Indiana’s 9th District is the most scenic and beautiful of all of Indiana’s Congressional districts. Its boundaries stretch from Monroe County in the northwest over to Dearborn County in the northeast down to Switzerland County and all along the Ohio River to Spencer County, just shy of Evansville in the west. In addition to its historic river cities such as Madison and New Albany, it is home to Brown County State Park, Yellowwood State Forest, Lake Monroe, Hoosier National Park and the resort communities of West Baden Springs and French Lick.
Though primarily rural, the 9th District is in close proximity to major metropolitan centers such as Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Louisville and Evansville. Our district is an oasis of natural beauty and natural resources in the midst of the urban sprawl and pollution of our larger neighbors.
Unfortunately our district is also home to some of the poorest counties in Indiana with some of the highest rates of unemployment. As a result of long commute times and inadequate public transportation many of our citizens, particularly the elderly, are cut off from the cultural and economic life that surrounds them.
Just think what our communities would be like if we were linked by high speed rail such as that which exists in Europe and Japan. I believe with such a transportation system we could attract more visitors and spawn more jobs. This would also open new opportunities for local residents by increasing their access to employment and commerce outside the district.
We should be designing our communities to be fun and vibrant places were people can walk to work and shop close to home. We should be building greenways and hiking trails. We should be encouraging people to ride bicycles as a number of European cities, such as Copenhagen, have done. It’s time that more of us turn off the ignition, got out of our cars and took a stroll for change.
We can learn from the mistakes of places like Indianapolis, with its endless miles of suburban sprawl and “freeways” choked with traffic. We should be designing our communities to be fun places to live and work which are hospitable to pedestrians especially children, the elderly and pets.
Agriculture is a major component of our district. Our district produces diverse products from corn and soybeans to tobacco and grapes. Indiana isn’t often thought of as a wine producing state, but it is. Our state is home to over thirty-six wineries, many of which are located in the 9th District as are the vineyards along the Ohio River used in producing these wines. This is the sort of commercial activity that we should be nurturing by promoting policies that assist small businesses and family farms.
We should encourage sustainable agricultural practices that avoid the use of dangerous pesticides and chemical fertilizers, which over time deplete our soil and poison our water. To assist struggling family farmers the government should offer low interest loans to finance the purchase of needed equipment and to provide subsidies to help them through hard times. During good times, to maintain price levels for farmers, surplus grains should be set aside for the government and thus could be used, to help subsidize school lunch programs for our children and starving populations around the globe.
We have been misled into believing that preserving the environment is bad for economy. I believe nothing could be further from the truth. Our district derives much of its economic vitality from tourism. Each year tens of thousands of tourists flock to our parks, our lakes, our hotels and restaurants and to shop in our scenic communities. If we don’t control development and preserve the beauty around us we could lose this business. What is good for the environment can be good for the bottom line, if done right.
I believe we can even make things better, the only thing missing – the kind of visionary leadership, which I intend to provide by bringing together the business community, farmers, academics and environmentalists to make the 9th District a place where we all can prosper and be proud of. We can no longer hide our heads in the sand and pretend that global warming is not a reality. We can confront this head-on by transitioning to the use of safe, clean renewable energy sources, such as hydroelectric, solar and wind. We must also insist that we change café standards in Congress – all of our cars need to be fuel-efficient. By addressing these issues, we at the same time take care of another critical issue that faces our nation: our addiction to oil.
If we, our children, and future generations are to maintain a high standard of living and quality of life, we must be good stewards of the earth. We are surrounded by immense wealth and yet even the wealthiest amongst us live in relative poverty because we are so busy trying to earn a buck that we don’t see the real wealth around us. It is staring us in the eye. It is in the soil, the trees, the water the air and in all the wonderful creatures that inhabit this blue orb of ours.
