[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
REBUILDING HIGHWAY AND TRANSIT INFRASTRUCTURE ON THE GULF COAST
FOLLOWING HURRICANE KATRINA
=======================================================================
(109-37)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
HIGHWAYS, TRANSIT AND PIPELINES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 20, 2005
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
_____
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman
THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin, Vice- JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
Chair NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia
SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland Columbia
JOHN L. MICA, Florida JERROLD NADLER, New York
PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan CORRINE BROWN, Florida
VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan BOB FILNER, California
SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi
SUE W. KELLY, New York JUANITA MILLENDER-McDONALD,
RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana California
ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
JERRY MORAN, Kansas ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
GARY G. MILLER, California BILL PASCRELL, Jr., New Jersey
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa
ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania
HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South Carolina BRIAN BAIRD, Washington
TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania JIM MATHESON, Utah
SAM GRAVES, Missouri MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota RICK LARSEN, Washington
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania JULIA CARSON, Indiana
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York
JON C. PORTER, Nevada MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine
TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
MICHAEL E. SODREL, Indiana BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
TED POE, Texas ALLYSON Y. SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado
CONNIE MACK, Florida JOHN BARROW, Georgia
JOHN R. `RANDY' KUHL, Jr., New York
LUIS G. FORTUNO, Puerto Rico
LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, Jr., Louisiana
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
(ii)
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHWAYS, TRANSIT AND PIPELINES
THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin, Chairman
SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee JERROLD NADLER, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi
PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan JUANITA MILLENDER-McDONALD,
SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama California
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
SUE W. KELLY, New York EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania
JERRY MORAN, Kansas BRIAN BAIRD, Washington
GARY G. MILLER, California, Vice- SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
Chair JIM MATHESON, Utah
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut RICK LARSEN, Washington
HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South Carolina MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania JULIA CARSON, Indiana
SAM GRAVES, Missouri TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York
MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee
JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
JON C. PORTER, Nevada RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska ALLYSON Y. SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
MICHAEL E. SODREL, Indiana (Ex Officio)
DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
DON YOUNG, Alaska
(Ex Officio)
(iii)
CONTENTS
TESTIMONY
Page
Capka, Hon. J. Richard, Acting Administrator, Federal Highway
Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation.............. 4
Schruth, Susan E., Associate Administrator, Federal Transit
Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation.............. 4
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Capka, Hon. J. Richard.......................................... 23
Dorn, Jennifer L. (submitted by) Susan E. Schruth............... 30
REBUILDING HIGHWAY AND TRANSIT INFRASTRUCTURE ON THE GULF COAST
FOLLOWING HURRICANE KATRINA
----------
Thursday, October 20, 2005
House of Representatives, Committee on
Transportation and Infrastructure, Subcommittee
on Highways, Transit, and Pipelines,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:00 p.m., in
Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, the Hon. Thomas E.
Petri [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Mr. Petri. The Subcommittee will come to order. My
colleague, Mr. DeFazio, is on his way and will be joining us
shortly. I would like to welcome our members and witnesses to
today's hearings on Rebuilding Highway and Transit
Infrastructure Following Hurricane Katrina.
The purpose of the hearing is to have the Federal Highway
Administration and Federal Transit Administration update
members of the Subcommittee about the repair and replacement of
the highway and transit systems and the restoration of vital
transportation services following the Category 4 hurricane that
devastated the Gulf Coast Region on August 29th. A number of us
visited the affected areas September 18th, some 16 members of
the House.
On a helicopter tour as part of that visit, I saw the
tremendous damage to the area's infrastructure including
levees, oil rigs, bridges, and roads that was left in the
storm's wake. I also visited the FEMA Emergency Operations
Center which is about 50 yards behind the Convention Center. It
is impossible to convey the devastation that we saw, damage
that is still being assessed and costs still being calculated.
On October 6th, Federal Highway Administration and Federal
Transit Administration briefed members of the Transportation
and Infrastructure Committee on the status of transportation
systems and services in the impacted region. Because many roads
were submerged for long periods of time, direct and individual
evaluation is required for each highway.
At the time of the briefing, some significant roadways in
Mississippi Louisiana, and Alabama were still closed. There is
substantial effort underway to restore temporary traffic to the
I-10 Twin Span Bridge between Slidell and New Orleans and to
complete a temporary U.S. 90 along the Mississippi Gulf Coast
between Pass Christian and Biloxi.
Enormous progress towards reopening major highways has been
made. Innovative contracting techniques have resulted in the
reopening of the I-10 Bridge at Pascagoula on October 1st, nine
days ahead of schedule. Transit equipment and facilities in New
Orleans were particularly hard hit by the hurricane. A majority
of New Orleans regional transit agencies' bus fleets suffered
water damage, were stolen or vandalized, or were commandeered
by other government agencies.
In addition, the newly opened Canal Street system was
severely disabled with all of the new trolley cars, and the
track, and necessary systems suffering severe water damage. In
addition to restoring and replacing transit infrastructure and
equipment, a major challenge is restoring transit service,
particularly in areas where large numbers of evacuees have
settled, such as Baton Rouge.
To ensure that these projects receive the required
individual attention, FEMA has given a total of $48.4 million
in emergency transportation funds to the Department of
Transportation. These funds are managed by the Federal Transit
Administration and are being made available to the New Orleans,
Baton Rouge, and Mississippi Coast Transit Agencies to provide
public transportation services to workers, commuters, and
families in the region.
The Committee expects that assessing the full impact of the
hurricane will require several more weeks and, again, this
hearing is intended to give members an understanding of the
current state of affairs. Next Thursday, the Subcommittee will
follow up on today's hearing when we will hear from State and
Local transportation officials from Louisiana, Mississippi, and
Alabama.
I would like to thank our witnesses, and I look forward to
your testimony. I would yield to Mr. DeFazio for any opening
statement.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for calling
this important hearing. I think you have outlined the subject
matter very ably. We need to know the extent of the damage and
the costs of repair. Hopefully, we can find ways, either within
the normal processes of funding transportation infrastructure,
or through perhaps special allocations that will be part of the
disaster package to provide funds adequate to deal with these
problems.
In public, there has been some discussion of how we should
reopen the Highway Bill to pay for the Katrina disaster, and
there are two problems with that idea. One is that people are
thinking of spending funds far outside the area authorized by
law for gas tax dollars not directly transportation related,
and I would vigorously resist that.
Secondly, since the bill we passed, although much better
than where we were a year ago, in the end is a good bill, but
it wasn't a great bill for America. We are still going to lose
ground over the next four years in terms of meeting the needs
for congestion mitigation, management, growth, and the existing
infrastructure maintenance, let alone deal with other problems
that might crop up. The funds there already were inadequate.
