Rep. Stefanik
U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik issued a statement supporting budget appropriation of the Northern Border Regional Commission, one of a handful of similar commissions that the Trump Administration is trying to remove.
The NBRC is a federal-state partnership for economic and community development within the most distressed counties of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York, the office's website says.
Senate and House negotiators are largely in bi-partisan agreement to keep funding for the commission. On the Senate side, they have raised the budget to $30 million "until expended" a Senate report says, and the House has kept funding at $25 million. The final details must be hammered out before the appropriations bills reach the president's desk.
“The Northern Border Regional Commission continues to promote economic development and job growth in our North Country communities, and it is crucial that the federal government continues to fully fund it,” Stefanik said in a statement last week, adding that the funding must remain in the wake of the pandemic.
Other house members in the northeast offered similar statements of support.
The Senate's version at $30 million is a $5 million increase over last year's budget and $29.15 million over the adminstration's proposal, which included just enough money to allow the commission to shut-down in an organized manner, according to a Senate fact sheet.
Also removed is a limit on the grant funding. Formerly, localities had to match the funds with 20% of their own, but now the federal money may make up 100% of the project total. One directive says that $4 million must address the decline in forest-based economies throughout the region.
The White House's proposed budget says the aim of removal is to restore control and leadership to states and localities. As well, the administration questions the overall purpose: "Finally, the commissions’ effectiveness at improving overall economic conditions in these areas remains unproven."
The funding in New York includes counties from the capital region to the Canadian border and north of I-90 in central and western New York, according to its website.
In 2019, the NBRC spent $500,000 on the Lake George Village waste-water treatment system, and in Washington County the office granted $500,000 to a sewer system, water separation and water line replacement project, the office says.
This year, the office funded $600,000 of a $1.5 million project along the Champlain Canal in Kingsbury and Fort Edward. The project is overseen by the the Warren-Washington County Industrial Development Agency.
The project aims to replace a bailey bridge, a bridge meant to last only another 10 or 12 years, near an old General Electric dewatering facility. The Industrial Development Agency will also use the funds to study a sewer system that would allow more businesses to operate on the large industrial site, said the agency's board chair Dave O'Brien.