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PATH TO OPPORTUNITY: 

JOBS AND THE ECONOMY IN APPALACHIA 

FIELD HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, 

NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

OCTOBER 22, 2008 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.agriculture.senate.gov 

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY 

TOM HARKIN, Iowa, Chairman 

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont 

KENT CONRAD, North Dakota 

MAX BAUCUS, Montana 

BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, Arkansas 

DEBBIE A. STABENOW, Michigan 

E. BENJAMIN NELSON, Nebraska 

KEN SALAZAR, Colorado 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

ROBERT P. CASEY, Jr., Pennsylvania 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia 

RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana 

THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi 

MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky 

PAT ROBERTS, Kansas 

LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina 

NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota 

MICHEAL D. CRAPO, Idaho 

JOHN THUNE, South Dakota 

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa 

MARK HALVERSON, Majority Staff Director 

JESSICA L. WILLIAMS, Chief Clerk 

MARTHA SCOTT POINDEXTER, Minority Staff Director 

VERNIE HUBERT, Minority Chief Counsel 

(II) 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

FIELD HEARING(S): 

Path to Opportunity: Jobs and the Economy in Appalachia ................................ 1 

Wednesday, October 22, 2008 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY SENATORS 

Brown, Hon. Sherrod, a U.S. Senator from the State of Ohio ............................. 1 

Panel I 

DiPietro, John, Severstal Employee, Steubenville, Ohio ...................................... 4 

Eadon, Harry A., Jr., President and Executive Director, Tuscarawas County 

Port Authority, Dover, Ohio ................................................................................ 5 

Shaffer, Franklin C., Jr., Township Trustee, Bellaire, Ohio ................................ 7 

Panel II 

Fluharty, Charles W., Vice President for Policy Programs, Rural Policy Research Institute, Truman School of Public Affairs, University of MissouriColumbia ............................................................................................................... 16 

Martin, Debra, Director, Great Lakes Rural Community Assistance Program, 

Fremont, Ohio ...................................................................................................... 19 

Ricer, Gary W., Chief Executive Officer, Guernsey, Monroe, and Noble TriCounty Community Action Corporation, Caldwell, Ohio .................................. 18 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

DiPietro, John ................................................................................................... 30 

Eadon, Harry A., Jr. ......................................................................................... 33 

Fluharty, Charles W. ........................................................................................ 37 

Martin, Debra ................................................................................................... 45 

Ricer, Gary W. .................................................................................................. 54 

Shaffer, Franklin C., Jr. ................................................................................... 57 

DOCUMENT(S) SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

Written letter from U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of the Secretary to Hon. Tom Harkin with attached fact sheet on rural development ............................................................................................................... 60 

‘‘How rural is Ohio?’’, rural policy research institute .................................... 69 

RUPRI state demographic & economic profiles ............................................. 75 

(1) 

PATH TO OPPORTUNITY: 

JOBS AND THE ECONOMY IN APPALACHIA 

Wednesday, October 22, 2008 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE, 

NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY

Steubenville, Ohio 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:30 a.m., at Jefferson County Community College, Lecture Hall 2102, 4000 Sunset 

Boulevard, Steubenville, Ohio, Hon. Sherrod Brown, presiding. 

Present or submitting a statement: Senator Brown. 

STATEMENT OF HON. SHERROD BROWN, A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM THE STATE OF OHIO 

Senator BROWN. I appreciate the panel. There will be two panels. 

I will get to them in a moment and introduce them. 

I would also like to thank Senator Tom Harkin, who is the 

Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee on which I sit, for 

his support of these hearings and for his leadership during the 

writing of the farm bill. 

This is an official Senate hearing, the Senate Agriculture Committee, and it comes to order. Everything said today, including 

questions, if we have time at the end, and I think we will, from 

the audience will be part of the hearing record, and anything that 

any of the three witnesses on panel one and panel two would like 

to submit to us within 2 weeks of adjourning this committee today, 

official adjournment, so you have time if you wish to send any 

other written testimony, including answers to questions that you 

might want to expand on that you didn’t give us during that time. 

We will hear, as I said, from two panels. We will hear from the 

first panel, the three gentlemen sitting here, and then have a brief 

question and answer session before moving on to the second panel. 

If committee witnesses can keep their statements to about 5 minutes, in case you didn’t see that clock there, then that would be 

helpful. If you go over a little, that is not a bit deal. 

Small-town Ohio, and I grew up in a city not much—a little bit 

larger than Steubenville, in Mansfield—small-town Ohio and medium-sized cities in rural Ohio clearly are hurting. When a plant 

closes, when young people leave Steubenville or Bellaire or St. 

Clairsville or Catons or Lisbon or East Liverpool and these communities, we know what happens to these communities as young people leave and as plants close down and they are obviously very related. 

2 

Ohio’s unemployment rate reached 7.4 percent this summer, the 

highest it has been in 15 years. Even prior to this steep economic 

downturn, Ohio still had hundreds of thousands fewer jobs than it 

did prior to the last recession. With aging infrastructure, with high 

unemployment, with underfunded schools, and with chronic gaps in 

access to affordable health care, rural areas in Ohio and throughout the Nation already face daunting economic challenges. 

For rural areas in small-town Ohio, an economic downturn like 

the one we find ourselves in now has the impact of a kidney punch 

after 12 rounds in a ring. Over one-half of Ohio’s counties are 

rural, and there is no doubt these counties face economic obstacles. 

Of the ten counties in Ohio with the highest unemployment, 

every one of them is rural. Of the ten counties in Ohio with the 

highest poverty level, nine of the ten are rural. Of the ten counties 

in Ohio with the highest percentage of people eligible for Medicaid, 

nine of them are rural. 

Federal policymakers simply haven’t devoted enough attention to 

rural America. We squander opportunity and dismiss unacceptable 

gaps in the kind of support that allows families to lift themselves 

out of poverty. It is time to change direction and invest in the tremendous potential that rural America holds, and you can see that 

in the young people, both high school and college, sitting in the audience today. Investment in rural communities is an investment in 

the American economic engine and the American dream. 

I am proud of what we have done collectively for rural communities and small towns in this State during the passage of 2008 

farm bill. USDA Rural Development Programs encourage rural 

business expansion and job creation and grants to expand 

broadband access across rural Ohio, something particularly young 

people here today understand how important broadband is to their 

future and to our economic future. 

These projects—we have invested more than $500 million in over 

120 different projects in Ohio over the last 2 years. These projects 

range from a $6 million hospital expansion for Barnesville and Belmont County, the county next door to the south; a $20 million 

water treatment facility for Wellsville and Columbina County, the 

county directly to the north; $7 million was provided last year for 

a new water distribution system in Tuscarawas County, two counties to the west; and in Jefferson County, Smithville received 

USDA funds that allowed for the purchase of a dump truck for 

road maintenance; and Dillonvale was able to purchase a new garbage truck. These projects wouldn’t have occurred without a farm 

bill and without funding for Rural Development Programs. 

USDA Rural Development funding can help communities in 

many different ways. Some comes in the form of grants to communities for water and sewer projects and public safety projects. Others provide loans and loan guarantees for small businesses and 

rural housing programs. These loan guarantees in particular have 

seen a dramatic increase in usage during the recent overall credit 

crunch. Some lenders simply won’t provide funds to small businesses and rural housing without the additional security provided 

by farm bill Rural Development Programs. 

The farm bill also funds so many programs that matter to Ohio, 

and we have made important strides toward providing additional 

3 

investments in rural Ohio. As Ohio’s first Senator to serve on the 

Agriculture Committee in over 40 years, I continue to work to fund 

these vital programs and ensure Ohioans receive the kind of support that will help them thrive. The farm bill provided a needed 

boost, but the people of small towns and rural communities deserve 

much more. That is why we are holding this hearing today. 

Since I have been in the Senate, the last 20 months or so, 21 

months or so, I have spent much of my time conducting 

roundtables, about 120 roundtables. About 15, 20 people have been 

to them, just in cross-sections of communities. Most of those 

roundtables have been in rural Ohio, and I have heard lots of questions. I have heard questions like, how can the Federal Government play a role to help rebuild small towns in Appalachia and 

across Ohio? What investments in infrastructure are needed to revitalize our rural communities and make them competitive in a 

global economy? How do we support small businesses who are 

struggling in the face of this credit crunch and the uncertainty of 

the financial crisis? 

These are the questions our witnesses are helping us answer 

today. I look forward to these remarks, to the remarks from them. 

And last, I should note that Randy Hunt, Director of the USDA 

Rural Development Programs here in Ohio, was invited to testify. 

However, the Bush administration did not allow him to attend. Mr. 

Hunt is a dedicated and well-respected public servant in this State, 

and as USDA Rural Development Programs play a significant role 

in addressing the challenges rural communities face, I know everyone here would appreciate hearing his perspective on these issues. 

I regret the decision of Secretary Schafer and the Bush administration because I don’t think it is in the best interests of the people 

I serve, but today’s hearing is too important to get mired in politics. It is not about the Bush administration or Republicans or 

Democrats. It is about people and communities facing the challenges and fighting to overcome these challenges. It is in the nation’s best interest to support their success, and the Congress and 

the administration alike have an obligation to promote the nation’s 

best interest. That is nonpartisan. That is simply a fact. 

