Date: 1985-05-07
Speaker: DE LA GARZA (democrat)
Chamber: H

I thank the gen- provided technical assistance and longtleman for his contribution and concur term financing to rural electric and in his philosophy and thinking. and telephone systems throughout the how gratifying it is for me to tell the Nation. and thus has played a vital gentleman that that is exactly what role in bringing the rural areas of our we have been doing. that we have been Nation into the mainstream of modern working with our urban colleagues. life. The success of this effort is well As a matter of fact. It was trying to established by the fact that some 99 bring what the inner city had. or the percent of the Nations farms and urban area had. to rural America to ranches now have access to central make us equal. and not only with station electric service. Also attesting power and light but with the tele- to the quality and soundness of the phone. I not too long ago remember Federal investment in rural electrificasomeone telling me: "Why should not tion and telephone is the fact that of a grandmother in the last hollow in the mire than $20 billion in loans and the mountains in West Virginia not be loan guarantees made since the incepable to call her grandchild who lives in tion of the program. losses have been California? Why?" less than $50.000a peerless record by Well. through the REA we have anyones standard. Electric power enbrought the rural telephone to the courages industrial and economic demenu. to see that last pole out in that velopment in rural areas. and results last hollow in West Virginia. We have in a rural market of electrical applibrought thzt grandmother. as you see ances and ecuipm~nt estimated at the ads on the television. to talk to her more than $1 blion per year. grandaughter. A little hollow in West The REA loan p:ogram continues to Virginia has as much right to talk to a be a vital element in providing reliable grandaughter in California as someone electric service to rural areas at affordin New York City. or Atlanta. or a big able rates. Rural electric cooperatives town like Mission. TX. which is my are still operating in the areas which hometown. other utilities could not. or would not. serve. as was the case when the REA program was created nearly 50 years ago. Coops. by and large. serve thinly populated areas. They have built and maintain 50 percent of the Nations electric lines. but account for less than 10 percent of its total electricity sales. The average electric cooperatives revenue per mile of installed line is about 8 percent of that enjoyed by the average power company. and their consumer density is just 13 percent of the typical investorowned utility. At the same time. however. the coops investment per consumer is 162 percent of the investment of the power companies. Adding to these handicaps is the fact that the. growth in coop consumers demand for electricity has now fallen to between 2 percent and 4 percent per year. compared with 8 percent to 12 percent a decade ago. All of this. combined with enormously higher utility construction and operating costs. has -contributed to the difficult financial and economic conditions in which electric cooperatives now operate. And most of all. this is why the preservation of a stable and adequate REA lending program as the centerpiece of rural electric financing is so important to the future survival of rural electrification. Mr. Speaker. in my home State of Kansas. the first electric loan under the Rural Electrification Act was to the Cooperative Electric Power & Light Co. of Iola. The first rural electric cooperative in Kansas to energize. however. was the BrownAtchison Cooperative Association. headquartered in Holton. which is located in the Second Congressional District. Special ceremonies marking the energizing of 88 miles of line took place on April 1. 1938. The Kansas Electric Cooperatives. Inc.. was formed on August 18. 1941. Membership in this group has grown to include all 37 electric distribution cooperatives that served consumer/members in Kansas. Today. there are 35 distribution cooperatives in the membership of KEC. plus the two generation and transmission cooperatives. Sunflower EC and KepCo. In addition. REA loans to telephone borrowers in Kansas provide modern telephone service for an estimated 141.377 rural subscribers over 42.582 miles of line. When the REA telephone loan program was authorized by Congress in 1949. only 68.3 percent of the farms in Kansas had telephones. and much of this was obsolete service. Today. more than 96 percent of the States 74.000 farms. as well as many rural homes and businesses. have telephones. and a much greater proportion is modern dial service. The first REA telephone loan in the State of Kansas was approved on April 17. 1951. to the W.E.G. Telephone. Inc.. of the community of Gardner. Mr. Speaker. In closing let me just say that I believe the multitude of benefits and opportunities that the rural electric and telephone systems have provided to rural America. and. in particular. to northeast Kansas. cannot be overestimated. These programs have changed untold numbers of rural lives for the better. The many good men and women of the Rural Electrification Administration truly have been doing outstanding work over the past 50 years. and they deserve our thanks. commendations. and continued support. Mr. Speaker. I thank the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture for his leadership in this area. and I thank him for giving me the opportunity to participate In this program today.