because the
services provided by a travel plaza or truck stop vary widely.
Some fuel stops, for example, offer little more than diesel and
gasoline, while a full service truck stop or travel plaza might
provide hundreds of parking spaces, fast food and sit down
restaurants, convenience stores, motels, fuel, showers, truck
repair facilities and more.
A trucker who is looking for a place to stop in the evening
needs to know if that business offers truck parking. For
truckers who are looking for a place to stop as their hours of
service are expiring, signage can guide them to a safe, legal
parking place.
People who need to stop in an unfamiliar area for emergency
purposes or during severe weather certainly would not
characterize a billboard as an eyesore, but as a critical tool.
There is no doubt about it. Small business owners like me
need billboards and other highway signage to be able to attract
motorists who are unfamiliar with the area. A small business
owner cannot rely on billboards to communicate its specific
offerings to motorists. RVers, bus drivers and truckers need to
know where they can park. Families need to know where they can
make one stop for gas and food.
Billboards are an extremely effective means of advertising.
I simply cannot afford to rely on print or broadcast
advertising and would reach far more individuals by a simple
highway sign.
I urge Congress to support interstate signage so that the
traveler can get more information that they need while on the
road. Thank you.
[Mr. Eck's statement may be found in the appendix.]
Chairman Graves. Thank you, Mr. Eck.
We are now going to hear from Joe Martin, who is the owner/
operator of the Best Western Mark Motor Hotel in Weatherford,
Oklahoma. Is it Weatherford?
Mr. Martin. Weatherford. Yes, sir.
Chairman Graves. Thanks for being here.
STATEMENT OF JOE MARTIN, OWNER/OPERATOR, BEST WESTERN MARK
MOTOR HOTEL, HAMPTON INN & SUITES, AMERICAN HOTEL AND LODGING
ASSOCIATION
Mr. Martin. Thank you, Chairman Graves, Ranking Member
Ballance.
As a representative of the American Hotel and Lodging
Association and as an owner and operator of hotels, I would
like to thank you for allowing me the opportunity speak about
what has been for many years our number one advertising medium
in marketing our hotels to the traveling public, namely outdoor
advertising and billboards.
One of my locations is not unlike thousands across the U.S.
It is a Best Western hotel located just off Interstate 40 in
rural Oklahoma approximately one hour west of Oklahoma City in
the community of Weatherford. The interstate bypasses the main
part of our community, and our greatest opportunity to draw
travelers into our community and to our hotel is provided by
outdoor advertising or billboards.
We have done internal research over many years that shows
us that approximately 70 percent of our customers arrive at our
hotel as a result of our billboard advertising. We feel so
strongly about the benefits of outdoor advertising that we
actually own 10 of the 13 billboards that are used to market
our hotel. We lease the other three from outdoor advertising
companies. This is probably one thing that makes our property
unique as it relates to the use of billboards.
Recently we had the opportunity to truly realize the
importance of our billboards to our success. We had a landowner
of one of our billboards that we owned that was near the exit
to reach our hotel come to us to tell us that he had an
opportunity to develop the land where our billboard was located
and that we were going to have to remove the billboard. Of
course, we complied with his request.
What we found as a result was after many years of
remarkable consistency in our business, after removing this
billboard we experienced a 10 percent decrease in business.
After several months, we were able to lease a billboard
location very near the one we lost, and almost immediately we
saw a return to our normal business trends. This proved to us
that our hotel's success and the jobs it represents in our
small community is quite dependent upon our ability to maintain
the use of outdoor advertising or billboards.
I recently built a Hampton Inn & Suites in Stillwater,
Oklahoma, the home of Oklahoma State University. We have
devoted 50 percent of our entire advertising budget to outdoor
advertising, and many of our first time guests, even though we
do other promotion, tell us that they did not know we were
there until they saw our billboards.
I might also add that in some cases outdoor advertising
provides a certain level of safety to travelers. We have all
heard of stories of unfortunate situations where individuals or
families have lost their way or taken a wrong turn only to find
themselves in unfamiliar surroundings and very vulnerable to
dangerous circumstances. In such cases billboards are not only
used for marketing purposes as I have spoken of today, but they
also are a public service to the traveling public.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Graves. Thank you, Mr. Martin.
