[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 14 (Thursday, February 14, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S793-S796]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               THE NEW HOMESTEAD ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY ACT

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I am pleased to rise today to talk about 
S. 1860, a piece of legislation I have introduced in the Senate along 
with my colleague, Senator Hagel, from the State of Nebraska. I want to 
describe what this legislation does and what it is.
  I ask the Presiding Officer if I could be notified when I have 
consumed 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator will be so notified.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the legislation we have introduced is the 
New Homestead Economic Opportunity Act. The President pro tempore will 
remember well the old Homestead Act in this country. We decided to try 
to populate the middle of this country well over a century ago by 
offering land to people who would move to the center of the country and 
work to improve the land. They would start a farm, start a family, and 
the Federal Government would give them 160 acres of land. That was 
called the Homestead Act.
  Let me describe what has happened to the middle part of our country 
in the last 50 years or so and why there is a need for a new Homestead 
Act now. No, it is not to give land away, because we don't have more 
land to give away, but to develop unique and different approaches 
through a New Homestead Economic Opportunity Act.
  This is a map of the United States of America. The red areas on this 
map are the rural counties that have lost at

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least 10 percent of their population over the last 20 years. All of 
these red areas are rural counties that have lost more than 10 percent 
of their population.
  You will see almost an egg shape in the middle of America. The middle 
part of America is being depopulated. People are leaving. Our rural 
counties are shrinking.
  If you are trying to do business in one of these rural counties, you 
are in very big trouble; you are trying to do business in a recession 
and have been for some long while.
  My home county is bigger than the State of Rhode Island. When I left 
it, there were 5,000 people. Now there are only 3,000 people--just to 
describe to you what is happening in the middle part of our country.
  Let me also describe how I came to this county. My county is right 
here in the corner of North Dakota. How did I get there? A Norwegian 
widow named Caroline, with six children, got on a train in St Paul, MN, 
and went to southwestern North Dakota by train, pitched a tent with her 
family, built a house, started a farm, had a son who had a daughter who 
had me. That is how I got here. Strong people? Sure.
  Can you imagine the strength of this widow with six children 
deciding, ``I am going to homestead. I am going to North Dakota to 
start a farm and raise my family.'' What a wonderful thing to have 
happen, and it happened all across the middle part of our country. That 
is the way we populated what is now called the heartland in America.
  But this population is now leaving. It is shrinking dramatically.
  Nearly 70 percent of the rural counties in the Great Plains have seen 
their populations shrink by a third over the past fifty years. Let me 
repeat that. Nearly 70 percent of the counties in rural America in the 
Great Plains have seen their population shrink by a third, despite the 
fact that in this part of America we have much of what people want. It 
is a wonderful place to raise a family. It is a wonderful place to 
live, with great neighbors and low crime rates. It has much of what 
people aspire to have in their lives. Yet rural counties in the middle 
part of our country are losing their economic strength, and they are 
losing their population at a rapid pace.
  Some years ago, we had a problem in inner cities in our country 
called urban blight. The Congress decided to do something about that. A 
new program was developed called the Model Cities Program. Urban 
renewal was developed to try to breathe life into major cities of this 
country that were suffering from very difficult problems.
  In introducing this bill, Senator Hagel and I are saying, we 
understand that out-migration is a national problem, and we ought to do 
something in public policy to try to breathe life into these rural 
areas in the heartland of our country.
  What is the heartland about? Let me describe North Dakota, and my 
colleague, Mr. Hagel, will perhaps describe Nebraska.
  Havana, ND, is a tiny little town. It is not big enough to keep a 
cafe unless everybody in town signs up to work for free. There is a 
sign-up sheet for everyone to volunteer to keep it from going out of 
business. This is the way the residents of Havana keep this business 
open in their town.
  Sentinel Butte, ND, has a population of 80 people. The owner of the 
gas station and his wife have reached retirement age. They do not want 
to be open all day long. They close at about 1 o'clock. They lock the 
gas pumps and hang the key to the gas pumps on a nail on the front 
door. If you need gas and they are not there, you take the key, unlock 
the pumps, pump some gas, and then make a note on a little sheet of 
paper. That is the way it works in a small town in western North 
Dakota. It probably wouldn't work very well in a big city, but it works 
in Sentinel Butte, ND.
  In Marmouth, ND, if you need a hotel, there is a hotel. Nobody works 
in the hotel. You check yourself into the hotel, and you have a good 
night's rest. When you check out in the morning, you leave your room 
key and some money in a cigar box that is nailed to the inside of the 
door. That is the place to stay if you visit Marmouth, ND. It may sound 
far-fetched, but it is not.
  In Tuttle, ND, they lost their grocery store. The city council said: 
We will have to build our own grocery store. So they built a city-owned 
grocery store. When they cut the ribbon for the new grocery store, I 
was there that day, they had the high school band out on Main Street. 
They closed Main Street to celebrate the opening of a city-owned store 
in Tuttle, ND.
  My point is that these are wonderful places with great people, with 
great qualities, and with great character. Yet all of the people in 
these areas are discovering that their population is shrinking and 
their Main Streets are dying. They are losing the economic vitality and 
the hope that ought to exist in communities like these.
  What can we do about that? Senator Hagel and I say the Government 
should play a role here, just as it did when the major cities in our 
country were in trouble. We have proposed the New Homestead Economic 
Opportunity Act. We propose that Federal policy embrace the notion that 
these rural areas in the heartland of America are worth saving as well. 
Let us provide some incentives to see if we can encourage people to 
move there or to come back and to live in these areas.