We will move forward on the witnesses. Let me introduce the 

first panel. Our first panel will be John DiPietro to my left, your 

right, of Steubenville. Mr. DiPietro works at the Severstal plant 

here in Steubenville. Welcome. 

Next, we have Harry Eadon, Executive Director of the 

Tuscarawas County Port Authority—very nice to see you again— 

located in Dover. 

And finally, we will hear from Frank Shaffer, a Township Trustee from, I say Bellaire, but you say ‘‘Blair,’’ right, in Belmont County. An aide in my first year in politics was from Bellaire, as you 

know, and always said ‘‘Blair,’’ so I guess that is how I say it. 

Mr. SHAFFER. That is how we say it. 

Senator BROWN. Take about 5 minutes. Mr. DiPietro, I will begin 

with you, then each of you will speak, and then I will ask each of 

the three of you questions. 

4 

STATEMENT OF JOHN DIPIETRO, SEVERSTAL EMPLOYEE, 

STEUBENVILLE, OHIO 

Mr. DIPIETRO. Good morning. My name is John DiPietro. I am 

59 years old and have worked for Severstal Wheeling, formerly 

known as Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel, for 37–and-a-half years. I am 

married, and my wife and I have raised three children. 

What has happened at my company over this decade has affected 

my family, my job, my pension, my retirement savings, and my 

community. The elimination of steel jobs has depressed the local 

economy and caused a steady drop in employment, which in turn 

has affected our population and our tax base. My children have 

moved from the Ohio Valley due to better opportunities elsewhere. 

With the most recent shutdown of the Steubenville Cold Strip 

Department, my job as a wastewater treatment plant operator 

servicing the pickling line has been eliminated. I no longer have a 

specific work area. The company is calling it a temporary shutdown, but no one believes the pickler will be restarted. After 37– 

and-a-half years, I am a weekly assignee. This leads to frustration, 

anxiety, and loss of personal wages. The shutdown of the Cold 

Strip Department is the result of a lack of orders, reflective of the 

poor national economy and the fact that the mill is outdated. We are told that Severstal Wheeling needs to inject $11 million 

in repairs to make the pickling line viable. Severstal is a global 

company that owns other facilities that can fill their orders. This 

leaves me and my coworkers in limbo, wondering if money will be 

invested in the Steubenville North Plant so that we can return to 

our jobs and a stable production schedule. 

Prior to the cold strip shutdown, I worked as a blast furnace recycle operator servicing the No. 1 blast furnace in Steubenville. The 

blast furnace operation was permanently closed in 2004. Many jobs 

were eliminated, hurting not only our workers, but our local economy, as well. Those of us affected had to acquire new skills in new 

work areas. 

Another aspect that has affected me is the lack of stability within 

the mill. Despite the increase in production at our mill, our employment is down. Currently, different areas of the mill are working 1 

week, shut down the next week, and then return to operations the 

following week. Some areas of the mill are training workers for 

new assignments, while other area managers have chosen not to 

train dedicated employees who may have transferred into their 

areas. The instability in the production units and the uncertainty 

in the job assignments have led to turmoil and anxiety, and this 

is where I find myself today. 

My pension is another problem area. I am two-and-a-half years 

away from eligibility for retirement. Recent downward trends in 

the stock market have eroded my 401(k) plan. Greed and deregulation have touched us all. 

Unfortunately for me, this is the second hit to my retirement 

plan. The first hit was in 2003, when the Pension Benefit Guaranty 

Corporation froze my pension plan and my pension plan was eventually terminated. Under the former PBGC plan, as it was known, 

I was guaranteed $40 per year for every year of service. With this 

multiplier, at age 62, my monthly pension would have been $1,600 

per month for 40 years of service. Because of the termination of my 

5 

pension plan, the value of my pension plummeted to $780 per 

month, less than half of the previous contractual benefit. What I 

thought was a fact became a myth. How do you plan for something 

like that? 

Because of the decline in the steel industry, our educational systems have experienced a negative impact. Severstal Wheeling pays 

property taxes to two area school districts, and with the loss of 

wages and declining tax base, our schools receive less funding. The 

school districts, the administrations, faculty, and students suffer. 

As we all know, the children are the future of any community. If 

they aren’t afforded a solid education along with job opportunities 

after graduation, the community will surely erode. 

On a personal note, I find myself wondering if our plant will ever 

return to normal operations. I wonder if our plant has a limited future due to the perils of our economic policies, the global economy, 

and consolidation within the steel industry. We at Severstal Wheeling are fighting for our very survival. Thanks. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. DiPietro can be found on page 

30 in the appendix.] 

Senator BROWN. Thank you, Mr. DiPietro. 

Mr. Eadon. 

STATEMENT OF HARRY A. EADON, JR., PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TUSCARAWAS COUNTY PORT AUTHORITY, 

DOVER, OHIO 

Mr. EADON. Thank you, Mr. Brown. Thank you for this opportunity to present testimony regarding the USDA Rural Development Programs and how they may be utilized in the current economic crisis. My focus today will be on the USDA’s Rural Development Intermediary Relending Program. However, each of the economic development financing tools available through Rural Development are important. 

The Tuscarawas Valley region may be considered a typical rural 

area. However, it is quite diverse, with each county facing unique 

challenges. Consequently, the counties, are they are able, create 

economic development strategies that address their particular 

needs. These strategies should encompass these basic focuses: Infrastructure improvement, business assistance, education and 

training, amenity-based development, and community development. 

The execution of these strategies usually depends on funding assistance from Federal and State governments. An example of the 

importance of such Federal support can be found in testimony 

given on April 1, 2008, by Mr. Thomas Dorr, USDA Under Secretary for Rural Development, before the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and 

Related Agencies. 

Mr. Dorr stated, ‘‘The fiscal year 2009 budget request seeks a 

$49 million budget authority to support $738 million in direct and 

guaranteed loans and grants for rural business and cooperative 

programs. The budget proposes to fund the Business and Industry 

Guaranteed Loan Program, the Intermediary Relending Program, 

and the Rural Cooperative Development Grant Program. We anticipate that in fiscal year 2009, these programs will assist approximately 700 small businesses and create or save more than 34,000 

6 

jobs in rural communities.’’ The reported effect of these programs 

is to leverage every Federal dollar with $15 of private capital. 

The diversity of the Tuscarawas Valley region can be characterized by the population and business density of each county. Examples of the diversity are Harrison and Tuscarawas Counties. Harrison County hosts 360 businesses and has a population just under 

16,000, compared to Tuscarawas County with 2,315 businesses and 

a population of over 91,000. A further distinction is the types and 

diversities of businesses in each of these counties. But for all of the 

differences, one thing is the same, not only in this rural area but 

across the country. The current economic crisis has exacerbated the 

ability of businesses, large and small, to borrow money to fund current and future needs. The credit crunch is not a phenomenon only 

of Wall Street. It has come to Main Street. 

Pat Comanitz, the Kent State University Tuscarawas Small 

Business Development Center’s Director from 1998 to 2008, estimates that only one of ten small businesses seeking funding find 

it through conventional bank financing, and that has been confirmed by the president of a regional bank. A case in point is ED 

Payment Systems, a small business which started in the Business 

Factory, a small business incubator in Dover, Ohio. 

Bill Treciak, the founder and president of the four-year-old technology service company, has applied for both conventional and SBA 

advanced financing and been turned down more than a dozen 

times. To finance his business, Mr. Treciak has leveraged the equity in his family’s home and obtained unsecured financing through 

high-interest credit card debt. ED Payment Systems is a service 

company and therefore is fueled by working capital. Even though 

the company has had positive net income for more than a year, and 

even though it has exhibited reasonable and sustainable growth, 

not only bank has lent him the money even to fuel that growth. 

Businesses like ED Payment Systems will benefit from reasonably 

costed alternatives to conventional financing. 

To help drive the implementation of business development strategies in each of these counties and to create a local response to a 

small business funding need, the TCPA has applied for a $500,000 

IRP loan to seed a $585,000 revolving loan fund. The proposed 

service area for the revolving loan fund includes the following rural 

Ohio counties: Belmont, Carroll, Guernsey, Harrison, Holmes, and 

Tuscarawas. 

The purpose of a strong RLF is to provide funding alternatives 

to the region’s existing businesses and to provide a tool to help create new business opportunities. This equates to both the retention 

and creation of jobs. The RLF will not replace or compete with conventional financing. Rather, it will enhance the ability of banks to 

participate in financing structures that previously were not possible through only conventional financing. 

Based upon the USDA’s 15–times multiplier, the economic development impact of the TCPA’s RLF to the region will be to induce 

the investment of more than $8 million of private capital. This is 

a regional solution to a regional challenge. 

The TCPA encourages Congress to act with due deliberation and 

speed to authorize the USDA’s Rural Development budget request 

for funding these important economic development tools. 

