[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 67 (Tuesday, May 11, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H2963]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNITY SYSTEMS PRESERVATION PROGRAM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Blumenauer) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, this last week at the Conference on 
Sustainable Development in Detroit, Michigan, the administration 
announced the winners of the Transportation and Community Systems 
Preservation Program. The TCSP was a little noticed title in TEA-21, 
which really did not get the attention and recognition it deserved.

                              {time}  1845

  There are a number of programs that spend far more than the $13 
million involved, but there are few that will have more long-term 
impact.
  The program had its origin in the experience in my State of Oregon in 
the early 1990s, where citizen activists successfully petitioned the 
State Department of Transportation to consider an alternative to a 
traditional beltway that included careful land use planning, connecting 
the transportation links, and grouping uses in a way that might be able 
to achieve the transportation and congestion and air quality objectives 
without as much concrete. And the fact is that the alternative that 
they developed was more cost effective than simply building a 
traditional road.
  This LUTRAC program, helping communities design local initiatives to 
maximize their infrastructure investment, has found its way into ISTEA.
  Yesterday morning, I visited with Federal, State and local officials 
and local business people in my community dealing with FEMA's Project 
Impact. And here we found that Oregon's requirement of careful land use 
planning with local governments actually has made a significant impact 
in lowering the losses to flood damage. It has resulted in saving 
Oregon's homeowners and businesses millions of dollars as a result of 
disaster mitigation.
  The TCSP is designed to extend these principles beyond natural 
disasters to potential manmade disasters of needless loss of farmland, 
forests, unnecessary traffic congestion, and conflicts between 
residential, commercial, and industrial uses.
  Recently we had a presentation from the director of our State 
watchdog agency, the Land Conservation and Development Commission, 
which was set up to enforce and regulate the land use requirements that 
our Oregon voters have repeatedly supported. He presented the data that 
I found rather compelling that, in the 20 years that we have had our 
system, we actually protected an increase of 4 percent more agriculture 
land in the Willamette Valley in Oregon.
  The metropolitan Portland area, although it has increased in 
population 42 percent, the urbanized area has only increased 20 
percent. Unlike what has happened in New York City, where the urbanized 
area increased eight times more rapidly than the population increase, 
in Chicago it was 11 times more rapidly urbanization in the population 
increase, Detroit 13 times.
  An even more interesting comparison is we have two fast growing 
counties in the Portland metropolitan area, one, Washington County, 
just to the west of the City of Portland, and one to the north in the 
State of Washington, Clark County. Both have been the fastest growing 
counties in their States.
  Clark County, in Washington, lost 6,000 more acres of farmland than 
Washington County, even though in Washington County we have increased 
more than 40,000 more residents than Clark County. Not only that, but 
the per-farm income actually dropped by 10 percent in Clark County, 
while in Washington County, with the land use and transportation 
protections, farm income rose by 30 percent, farm income rising in a 
county that is the home of Oregon's high-tech industry.
  The TCSP program is going to make a difference in localities that do 
not have the Oregon land use planning framework and it is going to make 
a huge difference in our community building on that system.
  There have been over 500 applications submitted around the country. 
This week, in Denver, there are people studying at a conference right 
now how to use the program.
  I strongly urge that each Member of Congress look at the applications 
from their district, understand how they work. These concepts of smart 
growth can include a number of programs that simply are not going to be 
funded without having the adequate support from our Congressional 
representatives. It will in the long run save far more tax dollars than 
the modest investment in planning; and, most important, it will include 
our citizens in helping shape impacts on their destiny.

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