REMARKS AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY - SANDY K. BARUAH, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF COMMERCE FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT - EXCELLENCE IN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AWARDS PRESENTATION TO THE CITY OF PUEBLO, COLORADO - PUEBLO, COLORADO

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2006

AS PREPARED FOR DELIVERY

Introduced by James Munch, Assistant City Manager, City of Pueblo

Thank you, Jim, for that kind introduction. It’s a pleasure to be in the great city of Pueblo, Colorado today representing President George W. Bush.

It is my pleasure to be joined today by Congressman John Salazar. Congressman, I appreciate you welcoming me to your district and I applaud your commitment to public service. I would also like to recognize the representatives of Senator Allard and Senator Salazar who have joined us today. And of course, thank you to Mike Occhiato and the Pueblo City Council for hosting this event.

What we all know here today is that the City of Pueblo is a national leader in economic development. Soon a lot of other folks will know this because today I am proud to announce that the City of Pueblo is the winner of the Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration “Excellence in Economic Development Award” for 2006.

Each year, EDA bestows the “Excellence in Economic Development Award” on the best and brightest examples of economic development strategy and results. Award winners are selected by a distinguished and independent panel of economic development leaders, noted academics and government officials from across America. Believe me; the competition for these awards is intense as the bar for creative and innovative economic development initiatives gets raised every year.

Colorado, however, is special, as it received two EDA Excellence Awards in 2003, illustrating Colorado’s leadership in developing successful 21st Century economic development strategies. This is indeed an impressive accomplishment that everyone in Colorado can be proud of. This year, the winner of the Excellence Award for Economic Adjustment Strategies is right here in Pueblo.

Economic adjustment strategies are critical to helping states and local interests design and implement strategies to adjust or bring about change to an economy.

And that’s exactly what the City of Pueblo has done and is doing right here in Colorado.

Your focus on creating new employment opportunities and stabilizing and diversifying the economy after the profound downturn in the steel industry in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s allowed you to achieve significant results over the last 20 years. Since the early 1980’s, Pueblo’s unemployment rate has dropped from about 20% to under 7%, jobs have increased by 43%, and population has grown by 24%.

EDA is proud to be a longtime partner in this legacy, having invested more than $9 million in the Pueblo region since 1985. These investments have helped to:

• develop an economic dislocation adjustment strategy study in 1985;

• provide industrial infrastructure at Memorial Airport;

• construct a Business and Technology Center;

• help build Gateway Park as part of the Historic Arkansas Riverwalk project, and more.

Yours is a strategy from which other parts of the country can learn, and part of our job as the Federal agency charged with advancing economic development is to share successful strategies with economic development practitioners across the nation.

For this reason, we have shared the City of Pueblo story with the rest of the nation recently through EDA’s magazine, Economic Development America, which features an extensive profile of the City of Pueblo in our Summer issue.

Through this effort, thousands of economic development practitioners across the nation will learn of the success achieved in Pueblo, and of the award I have the honor of presenting today.

As we celebrate the success of the City of Pueblo, I think it’s worthwhile to remind ourselves of what we have achieved as a nation in the past few years:

• Last week, my colleagues in Washington announced that 51,000 new jobs were created in September, and about 2 million jobs in the last year. That’s over 6.6 million new American jobs since August 2003;

• The national unemployment rate dipped to 4.6%, which many economists say is essentially full employment, and is lower than where we were at the time of the 2001 terror attacks;

• Over the first half of this year, the U.S. economy grew at a 4% rate – faster than any other major industrialized country. Our growth rate is almost twice that of any E.U. nation and private sector forecasters expect solid levels of growth to continue for the rest of this year and into 2007.

• Real, inflation adjusted after tax incomes have increased about 15% since January 2001.

• More Americans own their own their own home than ever before – about 70% – which is a key economic driver.

• Inflation and interest rates remain in check and near historic lows.

• The Conference Board reports that consumer confidence is up as Americans are now paying less at the gasoline pump, and the L.A. Times reported recently that a majority of Americans believe that our economy is on the right track.

• And despite returning $880 billion to American taxpayers as part of President Bush’s tax cuts, tax revenues are up 11% in 2006 over last year and the Federal Government is collecting taxes at the highest level in history.

This is important not just for the nation, but for Colorado as well – because a growing national economy provides the folks here in Colorado a better opportunity to realize economic growth right here at home. It takes both smart national policies and smart local initiatives to ensure that the American dream reaches all parts of our great nation – and we are celebrating both here today.

Again, I would like to thank all of you for being here today at this important ceremony, and a special thanks to:

• John Zender, EDA’s Economic Development Representative for Colorado.

• Mary Katherine Alspach, Program Officer in our Denver Regional Office.

And now, the moment we’ve been waiting for, the presentation of the award.

Congressman Salazar will now join me in presenting the 2006 EDA Excellence in Economic Development Award for Economic Adjustment Strategies to Pueblo City Council President Mike Occhiato.

It is now my distinct pleasure to present on behalf of President George W. Bush the 2006 EDA Excellence in Economic Development Award for Economic Adjustment Strategies to the City of Pueblo.

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