7 

This concludes my testimony and I will be happy to respond to 

your questions. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Eadon can be found on page 33 

in the appendix.] 

Senator BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Eadon. 

Mr. Shaffer. 

STATEMENT OF FRANKLIN C. SHAFFER, JR., TOWNSHIP 

TRUSTEE, BELLAIRE, OHIO 

Mr. SHAFFER. Thank you very much for having me here. It is my 

first time, so I am probably a little green at this. My testimony is 

from Mount Victory Road Water Project, and I lived this for 18 

years of my life and these people are still living it and spending 

10 years doing this. 

Mount Victory Road is located in the State of Ohio, Belmont 

County, Village of Powhatan Point, which is situated in the southeastern portion of Ohio just a few miles from a great water source, 

the Ohio River. More than 152 families live along the 28–mile 

stretch of rural road. 

A multitude of problems arises within their water sources, one 

of which includes wells that have to be drilled at no less than 50 

feet or no deeper than 100 feet to tap a good water source. If drilled 

any further, they could be lost into a mine or sulfur from a mine 

could make the water unbearable to drink. Most of the wells will 

not sustain a family of three or more adequately. The families have 

to use the local laundromat several miles down the road, cut down 

daily on toilet flushing, being unable to take daily showers, have 

to choose from bathing your children or watering your animals, 

being unable to water gardens or lawns, using the local car wash 

to wash your car, limiting the amount of water usage within the 

home, doing dishes, running dishwashers, just to name a few. 

These also cause additional expenses to the families. 

There has been E. coli bacteria found in some wells, exposing 

people to illness and hospitalization, thus creating loss of jobs in 

families. This is a major health risk. 

The second source of water for the homes is a cistern, an artificial reservoir, tank, or container for storing or holding water, especially for catching and storing rainwater. These cisterns are mostly 

used for bathing, washing clothes, and flushing toilets. Due to a 

lack of water sources in a low economic area, some families have 

to resort to using the water for drinking, which is definitely a 

health hazard. These people cannot afford to purchase bottled 

water and have no choice but to drink cistern water that is unsafe. 

Must families must own a utility trailer or a truck with a water 

tank in order to haul water that is miles from their homes. Some 

farms have to haul multiple loads daily in order to water livestock. 

This is also an additional cost to the families, due to the fact that 

the local village and county charge for this water. 

There are also major fire and safety issues. If a house catches on 

fire, usually this leads to a complete loss of the home, animals, and 

sometimes lives. The water to extinguish the fire has to be hauled 

miles in a tanker truck or use of water buffaloes must be set up. 

8 

The cost of this project is in the millions of dollars. Our local officials are willing to take on the project, but simply do not have near 

the funding needed to do the project without Federal assistance. 

If any person would like to get a slight feeling of what it is like 

to have to live without water, just take a shower, lather up, and 

shut off the water. Think about how to get the lather off of your 

body without water. Or just imagine what it is like to turn on the 

faucet and nothing come out at all, or what comes out of the faucet 

is not healthy to drink or use for cooking, or water that is black, 

yellow, and smells bad, that is, if there is water at all. Or just 

imagine loading the washing machine with clothes and the machine is stopped in mid-cycle. All the clothes have to be removed 

and hauled, heavy and wet, to the laundromat to finish. 

This is not a temporary water loss. This is every day of life in 

this area. People who are fortunate enough to have municipal 

water do not have a clear understanding of what it feels like to live 

this way every day. Remember when your water may be shut down 

temporarily for a few hours or a day how inconvenient it is. Well, 

these people live this way every single day. 

In summary, this area is in desperate need of a municipal water 

source and it cannot be accomplished without the help of Federal 

assistance. 

One thing I would like to add, back to the part of flushing the 

toilets, a lot of times you have to keep Clorox next to your water, 

next to your commode, in order to dump Clorox in to cut down on 

the smell when you can’t flush it each time. It is a definite problem. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Shaffer can be found on page 57 

in the appendix.] 

Senator BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Shaffer. Thanks very much, all 

three of you. 

Mr. DiPietro, you mentioned your children have gone elsewhere. 

Where do they live? 

Mr. DIPIETRO. My oldest, Natalie, lives in Ada, Ohio. 

Senator BROWN. Northwest of Columbus? 

Mr. DIPIETRO. Yes. She accepted a teaching position at Ohio 

Northern University last year. My daughter, Melissa, lives in 

Philadelphia. She works for Johnson and Johnson in financing. 

And my son, Anthony, is a senior at the Ohio State University. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BROWN. Is he coming home? 

Mr. DIPIETRO. I doubt it. 

Senator BROWN. What jobs do we need to keep people in our communities? What kind of jobs would make your three children want 

to come back and live in—where do you actually personally live? 

Mr. DIPIETRO. Here. I live in Steubenville. 

Senator BROWN. What would make people come back here, young 

people? 

Mr. DIPIETRO. I would say high-paying manufacturing jobs would 

be the key. Most of our jobs are minimum-wage jobs. At the local 

mills, it is all down hill. At Severstal, they’ve cut way back and just 

shut down the Cold Strip Department, as I said. So we are losing 

9 

the good-paying jobs with the good benefits and people have no reason to stay here. 

Senator BROWN. How many generations have you been here, 

your family? 

Mr. DIPIETRO. Well, my dad came here in 1920 from Italy. 

Senator BROWN. 1920, did he work at the mill? 

Mr. DIPIETRO. Yes, he did. He worked at Weirton Steel for 39 

years. 

Senator BROWN. What has happened to your friends and coworkers who have lost their jobs? Are they still here or did they—are 

they getting a job at $8 or $9 an hour now instead of having a 

good-paying, middle-class job? 

Mr. DIPIETRO. Most of them have left the area, the young ones. 

The older ones hold on and try to find a job locally. A lot of them 

are like me. They’re in transition in the mill and move from department to department because of the work schedule, working a week, 

shutting down for a week. How long this is going to last, no one 

knows. They put a lot of money into the blast furnace in Mingo and 

the BOF, but it hasn’t all started back up since the repairs were 

made, so we are kind of wondering what is going to happen. 

Senator BROWN. Do people who have lost a $15 or $17 an hour job and now have a $9 or $10 or $11 an hour job, do they call themselves middle class still? 

Mr. DIPIETRO. I don’t think so. I would strongly—working at 

Severstal, it would be tough with one income [inaudible] even making minimum wage or thereabout, trying—both working very hard, 

working 40 hours a week, doing everything they are supposed to 

do, playing by the rules, and yet they can’t support their family or 

have health care. 

Senator BROWN. What is your hourly wage, if I could ask? 

Mr. DIPIETRO. Right now, it is $18 an hour. 

Senator BROWN. And your retirement has been adjusted down, I 

guess is a nice way of saying it, has been cut to $780 a month, you 

said? 

Mr. DIPIETRO. Yes. Under the—PBGC froze our plan and then 

said it wasn’t a viable pension plan—— 

Senator BROWN. It wasn’t because the company didn’t pay in 

adequately. 

Mr. DIPIETRO. Right, and so we were locked in. At the time, I 

had 32 years of service. So I no longer gain any retirement earnings from that plan, so luckily, we had the Steelworkers Union who 

got us into a new pension plan, the Steelworkers Pension Trust, 

and so now we are accumulating money into that. 

Senator BROWN. So you will have the $780 a month plus you will 

have some smaller amount—— 

Mr. DIPIETRO. Yes. 

Senator BROWN [continuing]. That you are earning now? 

Mr. DIPIETRO. Yes. Recently, we were allowed—given the option 

of taking our money that was contributed to the PBGC and rolling 

it over to an IRA or leaving it there. So since I was going to take 

this big hit, from $1,600 to less than $780, really, I decided to take 

that money in a lump sum and roll it over into an IRA. So now 

I am just basically earning a pension with Steelworkers Pension 

Trust. 

10 

Senator BROWN. Laid-off workers, if you know, they have got the 

information they need for assistance for job retraining, maybe 

through Jefferson Community College or pension health care. Are 

they able to get the information they need on how to move on with 

their lives when they get laid off? 

Mr. DIPIETRO. I think so. I think so. I think the community does 

a good job of getting the information out there where they can turn 

to, come here to Jefferson Community College and learn a new 

skill. 

Senator BROWN. Are they getting it from the union? Are they getting it from the company? Are they getting it from jobs and community services—— 

Mr. DIPIETRO. I don’t think they are getting it from the company, 

but they are getting it from the community, the union, just advertisements. 

Senator BROWN. So even if it is a non-union facility, they are 

able to find the information either from Jefferson Community College or other ways? 

Mr. DIPIETRO. Yes. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you for your testimony and your comments. 

Mr. Eadon, one of the things that I am hopeful we do after the 

election with either President-Elect McCain or President-Elect 

Obama is get serious about infrastructure investment. Talk 

through what—I obviously don’t know an amount of money or we 

don’t know for sure what direction it is going to go. That is going 

to be in part dependent on what the President-Elect wants to do 

and the new President wants to do come January, but what is the 

best way to spend infrastructure monies? 