[Mr. Graves' statement may be found in the appendix.]
Chairman Graves. We are now going to hear from Meg Maguire.
Meg is the president of Scenic America. I want to thank you for
being here today.
STATEMENT OF MEG MAGUIRE, PRESIDENT, SCENIC AMERICA
Ms. Maguire. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and
Congressman Balance, for the opportunity to testify today.
I am Meg Maguire. I am the president of Scenic America. We
have 25 organizations around the country, and both of your
states have a Scenic America affiliate associated in those
states, so we have some real familiarity with your states.
I think all of us would probably agree that there is a lot
that is wrong with the Highway Beautification Act. I would take
issue with a number of my colleagues here today on the panel,
but certainly the Highway Beautification Act is not one that we
think is a very good federal Act. On the other hand, it needs
complete reform and not piecemeal action, and we are going to
be urging the Congress after T-21 to take a look at the Highway
Beautification Act as a whole.
I think all of us can agree that signs are necessary in
America for people to get around, so I take issue with the
gentleman from Defenders of Property Rights that we are somehow
looking to have a sign free America. That is simply not the
case. What we are looking for is a balance between information
that signs provide and scenic beauty, the kinds of things that
people are traveling now to experience.
Let me stick to what I understand to be the principal focus
of this hearing today, and that is the issue of information
about small businesses. First, let us dispel the notion that
there are not a lot of billboards in America. Indeed, Ladybird
Johnson's goal of beautifying America's highways has proven to
be quite elusive.
In 1991, the Congressional Research Service estimated that
there were 425,000 billboards on America's highways and that
that number was going up by six percent per year. By any way
you count that, whether it is a straight line or compounded,
you would find that there are 731,000 billboards to 885,000
billboards on America's federal aid highways alone, not
counting state roads and city streets, so we are not really
talking about, you know, today getting rid of all of those
billboards.
Visual pollution hurts local economies, and it lowers
property values. While you are looking at this Act, I would
encourage you to look at the experience of homeowners who have
had billboards go up near their properties. There is a famous
case in West Virginia where the property values of two
homeowners were devalued by 30 percent because billboards went
up.
Congressman Graves, in your own district--not in your
district; in your state--this gentleman, Mr. McElfresh, built a
home in the Ozarks in the 1950s because it is such a beautiful
area. I have been there. A huge billboard went up in 1997, and
now he cannot see the night sky. The bugs swarm around. I would
really ask that you have a look at his situation as a property
right. In my testimony I have included several other examples,
and we have more to share with you.
On the question of scenic byways, I would urge you not to
rely on billboard proliferation along scenic byways, but rather
to work very closely to establish a widespread, tourist
oriented directional sign program along our scenic byways.
Let me give you one example of billboard proliferation and
the damage that it has done. In Holmes County, Ohio, which is a
strong Amish county with weak billboard controls, they had
applied for scenic byway designation, and while the Ohio
Department of Transportation was considering that application
100 billboards went up throughout the county. Now they feel
that they are not nearly as scenic as they were, and they are
all heartsick about it.
Before we go to the Scenic Byways Program, I would urge you
not to do that. Let us look at good signage for rural America.
I think there are some landscape friendly alternatives to
billboard advertising. Congressman Ballance mentioned some of
those.
We are very interested in those new technologies and how
small businesses can benefit from those. You have mentioned the
Internet. There are also various kinds of in car technologies
now. Certainly the Internet is one of the major ones, but there
are also handy guides that you can keep in your car to tell you
all the kinds of travel and lodging information that you would
find at any of the interchanges along the interstate. As you
are looking at this problem of small business, please do look
very carefully at the variety of alternatives.
Billboards have been down in Vermont since 1975. The last
one came down then. I do not know if you have traveled to
Vermont. It is a beautiful state, and they have a very
successful tourist-oriented directional sign program there that
helps all small businesses.
Missouri now has one as well, and I believe that the folks
who have testified today about their sign problem are indeed
eligible for the Missouri TOD program. I have given them some
information and some people to call. We think they got bad
advice from the Missouri DOT, but I have given them some
information to check out.
Let me just close by saying that the issue of travel and
tourism today is a very important one in America. This is the
third largest industry retail business that is growing, and it
is tremendously important that we have good signage systems.
