Eva M. Clayton: “the infrastructure provisions in this amendment provide $45 million annually for 10 years and would allow communities…”

“the infrastructure provisions in this amendment provide $45 million annually for 10 years and would allow communities that the gentlewoman and I know are 5,000, 3,000, small communities, and even nonprofit organizations in the unincorporated areas, to have grant assistance along with the loans that they must incur while increasing their tax indebtedness in order to have water systems. So that is for clean water as well as for wastewater facilities. The other part is the strategic planning, which those in the urban areas take for granted. They get a larger percentage of Federal resources because they have people who can do that. Those of us who live in rural areas, if we look at the Federal resources, it is mostly transfer of payments: Medicare, Social Security, assistance to families with children. We do not get the community development planning, we do not get big sums of economic development, we do not get big sums of housing, and we do not compete well in those competitive grants. So this would allow us an additional $45 million to have strategic planning and coordination and implementation of that. Very similar to what the gentlewoman was so creative in moving in the Delta, to have them get grant assistance. We are just marrying this up. Finally, the value-added. That is simply giving our farmers the ability to add long-term profitability by adding new value and services to their raw commodities.”