Part of it is the stimulus package, because it puts people to work 

directly. I talked to the Governor at some length about this and 

there are projects in Ohio ready to go that just don’t have financing 

now. It won’t take a long time to inject money into the system, into 

these projects, so it puts operating engineers and laborers and 

sheet metal workers and engineers to work immediately. What is 

the best short-term and long-term kind of infrastructure stimulus 

for Tuscarawas County, or speaking more generally, larger than 

that? 

Mr. EADON. For the region? I think there is—I think the answer 

is almost the same for both, both short-term and long-term, because I think the solutions—we didn’t find ourselves or drive ourselves into this position overnight. We drove ourselves into this position over a long period of time, so that coming out of this and 

stimulating our economy and changing our economy is going to 

take more than a year, even 2 years or 3 years. 

I think in some ways we are already starting on that. Technology, I think, is certainly a method or a way of trying to dig ourselves of where we are at. When we are talking about high-paying 

manufacturing jobs, clearly, those are very important. High-paying 

jobs of any sort are important. Manufacturing jobs, though, now 

aren’t manufacturing jobs that are less skill-based than what they 

were before. In fact, the skill base of many manufacturing jobs now 

requires advanced training, training beyond high school, and those 

are the kind of jobs that will bring kids back if they go off to school. 

11 

Those are the kind of jobs that will bring kids back here to Steubenville or to our region. 

Technology jobs, advanced energy and fuel cell, biomass, wind 

energy, those kinds of jobs, both on the manufacturing side as well 

as the implementation side, are critical to our area and we certainly have the expertise in the area to do that. We have a tremendous history in this entire region for manufacturing expertise. 

You mentioned Mansfield. Mansfield has the same thing in brass 

and other kinds of industries. [Inaudible] Lake right next to Cleveland, exactly—it is the same thing again, small manufacturers as 

well as large manufacturers. So Ohio has a tremendous tradition 

and history of manufacturing expertise, and I would say advanced 

manufacturing expertise. 

Some of the other kinds of technology jobs that we train our 

young people for, and essentially we train them to leave—gaming, 

advanced computer animation. We train people at OU, at Shawnee 

State, which is not too far from here, Tuscarawas County, at Kent 

State University-Tuscarawas. We graduate 150 kids a year probably from those three institutions in advanced gaming, computer 

animation, and we have maybe ten or 15 jobs in this region for 

those 150 that we graduate. Consequently, they go someplace else. 

That is one of the reasons for the RLF and building in Central 

Ohio is a major one that we have been able to create is to provide 

capital for those students who have graduated to not come back, 

but to stay here and be entrepreneurs, start businesses here, because we believe that entrepreneurial business startups are more 

likely to stay in the region than to go someplace else. So if you are 

raised here, grew up here, and are educated here, and if you start 

a business here, then you start a family here, it is more likely that 

you are going to continue to grow that business and create jobs, retain jobs and create jobs, than if we educate you and send you 

someplace else. 

The other—as I mentioned, advanced manufacturing, I think, is 

critical to all of those as well as to information technology jobs. We 

have tremendous capabilities in this area because we are a rural 

area to house information technology jobs, and those, frankly, are 

very high-paying, very clean jobs that many of our young students 

that are graduating from institutions like Jefferson Community 

College would be, frankly, that would be perfect for them. 

Senator BROWN. Talk a little more directly on infrastructure 

spending, on broadband and other ways. If the Federal Government is going to spend X-number of dollars on a stimulus package 

and part of it was infrastructure, that would mean X-number of 

dollars for Eastern Ohio. Where would that best be spent to create 

jobs immediately and create jobs longer term? 

Mr. EADON. Well, certainly broadband is critical. The area of the 

State that you come from, you have got enormous resources for 

broadband compared to many rural areas. We are fortunate in 

Tuscarawas County to be close enough to the super-computer network that we have broadband [inaudible] in Philadelphia and in 

Dover that is not just broadband, it is tremendous broadband. It 

is, in fact, the fastest, broadest connection that exists currently. 

But there are many others. As I drove from Tuscarawas County 

to Jefferson County today, most of the areas that I passed don’t 

12 

have that same capability. So to put rural Ohio on the same basis 

as the other more urban areas of Ohio, broadband is critical to be 

able to support businesses like advanced energy businesses, advanced manufacturing businesses, information technology businesses, computer animation, advanced gaming businesses. All of 

those are going to need significant resources of broadband. 

So you are exactly right, and I understand the farm bill addresses some of those issues for the rural U.S., and hopefully we will 

grab some of those dollars for rural Ohio. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Shaffer, do you live on Mount Victory yourself? 

Mr. SHAFFER. I do not live there any longer. I lived there 18 

years and I moved from there to another—— 

Senator BROWN. Most people who live there have been there for 

generations? 

Mr. SHAFFER. Yes, family farms. Their kids want to build houses 

on their farms. 

Senator BROWN. Are most of the 152 families farmers? Or do 

they produce some of their—— 

Mr. SHAFFER. Probably half that or somewhere in that—— 

Senator BROWN. Full-time farmers? 

Mr. SHAFFER. Not full time. Most of our farmers in our area are 

farmers and they have other jobs. 

Senator BROWN. That pays for their health care and—— 

Mr. SHAFFER. Right. They have to go elsewhere to get it, and it 

is mostly part-time. 

Senator BROWN. Do most of the 152 families have some farming 

operation, either a few beef cattle or some chickens—— 

Mr. SHAFFER. Right—— 

Senator BROWN [continuing]. Or big gardens—— 

Mr. SHAFFER. Or some form of livestock, if you understand what 

I am saying. 

Senator BROWN. I assume it has been figured what this would 

cost to bring water to these 152 families. 

Mr. SHAFFER. This figure is down to somewhere around $2.5 million, I believe, at this point. I could be—give me a little bit of leeway there, but it is close to $2.5 million, I think. They have done 

some downsizing on some of the project and tried to adjust it a little more. 

Senator BROWN. What are local residents doing to try to change 

this? I want them to have a very aggressive Township Trustee, but 

what else are they doing? 

Mr. SHAFFER. As far as—— 

Senator BROWN. Just in organizing and—— 

Mr. SHAFFER. We have organized committee. I spent 10 years 

with commission meetings, attending every meeting. We have a 

group down there that goes out into the community and talks to 

the people and tries to communicate with them, you know, what is 

happening. Is that the direction you are going? 

Senator BROWN. Yes. 

Mr. SHAFFER. Yes. We have just the group of individuals. That 

is how we started this. Two of us started this. We got a petition 

together, and we go out and talk to our political officials. I have 

knocked on doors to help people get elected to try to—— 

13 

Senator BROWN. And you have been doing this for 10 years? 

Mr. SHAFFER. Ten years, yes, so I am still working on it, and I 

have had to work on it—I promised—I had two older ladies come 

to me. We were promised water. This is what they told me. They 

said, ‘‘We were promised water 40 years ago.’’ Well, funding ran 

out in the 1980’s, I believe it was. They looked at me and said, 

‘‘Frank, you can get us water. I know you can.’’ How you think I 

can get you water, I have no clue. That is what I told them. But 

I looked at it. I felt bad. I said, fine, I will take it on and we will 

see. I got another person. We went through the petition, drove people over. I have done everything. I have sent letters to different political officials, didn’t get the good response I needed. I helped campaign for others. Whatever it takes to get this job done, I promised 

these people I would do it, and if it takes me the rest of my life, 

I am going to get these people water and that is it. 

Senator BROWN. Are there other places in Belmont County that 

don’t have access to water? 

Mr. SHAFFER. There are very few. This is probably the last major 

section. There is one in the western end. They are looking at putting a tri-county deal together on that, up in the Piedmont Lake 

area. There are actually two big sections in Belmont County. 

Senator BROWN. When you talk to the county commissioners, 

what do they say about—well, first of all, what do they say generally when you—— 

Mr. SHAFFER. They are willing to do this project. They were willing—we were fine. We have an infrastructure fund that is based— 

and they were willing to go forth with the whole project. Then the 

floods came and devastated and we needed up-front cash for FEMA 

and other projects to get these—to recuperate from the flood, basically. Now, there is no money. It has depleted our infrastructure 

fund. They are willing to come up with their share, and up until 

this point, we have paid for all this, all the water projects. Now, 

we are finally having to come to the Federal Government and ask, 

or the State, whoever would be glad to help us, is where we are 

at. 

Senator BROWN. Do you have an estimate on, when you cost this out to this point, you cost this $2.5 million project out, have you 

figured an estimate on what people would pay for their water and 

sewer if they had this system built? 

Mr. SHAFFER. This would be water. There would be no sewage 

coming through there. 

Senator BROWN. Just water, okay; so—— 

Mr. SHAFFER. This would just be water, and we are probably 

looking at somewhere around the $40 to $50—— 

Senator BROWN. A month. 

Mr. SHAFFER [continuing]. A month, which is probably in the 

neighborhood of—they are probably paying more for this when they 

have to haul their water. 

Senator BROWN. That is not an additional cost growing for 

them—— 

Mr. SHAFFER. Right. It is not an additional cost for them. They 

may be paying—some people are probably paying more for your 

water. Once you have to purchase bottled water, haul water, you 

have got to pay for that water and you have got to haul it in your 

14 

truck. You have got wear and tear on your vehicle, because these 

are all dirt roads, back country roads. 