So my hope here is we will make a strong case that this was
an extraordinary event and that the transportation related
repairs should come out of the other disaster funds which
Congress is going to appropriate in the coming months.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
Any opening statements, Mr. Blumenauer?
Mr. Blumenauer. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your focusing in
on this. I find that in various subcommittees today I have been
spending most of my time on this subject, and I think it is
appropriate that we do so. In addition to finding out what the
situation is now, learning from our witnesses about the extent
of the activities, their progress to date and there certainly
have been already some success stories that I think have
potential lessons for us to learn about the longer term
prospects for contracting in this area, I am hopeful that you,
Mr. Chairman, our Ranking Member, can work with the other two
Subcommittees that have been aggressively moving in this area
on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to advance
some suggestions about making the contracting process more
results-driven, increasing confidence in its transparency and
effectiveness of the hundreds of millions of dollars of
contracts that are going to be let. We are burning through $14
million dollars an hour that we are spending now.
There may be some lessons to be learned about some
experience that we have had in the transportation arena already
that has been very results-driven and that has raised the
confidence level. But I hope that we can think about longer
term principles if we are going to be dealing with massive
reconstruction and major investment: some principles that we
might be able to promulgate with this Committee with the help
of our witnesses here today about how that money is spent and
where it is spent.
I am hopeful that at some point we may get a little
feedback about my, I confess, parochial interest; it is very
narrow. You alluded to the problems with part of the streetcar
system. The St. Charles Line is the oldest continuously
operating streetcar in America. I think it dates back to 1835
when it was drawn by mules. There is tremendous opportunity
based on some of the work that this Subcommittee did with the
Small Starts Provision and looking at a very cost effective
approach to streetcars, something may be done in New Orleans to
build on the reconstruction of this historic system that could
dramatically accelerate, in a very cost effective manner, the
reconstruction of historic New Orleans in a very safe and
conscientious fashion.
So at some point, Mr. Chairman, I will probably be lobbying
you and our colleagues to maybe look at some applications there
that, for a relatively small sum of money, might have a very
dramatic impact on that community and serve as a model for our
Small Starts Legislation that might help with the other 82
communities around the country that want streetcars.
Thank you for your indulgence.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Now, we will turn to our panel which
consists of Richard Capka, Acting Administrator, Federal
Highway Administration and Susan Schruth, the Associate
Administrator, Federal Transit Administration. Sir, would you
care to begin?
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE J. RICHARD CAPKA, ACTING
ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION, UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION; SUSAN E. SCHRUTH, ASSOCIATE
ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL TRANSIT ADMINISTRATION, UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Mr. Capka. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. DeFazio, members. I
appreciate the opportunity to discuss Federal Highway's
response to Hurricane Katrina, and I would like to ask that my
full statement be made part of the record for this hearing.
Mr. Petri. Without objection, it will be.
Mr. Capka. Thank you, sir. First, I would like to offer my
sympathy to all of those affected by the recent hurricanes and
assure you that Federal Highways is committed to expediting
recovery in the devastated areas. We work closely with the
State and Local officials before, during, and we continue to do
so.
In discussing our response, it is important to note that
through our day to day mission activities, our permanent
Federal Highway Division office staff has developed firsthand
knowledge of their respective States and strong professional
and personal relationships with the State and Local highway
officials. This provides an excellent foundation for an
effective, coordinated, and rapid response.
As soon as we could reenter the affected areas, Federal
Highway sent in personnel, including staff from outside the
affected areas to work alongside State and Local officials to
help assess the damage and to facilitate response and recovery
efforts. I visited the areas with Louisiana Secretary of
Transportation, Johnny Bradberry; Mississippi Department of
Transportation's Executive Director, Butch Brown; and
Mississippi Highway Commission Chairman, Wayne Brown.
While TV coverage, and aerial surveys, and photos of bridge
and roadway damage along I-10, U.S. 90, and other areas
certainly tell the story of Katrina's force, they couldn't
convey the full impact of the devastation that I witnessed. I
must express my admiration for the State and Local highway
department and road crews. Despite the fact that many of them
suffered great personal loss along with their community
neighbors, these dedicated crews began clearing debris
including downed trees and power lines from highways and
bridges as soon as it was safe to do so.
Consequently, in less than a day, the States had removed
debris from their Federal aid highways to enable ready access
for the first responders.
Federal Highway employees worked shoulder to shoulder with
State highway officials to rapidly assess the damage and to
shape strategies that would provide the most efficient and
effective response. We facilitated getting Mississippi and
Louisiana officials together with the Florida experts who had
experience with Hurricane Ivan last year to shape strategies
required to address the bridge damage suffered along Interstate
10 and U.S. Highway 90.
We also worked with the States to expedite procedures to
get contracts underway with repairs. Incentives had been used
effectively to ensure quick restoration of lost essential
service. For example, Mississippi awarded a $5.2 million
contract to repair one of the highest priority roads in the
region, the I-10 bridge at Pascagoula, and included not only
incentive if work is to be completed in less than the 31 days
but also a corresponding penalty for finishing late. I am
pleased to report that this bridge reopened on October 1st,
almost 10 days ahead of schedule.
Louisiana has used a similar technique to restore initial
service across the I-10 bridge at Slidell. The first phase of
the I-10 repair, to reopen one of the two heavily damaged spans
to two-way traffic, was completed this past week on October
14th, 16 days ahead of schedule. We strongly support these
incentivized contracts, and we will continue to coordinate and
synchronize our efforts with our other Federal agencies, and
will continue to work closely with State and Local Governments
to help restore the Gulf Coast as quickly as possible.
Finally, I would like to note that Federal Highway
administers the Emergency Relief Program which provides
reimbursement to States for expenses related to highway
infrastructure damage associated with natural disasters and
other emergency situations. To date, Federal Highways has
provided $10 million dollars in quick release emergency relief
funds to Louisiana and Mississippi.
While quick response is important, we are also mindful that
financial accountability is also important. Federal Highways
has taken specific steps to effectively manage expenditures
relating to Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts. We will ensure
that these funds are spent wisely and that emergency relief
projects comply with the Federal requirements.
Mr. Chairman, members, thank you for opportunity to
testify, and I will be pleased to answer the questions that you
may have.
Mr. Petri. Thank you very much. Ms. Schruth?
Ms. Schruth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. DeFazio,
members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to
testify today on behalf of the Federal Transit Administration
regarding FTA's activities and progress in the Gulf Region
affected by Hurricane Katrina.
The weekend of August 27th, our Nation watched with growing
concern as Hurricane Katrina strengthened across the Gulf. In
her aftermath, FTA's response has been focused, aggressive, and
ambitious. Public transportation is a lifeline for countless
Americans. From the start of the response effort, FTA has been
providing onsite and hands-on technical assistance to transit
agencies.
