1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Appalachian Regional Commission Reform Act . 2. Findings (a) Headquarters Congress finds that— (1) regional commissions, such as the Delta Regional Authority, the Denali Commission, and the Northern Border Regional Commission, are each headquartered in their respective region; (2) headquartering regional commissions within the region affected is a sensible approach to ensure that the commissions are housed in more affordable locations than the District of Columbia, thereby reducing administrative overhead and making the commissions closer and more accountable to the people the commissions were designed to serve; (3) the Appalachian Regional Commission (referred to in this Act as the Commission ) is not headquartered in Appalachia but in Washington, DC; and (4) the headquarters of the Commission should be relocated from the District of Columbia to a more affordable location in the Appalachian region so that it is closer and more accountable to the people the Commission was designed to serve. (b) Performance Congress finds that— (1) the Commission was created to help foster economic opportunity and close health and educational disparities in a geographic region of the United States beleaguered by persistent poverty and high unemployment; (2) the Commission remains the sole Federal agency focused singularly on economic revitalization in the Appalachian region; (3) in 1998, Congress charged the Commission with address[ing] the needs of severely and persistently distressed areas of the Appalachian region and focus[ing] special attention on the areas of greatest need ; (4) the Commission has long been criticized for its shortcomings in fulfilling this mission, including in— (A) a 1999 study titled Mountain Money: Federal Tax Dollars Miss the Mark in Core Appalachia by Mark Ferenchik and Jill Rip­en­hoff for the Columbus Dispatch; and (B) a 2008 book titled Uneven Ground: Appalachia Since 1945 by Ronald D. Eller