Robert C. Byrd: Child of the Appalachian Coalfields

23. BUILDING A 21st CENTURY WEST VIRGINIA

Chapter 23 z BUILDING A Twenty-first CENTURY West Virginia I n October 1993, a Florida newspaper—the Orlando Sentinel—published an article by J. Craig Crawford, that identified the “heavy hitters” and the “weak hitters” in Congress. The Sentinel had studied more than sixteen thousand bills, resolutions, and amendments filed since 1990, and then it had measured each legislator’s skill, as was done in baseball, by looking at successful “hits” (legislation passed or made part of other laws that passed) as a percentage of “at bats” (legislation introduced). Interestingly enough, the weakest hitter in the U.S. Senate, according to the Sentinel, was Florida Republican Connie Mack, the grandson of the legendary owner and manager of the former Philadelphia Athletics. According to the article, Mack batted .172, the lowest average in the Senate, he having succeeded in securing the passage of only fifty-eight bills, amendments, or resolutions introduced. “I guess that wouldn’t get me very far in the major leagues,” said Mack, a first term Republican, who blamed his poor showing on Democratic control of the Senate. According to the Sentinel:“Senator Robert Byrd of WestVirginia is Capitol Hill’s hottest hitter. And others who are often thought of as superstars don’t have the numbers to back them up, a study of legislators’ prowess shows.” Said the article, “Byrd led the field of those who introduced ten or more proposed laws with a staggering .859 percent batting average.” The “average” means that 570 chapter 23 “Byrd—Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee—won passage of four-fifths of the legislation he has introduced since 1990.” The newspaper went on to say that the least effective legislators in Congress“are among its best known. They are regulars on television’s political talk shows and C-Span’s continuous cable-TV coverage of House and Senate Floor action.” Ranking number two, however, was George Mitchell, the Senate majority leader, and ranking number twenty was Bob Dole, the Senate minority leader. The 1994 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill contained language inserted by Congressman Rahall and myself that essentially prohibited the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from pursuing the ill-conceived Corps reorganization plan. Rahall and I provided that the Corps would leave the current functions of the Huntington District Office intact through the next fiscal year. The Corps’ plan was dead, dead, dead!  Completes Corridor L (U.S. 19)  On October 27, the Senate approved an appropriations bill containing the final chunk of federal funding that I had added for the completion of four-lane construction of Appalachian Corridor L.“The completed upgrading and fourlaning of this road will save lives,” I said, pointing out that the road was often traveled by tourists “who are unfamiliar with the widening and narrowing of the roadway,” and that “this is a dangerous combination that has resulted in a number of severe accidents, including fatal crashes.” Since the early 1980s, work on the Appalachian Corridors in West Virginia had been virtually grinding to a standstill, until I became chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee in 1989, at which time I began a vigorous infusion of funds into the building of the Corridors. I had poured a total of $329 million into Corridor G (U.S. 119) and $175 million into Corridor L (U.S. 19), making a grand total of $504 million for these two corridors alone, to say nothing of the more than $500 million I had added for the construction of Corridor H, Corridor D, Route 9, the Weirton bypass, and other West Virginia highways. This amount of money—more than $1 billion—which I had added in only five years to appropriations bills, was more than the State of West Virginia would have received otherwise in federal funding under the existing rate of formula funding for corridor highways over the next 75 to 100 years! building a twenty-first-century west virginia 571  Adds $10 Billion to Fight Crime  Much of the talk about waging a war against crime was just that—talk, hot air! An effective program to reduce crime in America had to be multifaceted; it had to be waged internationally as well as on the streets and in the schools of America; it had to be directed against the“demand”side as well as the“supply” side of the drug menace; and it would cost much more than President Clinton...