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Show Medium Asks $809 Mill ion for Roads n Four Corners Area to Spur Growth ,, t.itomeut before Public WoiU l- K:1,i'h t!k Federal Go-l',-.,". of tho Four Gor-kumi.iI Gor-kumi.iI Gommissioii. i '' ,Vt'd 1'imis regional ,r''i;i,,;,.,r;,,ii and funding sVk.I.iW for roads. v.v.'r the ,u'w ',M1 -N V',,' eloped '' thl L,.,,;,si'n. MW miles I c'i priority roads w ill J hii'.t in t!l '.'--ooun-y f.;,,,:-.l area. ,, ,vpMlse to rt o.ues- t, Medium suggested 1-7 when the roads !r ilin-i'iunU'tU otao ,7;: on Ktvlor;it lauds , i0 " 'rder:l Government ' ,M p:iy of tlio costs. ' FcVv:il contribution , on Federal lands j (.'ij be at : level at Vs7t M'.ial t0 Federal Jp'ser.t on primary and secondary roads. The Son-ate Son-ate Public Works Committee Commit-tee is exploring all aspects of the national highway prog ram. In bis statement. Ghair-man Ghair-man Mechani said that tho special road authorization for the Four Corners Region Re-gion is fully warrauteil by several faetors: 1. There is a jrioat reo-nomic reo-nomic need, for the KrKi,m la.es badly behind the nation na-tion as a whole. (Ivor r0 per cent of tho Ken ion's counties have lost population popula-tion in tho P.H'.O's and ." per cent have barely held their own. Per capita income in-come in the Pour Corners Region was fTTS lower than than the United States Sta-tes avera.co in lPt'-T. liy l'.'To the per capita income jrap will increase to l.r.C.fi unless present trends nr reversed. The Committee has rooOi,'ui.-.ed the Region's Re-gion's problems and opportunities op-portunities by virtually creating and then extending extend-ing the life of tho Com-missio Com-missio n. 2. The Senate Committee has urged us to move from planning- to action; this we have now done in highway high-way t ransportal ion. Again complying with tho Committee directive to pattern our efforts after af-ter tho Appalachian Commission, Com-mission, we have determined determ-ined that, just as with Ap-palachia, Ap-palachia, bettor highways are a must if we are to achieve the critically needed need-ed economic development in our region. We now seek a special authorization authoriza-tion as did the Appalachian Appala-chian Commission. Appa-lachia Appa-lachia has had a highway program of $1.1 billion and lias received f muling thus far of almost $.rt!." million. Medium noted that the Pour Corners area ar-ea is 50 per cent larger than the la-state Appala-chia Appala-chia area. 1. The Federal Government Govern-ment has a unique responsibility respon-sibility in our region since it owns 0 per cent of the land area. Those lands are off the tax rolls, pose n great burden to our local governments, and contribute contrib-ute Utile to economic development. de-velopment. These conclusions conclus-ions have been fully verified veri-fied by the recently is- sued report from the Public Pub-lic Land Law Review Commission Com-mission which found that in nearly all cases Fcdor-al Fcdor-al lands are a not economic econ-omic bunion to tho affect oil areas. This Is particularly particu-larly true in Four Corners Cor-ners where vast tracts of public lands must bo traversed tra-versed at great cost in building roads. f. President Nixon in his Stale of the Union nd-'dress nd-'dress called for "balanced "balanc-ed national growth" and we are anxious to do our part by providing jobs, with growing cities and now towns. We can't do it without good roads and we don't have the resources resour-ces to meet even our most critical needs. Chairman Medium also fully endorsed the Golden Circle road system which would link the many national na-tional parks, monuments, recreation areas, and forest for-est areas in the traditional tradition-al Four Corners area where the states join. Almost Al-most the entire Golden Circle system is included in the Four Corners plan. |