As we move forward, we are dealing with two separate but
related crises. First, we need to restore service in
communities devastated by Hurricane Katrina, and clearly the
most significant damage was realized by New Orleans and the
Gulf Coast in Mississippi. But second, we need to expand
service in communities such as Baton Rouge and smaller rural
areas that have seen their populations increase overnight, in
the case of Baton Rouge doubling overnight, because of the
influx of evacuees.
In the first days after landfall, FTA coordinated with
transit agencies unaffected by the disaster and with our
industry partners to provide buses, equipment, and personnel
for the immediate response. Within the first week, FTA
delivered vital information into the hands of our grantees,
including how to contact local FEMA officials by state and
information about how to access information concerning
financial assistance.
FTA detailed over 20 staff and 7 contractor teams to
disaster areas across the affected region to help local transit
authorities reestablish transit service and to support the
recovery effort. Within two weeks, FTA announced it would allow
transit agencies affected by the hurricane to make use of
Federal funds to buy supplies, repair equipment, or begin
reconstruction without immediately having to provide local
matching funds.
The Mississippi Department of Transportation became the
first agency to benefit from this action, with a $6.1 million
formula grant. These funds will be used to benefit 22 transit
bus operators to buy new vehicles, pay salaries, or provide
other necessities that will help restore service.
We have worked to secure a $47 million mission assignment
with FEMA for emergency relief funds for transit services in
New Orleans and Baton Rouge for a period of six months. We
worked to secure two 60-day mission assignments from FEMA for
emergency transit in six Mississippi Gulf counties, first for
$1.4 million for Coast Transit and the three counties it
serves, and second for a $492,000 mission assignment which will
be administered by the State of Mississippi for three rural
counties north of the coast. These emergency funds will give
residents the mobility and freedom to go grocery shopping,
apply for social services, or such basic things as keeping
appointments with doctors.
These are small steps but necessary steps in the
reestablishment of normal daily routines. I want to underscore
the importance of these funds for rural communities throughout
the entire region affected by the disaster. Small transit
agencies, nonprofit providers, and many rural areas in the Gulf
Region have seen demand increase dramatically as thousands of
evacuees have joined their communities, but they often do not
have the excess operating capacity to meet that demand.
We are pleased that over 60 larger transit systems are
providing free transit passes to evacuees who have been
relocated to their cities. This is not the case in the rural
areas where sometimes there is no public transportation or very
small transit systems.
Our priorities for the coming months include: to carry out
the FEMA mission assignments which we have received; to work
with the Gulf States and FEMA to fund additional mission
assignments so that we may provide transit service in areas
that have these relocations of evacuees; we are working to help
transit agencies secure FEMA public assistance funds which will
pay for reconstruction and replacement of damaged vehicles,
facilities, and systems; and we will continue our onsite
technical assistance with contractor support to the entire Gulf
Region.
Finally, we will actively support the local planning
process as communities invite us to do so to ensure that
transportation options are integral considerations in the
future planning for the cities in the region.
As with any natural disaster, Hurricane Katrina challenged
us as public servants to deploy the substantial resources of
the Federal Government in a way that works for local
communities as they strive to rebuild. Mr. Chairman, in the
seven weeks since Katrina made landfall, FTA has met this
challenge, and we will continue to do so in the coming months.
Thank you very much for this opportunity, and I am happy to
answer any questions.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
Mr DeFazio, any questions? Would you care to start?
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Capka, I would
just like to get into the emergency funds: what is available;
what has been spent; and the sourcing of the funds, whether we
are talking about the emergency funds under the trust fund
section or whether we are looking at FEMA general funds for
some of these emergency funds; some of the funds you talked
about that have been used for the bridge repair and that. Is
there a split, or where are they coming from?
Mr. Capka. Well, sir, the funds that are being used on the
Federal Aid Highway System are Federal aid dollars that come
through the trust fund. Specifically responding to the damages
associated with the hurricanes, those funds would be out of our
Emergency Relief Program, our emergency relief funds. We don't
manage or we don't pass through FEMA dollars in our Emergency
Relief Program.
We work carefully with FEMA to ensure that we have defined
the damage that is eligible under emergency relief and then
damages that would have to be picked up by FEMA. So if it is on
a Federal Aid Highway road system, then it would be emergency
relief. If it is off-system, then it would be up to FEMA to
provide the funding.
Mr. DeFazio. What about debris removal from the Federal
System, is that FEMA's responsibility or your responsibility?
Mr. Capka. Debris removal from the Federal Highway System
would be the emergency relief. It would be Federal Highway
funds to do that.
Mr. DeFazio. Okay. My understanding is, as I recall during
the deliberations over SAFETEA-LU, there was some discussion of
oversubscription of these emergency funds in past years.
Mr. Capka. Yes, sir. As you are aware, we have on the first
of October of every year, we are given another $100 million to
add to the Emergency Relief Program. Our backlog to date of all
the unpaid claims against emergency relief is about $610
million. So there is a backlog.
Mr. DeFazio. Let me see if I understand this. So if there
is a backlog of $610 million, but we are currently expending
funds, so are we putting the Katrina work first in line and
they are getting direct reimbursement, or are they just getting
credited for potential future reimbursement when there are
funds, and it is being spent out of the State allocation?
Mr. Capka. Sir, the latter is more accurate than the
former. However, in every year we set aside a small amount of
money, relatively speaking, of the $100 million to be available
for immediate release in the event of a major catastrophe.
This year, we provided $5 million to Louisiana and $5
million to Mississippi, certainly a small down payment on a
very large amount of repair work that needs to be done. The
balance of the program is generally allocated to the States
that have the backlog claims against the account in a prorated
share.
So in answer to your question, Mississippi and Louisiana
have had to use other funds to accomplish some of this work
with the promise of being reimbursed at some time in the
future.
Mr. DeFazio. Okay. What about when there is, say, an
upgrade involved? Sometimes if you had a bridge that was pretty
well decimated that was substandard or obsolete, obsolescent,
it would not necessarily make sense to rebuild it in the same
configuration. How would that be apportioned as an obligation
against future emergency funds versus the State's regular
allocation?
Mr. Capka. Yes, sir, there may be cost sharing involved
with respect to betterments. But in answering to your question
about some of the bridges, the first decision we have to reach
with respect to emergency relief eligibility is whether the
bridge, as an example, would be repaired in kind to pre-Katrina
condition or replaced in kind to pre-Katrina conditions.
And we have to do an analysis of the difference between
repair versus replace, much like an insurance adjuster would do
in totaling a car as an example. And if the repair cost
approaches that of replacement, then we would allow the State
to replace the bridge using ER money.
Now, once that decision--
Mr. DeFazio. But if it was an upgrade on the replacement,
that would be different?
Mr. Capka. Absolutely, yes, sir. Now, if it is eligible for
replacement, the bridge would then be replaced to a standard
that reflects the current view, the current forecast of traffic
requirements, loading requirements, the best of the design
criteria that we are aware of today. So we would allow the full
upgrade of the bridge, using the emergency relief funding.