I would like to offer to work with this Committee on
looking at how tourist-oriented directional signs might get a
big boost from this Committee in helping rural America to be
signed so tourists can find out about where these businesses
are and also to call your attention to the National Scenic
Byways Program, which is one of the best strategies for
creating new small businesses and for getting people to
patronize small businesses.
Since I am out of time, I will just submit my remarks for
the record, and I appreciate the time to be here.
Chairman Graves. Thank you very much, Ms. Maguire.
[Ms. Maguire's statement may be found in the appendix.]
Chairman Graves. Everyone's remarks, too, in full, will be
submitted for the record, if you did not happen to get through
all of them.
I do want to start out with questions. One of the problems
I have with the scenic byways, and this is directed to you, Ms.
Maguire, is, you know, it is the property rights issue. We talk
about, you know, signs going up and whether they should not go
up or the scenery destroyed or whatever the case may be, but do
you not think that to an extent that is a decision of the
landowner?
I mean, it is the landowner's scenery, at least in
Missouri. You know, should it not be their determination on
whether or not they want signs? That is an infringement on
property rights, I would think.
Ms. Maguire. Well, the National Scenic Byways Program, and
when the states agree to have a program they do agree that
their scenic byways will be billboard free; that is, that no
new billboards will go up. They do not require the removal of
the existing billboards.
This is because the traveling public has a right to expect
that when they get off on a scenic byway, whether it is a state
scenic byway or a national scenic byway, that that will be a
beautiful area, so those rules in the scenic byways program are
really designed to keep certain areas that are designated by
the states--these are not designated by the federal government.
To keep those truly scenic.
Chairman Graves. They are not necessarily designated by the
federal government, but the federal government forces the
states into these programs, which I have a problem with
mandates, by withholding or threatening to withhold federal
funds.
Ms. Maguire. That is not the case with the Scenic Byways
program, not at all. You are eligible for a small pot of money
if you are part of the Scenic Byways program. Right now it is
only $26 million a year. There are no withholdings whatsoever
for not being part of the Scenic Byways program.
We still have a couple of states that are not part of the
program. However, they are seeking to become part of the
program because it is a wonderful way for international
advertising for the small businesses along those highways.
Chairman Graves. We accept your offer to work with us to
come up with alternatives. As soon as we are done with T-21, we
are going to address this issue. I know it is going to come up
on the Transportation Committee, which I also sit on. We are
going to be addressing this and using the testimony that was
given here today to help guide us through that.
I do have a question for Ms. Kothe. Do you have any idea
what happened after your sign was taken down, your business,
how much it suffered? Do you have any statistics or anything
like that?
Ms. Kothe. I do not have any statistics so to speak. I know
last year at this time I had as much as three to four on
average per month confirmed reservations. Today I have no
confirmations. I have some leads, but no confirmations.
Chairman Graves. Mr. Ballance?
Mr. Ballance. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do have lots of
questions. I am going to forego most of them. This is Thursday
afternoon, and it is travel time.
To follow up, Ms. Kothe, as I understand it, the highway
that your bed and breakfast is located on does in fact allow
billboards. Is that correct?
Ms. Kothe. Some are up, but I was told that mine was put up
after the Grandfather Act, so I could not fall in that
Grandfather Act.
Mr. Ballance. So it was not a matter that your sign did not
conform; it was simply you were told that no other billboards
were going up on the highway?
Ms. Kothe. I was quoted the certain sections of the law and
that it did not confirm with the mandatory size and type and
all of that.
Mr. Ballance. Okay. I do not want to cut you off, but that
could have been a conformity with some technical aspects of the
bill?
Ms. Kothe. Yes.
Mr. Ballance. Was your sign on the highway right-of-way, or
was it on private property?
Ms. Kothe. No, no. It was in a field off of there. Gary
farms that field, and we rent it from the landowner. It was
well in the field and away from the highway equipment and all,
and so really the only one bothered by it was Gary as far as--
--.
Mr. Ballance. Again, I apologize. I do not want to cut you
off, but I am trying to rush through this.
Do you advertise in any alternate type such as AAA, the
Internet, any of those? Have you looked into those?
Ms. Kothe. I am listed in Missouri Vacation Planner, and I
have Internet. I have a Web site. I am a member of the Chamber
of Commerce, so I am listed with that as well.
