Since coming to Congress in 1993, Terry Everett has systematically brought southeast Alabama a strong and effective voice on Capitol Hill.  His seniority and experience in championing the values and strengthening the economic backbone of Alabama’s Second Congressional District are assets that would take many years to replace.

 

Congressman Everett is a leader on Capitol Hill where his advice is routinely sought by his fellow members when considering issues of national security, intelligence, agriculture and veterans.  Out of 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, he is one of only nine congressmen to serve on four major committees.  As one of the busiest members of Congress, Terry Everett chairs the Armed Services subcommittee on Strategic Forces and is a senior member of the Intelligence, Agriculture, and Veterans’ Affairs committees. 

 

 

In 1995, Everett – who had only one term under his belt – was called upon to chair a subcommittee on the House Committee on Veterans Affairs.  Everett quickly made his mark by rooting out waste and inefficiency within the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs and also exposed patient neglect in our nation’s VA hospitals, including in Alabama.

 

 In 1997, Congressman Everett gained national attention for exposing a Clinton Administration scandal in which coveted Arlington National Cemetery burial waivers were granted to Clinton political cronies without qualifying military records.  His efforts led to the disinterment of the remains of Larry Lawrence, a former U.S. ambassador to Switzerland who had fabricated his military service record.  As a result of his standing up to protect the sanctity of Arlington National Cemetery as a final resting place for America’s war heroes, Everett was praised by grateful veterans throughout the United States and House Republicans recognized him with an Outstanding Achievement Award in Legislative Oversight.

 

 

In 2002, Congressman Everett was a major player in shaping the Farm Bill, affecting the nation’s and southeast Alabama’s agriculture industry.   As chairman of the House Agriculture subcommittee on Specialty Crops, Everett specifically led the effort to restructure the federal peanut program which faced possible elimination, protecting the vital southeast Alabama peanut industry from devastating foreign competition.  Thanks to these reforms championed by Everett, peanut farming, which has over a half billion dollar impact in Alabama, is thriving.

 

 

Congressman Everett, himself a Cold War Air Force veteran, has used his military experience to benefit southeast Alabama’s heavy reliance on defense jobs.  In his first year in the House, Everett earned a seat on the House Armed Services Committee and has risen steadily in seniority to chair the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces – a new Armed Services subcommittee created in 2002 with oversight responsibility of $60 billion in defense programs.

 

As chair of Strategic Forces, Everett oversees our nation’s military intelligence programs, military space, missile defense, and nuclear weapons programs.  His subcommittee work has an impact on jobs at Pike County’s Lockheed Martin missile assembly plant as well as in space control doctrine developed at the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery.

 

In Washington, Congressman Everett is a frequently-requested speaker on issues of national defense.  Over the last two years, he has spoken to over 2,000 attendees at conferences ranging from military space and missile defense to military unmanned aerial vehicles.

 

Since 1993, Congressman Everett has fought year after year for new military construction at Maxwell-Gunter Air Force Base and at the U.S. Army Aviation Center at Fort Rucker.  He has helped secure $275 million for new “brick and mortar” projects at Maxwell-Gunter and $240 million for Fort Rucker.  Both southeast Alabama military installations have seen substantial modernization and improvement in base quality of life as a direct result of Everett’s hard work.

 

Maxwell’s landscape has been transformed with a 1,500-foot runway extension to handle all Air Force aircraft and new student dorms and educational facilities.  Fort Rucker has replaced over 300 World War II era wooden buildings, with state-of-the-art buildings that have received Pentagon attention as models for efficiency.  Congressman Everett has also cleared the way for nearly 1,500 new and refurbished base family housing units to substantially bolster living conditions for Fort Rucker military personnel.

 

Everett helped the Army dramatically improve pilot readiness by securing $1.2 billion to create Flight School XXI at Fort Rucker, enabling Army helicopter pilots to increase training in their “go-to-war” aircraft.   In addition to the preparation of 1,000 acres at Fort Rucker for new mission growth, Everett has successfully pushed for the establishment of the U.S. Army Unmanned Aerial Vehicle “Center of Excellence” at the Wiregrass Army base.  “UAV’s” are the future of war-fighting and Fort Rucker will shape Army tactics and doctrine.

 

Since Everett has been in Congress, the country has undergone three rounds of military base closures (1993, 1995, and 2005).  Maxwell-Gunter and Fort Rucker have withstood this scrutiny with Everett’s support.  In 2005, Congressman Everett helped coordinate efforts to protect some 3,000 jobs at Gunter that were targeted for relocation under the last BRAC round. 

 

 

Following the heinous attacks on our country on September 11, 2001, House Speaker Dennis Hastert turned to Congressman Everett for help in guiding Congressional oversight of our nation’s critical intelligence community.  Everett, who served as an intelligence analyst in the Air Force, has brought his personal background, and leadership on the House Armed Services Committee, to his seat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.  As such, Everett has participated in one congressional review of the federal government’s intelligence failures leading up to 9/11, and has advocated intelligence reform.  His service on the House Intelligence Committee is not only an asset to Alabama, but also to the nation.

 

 

While Alabama’s textile and apparel industry has since moved offshore due to Chinese competition, Congressman Everett has worked to bring new, better paying jobs to southeast Alabama to offset these losses.  In 2002, he traveled to South Korea to personally lobby for the location of Hyundai’s first North American auto manufacturing plant in Montgomery County and the many thousands of Hyundai supplier jobs that have followed it throughout central and southeast Alabama, including in Lowndes, Butler, Crenshaw, and Coffee counties.  Kia’s recent announcement to locate in West Georgia could mean work for many of these suppliers.

 

Everett has also set as his goal the expansion of the “Defense Aviation Corridor” which stretches from Tallassee and Montgomery through southeast Alabama to the Wiregrass.  He has fought for funding in the defense budget benefiting jobs at GKN Aerospace in Tallassee and Montgomery, Miltope in Montgomery, as well as Lockheed Martin in Pike County, Sikorsky Support Services in Troy, DRC in Brundidge, JKM in Eufaula, US Helicopter in Ozark, Pemco in Dothan, Flight Safety in Dothan and Daleville, and EJM Aerospace in Covington County, in addition to jobs and mission growth at Maxwell-Gunter and at Fort Rucker.

 

Congressman Everett’s work for southeast Alabama jobs has not been limited to his major committee assignments, however.  He has also been a tireless advocate for our local textile and apparel industry, having co-chaired a 1993 House Republican task force against the North American Free Trade Agreement and its exporting of American textile jobs.

 

 

In these critical times, southeast Alabama needs a representative in Washington who has the experience and leadership qualities to protect our interests and our future.  Southeast Alabamians want someone who is a hard worker with a track record of putting Alabama first.  Terry Everett is the man for this job.

Paid for by Terry Everett for Congress Committee