Senator BROWN. Are these 150 families mostly pretty elderly or 

not? 

Mr. SHAFFER. Some are, some aren’t. Some have inherited their 

family farms. 

Senator BROWN. What is the size of these family farms, 50 acres? 

A hundred acres? 

Mr. SHAFFER. Ranging probably from 50 to 100 acres, depending 

on the farm. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you. One other question. You mentioned 

fire. Have there been major problems with fire there? 

Mr. SHAFFER. There have been fires, and it is a total loss to the 

house. 

Senator BROWN. So if a house catches on fire, there is no way 

the township fire department gets out there fast enough—— 

Mr. SHAFFER. They can get there. There is no place to pump the 

water from. Unless you can get possibly there are a couple ponds 

there, if they go to pumping ponds, or you bring in buffaloes where 

you have those tanker trucks that drive all the miles to get there. 

Senator BROWN. There is no fire department tanker truck near 

enough to help in time? 

Mr. SHAFFER. Not in time. There is no way that you can get a 

house without—some people have put in and use their cisterns and 

they have actually pumped the water from their cisterns to put the 

fire out, if they are capable. If you are lucky and it has been a 

rainy season and you have got some water in your cistern, you 

might be able to get some water from your cistern, but that is 

1,500 gallons. How long will that last in the fire? At the most, it 

isn’t a large house. 

Senator BROWN. Let me ask you a question, the last question, 

and I will ask the same question to each of you. I will start with 

you, Mr. Eadon, and then Mr. DiPietro and Shaffer, you have time 

to think about it, too. If out of this hearing came one thing that 

the Federal Government could do to improve the lives of people in 

Eastern Ohio, what should it be? It is a hard question. Sorry. 

Mr. EADON. I can’t pass for another question? 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BROWN. That is the only question. 

Mr. EADON. I think probably the key thing would be to put dollars or make dollars available to regional efforts and let the folks 

that are living there every day figure out exactly how those dollars 

should be put to use to the best effect to create jobs and opportunities for our regions. Just an example would be infrastructure that 

the Columbus District Court order, which just recently opened up 

another section, which is a good thing for the State of Ohio for 

their foresight there, that when this order would open up a tremendous area that was not currently open to economic development because there is no infrastructure there. We need the dollars, and put 

those dollars in the region and we will figure out how to spend 

them correctly. 

Senator BROWN. Mr. Shaffer? I know what your answer might 

be. 

15 

Mr. SHAFFER. It is going to be simply a two-part answer. I think 

there needs to be some money set aside and readily available for 

families that are in desperate need of water, sewage, that you can 

come up front. But you also need to set up a separate fund in order 

to bring in infrastructure, in order to bring in jobs into the area, 

because some of our, in my opinion, as far as jobs go in Belmont 

County and this local area, is the fact that there is no infrastructure available. Whether that means water, sewage, roads, bridges, 

you know, broad band, or whatever, there needs to be a separate 

fund set up for that. And you need to get that money here first. 

Right now, I believe that the money for infrastructure is set up 

if you have got the business to come in. We need to set the environment up in order to attract that business into this area. 

Senator BROWN. Those are good answers. 

Mr. DiPietro. 

Mr. DIPIETRO. They have touched on the areas, jobs, education, 

and the infrastructure. If the government could help to entice companies to come into our area, it would be a big boon. Naturally, you 

need the infrastructure to bring the companies here, which we currently don’t have. Jefferson County is lacking. There is talk of improvements, but there are two bridges that connect with West Virginia that are going to come down and be closed and that is going 

to hurt the area. Naturally, you need to put money into education. 

That is the key to the future. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you, all three of you. You did very well. 

Thank you all, and thanks for being here. Certainly feel free to 

stay if you would like for the second panel. We will have a short 

break between the two panels, and if you have anything else you 

want to add, submit it. Call Joe Schultz in our office or Jean Wilson in the back here. 

Joe told me, because they need the audio transcript, to make 

sure you speak directly into the microphones. I probably should 

have said that at the beginning here. I am sorry. But I think you 

all spoke clearly enough that it is recorded well and we are counting on you to make sure that it was recorded well, right? So thank 

you. 

[Applause.] 

Senator BROWN. On our second panel, we have Charles Fluharty, 

Director of the Rural Policy Research Institute in Columbia, Missouri. He is based out of the Harry Truman School of Public Affairs 

at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He was born right here in 

Steubenville, still has family here, so thank you for coming back. 

Gary Ricer is CEO of Guernsey, Monroe, and Noble Tri-County 

Community Action Corporation. It is located in—is your office located in Caldwell? 

Mr. RICER. Based in Caldwell. 

Senator BROWN. It is based in Caldwell in Noble County. It is 

nonprofit committee to reducing poverty in the Tri-county area. 

And Debra Martin is Director of the Great Lakes Rural Community Assistance Program located in Fremont. You had to leave early 

today, didn’t you? I know that drive. Ms. Martin’s organization assists low-income individuals in rural and other under-served areas. 

Mr. Fluharty, why don’t you start? Thank you. 

16 

STATEMENT OF CHARLES W. FLUHARTY, VICE PRESIDENT 

FOR POLICY PROGRAMS, RURAL POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE, TRUMAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, UNIVERSITY 

OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA 

Mr. FLUHARTY. Thank you, Senator. First of all, welcome to my 

home county. It is great to be back. 

Senator BROWN. Welcome back to my home State. 

Mr. FLUHARTY. Thank you. I will be here soon for good. 

I would like to start by commending Chairman Harkin and you 

for doing this hearing here in Steubenville. You honor us with this 

hearing and we thank you for that. 

Just an aside, relating to our prior panel, I just came back from 

Cyprus, got off the 767, flew into Columbus, got to the farm late 

last night, and do you know what the first thing I did was? I went 

on the back porch and checked the cistern to see if there was 

enough water to have a bath to come and be with you today, and 

that is indeed a true story. Since the strip mining came through 

our area, we have been without water on our farm ever since then, 

and so it is a rather ubiquitous problem. 

Senator BROWN. Where is your farm? 

Mr. FLUHARTY. In Smithfield. 

Senator BROWN. Pretty country. 

Mr. FLUHARTY. It is. Our farm has been in the family 150 years. 

We came to the valley over West Virginia in about 1780, and when 

my ancestors left Ireland, something bad had to have happened because you didn’t leave Ireland in 1780, but we have been in this 

valley forever and we appreciate you being here. 

I would like to also thank Dr. Meeks. In RUPRI, we work closely 

with the Rural Community College Alliance and I do believe our 

community colleges really are building an extension service for the 

knowledge age and I just think it is great that we are here. 

I would like to just say that it is 40 years since I graduated from 

the College of Steubenville, and in that 40 years, the indicators in 

our valley vis-a-vis the rest of Ohio have deteriorated, as you know. 

It is a challenge. 

As I said in my testimony, I would just like to say that I think 

we are entering into a public discussion about the relationship between the public and private sector in America, and I just hope, 

Senator, that your witness for the rural differential challenge in 

that will be carried forward. 

We are in a valley where extraction industries have been as the 

‘‘company store’’, be it mining, manufacturing, steel, and it is 

transitioning. Our rural conservative community banks have great 

assets. They have not gone the way of our major investment banks, 

hedge funds, and large banks because of their conservative nature 

and that is fantastic. But that same conservative dynamic is now 

going to mean boards and leaders in banks with capital that have 

been patient are going to be less willing to lend in the current crisis. It is going to really point to a need for leveraging and public 

sector investment to scale those and also to look at community 

foundations and equity capital. I think there are opportunities 

under your committee to do some of that. 

17 

I would just like to say three or four things. First of all, in my 

testimony, I talk about some ideas. I want to share those quickly 

with you and then close with some thoughts about the valley. 

First of all, we really are going to rethink regional scale. I think 

our valley now is uniquely positioned. We are going to build regional, distributed energy systems. We are going to build regional 

sewage systems. We are going to build regional transportation systems. Ohio is uniquely positioned between rural and urban, and we 

have a settlement pattern which advantages all of this. 

Second, if you look at CDBG and CSBG, it is very interesting. We have the potential to really think about changing that $500 per 

capita rural disadvantage, which I talk to your committee about all 

the time-Federal investments for urban versus rural. If we would 

think about a renewable Rural Development Community Block 

Grant—to look at distributed energy, distributed food systems, 

linking institutional buying programs with local farmers through 

distributed transportation, we could create a very interesting dynamic to advantage the micropolitan regional centers in Ohio. 

We have a chance in RCIP, the Rural Collaborative Investment 

Program, in the committee. Our chairman brought that forward 

with a billion dollar commitment, which unfortunately did not get 

funded. Every program we are going to talk about here today could 

be funded under that kind of an investment from the Federal Government. 

The other important thing is, there is a Community Development 

Revolving Loan Fund in there that is now authorized. We have 

huge equity in rural America. We are sitting on ninety percent of 

free capital in rural America. It has just not been able to be channeled into entrepreneurship and innovation. I would hope that in 

the future, we could think about this when we look at how we 

change institutional investments as we move forward. 