  We propose new homestead opportunities saying to young people that if 
you want to stay in one of these rural counties, which is losing 
population as defined in the bill, we will forgive up to 50 percent of 
your college loans by a certain percentage each year--about 10 percent 
each year for 5 years that you live and work in one of those counties, 
and help them to rebuild.
  We will offer a tax credit for home purchases in those counties that 
have been shrinking and losing population.
  We will protect your home values by allowing you to write off on your 
income tax the loss of the value of that home.
  These days, if you build a home in a small town of 200 people in one 
of our States--Nebraska, or North Dakota--the minute that home is 
completed, it is worth substantially less than it cost to build it. 
That is the way the market works in these small towns because banks and 
others don't want to finance in those areas. We propose that tax policy 
help alleviate that.
  We would establish individual homestead accounts to help people build 
savings and have access to credit if they live in these areas. Their 
savings could grow tax free, and after 5 years they could be tapped 
into for small business loans, education expenses, first-time home 
purchases, and so on.
  In addition to these homestead opportunities, we propose a new rural 
investment tax credit that says if you are doing business, investing, 
and creating jobs in these rural counties, you should be eligible for 
an investment tax credit because, as a matter of public policy, we want 
new opportunities for growth in the heartland.
  We propose a new homestead venture capital fund to promote business 
development and growth in these high outmigration areas by making sure 
they have access to capital in order to grow the businesses they need 
in order to create jobs. Even if entrepreneurs are willing to work hard 
and take risks, they can't make it in a county that is losing its 
population unless they have access to capital.
  Again, with respect to the middle part of America that is now losing 
population, let me say that when we sing that wonderful song, ``America 
the Beautiful,'' and talk about our country from ``sea to shining 
sea,'' and as we fly across America and pass over the heartland of our 
country and the breadbasket of America, we see wonderful values. We see 
wonderful people who are struggling to live in circumstances where 
their economy, their communities, and their schools are shrinking.
  I graduated from a little school with a class of nine, Regent High 
School, which closed last year. They had their last high school prom, 
and then they combined their school with that of a town 14 miles away. 
It is no longer the little school that I attended.
  That is happening all across the heartland. We can see the effect and 
the change that it causes in small communities. But can we in public 
policy make a difference? Can we begin to make an effort to change the 
future of rural America to a future of hope, opportunity, and growth? I 
think we can.
  That is why Senator Hagel and I have joined in proposing legislation 
that I think will begin to offer that hope, and that will begin to 
offer the