Mr. DeFazio. Really?
Mr. Capka. If it is beyond current traffic projections.
Mr. DeFazio. Right.
Mr. Capka. If a traffic projection called for a four lane
bridge, but they wanted to, the State wanted to go to six
lanes, if that six lanes was not justified by traffic forecast,
it would a betterment to be borne by the State and other funds.
Mr. DeFazio. Okay. I assume that the Davis Bacon Waiver
promulgated by the President applies also to these projects?
Mr. Capka. It does, sir.
Mr. DeFazio. I asked this question of the FEMA IG. I asked
if the FEMA IG could quantify cost savings, since here we have
contracts that are being let on an extraordinary basis with
large incentives for prompt completion. I don't know how those
estimates are set to say that it would really take 30 days to
reopen fully two-way traffic on one bridge with unlimited lanes
versus 20 days, who makes those estimates and determines how
big those rewards are for early completion?
And I hope that is all done very carefully, so this doesn't
provide a windfall when it could have readily been done in 20
days no matter what. Secondly, the IG from FEMA could not
quantify and will be looking at the no-bid contracts that are
being let to see whether or not we just end up with excess
profit-taking as opposed to any savings to the taxpayers from
the suspension of Davis Bacon to have people work at less than
living wages.
Mr. Capka. Sir, in answer to and in response to your first
comment about the --
Mr. DeFazio. Timelines.
Mr. Capka.--the contracts with incentives and whether or
not the estimates of time to complete reflect accurately the
incentives that are provided, I would like to comment by saying
that these contracts where we have had incentives were competed
contracts. And so the various contractors who bid on this work
understood the risks and the benefits going in, and our
assumption is that is reflected in the bid.
Mr. DeFazio. You can bid certainly on costs, but I am
wondering if they just said: There it is. We want it open as
soon as possible. Give us a bid and a number of days it will
take you to do that bid. As opposed to: We think it is going to
take 30 days. You give us a bid for doing it in 30 days, but if
you can do it--do you know what I am saying?
It seems like you might want to include both variables in a
bid and say: Okay, we want it done as cost effectively as
possible, as quickly as possible. Now, go out and give us a
bid.
Mr. Capka. What we did, as an example, on the Slidell Twin
Span Bridge in Louisiana, the requirement was to restore two
lanes of traffic, one span in 45 days. That was the requirement
from the Louisiana Department of Transportation. The contract
also specified if you can do it sooner, we will give you
$75,000 a day to do it sooner. There is also a penalty if you
take longer, and a maximum of 15 days worth of incentive.
So if they finished in 16 days, which they did, they only
got 15 days worth of incentive. So there were some boundaries
put on the incentive. That was known to all four. I believe
there were four bidders on that contract. That was known to all
four.
So when they submitted their bids, they understood how
quickly they could do it, what kind of equipment, what kind of
hours they would need to work, and that was all kind of cranked
into the number. The lowest bid, the winning bid by Boh
Brothers in Louisiana was $31 million. Of course, they received
better than $1 million in incentives. So in effect, it was a
$32 million contract to Louisiana. The second low bid was $40
million, and you can go up higher for the third one.
Mr. DeFazio. Sure. But I guess the variable here and the
thing concerning me is: Do you review? Do you have engineers
from USDOT that review the LDOT's estimate that this Federal
eligible structure needs the 45-day window they set, whether
that was reasonable? Do you know what I am saying? There are
some people that do not have a tremendous amount of confidence
in some of the Local Government down there or State Government.
Mr. Capka. Well, sir, what we did specifically on that
particular bridge is we brought in experts from Florida who had
had similar experience on their bridge in Escambia Bay and
Pensacola. So we brought the experts in who had firsthand
experience, and we sat them down with the officials there in
Louisiana. Collectively, we looked at--
Mr. DeFazio. Okay, so, you are. So you are.
Mr. Capka. Yes.
Mr. DeFazio. Okay, all right. That is good. So the second
thing is in terms of being able to apportion, calculate, or
otherwise estimate what the effect of suspending Davis Bacon
was on these contracts?
Mr. Capka. Sir, that is very difficult for me to assess at
this point.
Mr. DeFazio. Well, is there going to be a built in review
process? If we are going to do this, we ought to know whether
or not it just ends up in the contractor's pocket or it
actually saves the taxpayers money. And if it ends up in the
contractor's pocket, even the President wouldn't have a
rationale for suspending--well, he would because they may be
contributors, but otherwise he wouldn't have a rationale for
suspending Davis Bacon.
Mr. Capka. Sir, I think the assurances that we have tried
to apply to the way we let contracts is to go competitive bid.
Aside from the very early emergency work that had to get done
immediately, debris removal and some of that very, very early
work, we have had the Emergency Relief Program managed on a
competitive bid basis.
And so the competition among the various bidders will keep
those, the bids, low and I think that is the implied philosophy
that we are taking towards this. It will all be normalized
because they are bidding against one another, using the same
labor rates that are permissible. And so they are all on the
same footing, and the low bid will reflect the best possible
price for the State and for the Federal Government.
Mr. DeFazio. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Petri. Thank you.
Mr. Sodrel?
Mr. Sodrel. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Schruth, could you tell us which of the transit
agencies were the most affected by Katrina, and do you have
cost estimates on what it will take to make them whole, transit
agency by transit agency?
Ms. Schruth. I can give you some of that information. New
Orleans Transit had the most damage and partly because they
were the largest system affected by the hurricane. They had 360
buses and approximately 60 light rail vehicles. They had over
40 paratransit vehicles and then other support vehicles that
were all under water for a significant amount of time. They had
four facilities, bus facilities and a car barn, as well as an
administration facility that were all damaged.
We had our contractors, our project management oversight
contractors, engineering firms, go with NORTA to inspect their
facilities. NORTA could not actually get access to their
facilities until about September 20th. We were there with them
when they did their initial inspection. We don't have final
estimates of what it will cost. Some things will be
salvageable; some things will have to be completely replaced.
We have just decided that we also need to send a vehicle
firm down because of the undercarriage damage to buses. We are
not sure what impact that has on the whole vehicle. That was
the most significant damage. Also, obviously, the tracks can't
carry the systems that support the rail. I think some of the
rail cars will be salvageable, but some will not. We just are
not exactly sure yet.
Coast Transit also received significant damage. They had
about 80 bus kiosks that were along the coast that were
completely ruined. Most of their buses were damaged, and we are
in the same situation trying to figure out if they are
salvageable or have to be replaced. They had damage to their
bus facility as well as their administration facility that can
be repaired.
There was some damage in Miami. There was some damage in
Mobile. And then Jefferson Parish, which is the largest county
next to New Orleans, I believe lost most of its fleet which is
about, I think, 20 vehicles. So we don't have a price yet.