In my testimony, I talked about the EU advantages that currently our rural competitors in the European Union have that we 

don’t. It is not that they are better than we are. It is just that their 

Federal system positions them better than we, and there are two 

types of rural development. There is the broad rural development 

in the sectors, and in everything from health care to equity capital, 

we have to think about the rural differential disadvantage. But the 

key issue is the Rural Development Programs that you have statutory authority over. Hopefully, we can talk about what the EU does 

that we don’t do right now to really target those and prioritize 

them. 

I was honored this summer to take 25 of our nation’s CEOs from 

agricultural organizations to Europe for a two-week tour to look at 

what is going on in Europe that we aren’t doing to lift agriculture 

in rural America. At the end of that trip, Don Villwock, who is 

President of the Indiana Farm Bureau, in our final session asked 

an interesting question. He said, why is every rural town we have 

looked at in Europe so much better than my rural town? The reason is public sector-private sector linkage in ways that we aren’t 

currently doing in the United States. I think there are huge opportunities there in the future. I think a Senator that can champion 

this from an urban-rural State, such as Ohio, has a unique opportunity to advance this understanding. 

18 

I just commend you for coming here for this hearing and I look 

forward to the Q and A session. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Fluharty can be found on page 

37 in the appendix.] 

Senator BROWN. Thank you very much for your testimony. 

Mr. Ricer. 

STATEMENT OF GARY W. RICER, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, 

GUERNSEY, MONROE, AND NOBLE TRI-COUNTY COMMUNITY 

ACTION CORPORATION, CALDWELL, OHIO 

Mr. RICER. Thank you for this opportunity to address the panel. 

My name is Gary Ricer, CEO for Guernsey, Monroe, and Noble TriCounty Community Action Corporation. 

We currently implement close to 40 public service programs encompassing a 1,500 square mile radius. Our mission is to serve the 

impoverished, less fortunate of Appalachia Ohio and offer a hand 

up as opposed to a handout. Our services include but are not limited to workforce development and retraining, housing and weatherization, teen prevention services, operation of three senior citizens’ centers, seven Head Start schools, the Healthy Smiles dental 

clinic, home energy assistance programs, two broadband 

connectivity centers, and a myriad of other initiatives. 

In 2003, GMN Tri-County became the first and only Community 

Action in the Nation to receive a Federal High Speed Connectivity 

Grant. In 2007, we received our second Federal Broadband Grant. 

Funds provided by the USDA Rural Development were $383,284 in 

2003 for Woodsfield, the Monroe County seat, and $316,840 in 2007 

for Graysville, southern Monroe County. Funds provide for a twophase broadband initiative, first being the establishment of a 

broadband connectivity center, whereas higher learning is offered 

in a library-type setting. 

For the first time in the history of Monroe, students can receive 

a college accredited degree from an institution of higher learning 

without having to travel long distances. We further are pursuing 

collaboration with local government, whereas a common pleas court 

judge can arraign prisoners, alleviating exorbitant transportation 

costs and eliminating security threats to the general public. The 

possibilities of utilization of our federally funded broadband 

connectivity centers are endless. It has been a win-win situation 

met with overwhelming success by local government and the general public alike. 

The second piece of our Federal funds allow for the providing of 

high-speed internet to our subscribers through the strategic placement of a tower grid and repeater with back haul stations. The average cost is $29.95 per month, making broadband not only affordable, but leveling the playing field globally for conducting business 

from these rural remote locations. Due to the geographically rough, 

rugged, hilly terrain of Appalachia, most subscribers have no other 

opportunity to receive high-speed broadband. Critical end users, or 

CEUs, police, fire, EMS, et cetera, receive our service at no charge. 

From helping a student electronically research homework, to a 

grandmother swiftly receiving anticipated family pictures, to the 

rural business entrepreneur downloading critically important large 

files in record time, to an emergency squad paramedic researching 

19 

medical information when seconds count, rural America desperately needs broadband connectivity. Needless to say, our waiting list is long and impatient. 

In closing, in representing those we serve, I am respectfully requesting future funding be constant, far-reaching, and if at all possible, increased. One means this might be accomplished is shifting 

a mere 10 percent from the hundreds of millions in broadband loan 

programs, which in my opinion are underutilized, to broadband 

grant programs. This approach would serve tens of thousands more 

of your rural constituents in record time reaching measurable objectives without the time-consuming fight for increased appropriations. 

Our Federal Field Monitor, Ron Mellon, has referred to GMN 

Broadband as the poster child for rural broadband in America. We 

are successfully operating a broadband program that would normally cost several millions of dollars to build and maintain on a 

shoestring budget of a fraction of that. I have a full-time staff of 

only two who climb the towers, answer the phones, complete the 

billing, conduct free seminars, public presentations, install the radios, and so on. 

We have close to 400 square miles coverage area currently, have 

grown in subscribership by over 500 percent in 2 years, and have 

literally dozens on a waiting list, not to mention our constant battle 

with the peaks and valleys of Appalachia limiting our wireless penetration. We have repeaters in farmers’ fields on grain silos, water 

system storage tanks, and everything in between. 

To our Federal representatives, agencies, and its members, 

thanks so much for the vision to grasp the importance of 

broadband for rural America. Please continue to fight to provide 

Appalachians an on ramp to the information superhighway of the 

21st century. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ricer can be found on page 54 

in the appendix.] 

Senator BROWN. Thank you. 

Ms. Martin. 

STATEMENT OF DEBRA MARTIN, DIRECTOR, GREAT LAKES 

RURAL COMMUNITY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM, FREMONT, OHIO 

Ms. MARTIN. Well, thank you, Senator Brown, for the opportunity 

to be here today, and I would just like to say that we applaud the 

committee’s efforts to look at the current economic crisis in the context of how it affects rural America and to ensure that our small 

communities aren’t overlooked as you look for solutions to stimulate the economy. As you had mentioned, small communities frequently are overlooked and I think that in the current climate, that 

it would be very easy for that to happen. 

I work with the Great Lakes—I am the Director of the Great 

Lakes RCAP. RCAP is a program that nationwide provides assistance to small communities to help them deal with their water, 

wastewater, and other community development needs. In Ohio, we 

serve over 100 communities a year, including the project Mr. 

Shaffer was here to talk about, and most of the projects that you 

mentioned in your opening statement. So we do work all over the 

State. Unfortunately, the issues that Mr. Shaffer talked about are 

20 

not unique to his area but are a common thing that we see all over 

the State. 

You know, I know that we are facing a severe infrastructure, if 

not crisis, we are close to that in this country, and I think that as 

our cities’ infrastructure crumbles and as State and local revenues 

and budgets continue to shrink and revenues shrink and credit 

gets tighter, it gets very difficult for small communities to compete 

in that kind of environment. So one of the things I wanted to point 

out is that USDA Rural Development is one of the only programs 

that exist that is available exclusively to small rural communities. 

Unfortunately, if you look at what has happened with Rural Development’s funding over the last, well, since 2003, funding, whether it is for housing or the water and sewer programs, their business 

lending, community facilities, all that funding has decreased somewhere between 25 and 35 percent during that time period. And if 

you look at the administration’s proposed government 2009 budget, 

it is slashed from those already decreased levels. 

Another thing that has happened in that same time period is in 

2003, the grant funds as a percentage of the overall Rural Development allocation were at about 39 percent, speaking about the water 

and the sewer program now. The grant funds now are allocated at 

a percentage that is under 25 percent. Unfortunately, in the smaller communities, without the grant funds, it becomes very, very difficult to develop projects that are affordable. 

Most of the sewer systems that we are working with communities to develop today in rural areas, those are usually paying 

somewhere around $60 to $65 for sewer service. They are already 

paying usually in the neighborhood of $40 to $45 for water. If you 

look at EPA statistics, they estimate that users in rural areas are 

paying three to four times what their urban counterparts are paying for those same services. 

So I think it is really critical as we move forward that Rural Development’s funding be restored to a level that will allow them to 

help small communities. I mean, infrastructure forms the basis of 

any future development in terms of job creation and those kinds of 

things. I would hope that as an economic stimulus package is considered, that there will be some consideration given to setting aside 

part of those funds for infrastructure and specifically for infrastructure in rural areas. 

Statistics show that for every million dollars that is invested in 

infrastructure, 30,000 jobs are created. So not only do we have the 

opportunity to create jobs and stimulate the economy, but we have 

the opportunity to also make an investment in our future and to 

do so in a way that fixes another serious problem that our country 

is facing. 

So I just urge you that as you consider ways to stimulate the 

economy that infrastructure be a part of that equation, and I know 

it may seem counterintuitive to say we need to spend more money 

at a time when it appears that we are already spending a lot of 

money, but in fact, a number of leading economists in the last couple of weeks have come out and said exactly that, that this is not 

the time to worry about deficits or those kinds of things but this 

is the time that the Federal Government really needs to step up 

and get the economy moving. So I hope that you will consider infraVerDate Aug 31 2005 16:12 May 01, 2009 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\48538.TXT SAG2 PsN: SAG2
21 

structure and particularly infrastructure for small communities as 

one way of doing that. 