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people there the tools for economic opportunity and development in the 
heartland.
  I believe there are 10 minutes remaining. Is that correct?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that those 10 
minutes be given to Senator Hagel, and I ask unanimous consent to 
extend 5 minutes beyond the additional 10 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Nebraska is recognized.
  Mr. HAGEL. Mr. President, I rise this morning to join my friend and 
distinguished colleague from North Dakota to speak about the New 
Homestead Economic Opportunity Act, S. 1860.
  We have heard Senator Dorgan speak of this act, the reasons and 
possibilities for changes in our lifestyle in our country, and in 
particular how it has affected the part of America from which Senator 
Dorgan and I come. But it is not just a heartland issue. This issue of 
outmigration has received little attention over the years.
  North Dakota and Nebraska and other Midwestern States, as you saw 
from Senator Dorgan's map, have been more affected by this outmigration 
than most other States. Senator Dorgan talked with me last year about 
possibilities to not only address the issue but to go beyond just 
bringing up solutions and go beyond in an area where we think there are 
expansion opportunities for many people.
  Many communities in rural America have not shared in much of the boom 
that has brought great prosperity to America over the last few years. 
As we look at the numbers, at least over the last 50 years, we see 
clearly that the nonmetropolitan counties in the Nation lost more than 
a third of their population during this time. You contrast this with 
the fact that during the same period the number of people living in 
metropolitan areas grew by more than 150 percent.

  It is not our intention to restructure, reframe, or in any way try to 
dominate lifestyles and have a disproportionate effect on where people 
live and how they live. That is not the point. The point is to offer 
some incentives that might, in fact, give people more possibilities and 
more opportunities at a time in the history of our country where 
quality of life is as important as some of the other dynamics that we, 
as a nation, as a culture, as a society, have had to deal with over the 
years: Jobs, how to raise your family, how to take care of that family, 
education, health care.
  So quality of life has become an issue, as it should. We are most 
blessed in this country that it is an issue. We have conquered most of 
the great diseases. We have conquered poverty and hunger, not in the 
world but certainly in this country. So we are now looking at other 
possibilities as we try to help make the world more just and do more 
for more people than history has ever recorded one nation having been 
able to do.
  So my colleague from North Dakota and I are exploring possibilities. 
He noted the 1862 Homestead Act, which I think is somewhat analogous to 
what we are proposing. In fact, the first claim made under this act in 
1862 was just outside Beatrice, NE. That first homestead under the 1862 
Homestead Act is still there. It is a national park. We are very proud 
of that.
  But, as I said earlier, as much as we have benefited--the State of 
Nebraska, the Midwest; and we have benefited mightily from the 
Homestead Act of 1862--of the 93 counties in Nebraska, 61 of those 93 
had net outmigration of at least 10 percent over the last 20 years.
  There is no particular mystery as to why we have seen this 
outmigration. Again, referring to Senator Dorgan's map, which gives a 
very accurate assessment of what has happened, people will go where 
there are opportunities. Jobs are a part of that universe of 
opportunities.
  So as Senator Dorgan pointed out, in our legislation that we are 
proposing, we set out some specific areas that we think people might 
have an interest in exploring to incentivize their interest in not only 
the Midwest but all rural areas of America. And they are attached to 
what is important in our lives: Our families, our friends, our faiths, 
our sense of voluntarism, and community participation. It is being part 
of something larger than one's self-interest, a community spirit that 
in many ways is unique to America. So we would like to, in some way, 
offer opportunities to renew some of that.
  There are currently joint capital formation projects, joint ventures, 
used in some States--Nebraska happens to have one of them--where, in 
fact, we can call upon the resources of both the public and private 
sectors to come together and provide those incentives. That is what we 
are proposing we do today in startup capital joint ventures, using 
private and public facilities. Senator Dorgan addressed some of those 
issues.
  Infrastructure in these communities is critical, infrastructure such 
as roads and water and schools and medical facilities, hospitals, and 
something that Senator Dorgan has spoken of often, the Internet, access 
to high-speed Internet that many times we in the Midwest and many rural 
areas in the country get forgotten.

