Unanimous Consent Request--S. 1874

Floor Speech

Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, I rise to ask unanimous consent of all of my colleagues. Before I explain the unanimous consent request, I will give a little bit of background to S. 1874, which Senator Snowe and I have worked on for some time because of our mutual interest in making the HUBZone process for rural economic development work better.

When this process occurs with each census, there is a 2-year nightmare of redtape before communities that should benefit from this economic development opportunity have the ability to do so. Across the country right now, we have rural communities that absolutely need to benefit from this most recent census. They have high unemployment rates. They are hit hard by the drop in exports. They are hit hard by the collapse of the housing communities. Sawmills have shut down. Paper mills have shut down.

So many folks come to this floor to talk about cutting redtape and talk about helping the economy in the heart of rural America. They come to this floor and they talk about how important economic development and jobs are. And this is a little fix that takes 1 year out of the bureaucracy. That is why Senator Snowe and I have worked together on this process.

Now, twice we have brought this forward, and twice it has been cleared by every Member of this body. Neither time did it make it into a bill that got to the President's desk. So we are coming back once more to say: Let common sense prevail to fix the entanglement in the bureaucracy that is taking away opportunities for rural America. Let's put an end to that today.

I will defer to my colleague to speak, and then we will ask for unanimous consent.

I yield to the Senator from Maine.

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