Mr. Sodrel. Just as a follow-up, I understand you can't
move buildings, and I understand that you may have a limited
ability to move trolley cars, transit cars, rail equipment, but
do you have any idea why the rolling stock was not moved to
higher ground when you have several days advance notice?
You know there is a Cat 5 coming. You know your levees are
good for Cat 3. Why weren't they moved to higher ground?
Ms. Schruth. Well, I think--
Mr. Sodrel. If you know.
Ms. Schruth. We know that 200 of the vehicles were used by
the mayor to help evacuate folks from the City of New Orleans.
And we frankly think that New Orleans did an admirable job, to
the point that those vehicles were in service for such a long
time and so late trying to evacuate people, that the bus
drivers actually had to go to the roof of the bus facility and
get rescued themselves, and part of that was their commitment
to get as many people out of the City as they could.
The other vehicles, I don't know. We assume that they were
in regular transit service, but at least two-thirds of them
were actually being used by local officials for evacuation
purposes.
Mr. Sodrel. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Mr. Blumenauer.
Mr. Blumenauer. Thank you.
I am curious about the contracting principles you had
discussed earlier with Mr. DeFazio that promote more timely
performance. To what extent are other Federal agencies in
consultation with you to talk about utilizing the same
techniques to make sure that people who are providing other
services and activities have contracts that are structured
similarly, that are pointed towards delivering efficient
outcomes?
Mr. Capka. Sir, I am not personally aware of interagency
discussions of contracting techniques other than what is
provided through the FAR and the Federal Acquisition
Regulations that we do have as guidance. We also have within
the Emergency Relief Program, we have our own principles that
we use when we are contracting. And so we basically followed
the procedures that we had in place.
Now, if there are some discussions in terms of lessons
learned, and certainly we had many from last year that we
employed this time around, there are many opportunities for us
at those lessons learned forums that will certainly take place
to share those, the good news and the challenges that were out
there.
I would say we are integrating and incorporating these
lessons learned as we go along. We are not waiting until the
very end. But personally, I have not been personally involved
in those kinds of discussions with other Federal agencies.
Mr. Blumenauer. Mr. Chairman, in the spirit of the notion
of lessons learned and that we are not waiting but we are
trying to incorporate it as we go along, I would hope that
there may be a way, as we are discussing with our other
subcommittees a variety of other projects and contracts, to be
able to explore the extent to which there are contracting
techniques that are cost-based with incentives for performance.
Hopefully, we are getting to a point now where these are all
routinely subjected to competitive bidding.
I am pleased that even though you were talking about quick
turnaround for projects that were vital to the recovery effort,
they nonetheless were subjected to perhaps truncated but
nonetheless competitive bid. I think that is an important
lesson for us in terms of being able to deliver to the
taxpayer.
We are in the process of looking at billions of dollars in
contracts. We have, I think, $25 or $30 billion as yet that is
unobligated. We have authorized it, but it is not really in the
pipeline. Maybe this is something we could help with to try and
zero in on how the rest of these contracts are going to be
executed, look at the good example from our friends in
Transportation, and see if they could have broader application.
My other area of inquiry deals with the extent to which
facilities that are going to be designed and relocated and that
we are making sure that, again apropos to Mr. DeFazio's point
about maybe in some cases it makes sense to upgrade or not give
people the best state of the art facility from 1956, we are
paying attention to the typography, the hydrology, the geology,
so that we are not putting things back in harm's way, that we
are looking at new standards and new placement.
Is that part of the thinking from either of your agencies
at this point, or is that beyond the scope of what you feel you
are able to do now?
Mr. Capka. Sir, that is absolutely part of our looking
forward and the recovery work that we are taking, particularly
the permanent repairs. Examples of the permanent repairs are
the bridges at Biloxi and Bay St. Louis. We did not have an
opportunity nor the materials to go in and do a rapid repair
like we did on the Slidell Bridge to get things just back up
and running.
So the next step is to fully replace those two bridges. We
have had design conferences in Mississippi to work with the
Mississippi DOT, bringing experts in from our office in
Washington to review exactly that.
What are the new design criteria that need to be
established to ensure that we have the clear freeboard, that we
won't have storm surge issues with bridges in the future, or
what are the design adjustments that need to be made? So we are
collecting that information now.
And in fact, we had this design conference in Mississippi
that will allow them to move forward in a design-build way to
issue a request for proposal before the end of this month,
using those enhanced design requirements. So we are doing that
with respect to the repairs and recovery work that we are doing
right now.
In addition, we are looking further. We are looking forward
into other areas that may be susceptible, may not have had a
hurricane problem this year, but what about other locations
that might be vulnerable. And so we are looking at other
inventory bridges to see where that might occur and then to
look to see if there might be a retrofit program that would be
appropriate to handle those bridges before the event occurs.
So we are trying to take these lessons learned, incorporate
them as we go along, and as importantly look to the future to
where other areas may be vulnerable and apply those as well.
Mr. Blumenauer. Thank you very much. I am curious, Mr.
Chairman, about taking it a step a little further in terms of
the larger environmental context. We find that there has not
been the greatest sensitivity, shall we say, to the
preservation of wetlands, the sense of how natural design can
buffer the impacts of nature, and I would be curious how far
that philosophy that you articulated extends to a broader
environmental sensitivity that has not necessarily been
evidenced with much of our federally financed infrastructure in
the region.
Mr. Capka. Sir.
Mr. Blumenauer. Thank you.
Mr. Petri. Representative Taylor?
Mr. Taylor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Secretary. I
apologize for running late.
A couple of things I would like to ask you. I noted with
interest your talk of the replacement of the Biloxi and Bay St.
Louis Bridges, and I do want to thank you for what is being
done, as we speak, to get Highway 90 in Harrison County, that
is the County where Biloxi is, operable again as quickly as
possible. As you note from your visits down there, we have
Highway 90 which parallels the coast, and then you go 10 to 15
miles inland parallel to that is I-10.
So if you happen to have lived in a place like Bay St.
Louis, and you now want to visit your neighbor three miles as
the crow flies over in Pass Christian, you have probably got
off the top of my head a 25 to 30 mile drive instead of what
used to be a 2 mile drive. Same thing on the other side, not
quite as bad getting from Ocean Springs to Biloxi but
substantial.
Since a significant portion of our revenue is from
tourists, gaming, casinos, and hotels, and since a significant
portion of that does come from Louisiana and New Orleans in
particular, what would be the mechanism, if any, and is there
historic precedence after other disasters of trying to apply
for some sort of ferry, either car or passenger, between Bay
St. Louis and Pass Christian, between Biloxi and Ocean Springs
in the approximately two years it is going to take to replace
those bridges?
I am told that even in this design-build that we are
looking at 18 months. There obviously has to be some time for
the competition to take place, and there is obviously going to
be some wiggle room on both ends of the contract. So we are
looking at two years of significant inconvenience to people's
lives. Is there a precedent after previous storms for doing
that.