We thank you for the opportunity to talk about what is important to small communities. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Martin can be found on page 45 

in the appendix.] 

Senator BROWN. Thank you, Ms. Martin, and I think that most 

economists are saying that now about spending, including some 

conservative economists and conservative elected officials know 

that this is a time you don’t focus on balanced budgets. You focus 

on putting people to work. 

Mr. Fluharty, again, thank you for being here. I know it was not 

directly, so thank you. 

Mr. FLUHARTY. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, Senator. 

Senator BROWN. Thanks. 

Mr. FLUHARTY. Thank you for being here. 

Senator BROWN. Talk to me about the Farm Bureau guy from Indiana and his comments. Give us some more details about European rural areas. Is it partly transportation, their train system? Is 

it partly just more focus? What do they do? 

Mr. FLUHARTY. Much more than that, and I am honored to currently serve as a German Marshall Fund Transatlantic Fellow, so 

I realized after my fifth farm bill that we would never secure sufficient funding for Rural Development unless American agriculture 

believed it was in their best interest. I spent 10 years as an Ag association executive. My family has been in farming for 125 years. 

After this farm bill, it became clear to me that we are already rewriting the 2013 bill as Europe is rethinking their common Ag policy and moving forward to do one in 2013. 

I just want to commend you for being on the Ag Committee. It 

is absolutely critical that states like Ohio begin to weigh in on the 

urban impact of a dynamic rural economy. Ag producers in the 

United States secure 90 percent of their household income off the 

farm—90 percent. Both the EU and the US are moving away from 

farm maintenance. This is our last farm bill like the last one. But 

it is going to be critical that we retain these investments in this 

rural geography. 

I wish we had time to talk about the EU, because they have essentially been much smarter with public sector investments, and I 

took these 20 CEOs and presidents to Europe to show them how 

agriculture is supported in Europe at the same time rural economies are. And what you learn is three things. There is an integrated strategic planning and evaluative framework. You know, 

your work on the committee, there is no evaluation of your Rural 

Development Programs. We have a lot of programs. It is the vision 

we lack. Therefore, we don’t integrate Governor Strickland’s investment with the county’s investments, with the CDBG and CSBG 

grants, and with your R&D monies. In Europe, they do all that. 

Second, they target monies to prioritizations coming out of that. 

And as we think about what we will do in the future, we really do 

need to think about where agriculture moves. Those ladies and 

gentlemen came away from that realizing there is a different model 

that they need to consider. Those folks are going to stay together. 

22 

We are building a coalition of agriculture for rural development 

and these are the leading CEOs of all of our Ag groups. 

The real question is, why did we add a billion dollars in mandatory funding in the 2002 bill for the RSIP we worked on and that 

is all gone today? RUPRI has a cooperative agreement with USDA 

RD to help them. There is no doubt leveraging federal money helps. 

In B&I, we put $340 million in outlays out in the most recent year 

and we got $6 billion in return, and 137,000 jobs. 

The problem with moving fully to a market approach is there are 

market anomalies and there are market failures and there are 

areas that will never compete for that because they start out research and resource poor. In Europe, they divide that much better. 

Now, neither side of the coin has it right, but I would definitely 

argue we are going to have to think about greater grants commitments from the Federal Government, and it may come in a stimulus rather than in the R&D jurisdiction. If we simply go with 

leveraging, we will fully continue the suburban homogeny that is 

grabbing that and areas like rural Appalachia in Ohio will be disadvantaged. 

The RCIP program that was passed would allow everything you 

talked about today to be built regionally, to be locally flexible, to 

be leveraged, and it creates a community foundation IRP to create 

endowments to let rural wealth come in. There are models we could 

use. My concern very much is we are at 3 percent of our Ag bill 

in this country for rural America. It is at 17 in Europe and growing. Our competitors are not Columbus and Detroit, it is the rural 

regions of Europe that are competing with us and they are doing 

a much wiser job of investing public sector funds in disadvantaged 

areas. 

And I would love to visit further about that because there are 

things this committee has to do because you have the statutory jurisdiction, and I think a leader from Ohio who sees the urban-rural 

link in regional systems, I would like to ask you to be our champion for—— 

Senator BROWN. How is a rural area in Ohio competing with a 

rural area in Germany? 

Mr. FLUHARTY. We are a global economy. 

Senator BROWN. Is it vis-a-vis manufacturing or—— 

Mr. FLUHARTY. It is absolutely everything, and if you ask any of 

the businesses that these ladies and gentlemen are working with, 

they are thinking about global customers right now. You know, it 

is interesting and it is instructive. My father came back here. He 

was a reporter for AP in Columbus in the 1940’s. He came back to 

the valley in 1946 to help start the College of Steubenville, now 

Franciscan University. I think he spent his whole life there. It was 

really a community college then. 

These two institutions have meant a huge, a huge deal to this 

valley and I watched dad all through high school. He would come 

home every night and the mills are going, the mines are going, everything is fine. One of God’s graces is as we grow older, he exchanges our experience for a little wisdom. I said 1 day, Dad, why 

are you doing this for? And he said, ‘‘Someday, the mills and the 

mines will be gone.’’ The history of our valley is we extract what 

is richest and take it somewhere else and we don’t invest in our 

23 

people. I learned later that is because his father had three or four 

newspapers in West Virginia that he lost in the boon of the oil in 

the 1930’s and 1940’s. 

We need to realize 90 percent of the new jobs in our valley are 

going to come from entrepreneurship and innovation. I loved the 

earlier comment about cellulosic ethanol and natural resources. 

Here we sit with Columbus, Akron, Charleston, Pittsburgh in this 

wonderful area right here in the middle of it. We need to be thinking about human capital and social capital, like what JCC does, 

and building small businesses. 

Now, those small businesses don’t compete with Cleveland. They 

compete globally. And so thinking about how we link regional assets wherever they are so that an advanced manufacturing firm 

can sell in Japan, that is really our future and we are not doing 

it nearly as well. We lack integration in our rural development 

services for regions and we lack focus. Europe invests 6 percent of 

their money on community capacity technical assistance so that if 

someone wants to start something here, it is part of their program. 

As you asked, what is going on for that man who is going 

through a pension situation, a community college has to find him. 

There really are ways to think rethink how organizations like these 

that are doing really strong regional work can be given flexible dollars to do it more smartly. I am absolutely convinced we can do 

that. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you. Thanks again. 

Mr. Ricer, you mentioned that to move 10 percent—a 10 percent 

shift from loans to grants for broadband. Give me, if you would, 

sort of the three steps that we should follow that we can do together to extend broadband to this part of the State and to rural 

areas. What should the Federal Government be doing with Community Action Agencies and others to progress as fast as we 

should? 

Mr. RICER. Well, I think the beginning would be to increase funding, heighten education and awareness, two of the success stories 

and how rural communities, in particular Appalachia, have struggled, and then perhaps third being to leverage State and local dollars in any way, shape, or form. I know in order for our small agency to make this happen, we had—for instance, we needed a small 

match for some State project monies we were going for. We had the 

county commissioners come up with $2,500 in an impoverished, 

double-digit unemployment county and the present commissioner 

said, ‘‘If I have to sell cookies on the steps of the courthouse, we 

want broadband.’’ 

So I think the more that you look, I feel that infrastructure is 

the key. It is something that sometimes you don’t see immediate 

results. People, the general public, taxpayers are a little hesitant 

sometimes. They would rather see—and not that they are not important, but new affordable housing or new colleges or new schools 

or new industry. But the beginning starts with infrastructure. You 

don’t see it, but I agree with Mr. Shaffer, what he said earlier 

when they were talking about what businesses are you going to 

serve if we get water. What business do you have? Well, infrastructure, in his case water, would bring increased stimulus for businesses to come in. 

24 

But I think broadband is not only the new wave, it is here to 

stay. It is a necessity. It is a shock that some of the third-world 

countries—I was blown away by some of the other countries that 

are actually ahead of America, especially the rural pockets in some 

of these other areas as opposed to America and the rural areas. 

I think with anything, it starts with funding, and then 

leveraging that funding and squeezing. Get a dollar out of a dime. 

Squeeze it as far as you can and then show the measurable objectives to show that it is successful and then you will become more 

supportive. 

In our area, we are the only game in town, for the most part. The 

so-called big brother doesn’t want to come in, and when talking to 

some of these larger investors in AT&T or whatever, the lady told 

me, we have shareholders. Our shareholders won’t let us invest. 

Now, would you rather go to an area where you can serve 1,000 

in a month or 50 in a month in hookups? But with Community Action, we have boards of directors that are willing to take that risk 

of whatever corporate money we need to leverage with that. That 

is our mission. That is our purpose. 

Senator BROWN. You got $2,500 from Monroe. What did you get 

other places? How did you do? 

Mr. RICER. It depends. A lot of it is from in kind, for instance, 

we went on a lady’s property that was roughly—she probably had 

a $50,000–an-acre piece of ground in a really beautiful area, prime, 

ripe for development, and—— 

Senator BROWN. This was where? 