  If we can, in fact, continue to build around and develop those 
infrastructures, people who want a different approach, who want maybe a 
style of life that isn't always found or conducive in large 
metropolitan areas, would have an option. I think it is worth 
exploring.
  I am proud to be part of what Senator Dorgan and I are doing. We 
would hope others will have some interest as well.
  One last point on this.
  Later this month, the Lincoln Journal Star newspaper in Nebraska will 
partner with the Nebraska Educational TV Network to explore issues 
surrounding outmigration. In fact, the Lincoln Journal Star has done a 
series of articles which have been very insightful and informative on 
how we can deal with some of the concepts that Senator Dorgan and I are 
proposing in this legislation.
  This presentation that will be made on educational TV will help frame 
the problems, solutions, and issues. When that report is completed and 
that program is aired, I will have that printed in the Record because I 
think it very much focuses on and frames up, in a relevant way, what we 
are attempting to do with this legislation.
  With that, Mr. President, again, I appreciate the time and I 
appreciate Senator Dorgan and his staff's effort on this issue.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Nelson of Florida). The Senator from North 
Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, first, let me say how much I appreciate 
working with Senator Hagel on this legislation. As he indicated, the 
State of Nebraska has an abiding problem, just as the State of North 
Dakota, South Dakota, and all of the States up and down the heartland 
of our country. It is not just our states.
  I notice the Senator from Georgia is in the Chamber. Rural counties 
in Georgia, as well, are shrinking like prunes.
  What do we do about that? Will Rogers used to chuckle when he thought 
about what would get the Federal Government's attention. He said: If 
you have two hogs that come down with something and get sick in a barn 
someplace, you will have all kinds of USDA people coming down to find 
out what is wrong with your hogs. But not much will happen if you have 
other problems. No one will show up.
  I have an example that I would like to share with my colleague from 
Nebraska. In recent months, we had a little prairie dog fight. I will 
not go into all of the details. But prairie dogs took over a picnic 
grounds in the Badlands in North Dakota. They were going to do an 
environmental assessment. Then they did an EA. They did a FONSI, a 
finding of no significant impact. They had all these studies going on, 
and the Federal agencies got all cranked up about the prairie dogs, and 
they decided to spend a quarter of a million dollars to move the picnic 
grounds.
  I said: Look we are not short of prairie dogs in western North 
Dakota; we are short of people. My home county went from 5,000 people 
to 3,000 people in 25 years. The county next to mine is bigger than the 
State of Rhode Island, and it has 900 people and only had seven babies, 
in a recent year, born in the entire year. These are counties that are 
dramatically shrinking, and

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losing their economic vitality. Yet you get a prairie dog problem in a 
picnic area, and the Federal Government mobilizes, and you have all 
these agencies all juiced up to do something. But what about the fact 
that the economy throughout the heartland of our country is in 
desperate trouble, and you can hardly get anybody's attention in 
government?