Mr. Ballance. All right. Dr. Taylor, to date very little
data has been collected about the effect of limiting billboards
on small businesses. I could say more about that, but would you
respond to that issue?
Mr. Taylor. I would cite my study, my survey of small
businesses, of businesses who use billboards. There were many
small businesses who responded.
The main findings of the study were, first, that small
businesses do not believe that these other media are
substitutes. We have got the benefit of having people extremely
knowledgeable in the hotel and restaurant business and truck
stops here, and they are telling you the consumers do not make
decisions this way.
You know, the vast majority of their business does not come
from people who go on the Internet. You know, to have a good
Internet Web site is not cheap either. I mean, if you have a
Web site, I mean, you are reaching customers in Korea, in
Germany, you know, as well as the local area. These people's
business comes from people that are driving through the area in
a lot of these contexts.
The other issue that came out of this study is that
billboard users report that they will lose. The vast majority
report that they will lose business if they are denied access
to their billboards. Over 80 percent say that, and then the
average loss among all businesses, even including those who
report they will not lose any business, is about 15 percent,
and among small businesses it is on the order of 20 percent.
Mr. Ballance. Now, would you agree that the Federal Highway
Administration does not have comprehensive data on this issue
and has not collected it?
Mr. Taylor. I do not know that the Federal Highway
Administration has collected it. What I am suggesting is that I
have done a relevant study myself.
Mr. Ballance. Was your study commissioned by anyone in
particular?
Mr. Taylor. That study was supported by the Advertising
Association of America. Yes.
Mr. Ballance. Okay. Also if I may just put this question to
you. Your 1994 study also found that 74.2 percent of billboards
in rural areas provide information that is potentially useful
to tourists.
A similar study found that 72 percent of people surveyed in
Rhode Island responded that they received either very little or
no useful information about products and services from
billboards. In Florida, the margin of those who derived more
useful information from logo signs than billboards about
restaurants, gas stations and other services were 63 to 16. In
Missouri, the margin was 68 to 18 in favor of logo signs.
Can you explain these disparities?
Mr. Taylor. Yes. First off, my Michigan study was a content
analysis, meaning we analyzed the information that is actually
on the billboard, so it was not a survey of public opinion.
I believe the Rhode Island study that you cite was a phone
survey where they started out talking about tons of different
types of pollution. They asked consumers how they felt about
litter, how they felt about sewage, you know, how they felt
about air pollution, and then they started asking them
questions about billboards, so my view is it is a very biased
survey, unlike my studies, has not survived peer review and
gotten into academic journals. I cannot take that kind of thing
seriously, quite honestly.
Mr. Ballance. Mr. Chairman, I do have some other questions,
but I think I am just going to forego. I understand that there
are some planes that are warming up. People need to make
connections.
Chairman Graves. We do have a few minutes yet. I do have a
couple more questions if you want to ask too, Mr. Ballance.
Mr. Ballance. All right.
Chairman Graves. One is for Mr. Byrnes. In your testimony
there was something I wanted to clear up, too, that I was
curious about. You said that on-premise signs do not enjoy the
same protections under the Highway Beautification Act as
billboards. Did I hear that correctly?
Mr. Byrnes. That was in an earlier testimony. I do not
think that is in the current draft of the testimony.
Chairman Graves. Okay. I did not know if you wanted to
explain that a little bit further or not because I read that in
one of the submitted testimonies.
Mr. Byrnes. I believe the Highway Beautification Act
mandates just compensation for outdoor advertising structures,
for the removal of them. There was some I guess confusion as to
the implementing regulations as to whether on-premise or on-
property signs are also included within the definition of
outdoor advertising structure.
Chairman Graves. Okay. Mr. Gorin, you had mentioned looking
into other means of advertising. Do you have any ideas?
Mr. Gorin. Well, low frequency radio has been tried in
several places and is used in the tunnel in Boston and some
other places where regular signage is not available. On board
communications, satellite communications. A lot of vehicles are
being equipped with those kinds of things today.
I do not necessarily see any of those as adequate
replacements or substitutes for billboards. I see them as
additional media that small businesses will have available in
the future. I do not think there is anything at the moment that
I see coming that would replace highway signage as we know it
today.
Chairman Graves. Mr. Ballance?
