[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 2740-2741]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                      ISSUES FACING RURAL AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PETERSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, it is certainly a good day 
for rural America. I want to congratulate the gentlewoman from Missouri 
(Mrs. Emerson) and the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton) 
for reviving the Rural Caucus. I do not know what happened that it 
died. It should never have. For someone who represents a very rural 
district, it is certainly a delight that we have it back.
  Why do we need a Rural Caucus? Well, first, I come from a very rural 
district, the most rural district east of the Mississippi, from 
northern tier Pennsylvania. A lot of people do not think of 
Pennsylvania as being rural. They think of Philadelphia and Lancaster 
and Pittsburgh. But much of Pennsylvania is rural. It is the most rural 
population in the country. One-third of Pennsylvanians live in towns of 
less than 2,500. That is rural.
  Now, the problem we have is that urban America, who really runs this 
country, dominates governments at State and national level, does not 
understand the needs of rural America. I call rural America the 
heartland of this country where we have some of our finest, hardest 
working people with the best work ethic.
  There is nothing more than we can point to today than the farm 
crisis. As I look out on the beautiful farmlands that are in 
Pennsylvania and other neighboring States, and as we see the farmers 
leave and the barns fall down and the underbrush grows up on what was 
beautiful farm fields, we are gradually losing much of our heritage in 
this country.
  The farm crisis, if not addressed, will again put more and more rural 
people out of work and send them to the cities to push more urban 
sprawl. It is vital that this Congress meets the needs to preserve 
farms in this country because of the vital role that we play.
  My message to the White House is stop the food embargoes. Allow 
American farmers to sell their products at a fair price around the 
world. By lifting the embargoes, it would be $12 billion to $15 billion 
added to the farm budgets, and our farmers would get a much better 
price for their products because their markets would be expanded.
  Another issue that is facing rural America is rural health care. I 
chaired health issues in Pennsylvania for a decade. I understand them. 
Rural health care is paid an unfair payment in comparison to urban 
suburban America. Why should a procedure in rural America be paid maybe 
half as much as a procedure in suburban urban America. There is no real 
reason for that except that is the rules that have been promulgated by 
HCFA that administers Medicare and Medicaid.
  If rural America's health payments are not equalized or made fair, we 
will lose rural health care, and there will be no winners because those 
people will have to travel long distance to suburban areas. HCFA will 
pay the high price for the same health care that could have been 
administered in the hometown communities.
  Rural transportation, rural airports, rural rail lines, we cannot 
afford to lose another mile of rail line in rural America. We cannot 
afford to have another community lose its ability to have rail service 
because it will make sure that certain jobs and certain opportunities 
are not available to them. Local air service is vital to the future of 
rural America, and it is under threat in this country because of 
government policies.
  Another issue that has just been recently brought into the national 
news is the explosion of substance abuse in this country and in 
particular in rural America. Rural America was always thought to be 
free of drug use. It was an urban problem. Mr. Speaker, the recent 
studies show that there is more abuse among young people in rural 
America than any other part.

[[Page 2741]]

  One of the reasons is we do not have adequate enforcement in rural 
America. The strike force, the drug strike force, the special groups 
that have been put together to work in urban America and suburban 
America, they do not like to work out in rural America. Because we do 
not have adequate enforcement, drug usage is on the rise, and we are 
losing young people by the thousands because drugs, not only harm young 
people, they often kill them. Drugs are dangerous. Drugs are not 
healthy. Drugs are not safe. We must somehow stop the drug culture in 
all of America and specifically rural America.
  A question I ask: Is rural America prepared for e-commerce? Do we 
have adequate ability to the Web, to the Internet? Are our telephone 
systems up to date? Do we have digital switching? Do we have an 
adequate amount of fiber optics? Because if we do not, it will be no 
different than if we do not have highways and we do not have rail and 
we do not have air service. E-commerce is where the future is.
  One of the issues is equity in education. Rural school districts have 
historically been underfunded in comparison to urban and suburban 
districts. Suburban America has a strong tax base and can afford a good 
educational system. Urban America has some of the similar problems of 
rural. We have always subsidized them. But we have not subsidized rural 
education in the same manner that we have subsidized urban education. 
So rural education has had to take a back seat. Not all of the 
opportunities that are needed for our young people are there.
  One of the issues facing this country and rural America is, do we 
have adequate access to technical education. My answer is no. The jobs 
that are out there today, many of them are high-tech jobs, many of them 
are mid-tech jobs. But we need an education that is a blend of academic 
and technology.
  America is not prepared in my view, and rural America very much so, 
not prepared for the jobs of tomorrow, not prepared for the jobs of 
today. We are not adequately training the workforce. What is going to 
happen if we do not prepare this technical workforce, we are going to 
export another level of manufacturing that we should not lose and we do 
not need to lose if we do not prepare the workforce for the 
manufacturing companies.
  The manufacturing companies that are still processing and 
manufacturing in America today are very high-tech. There is a computer 
and a robot hooked together all the way down the line. It is a very 
high-tech manufacturing, and it takes a worker far more than was needed 
in the past when one just needed a willing worker. One needs a person 
today that is trained.

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