By Kevin McCarty
January 31, 2011

Senator Mark Begich (AK) joined with mayors at the 79th Winter Meeting, using his remarks to affirm his support for key mayoral priorities and to urge mayors to "invest your time and efforts to educate Members of Congress."

Speaking during the January 20 luncheon session, Begich told the mayors to assume "…you have to educate them [members of Congress] from the ground up." He assured the mayors that they have great capacity to present issues and explain why these priorities are "about what is right for your community, for your city, for your county, for your state and for your country."

In his remarks, Begich also discussed his new role as Chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus' Steering and Outreach Committee, pledging to continue to do his part to educate his Senate colleagues on the priorities of the nation's mayors.

In discussing economic conditions, he said, "The fundamentals today are better than they were two years ago. It is better, but we still have a lot of work to do. Our number one priority is job creation, and ensuring that the tools are available to those of you on the front line as mayors and for the private sector to create jobs."

Begich touted the benefits of timely Congressional action on a new transportation bill, stating, "There is no better job, stimulus and recovery bill. We have to fund this thing and put it to work for cities and communities all across America."

Noting that the debate is not just about money, he urged mayors to work with him on provisions to streamline federal procedures to make it possible for mayors to "save money and time in delivering projects."

"There is no better federal program to leverage federal resources than CDBG," Begich told his former colleagues. "The leveraging factor with your non-profits and other projects you are doing is unbelievable."

Recounting his tenure as Mayor of Anchorage and his work at that time with the Conference of Mayors to preserve Community Development Block Grant funding (CDBG), he said, "This year is going to be tough. A group in the House has proposed $2 trillion plus in reductions in discretionary funding. CDBG is considered discretionary spending so that means it is at risk once again. But there is no better program, and I would spend the time in educating new members on the value of this from a very localized perspective."

In comments on the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant Program, Begich said, "This is a fantastic program. In Anchorage, we did the largest single project before people started doing it and that was converting our city lights to LED lights, saving hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars every single year because of the project." He explained how the energy block grant dollars were used to leverage other city, state and private sector dollars to get this project done.