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Brian Higgins was sworn into Congress and took office as a member of the 109th Congress, representing New York’s 27th Congressional District, on January 3, 2005.
Brian is the son of immigrant and first-generation American parents, and remains a proud lifelong resident of South Buffalo, New York. Brian’s father Dan worked as a skilled tradesman, labor leader, and later as a statewide appointed officer with the state’s Workers Compensation Board. His mother Mary worked as a schoolteacher at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Buffalo’s Old First Ward. Brian’s grandparents came to America from counties Mayo and Kerry in Ireland, and his paternal grandfather was the first in a long line of Higgins family bricklayers.
In 1987 Brian took his father’s old seat on the Buffalo Common Council and served three two-year terms. In 1993, during his final year on the Council, Brian was rated “Buffalo’s Best Lawmaker” in a Buffalo News Survey of Western New York business and community leaders. Brian was given top marks in fourteen of eighteen categories, with highest individual marks for “intelligence,” “honesty,” “hard work,” “effectiveness,” and “willingness to take politically unpopular stands.” While on the Council, Brian began the public policy work that he continues to this day – seeking more substantial economic development for Buffalo and Western New York, and improvements to transportation infrastructure that will enhance and improve residents’ access to Buffalo’s Lake Erie shoreline.
Brian received his undergraduate and graduate education at Buffalo State College, studying political science and history, respectively. In 1995, Brian was awarded the inaugural Western New York Harvard Graduate fellowship, and one year later earned a Master of Arts degree in Public Policy and Administration from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Later, Brian served as a lecturer in history and economics at Buffalo State College, instructing undergraduate students in courses on state and local government. Brian also taught courses on the economic history of Buffalo and Western New York.
In 1998, Brian became a member of the New York State Assembly for the 145th District, an office he held until his election to Congress in 2004. As a state lawmaker, Brian has continued his focus on economic development and job creation for Buffalo and Western New York, and in particular stepped-up his fight for more and better access to Buffalo’s waterfront as a means of achieving that goal. Seeing waterfront development as a critical element of this effort, Brian worked with governmental partners on the federal, state, and local levels – Democrats and Republicans alike – to secure nearly $20 million in funding for Buffalo’s Outer Harbor areas. These funds were used to revitalize lands controlled by the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority (NFTA), including the area commonly known as “Gallagher Beach.” Brian led the effort to create a new state park along the Outer Harbor on the beach site – a proposal endorsed by the Governor in 2002 and included in his 2003-2004 proposed state budget. The efforts that Brian made on these fronts have produced results after decades of stagnation. The Outer Harbor State Park in Buffalo will open to the public in 2006.
As a member of Congress, Brian has enhanced his efforts even further. As a freshman member of the House’s Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, in April, 2005, Brian hosted a tour of Buffalo’s waterfront for committee Ranking Member James Oberstar (D-MN), to highlight the critical infrastructure needs of Buffalo and Western New York. In the final version of the federal transportation bill adopted by Congress and signed by the President in 2005, Brian secured more than $42 million for critical transportation projects, funding that will not go for more master plans or consulting reports, but will instead go for design and construction of physical improvements throughout the 27th District – from north Buffalo to Jamestown, and to dozens of points in between.
Brian has recognized that for many years, economic development agencies (often referred to as “alphabet soup” in this region) too often have lost the forest for the trees, and have allowed squabbling over minor details to result in vital economic development opportunities to be squandered. These problems have been particularly apparent along Buffalo’s waterfront areas, where for too long the economic development progress of this great asset has been managed by bureaucrats in Albany, and not by local leaders who, in Brian’s words, “every day see, feel and experience the appalling lack of progress along Buffalo’s waterfront areas.”
That’s why in 2005 Brian called upon New York Governor George Pataki to support the establishment of a specific economic development corporation to manage the many and various development projects underway at Buffalo’s Inner and Outer Harbor areas, and soon after, the Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation (ECHDC) was created. Led by outstanding civic and business leaders like former Ambassador Anthony Gioia and Buffalo Sabres Managing Partner Larry Quinn, ECHDC stands as a driving force behind waterfront development, where local leaders who understand Buffalo and the specific needs our area has are working every day to take the vision of Inner and Outer Harbor waterfront development off the drawing boards and push them into reality.
Brian’s other top concern during his first term in Congress is the pending relicensing of the New York Power Authority’s (NYPA) Niagara Power Project in Lewiston, NY. Brian sees the Niagara Project as a facility that harnesses our region’s tremendous natural resource at Niagara Falls, but which sadly provides little in the way of economic benefit to its host communities. In early 2005, Brian sponsored legislation that would force NYPA to provide a fair share of its annual profits (which are estimated to exceed $500 million annually) to communities like Buffalo which reside within a 30 mile radius of the power plant, and remain the home of shuttered industries which located within the river basin solely due to the past availability of cheap hydropower for businesses. In late 2005, after assembling a coalition of government officials and other local leaders, NYPA announced a settlement agreement with the county of Erie and the city of Buffalo that will result in the payment of more than $279 million in funding and dedicated hydropower to be facilitated through the new Erie Canal Harbor Development Corporation. Brian calls this result a significant victory for our community, and that within the next 12 to 36 months, Buffalo’s waterfront will begin to take on a dramatically new look and feel, and that the era of inertia and inaction along Buffalo’s waterfront has ended.
As a T&I Committee member, Brian serves on the Subcommittees on Highways, Transit, and Pipelines; Water Resources and Environment; and Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation. Brian is also a member of the House’s Committee on Government Reform, and is a member of that panel’s subcommittees on Energy and Resources and National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations.
Brian and his wife Mary Jane, who works on the lower West Side of Buffalo as a special education teacher in the Buffalo Public School system, are the proud parents of two young children, John, a freshman at St. Francis High School in Athol Springs, and Maeve, an eighth grade student at St. Martin's School in South Buffalo. The members of the Higgins family are parishioners at St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church in South Buffalo.
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Washington, DC Office
431 Cannon HOB
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: 202-225-3306
Fax: 202-226-0347
Erie County Office
Larkin at Exchange 726 Exchange Street Suite 601 Buffalo, NY 14210 Phone: 716-852-3501 Fax: 716-852-3929
Chautauqua County Office
Fenton Building
2 East Second Street
Suite 300
Jamestown, NY 14701
Phone: 716-484-0729
Fax: 716-484-1049
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