[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 123 (Thursday, October 5, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H8895-H8896]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  CONGRESS RESTORES THE UPARR PROGRAM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Miller) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, earlier this week the 
House passed the Department of Interior appropriations conference 
report for the year 2001 by an overwhelming margin. Many of the votes 
for that legislation were the result of an historic commitment of funds 
to efforts to preserve our national resources, including parks and 
other public lands, wildlife, endangered species, forest programs and 
others.
  We are providing this support through a new $1.6 billion Lands fund 
because of the severe underfunding of resource programs over the past 
decade that have led to a deterioration of the environment and the 
recreational opportunities for tens of millions of Americans who 
treasure their national parks, wilderness areas, coasts and other 
public lands.
  No program has been more unjustifiably undermined than the Urban 
Parks and Recreation Program known as UPARR.
  UPARR is a vital program that provides on a matching basis relatively 
small grants to towns and cities throughout America to try and provide 
some expanded recreational opportunities to children who have very few 
alternative recreational opportunities. Across this country, there are 
dozens of towns and cities where baseball fields are overgrown, soccer 
fields are short of equipment, gyms and courts are unusable, and every 
day tens of thousands of children pass by those vacant and useless 
playgrounds and gyms and have to find something to do after school and 
in their evening hours. These are the children who fall prey to crime 
and drugs and gangs and inappropriate sexual activity that place

[[Page H8896]]

these children and their futures in jeopardy.
  UPARR answers a terrible need for these children in their 
communities. And yet, for the past decade, UPARR has been denied 
funding by the Congress. Even though dozens of cities and towns filed 
applications and were prepared to raise the matching funds, the 
Congress refused to provide even minimal funding for UPARR, despite all 
the statements of concern about children's well-being and about the 
need for after school athletics and mentoring programs.
  For the past several years, I have been working with a wide range of 
organizations to fund the UPARR program. I want to pay special tribute 
to Tom Cove, the Vice President of the Sporting Goods Manufacturers 
Association, who has spent so much of his time helping to build a 
network of people outside of Washington on behalf of UPARR's revival 
and who has been so successful here in the Congress and the 
administration in persuading people of this vital program.
  The UPARR coalition consists of a diverse array of organizations and 
interests, including the National Council of Youth Sports, which 
represents 46 million children through the National Youth Sports 
Leagues, such as Little League, Pop Warner football; the Amateur 
Athletic Union; the U.S. Soccer Foundation; PONY baseball; and the U.S. 
Conference of Mayors, especially Mayor Victor Ashe of Knoxville, Mark 
Morial of New Orleans, and Rosemary Corbin of Richmond, California.
  We have also had tremendous help from professional sports 
organizations and players, who recognize the need in providing young 
people a safe place to play and learn. I want to recognize our friends 
at the National Football League, the NFL Player Association, and Major 
League Baseball's ``Reviving Baseball in the Inner Cities'' program. We 
have also had great support from the Police Athletic League, and I 
especially want to recognize them. They have fought long and hard with 
us for today's victory for UPARR.
  I also want to pay tribute to some of the people in the Seventh 
Congressional District of California who have been energetic and 
indefatigable supporters of UPARR, including Mayor Rosemary Corbin of 
Richmond, California; C.A. Robertson of the Richmond Police Activities 
League and the state-wide Police Activities League; the Greater Vallejo 
Recreation District and its general manager, Skip Radziewicz; and the 
Tri-City County Open Space Committee and its chair, Duane Krumm.
  Throughout the Nation, individuals such as these have joined together 
and demanded that Congress provide substantial new funding for UPARR; 
and this week, they succeeded. When we began this effort, UPARR was 
receiving nothing, only a few short years ago, not one cent, despite 
all the rhetoric about concern for our children. So we committed 
ourselves to UPARR's revival; and we began slow, finding a couple of 
million dollars on the House floor from here and there.
  We were able to convince the Clinton administration that this was a 
worthy program that met the President and First Lady's goals for 
children, and a couple of million dollars was included in last year's 
budget.
  This year the President asked for $10 million; and in the bill we 
passed today, that number was increased to $30 million for each of the 
next 6 years. I want to thank the members of the Committee on 
Appropriations for that increase, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), 
the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), and the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. Dicks). And we intend to get more, because with this 
program we can turn our cities around and we can change the lives of 
millions of young children.
  Today's bill, while not the level of funding we sought in the 
Conservation and Reinvestment Act, is an enormous increase to $30 
million for each of the next 6 years, with the promise of more above 
that. With the coalition we have built, I am confident we will 
successfully compete for dollars within the Committee on Appropriations 
for UPARR dollars and build a network of recreation and athletic 
facilities throughout the cities and towns of this Nation.

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