And the third thing I would ask you to look at, in addition
to the ferry service, is one of the good news stories is that
the railroads, apparently since their bridges were pre-stress
and since they intend on just replacing them as they were,
think they can pick up a significant number of the sections of
those bridges and just put them back in place and have the rail
line going in six months instead of two years.
Is there precedence for ever using the railroads to
transport vehicles across that body of water, let them
dismount, and get back on the highway as an alternative to a
passenger ferry or a car ferry?
Mr. Capka. Sir, with respect to your first question about
ferries, I am not aware of the precedent, but I am aware that
it would be eligible to receive Federal support from the
Emergency Relief Program to work a ferry. I do know that
Mississippi and Alabama have been conferring over the
possibility of Mississippi picking up some ferries from Alabama
to work that.
Mr. Taylor. How was that initiated? What is the process for
that?
Mr. Capka. The Mississippi Department of Transportation
would determine what is in the best interest from their
perspective, and then they would apply for emergency relief
funding to cover the operations of a ferry.
Mr. Taylor. And off the top of your head, what is the
reimbursement ratio on that?
Mr. Capka. Sir, off the top of my head, I am not quite
sure, but it would probably be cost shared 80-20 percent, more
than likely, because it is a long term operation of a ferry,
but I would have to get back with you on that specifically.
Mr. Taylor. Would you, please?
I know years ago the railroads were touting loading
vehicles on trains and running that train from a place like New
York or D.C. down to Florida. So obviously, that type of
equipment exists. Is there precedent for a shorter haul doing
the same thing, but a shorter haul of only a couple of miles,
again getting from one side of Bay St. Louis to the other,
getting from one side of Biloxi Bay to the other, since those
bridges will be up and running as far as rail lines, hopefully
within the next six months?
Mr. Capka. Sir, again, I am not sure about the precedent. I
am not an expert on the rail. I do know from the discussions
that Mississippi and Alabama have, or at least the
deliberations in Mississippi, they are considering cycle time.
How long it would take to get cars using a ferry or in the
suggestion that you have made using some kind of rail
transport, the cycle time, and then comparing it to what the
detour cycle time might be. So I know that they are trying to
analyze that.
The second piece of information I think they are waiting
for are the proposals that come in from the contractors on this
design-build, to see what kind of time frames they are looking
at for the replacement of the bridges, and then I think they
will have all the information they need to make their best
decision.
Mr. Taylor. I am a big believer in making the most of
whatever hand you are dealt, and obviously we have been dealt a
pretty bad hand.
One of the good things that this Committee has done in the
past couple of years is work with myself and others in passing
legislation that said if a bridge is within X number of miles
of a navigable waterway, and it is going to be destroyed
anyway, of making it in the national interest that that bridge
and the rubble from that bridge be taken offshore and doing
some beneficial use with it, being the construction of a jetty,
a fishing reef, estuaries, or protection of coastal marshes
from erosion.
It is the law of the land. I can't remember if we passed
last session or the one before that, but it is on the books.
I would sure ask for your cooperation in the case of those
two bridges in Mississippi. I hope this is a one time, once in
a lifetime event. I hope I don't see the next Biloxi Bridge and
the next Bay St. Louis Bridge end up like the last two. But
since it is, hopefully, a once in a lifetime event, I would
sure hope that we make good use of this and take that in the
case of the Biloxi Bridge off of Deer Island which is a State
owned island near shore which has been eroding significantly,
and try to put a barrier out there to keep it from washing
away.
In the case of the Bay St. Louis Bridge, we have a
precedent just in the past couple of years of taking an
interstate bridge that was replaced. We took it offshore and
made a fishing reef out of it. And I would hope in your
capacity that you would help, and cooperate, and encourage that
as well.
I just happen to have met with the head of the Mississippi
Department of Marine Resources at lunch today. He is very much
interested in this. In fact, he has already applied for the
permits through the Corps of Engineers. The Corps is on board.
The State is on board. I hope our Nation will be on board
towards this effort as well.
Mr. Capka. Yes, sir, we will ensure that the consideration
is given in the deliberations that lead up to these proposals
that come in and are affected in terms of the bridge
replacements.
Mr. Taylor. I have got a town meeting in Biloxi Monday
night, and I am sure one of the questions is going to be how
big, talking about wide, the new bridge will be, how many
lanes. I have already been told by the Coast Guard that is
going to have an 80 foot clearance vertically. Can you tell me
how many lanes I can report to these folks that you all have
agreed upon for the new bridge?
Mr. Capka. Sir, I would like to report back to you on that.
My understanding is that at Biloxi it would be a six lane
bridge, and they are landing the bridge so that the footprint
changes either on the Ocean Springs side or the Biloxi side
would be minimal. But I would like to get back with you with
the specifics on how all that is shaping up and to confirm that
it is, in fact, six lanes.
Mr. Taylor. Okay, and if you could provide me any
additional information. A fairly common topic in my town
meetings is the need for ferry service. It comes up,
particularly in those areas fairly often, and if I could report
to them whatever progress you are making along that, I am sure
they would appreciate it, and I know I would appreciate it.
Mr. Capka. Yes, sir, and I will be sure to pass that on to
the Mississippi Department of Transportation as well.
Mr. Taylor. I guess the very last thing I would want to
mention, and again we are very grateful for the help we are
getting from you and from all the other National agencies.
One opportunity that has recently presented itself is, as I
am sure you know, prior to the storm, the casinos by law had to
float. It is a holdover from the old days when they went from
riverboats that had to be underway, then to riverboats that
were docked, to barges that were docked, but the key word was
that they had to be over water. That law has been changed.
Governor Barbour signed that law change, I think, yesterday
that allows them to come 800 feet inland.
Before, Highway 90 did have some fairly significant
bottlenecks near the casinos for obvious reasons. You couldn't
go south because the casino was there; you couldn't go north
because of the existing dwellings that were there.
A lot of that landscape has changed. I do think the
movement of the casinos to the north side of the road does
present some opportunities on the south side of the road to
move traffic a bit more rapidly for the people trying to make
haste going from east to west or the other way around. I would
hope your engineers are keeping that in mind for these changes
so that when we rebuild Highway 90, we do it right the first
time.
Mr. Capka. Yes, sir, the Highway 90 is being restored in
phases, and the first two phases are to do the essential
repairs just to get all four lanes open and operating. And so
they are going to go back in immediately to try to get that
done as quickly as they can to support the recovery effort.
The last phase of Highway 90 would be the complete
restoration to the appropriate standard. It would be at that
time that the Mississippi Department of Transportation would
then have to figure out whether they need to do just an
alignment, whether they would need to make some other
alterations in how Highway 90 was to run between Bay St. Louis
and Biloxi. At that point, I think there will be opportunities
to discuss exactly how that would occur.
