Sam Farr, a fifth-generation Californian, represents the state's beautiful Central Coast. His district encompasses the length of the Big Sur coastline in Monterey County, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the Salinas Valley "salad bowl," the redwoods, mountains and beaches of Santa Cruz County, and the majestic rural landscape of San Benito County.

Once beset by a lackluster economy and the biggest military base closing in the history of the United States, the Central Coast has become a national model for sustainable development, base conversion, marine science research and post-secondary foreign language education. The robust economic vitality on the Central Coast is buttressed by revenues of over $3 billion from agriculture, and nearly $2 billion from tourism.

In Congress since 1993, Farr serves on the powerful House Appropriations Committee which oversees the distribution of the federal budget. As of the 110th Congress, Farr sits on three subcommittees: Agriculture and FDA, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security.

Through his work on the committee, Farr has been able to promote and protect the interests of the Central Coast: promoting key agriculture research, lobbying for strict federal organic standards, facilitating the final agreement that conveyed the former Fort Ord to civilian hands, working to establish a veterans' cemetery at Fort Ord, and helping maintain the Naval Postgraduate School and Defense Language Institute as premier educational institutions.

Farr represents the largest National Marine Sanctuary along the continental United States and has long been an advocate for our oceans. Farr is an original co-chair of the bipartisan House Oceans Caucus. In the late 1990s, Farr authored legislation to establish an oceans commission, patterned off the law that created the Stratton Commission in the 1960s. This Oceans Act was signed into law on Aug. 8, 2000 and in 2004 the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy released a comprehensive inventory of our nation's coastal and marine resources, ocean programs and policies, federal funding priorities, infrastructure requirements and technological opportunities.

In response to this report, Farr and his fellow House Ocean Caucus co-chairs introduced legislation to broadly overhaul our ocean management system, the Ocean Conservation, Education, and National Strategy for the 21st Century Act. This bill has been re-introduced in the 110th Congress as H.R. 21, OCEANS-21.

Farr has worked throughout his tenure in Congress to help the Central Coast to manage and benefit from the closure of Fort Ord in Monterey County. Fort Ord was slated for closure two years before Farr came to Congress, in 1991. Farr facilitated the final agreement that conveyed the fort's land to civilian hands at no cost and has continued to secure funds for clean-up and economic development on the former base, including more than $65 million in defense conversion funds to start a new California State University at the closed base.

Farr has been instrumental in securing a Defense Department finance center that employs more than a hundred federal workers; a new University of California science research center; a new housing project for the homeless; a veterans' clinic; a business-industrial airport; two new public golf courses; 8,000 acres of new federal parkland, and a one-stop job training and employment center.

Farr strongly believes that the tens of thousands of veterans who served at Fort Ord during it's more than fifty years as an active Army training base deserve a final resting place on the grounds of the former Fort. Farr continues to work with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and the California Department of Veterans Affairs to establish a veteran's cemetery at Fort Ord.

In addition to the House Oceans Caucus, Farr is co-chair of the Congressional Travel and Tourism Caucus and served as the chairman of California's Democratic Congressional Delegation in the early 2000s.

Before coming to the House of Representatives in 1993, Farr served for 12 and a half years in the California State Assembly and was named California Legislator of the Year nine times. Prior to serving in the California Assembly, Rep. Farr was a Monterey County Supervisor. He began his career in public service in 1964 with a two-year commitment in the Peace Corps in Colombia, South America.

Farr was born on the 4th of July, 1941. He is a long-time resident of Carmel, California and is married to Shary Baldwin Farr. The Farrs have one grown daughter, Jessica and one grandchild, Ella. Farr graduated from Willamette University in Salem, Oregon and attended the Monterey Institute of International Studies and the University of Santa Clara.