Mr. Ballance. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Maguire, there are a lot of communities that are
destinations for tourists. In my studies here, it seems that
many of those communities do not want these signs. Am I correct
on that? What is the impact in those communities of tourism?
Ms. Maguire. First, the billboards are largely regulated at
the state and local level, and so states can make decisions
about most things having to do with outdoor advertising.
Your state, for example, Congressman Ballance, voted not to
have billboards along the new I-40. In Missouri, in 2000 there
was a ballot initiative, and 49 percent of the people in
Missouri voted to stop new billboard construction; not to bring
billboards down, but to stop new billboard construction. That
is the best poll of all when people are voting at the polls
about this issue.
The decision not to have billboards was reaffirmed in
Alaska in 2000 by 72 percent of the voters. Vermont advertises
on billboards in New Hampshire. There is a beautiful picture of
a pastoral scene that is in your testimony saying come to
Vermont. We have no billboards, and here is why. You see a
beautiful, pastoral scene.
People take very different perspectives on this, but there
is a lot of state and local control over these issues, and
those communities, the list that I have handed out to you of
the communities that have stopped new billboard construction,
have said we have enough of these signs. We do not want them
anymore. We do not want any more of them because they are
beginning to detract from the very things that people come to
our communities to see, and they have not suffered.
Houston, Texas, had a real problem attracting good
businesses there in the early 1980s. They had 10,000
billboards, 10,500 in Houston. They clamped down on new
construction, and today through attrition they have about
5,000, so the city is looking far, far better. That was the
decision that Houstonians made. It was not something that the
federal government had any business in.
I think that state and local governments really have a lot
of control over this issue and are right at the heart of where
the people are.
Mr. Ballance. What are your thoughts about the impact if we
do not fund this just compensation issue from the federal
level?
Mr. Martin. I think that this is one of the big problems
with the Highway Beautification Act. We said you can remove
billboards, but then we did not give any money out after the
first couple of years.
It is really a forgotten piece of public business, and we
think it is very important that this come into focus and get
the kind of attention that it needs, but it has to be done with
the proper facts.
I take issue with the research that Mr. Taylor has done.
Again, we have results at the polls that would suggest that a
lot of Americans do not want to see their communities littered
with billboards, and this is in no way to detract from the
tremendously important issues of small business signage.
If that is your point of departure, which I believe it is
for this Committee, then you start not with the fact that we
have lots and lots of billboards, but what is the best way to
get people to those businesses, all kinds of businesses in
rural America.
Mr. Ballance. Mr. Chairman, I am going to end with this. I
am on this Committee because I support small businesses. I also
count myself as an environmentalist. In my 20 years of public
service, I just believe there is an avenue where parties can
come together and reach an amicable solution.
Ms. Kothe, I am certainly concerned about your sign and
your business, but I am also concerned that if we are serious
about these billboards that we certainly have to put up our
money. The states do not have any. I believe in the Fifth
Amendment. We just have to work a little harder. Some of the
alternatives that have been talked about here today may be
helpful.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Graves. Thank you, Mr. Ballance.
I appreciate everyone being here today. This is a very
important issue, and you are right. The focus of this Committee
is small business and how billboards affect that, what effect
it has on that business when those billboards are taken down.
Personally, I have not only that, but a second problem with
it, and that is property rights. I do think people should also
have the right to do what they want with their property when it
does not affect others. You know, I can see property rights
devaluation in maybe some of the urban areas. In the rural
areas it is not so much of an issue, but I do have a problem
with that.
I look forward to working with you on coming up with some
solutions and looking forward to trying to come up with some
solutions, alternatives as far as that goes, for small business
to be able to get their point across and be able to give
directions.
We will be working on this. After we get done with the
federal reauthorization of the transportation bill, which is T-
21--that is the new acronym for it--we will be looking into
this, making changes. It will probably be a major overhaul of
the bill because there are problems with it.
I look forward to working with all of you, if you can, to
give us some input into that. All of your testimonies will be
recorded. We appreciate that. That is the most important part
is to get that on record so we can use that.
Again, I want to thank everybody for being here today and
taking part. I apologize for the vote in the middle of the
hearing, but that is obviously part of what we do out here.
Thank you very much for everyone coming. The hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:19 p.m. the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
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