Mr. Taylor. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
being here, Mr. Secretary.
Mr. Petri. Mr. DeFazio, do you have something?
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
To Ms. Schruth, we had some discussion on the highway side
about emergency apportionment that we have as part of the
formula even though it is oversubscribed. I understand there
may be some, and I was surprised here.
I hadn't heard that the Transit folks had done such a great
job in evacuating, and that is heartening to hear. I assume
that was done under local authority, and I guess there is a
question of whether or not that is a reimbursable activity
since they were operating outside their normal charter, is that
correct?
Ms. Schruth. We issued policy guidance that the emergency
use of transit vehicles was in the public interest, and we were
supportive of that. It would probably be considered incidental
use which would be the typical determination we would make for
the use of transit vehicles, so.
Mr. DeFazio. So it would be federally eligible?
Ms. Schruth. Yes.
Mr. DeFazio. Okay. Do you feel that we need to look on the
transit side at setting up some sort of-I don't know where the
funds will come from. Of course, you are not providing
operating dollars, right?
Ms. Schruth. We do for areas under 200,000.
Mr. DeFazio. Okay, but for New Orleans, they wouldn't be
eligible?
Ms. Schruth. Right.
Mr. DeFazio. They could apply to FEMA, I guess, for the
costs of operating those buses to evacuate people, is that
correct?
Ms. Schruth. Yes, at DOT or ESF-#1, Emergency Support
Function 1, which is the Department of Transportation. We
receive the mission assignment from FEMA. So we are actually
the contracting agency with NORTA who will provide service in
both Baton Rouge and in New Orleans. It is FEMA Funds, and it
is FEMA. It is a Stafford Act Program.
Mr. DeFazio. Well, that is what you are talking about, the
restoration. I am talking about the actual evacuation costs and
those sorts of things in the future. I am trying to get at the
point of whether there is any impediment here. We don't ever
want a local jurisdiction to hesitate to use whatever resources
they have to get out of harm's way because they are worried
what it costs.
Ms. Schruth. We can make that clearer. I think we have
sponsored drills and have paid for about 90 of them around the
Country, specifically to get transit at the table so that they
are part of the evacuation process.
Mr. DeFazio. Okay, that is good. Okay. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Just a few final questions.
We are having next week a panel of State and Local
transportation officials from the affected areas. You both had
experience in dealing with a variety. This is not the only
disaster, unfortunately, that we have encountered, and you
coordinated transit things in response to 9/11 at the Federal
level in Manhattan for some time.
Could you characterize at all the level of cooperation that
you are getting between Federal and State officials in dealing
with the transportation issues to maximize return of service?
Mr. Capka. Sir, I will take the first stab at your question
and then pass it on to my transit colleague here. I think the
cooperation communications have been excellent between our
Federal Highway Division Offices that exist in each State and
their counterpart State agencies.
Are there disagreements? There are always disagreements as
we go forward, but the communications are there so that we are
constantly looking at the challenge ahead and focused on
meeting the requirements. I would say it is reflective, I
think, of the fact that we do have a division, a Federal
Highway Division Office in each State.
So when the emergencies occur, the players know one
another, and it is not a pickup team going after the task at
hand. Unprecedented challenge with respect to the damage that
we have seen here, and the widespread damage, and the type of
damage. The flooding in New Orleans really did close access to
a lot of the highway systems just because it was underwater,
and we certainly had to wait for that to abate. In Mississippi,
just the widespread devastation. And so cooperating with the
State agencies was absolutely essential, and I thought was done
very well.
Ms. Schruth. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I think one of the
positives that comes out of emergency situations is the focus
on getting the job done, and I would say that was true in New
York. I was lucky enough to be in Atlanta during the Olympics
when we brought 1,400 transit buses in.
And I would say the same here, that there is tremendous
cooperation. FTA works extensively with FEMA in providing
funding for the transit assistance, and I think we have found
FEMA to be responsive. We don't always agree. They are the
experts on the Stafford Act. So they have had to educate us a
little bit.
But I think that we have been on the ground. We don't have
division offices as Federal Highway does, but we were able to
deploy staff rapidly and have them in place, and we do have
strong partnerships with the State DOTs as well as the major
transit systems. So I think it has worked very well. I think it
is staff-intensive but has, I think, paid off to the benefit of
the communities affected.
Mr. Petri. I don't know if you can respond to this with
much precision, but if you can just give us a rough idea, too.
When an emergency like this happens, there is clearly an
initial phase where nothing is happening, that the roads can't
be used and so on. Then there is a period when emergency
service has been restored, but you are not back to normal. And
then, you are back to normal.
Where are we in this? I assume that we are somewhere in the
emergency service has been restored. Basically, is the area
open to travel, even if inconvenient, now throughout the
region.
Mr. Capka. Sir, I would say we have restored the essential
traffic. If you were to look at the traffic even now backing
up, waiting to cross the I-10 Bridge at Slidell, both going in
and out of the New Orleans area, there is a lot of congestion
as recovery traffic is going in and out.
So we are nowhere near being back to normal, but we have
opened up Interstate 10 so that traffic can traverse. We are in
a position by the end of the month where Highway 90, with the
exception of one bridge at Henderson Curve, will be open for
traffic, one lane each direction to support the return of
residents and the recovery efforts that would need to take
place.
The major pieces of infrastructure are functioning now. It
will take a while before they are back to normal just because
of the length of time it is going to take to restore bridges,
something as significant as the Slidell Bridge, the Twin Span.
There also, the final work won't be done on roads until
recovery is practically complete. Because of the construction
loading on these roads, there is going to be collateral damage.
So one of the reasons why we determined that phasing the
recovery of Highway 90 was a reflection of the fact that we
knew that the heavy traffic was going to cause some damage.
So we decided to wait for the ultimate permanent repair at
the end of the recovery effort. As we are phasing, the short
answer to your question is we are still in the minimum
operation. We are recovering, but I think we have restored the
essential service.
Ms. Schruth. I think from the transit perspective, Mr.
Chairman, we have some areas of the Southeast which would still
be in a disaster state, and part of that is because evacuees
who had mobility in New Orleans have been relocated to areas
that have no public transportation, and a lot of these folks
came without any kind of their own transportation. That is a
problem area that we are still working on.
Obviously, the most significant example of that is Baton
Rouge, and FEMA has supported a six month increased transit
service in the Baton Rouge area. They are doubling the number
of vehicles in their fleet. They have about quadruple the
demand on their system that was there the day before Hurricane
Katrina struck.
I think along the Gulf Coast, the system will come back
more rapidly than in New Orleans. The service that is being
provided right now with FEMA assistance is different service
than what existed there before, but it is actually serving the
needs of evacuees and residents. A lot of the roads were
damaged.