  What Senator Hagel and I are saying is, let's go at this just as we 
did with model cities or urban renewal, and decide that this is not 
only a North Dakota problem--although it is certainly ours--not only a 
Nebraska problem--although it is certainly theirs--but that it is a 
national problem. A century after we populated the middle part of our 
country through the Homestead Act, depopulation is a national problem.
  What has happened to cause the movement of people away from the 
heartland? A shift of jobs from production of natural resources--
farming, mining, and other industries--to work in service or 
technology-oriented industries that shifted the population in our 
country.
  New industries do not necessarily need to be near the grain elevator 
or the mouth of a mine. New technologies allow us to make many products 
with far fewer people, and that includes agriculture.
  Free trade agreements have made it cheaper to produce goods overseas. 
That, too, has shifted population.
  What Senator Hagel and I are talking about is choice, giving people a 
choice to be able to live in rural America if they choose to do that.
  I recently gave a commencement speech to a large class at one of our 
colleges in North Dakota, and I know most of those students are going 
to leave the State following their graduation--not because they want 
to, but because they do not have any choice.
  Those young men and women, who represent our best and brightest, are 
going to leave North Dakota. Many will leave Nebraska. They will end up 
on the west coast or the east coast or down south. And our States, in 
my judgment, be weakened because they left. Other States will be 
strengthened. We want to give them a choice to be able to stay if they 
would like to stay.
  If we want to stop outmigration and try to bring opportunity back to 
the heartland, we need to do it as a nation, not just for the sake of 
the heartland States, but for the sake of all our country. By any 
measure, the rural towns and counties that suffer from outmigration and 
population loss are still in many respects among the strongest in our 
country. They have good schools, a high level of civic involvement, 
extremely low rates of crime, good neighbors, a good life, and are 
great places in which to raise children. Our Government spends a great 
deal of time and money trying to emulate these attributes in areas 
where they don't exist instead of trying to help preserve them in areas 
where they do exist; namely, rural counties in small-town America.
  I know some might say Senator Hagel and I have this Norman Rockwell 
notion of small town in our minds, and that is just wonderful, but that 
it is more nostalgia than it is reality. But I don't agree. In my 
judgment, public policy has a lot to do with where people locate. We 
simply want to provide additional choices. Nebraska and North Dakota 
and many other States just don't have the opportunities that a 
California, Texas, Massachusetts, or New York has.
  For instance, consider that the Federal Government is the largest 
researcher in the world. Where do most of our research dollars go? Not 
to Nebraska or North Dakota. The bulk of it goes to four States: 
California, New York, Massachusetts, Texas. That is where, with these 
centers of excellence in research serving as anchors, industries and 
jobs locate. Public policy has a lot to do with where people live.

  All Senator Hagel and I are saying is that we can sit around and 
wring our hands, gnash our teeth, wipe our brow, and worry about this 
forever or we can decide to put together an initiative that says, let's 
try to do something about this shrinkage and outmigration in some of 
these wonderful places. Let's give people more choices, especially 
young people, to stay in those areas where they grew up and where they 
want to live, and provide them with spirit, hope, and opportunity to 
make their future economy a good economy. We can do that.
  That is the initiative we are proposing, one to provide tools and to 
offer choices to those who are working hard in a wonderful part of 
America. We introduced the legislation in December. It is S. 1860. It 
is bipartisan. We will work very hard in the Senate and around the 
country to see if we can't get America to do for the heartland what it 
once did for the cities, and to get people to see that something is 
happening in rural America and that it needs help now. Let's join 
together and do that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. MILLER). The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I understand we are in morning 
business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. May I be recognized?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, the Senators who have just 
spoken make a most compelling case. I take very seriously my role as 
Senator, in which I have a responsibility to the rest of the Nation in 
addition to the wonderful State I have the privilege of representing. 
What I would like to do is come to their respective States and see 
these areas where there is outmigration. This is quite a contrast to 
what I have experienced in the State of Florida which has been just 
exactly the opposite kind of experience.
  As a matter of fact, my home county, Brevard County, in the early 
1960s, because of the space race, when the Soviet Union surprised us 
with Sputnik and then surprised us by launching Yuri Gagarin, one 
orbit, before we could ever get to sub orbit with Alan Shepard, people 
were just pouring in, sleeping in cars.
  As a result, a lot of development was done in a rush with tremendous 
mistakes, not attending to zoning and not attending to proper drainage, 
and so forth and so on. So the experience of Florida has been quite the 
opposite of their experience.
  What I would like to do is to learn from them how I could help them 
because we are all citizens of the United States of America. I thank 
them for bringing this issue to the attention of the Senate. I look 
forward, maybe perhaps this summer, to visiting in their respective 
States of North Dakota and Nebraska.

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