Mr. RICER. Graysville. This is our second Federal project. And we 

were able to secure this entire knob, one of the highest elevations 

in Monroe County, erect a 180–foot tower, which in a population 

that has 118 people in it—and, of course, we have got a 25–mile 

radius, range, with the Motorola canopies that we are using. But 

Mrs. Harman said, we put this 200–foot tower right in the middle 

of town on my property, on the highest point, I want my grandson 

to have this Internet. He loves these games and stuff. You give 

me—so the tradeoff was, we gave her free service forever, as long 

as GMN is there, she will never pay for high-speed wireless. She 

gave us a premium spot. We are going to have hundreds of customers. We have got 69 on the waiting list right now. 

Senator BROWN. Is broadband the most important single thing to 

keep young people in communities like that? 

Mr. RICER. Senator, I am not sure it is the most important, but 

I would think, especially today, it is in the top three. It is really 

critical. It is what keeps—you level the playing field. I mean, if you 

can operate a business and get an education in a rural area like 

this, in the old days, years ago, you had to go to the cities if you 

wanted certain things, certain types of education, certain types of 

incomes, and certain types of malls and so forth, where electronically and wirelessly now it may not be—they may not have a mall 

next to them if you are in Monroe County or Noble County, but you 

have the opportunity to create a business that can be very lucrative 

and very successful and stimulate the local economy and hire people from—like the saying says, if you want to sit at your roll-top 

desk in your pajamas, you can operate a very profitable business. 

Thank you. 

25 

Senator BROWN. Ms. Martin, how many [inaudible] roads are 

there around the State? 

Ms. MARTIN. Oh, you know, I can’t say what the exact number 

is, but I can tell you that they are everywhere. I mean, certainly 

the Southern Ohio area, anywhere you move away from the river, 

water becomes difficult to find, so all of the Southern Ohio, at least 

in areas that aren’t currently served by public water systems, you 

are going to find that same problem. 

On the sewer side, the problem literally is everywhere around 

the State. I mean, there are just countless areas that are being 

mandated by EPA to install sewers. We are working on a project 

right now right here in Jefferson County that there are issues, 

there have been issues for a number of years. The septic systems 

are failing, there is no question about that, because they overflow 

into the streets where kids are riding their bikes. But there just 

isn’t enough money. I mean, Rural Development has already offered $7.5 million to 

sewer the area and it still isn’t enough. You know, I mean, the 

choice for residents that live in that area is to either pay a $25,000 

assessment so that they can make their bill only $50 a month or 

to pay $145 or so a month in their monthly rate. So those types 

of projects are—you know, that is one. I could probably off the top 

of my head tell you ten more just like it. 

I know we work with about 100 communities or so every year, 

and I can tell you that we still have not, even though we have got 

ten people in the field working around the State, we actually have 

more people in Ohio working on the RCAP program than any State 

in the country because we have been very aggressive in trying to 

get funding to help small communities, and despite that, we still 

are not able to address the demand. We still have communities 

that are on a waiting list right now that need water or sewer that 

we just are not able to get to. So I don’t know exactly how many 

there are, but I know that it is too many for us to be able to address. 

Senator BROWN. Tell me a success story. Tell me one of the best 

success stories you can come up with to deal with what Mr. Shaffer 

is working so hard on. 

Ms. MARTIN. OK. Well, I will tell you one that I worked on personally, because I used to work in the field. There was a project 

very much like the one that he described, except that it was in 

Noble County, but same thing. People were hauling their water in 

the wintertime, having to go into the laundromats to get water. 

There just wasn’t any water available. All the things that he mentioned have brought back memories of that project, as he said, trying to ration water between the livestock and your kids and trying 

to figure out how you do that. 

So this was a project that they had been working on for about 

10 years, trying to get it done, just had not had any success. I 

think part of the problem was, you know, in small systems, the 

only way to really get a project done today, because of the expense, 

is to put together multiple sources of funding. So Rural Development alone, there just isn’t enough money there, so we have to look 

at Rural Development and CDBG and come to legislators for STAG 

grants [ph.] and look at just a number of funding sources to try to 

26 

make this thing feasible, and so that is what we were doing in that 

project, is trying to figure out how we put all these sources together. 

The biggest problem that a lot of communities run into is you get 

into this chicken or egg thing where nobody wants to be the first 

to commit their funds because they are not sure if the other funds 

will be there, and so they had sort of gone around in circles for 

about 10 years. And so we were able to step in and put together 

a package that we thought would be reasonable and then work 

with all the different agencies to say, you know, we need to try to 

make this come together at the same time. 

Ultimately, it did, and you don’t realize how much you take 

water for granted when you live in a city. But I remember as we 

had the ceremony to celebrate the fact that the water lines were 

going in, I remember one woman coming up and just hugging me. 

I had never seen her in my life and she came up and just hugged 

me and said, ‘‘You have no idea what this means to us.’’ Until you 

haul water—she said, ‘‘I have six kids, and until you haul laundry 

down the ridge in the middle of winter to try to get it to a laundromat or figure out how you are going to get enough water for 

your kids and your livestock at the same time in the summer,’’ she 

said, ‘‘you couldn’t possibly know what this means,’’ so—— 

Senator BROWN. The burden is greater on women than men, is 

that right? 

Ms. MARTIN. It probably is. 

Senator BROWN. There was a wonderful passage in a Robert Caro 

book many years ago. He had done a three-part biography of Lyndon Johnson, and in the first part for about ten pages early in the 

book he explained what life in the hill country was like in Texas 

before electrification, and it was especially difficult for women. It 

is hard on everybody, but especially difficult for women. 

But just to close, the last question I asked the first panel, give 

me—try to keep it to 2 minutes—if we could do one thing. I will 

start and just go left to right. If we could do one thing, the Federal 

Government could do one thing in the next year to answer the concerns that you have and your commitments to communities around 

this country and around this State, what would it be? Two minutes. 

Mr. FLUHARTY. First of all, understand it is not a rural problem, 

it is not an Appalachian problem, it is an American problem. Fiftythree percent of the rural people in Ohio live in metropolitan areas. 

So funding for Rural Development is important to them, but they 

are not able to access that right now. 

The rural-urban dependency is a great opportunity to assure that 

urban decisionmakers begin to commit to rural America. We know 

what to do. It is a matter of political will, Senator, and you know 

that. It made great sense to pass RCIP. We could not secure the 

funds. 

So I think the most critical thing you and your colleagues could 

do in this crisis is to continue to make the case that thinking about 

the small rural impacts of large sector programs must be part of 

our elected officials’ thinking. It scares me greatly that the rural 

differential that is going to be a huge challenge in every sector will 

be missed, and I just urge you as a champion for disadvantaged 

27 

folks everywhere to think about your role on the Ag Committee and 

begin to say rural and urban America are linked and need to think 

about one another. Thank you. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you. 

Mr. Ricer. 

Mr. RICER. I would say, again, to continue efforts in funding in 

rural America for infrastructure would be my wish or hope. When 

I feel you see the trend now and in the future, there are a lot of 

times we are seeing from the urban areas, they are coming into the 

rural areas for the cost of living. It is cheaper. The crime rate is 

lower. Areas are more sparsely populated. And I know if you look 

all the way up along the Ohio River, all the 29 counties of Appalachia, I feel that you see a lot of absentee landowners and you see, 

whereas years ago it may have been fourth and fifth generation agriculture, farming, mining, factories, you have got a lot of people 

coming in that perhaps have made their money somewhere else 

and are wanting to invest where they can leverage it and that is 

in rural America, or in our case, rural Appalachia in Southeastern 

Ohio and Eastern Ohio. 

So I think if the Federal Government will continue to invest in 

the rural areas, they will see tenfold the economic stimulus and 

growth in a short timeframe. I think it is the best bang for the 

buck. It is a wise use of the money. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you. 

Ms. Martin. 

Ms. MARTIN. Well, I would just echo what has already been said 

in terms of making an investment in infrastructure and particularly making an investment in rural areas. I think the need for a 

comprehensive rural policy, as you mentioned, is great, something 

we haven’t really had and something that definitely is needed. And 

I think that, as I said, I don’t think we are going to see any future 

development in rural areas, not just in water and sewer infrastructure but in all of our infrastructure. It is really something that is 

reaching crisis proportions in this country and not just in rural 

areas but in urban areas, as well. And so I would like to see increased infrastructure investment and just urge that we don’t leave 

out the smaller rural communities out of that equation as we move 

forward looking at that. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you. Thanks to all three of you. As I said 

to the first panel, if you have additional comments or written statements you would like to submit to the committee, you work 

through Joe Schultz or Jean Wilson, and I thank you all. Mr. 

Eadon, thank you for being here, and thank you very much, Mr. 

Shaffer, and Mr. DiPietro. I thank the three of you very much. 

The committee is adjourned, and I thank Jefferson Community 

College again and the mayor for joining us. The committee is adjourned. Thank you. 

[Applause.] 

[Whereupon, at 12 p.m., the committee was Adjourned] 

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