So their previous routes aren't really passable at the
moment, but that will be a shorter term solution. And then,
obviously, New Orleans where you have major systems destroyed,
major assets having to be replaced, that will be a much longer
term resolution and will somewhat be determined by how New
Orleans decides to rebuild itself.
Mr. Petri. Mr. Boozman?
Mr. Boozman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize that I
was late and didn't get to hear the majority of the testimony.
I was in a markup in another committee concerning our veterans.
But as I go home and, in fact, I was in an earlier meeting
today concerning the Corps' efforts with Katrina and things. I
hear about gasoline prices. I hear about health care. But right
up there at the top is a real concern in my District, and I
think a real concern on the part of Congress and the American
people that the funds that we have allocated in going down for
relief are going as they need to be gotten to, spent in the
correct way.
Can you talk to us a little bit and reassure us some of the
mechanisms that maybe we can have even greater transparency in
those dealings than we normally have; some of the things that
we are going to be doing to reassure us as a Committee,
reassure my constituents, reassure the American people that
those funds are going to be spent in the correct way; and maybe
some of the things that you are going to institute to make sure
that we have a mechanism? We are talking about a lot of money.
Like I say, I know that the Committee, and I know that my
constituents are very concerned that we do have good oversight
and that you have got a plan in place to make sure that that
money goes where it is supposed to go.
Mr. Capka. Yes, sir, I would like to take the first
opportunity to respond. First of all, from the Department
level, the Secretary has made it clear to all of us that the
management of the fiscal resources that we are given is top
priority, and he has established a team headed up by our
Department's Chief Financial Officer to oversee the expenditure
of resources across the Department.
So the emphasis has been placed by Secretary Mineta.
Specifically, within Federal Highways, we are also very
cognizant of the responsibilities that we have to be good
stewards of the Federal dollars over which we have control and
have oversight.
The first thing we do is to identify, for an example with
our emergency relief funding that we will be managing, and is
to ensure that the money is being spent on eligible work. That
is the first criteria because there is a lot of good things out
there that could use money, but we need to make sure it fits
the requirement for being eligible.
And then secondly, we have controls in place where the
actual disbursements are not made on the emergency relief until
we have legitimate bills that need to be paid. So the money
isn't paid up front. The money is disbursed as the expenses are
incurred.
Secondly, in the contracting mechanisms that we are using,
we very much focus on the competitive bid process to ensure
that the work to be done is given an opportunity to see the
best and the most efficient way of expending dollars. And so we
focused on ensuring that the competitive bid--once we were out
of the absolute, out of the starting block kind of requirements
of getting debris out of the way, we settled down to the
competitive bid process. That is another technique to ensure
that the process itself yields the most efficient use of the
Federal dollars that we do have, sir.
Ms. Schruth. We are currently administering $48.5 million
of FEMA funds through contracts with local transit agencies and
the Mississippi State DOT. We have an existing oversight
program which we are tailoring to these situations. We have
staff currently detailed to the regions. So we have an onsite
presence, both for Mississippi and in Louisiana are certified
contract administrators. We have major engineering firms that
we have under contract also present in the region.
So I think we are providing a higher level of oversight
than we typically would. And the IG is married to us,
apparently. They have spent a week there already just wanting
to see what we think we are going to be doing. So I think, as
Administrator Capka said, this is a high priority for us, that
we know that we are spending the taxpayers' dollars, and we
will do everything we can to make sure it is spent well.
Mr. Boozman. Again, thank you very much. I really do
appreciate your hard work, and I know that you are doing your
very best. This is a difficult situation. So thank you very
much.
Mr. Capka. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Petri. One last question, you may have covered this but
just again. Do you have an estimate, Mr. Capka, as to the total
cost of the hurricane damage in the transportation area in the
Gulf Region and what the Federal cost or percentage of that
cost will be?
Mr. Capka. Sir, I can't give you a final cost this
afternoon just because it is a moving target, and we are doing
some evaluations. But to give you an idea of what the States
have requested, and of course we have to go through the process
that I just described just a short minute ago about determining
eligibility: Louisiana has requested $1.5 billion in emergency
relief support.
Mississippi has requested on the order of $700 million in
terms of Federal, and that is all 100 percent Federal. Alabama
has been around less than $25 million, and I would say Florida
less than $100 million as a result of what occurred over in
their area. That is what they have requested. We are in the
process of going through those in detail and ensuring, first of
all, that they meet the criteria for the Emergency Relief
Program, and then secondly, to ensure that our estimates and
their estimates are on track.
So we are in the process of doing that internally, and we
should have something that we will be happy to work with you
here in the very short future.
Mr. Petri. Yes?
Ms. Schruth. The infrastructure replacement for our transit
will be paid for by FEMA under the Stafford Act. And so we are
working with the transit agencies to develop applications for
public assistance, and we do have our contractors down, making
estimates just so we can be aware of what we think that will be
and to help them put these packages together.
But I know New Orleans has not submitted an application
yet. I think that Coast Transit has had preliminary
conversations with FEMA, and we have been there, but I don't
really know the final figure.
Mr. Petri. Just a follow-up, could you give us a feeling?
You mentioned the numbers they had requested and said,
obviously, you have to trust, or verify, or whatever the phrase
is, to check it out and make sure that it is, in fact,
necessary and related to what happened.
Can you give us a feeling? This isn't the first disaster.
These sorts of requests must have been dealt with on many
occasions in the past. Do you have a range? Are they almost
always fully granted, or is it cut back by a third or half, or
is it just all over the field?
Mr. Capka. Sir, I can maybe walk you through the process
that we use. I can't give you a percentage of what I think our
estimate of the emergency relief requirement will be. But as an
example, a big question is: Do we use emergency relief money to
replace and rebuild the new Slidell I-10 Bridge, or is that
going to be a mix of emergency relief, and state, and other
dollars to do that? We need to get the engineering reports in
on the condition of the bridge so we know what the repair
requirement is, and we are working this with Louisiana.
While they have assumed that the bridge needs to be
replaced, we need to again, as you pointed out, verify that
that is an appropriate thing for the Emergency Relief Program.
It is certainly appropriate from what the bridge requirements
are but specifically on the Emergency Relief Program. And I
would say there are some other estimates, too, that are out
there of damage that are being anticipated as opposed to damage
that exists.
In terms of inundated roads that have been under water for
quite some time, the questions are: Is the base course, the
foundation for the road damaged to the point where it needs to
be replaced, or will the roads dry out and be fine?
So there are those kinds of issues that make it extremely
difficult for us at this point to converge on a number today.
We are working very hard to do this, but those are the kinds of
issues that are out there, and some issues we have absolutely
no difference with the States. Working shoulder to shoulder
with them, we are able to work through those. But there are
some other items that we do need further analysis on.
Mr. Petri. Thank you both very much. I appreciate your
willingness to be here and your testimony today. The hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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