Southeast Crescent Regional Commission

The Southeast Crescent Regional Commission (SCRC) is one of seven federal regional commissions and authorities authorized by the United States Congress to address instances of major economic distress in certain defined socioeconomic regions.

Origins

The SCRC was created by the 2008 U.S. Farm Bill, which also created the Northern Border Regional Commission (NBRC) and the Southwest Border Regional Commission. All three commissions share common authorizing language modeled after the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC). The SCRC received regular appropriations of $250,000 annually from FY2010 through FY2020 but did not form during that time due to the absence of an appointed federal co-chair.

On December 8, 2021, the U.S. Senate confirmed the SCRC’s first federal co-chairperson, Jennifer Clyburn Reed, thereby allowing the SCRC to convene and begin other activities.

Legislative history

The SCRC concept was first introduced by university researchers working on rural development issues in 1990 at Tuskegee University’s Annual Professional Agricultural Worker’s Conference for 1862 and 1890 Land-Grant Universities.

In 1994, the Southern Rural Development Commission Act was introduced in the United States House Committee on Agriculture, which would provide the statutory basis for a “Southern Black Belt Commission.” While the concept was not reintroduced in Congress until the 2000s, various nongovernmental initiatives sustained discussion and interest in the concept in the intervening period. Supportive legislation was reintroduced in 2002, which touched off other accompanying legislative efforts until the SCRC was authorized in 2008.

Governance

In August 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden nominated Jennifer Clyburn Reed as Federal Co-Chair of the Southeast Crescent Regional Commission. The U.S. Senate confirmed her appointment on December 9, 2021.