- DEPARTMENTS OF TRANSPORTATION, AND HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2010

[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

[DOCID: f:53757.wais]

DEPARTMENTS OF TRANSPORTATION, AND HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND
RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2010

_______________________________________________________________________

HEARINGS

BEFORE A

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DEPARTMENTS OF TRANSPORTATION, AND HOUSING AND
URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS
JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts, Chairman
ED PASTOR, Arizona TOM LATHAM, Iowa
CIRO RODRIGUEZ, Texas FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio
LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
MARION BERRY, Arkansas
CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan

NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Obey, as Chairman of the Full
Committee, and Mr. Lewis, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
Kate Hallahan, David Napoliello, Laura Hogshead,
Lisa Pena, and Alexander Gillen,
Subcommittee Staff

________

PART 5
Page
Department of Housing and Urban Development...................... 1
Livable Communities, Transit-Oriented Development, and
Incorporating Green Building Practices Into Federal Housing and
Transportation Policy............................................. 39
Part II: Livable Communities, Transit-Oriented Development, and
Incorporating Green Building Practices Into Federal Housing and
Transportation Policy............................................. 103
Member's Request................................................. 163
Outside Witnesses Written Testimony.............................. 199

________

Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations

PART 5--TRANSPORTATION, AND HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED
AGENCIES FOR 2010

DEPARTMENTS OF TRANSPORTATION, AND HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND
RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2010

_______________________________________________________________________

HEARINGS

BEFORE A

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION

________

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DEPARTMENTS OF TRANSPORTATION, AND HOUSING AND
URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS
JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts, Chairman
ED PASTOR, Arizona TOM LATHAM, Iowa
CIRO RODRIGUEZ, Texas FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio
LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
MARION BERRY, Arkansas
CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan

________

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
53-757 WASHINGTON : 2009

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

DAVID R. OBEY, Wisconsin, Chairman

JOHN P. MURTHA, Pennsylvania JERRY LEWIS, California
NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida
ALAN B. MOLLOHAN, West Virginia HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia
PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana JACK KINGSTON, Georgia
NITA M. LOWEY, New York RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New
JOSE E. SERRANO, New York Jersey
ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut TODD TIAHRT, Kansas
JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia ZACH WAMP, Tennessee
JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts TOM LATHAM, Iowa
ED PASTOR, Arizona ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri
CHET EDWARDS, Texas KAY GRANGER, Texas
PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas
LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California MARK STEVEN KIRK, Illinois
SAM FARR, California ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida
JESSE L. JACKSON, Jr., Illinois DENNIS R. REHBERG, Montana
CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
ALLEN BOYD, Florida RODNEY ALEXANDER, Louisiana
CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania KEN CALVERT, California
STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey JO BONNER, Alabama
SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio
MARION BERRY, Arkansas TOM COLE, Oklahoma
BARBARA LEE, California
ADAM SCHIFF, California
MICHAEL HONDA, California
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
STEVE ISRAEL, New York
TIM RYAN, Ohio
C.A. ``DUTCH'' RUPPERSBERGER,
Maryland
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
CIRO RODRIGUEZ, Texas
LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee
JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado

Beverly Pheto, Clerk and Staff Director

(ii)

DEPARTMENTS OF TRANSPORTATION, AND HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND
RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2010

----------

Friday, June 19, 2009.

DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

WITNESS

HON. SHAUN DONOVAN, SECRETARY, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND
URBAN DEVELOPMENT

Opening Remarks of Chairman Olver

Mr. Olver. The subcommittee will come to order.
We are going to start off here even though we are waiting
for Members because today's schedule could be a weird and
wondrous process.
I want to welcome the Secretary of the Department of
Housing and Urban Development, Shaun Donovan, to the
subcommittee.
Mr. Secretary, thank you for appearing before us for the
second time this year. We are pleased to have you with us this
morning to discuss the fiscal year 2010 budget request for HUD.
HUD is requesting $46 billion in budgetary resources,
recognizing the key role affordable housing plays in our
communities. This fact is especially poignant as we enter the
second year of an economic recession in which foreclosure rates
continue to increase and unemployment approaches 10 percent.
I am particularly pleased that, for the first time since I
became chairman of this subcommittee, HUD has presented the
subcommittee with an honest budget that better reflects the
public housing and community development needs that face the
Nation. The $3 billion increase requested for project and
tenant-based Section 8 arguably fully funds these core housing
programs for the first time in many years. In addition, the
$550 million increase in the Community Development Block Grant
program acknowledges the important role that CDBG plays in the
economic development in cities and towns across the Nation.
The fiscal year 2010 budget also includes a number of new
initiatives. I am not sure I could enumerate them all, but
there are a number of them.
I am particularly pleased to see that the Sustainable
Communities Initiative you announced at the subcommittee's
livable communities' hearing a few months ago is proposed to
receive $150 million within this budget. As you know, I have
long advocated for the better coordination of transportation,
housing and energy policy. I look forward to hearing more about
how HUD is coordinating with DOT, EPA, and DOE to ensure that
we are creating not only affordable housing but also affordable
communities.
I also look forward to discussing the Choice Neighborhoods
Initiative and how this initiative will replace Hope VI. The
goal of integrating schools into our neighborhood
revitalization efforts is commendable. However, there are many
cities that still have a signification stock of severely
distressed public housing that we must ensure don't get left
behind as a result. In addition, I am interested in learning
more about the energy innovation fund and what role you expect
this program will play in advancing energy efficiency in public
housing.
There are areas in your budget that I believe lack
sufficient details and need additional clarification. In
particular, the budget proposes using up to $434 million for
the transformation initiative. As I understand it, this program
will focus on modernizing HUD systems and providing a new
office for strategic planning. While I support these broad
concepts and intended goal of creating a new, efficient HUD, I
have a number of questions about how this flexibility will be
used and what impact it will have on existing programs.
Additionally, I hope to discuss the administration's
forecast that FHA will provide $1.7 billion in receipts in
fiscal year 2010. As you are probably aware, the Congressional
Budget Office has contested whether FHA will, in fact, incur a
receipt balance. As we move forward, the difference between the
two estimates will have important impacts on the subcommittee's
budget resources.
Last, I want to commend the Department's implementation of
the Recovery Act. As of June 5, your Department reports that
over $10 billion has been allocated to State and local agencies
for immediate investment in local communities. These funds are
crucial to creating thousands of new jobs and providing
assistance during the current economic and housing crisis.
I appreciate your cooperation on the implementation of
these programs, and hope we can continue discussion about how
best to expend these important funds. In the NSP II program, I
am greatly concerned that the congressional intent on this
program may have been disregarded and that HUD's grant
eligibility requirements may jeopardize the Department's
ability to leverage these funds to help thousands of other
families.
Mr. Secretary, while there are areas within the budget
request that I have concerns about, as I have indicated, I am
committed to working with you towards our shared goal of
strengthening HUD's ability to provide affordable housing.
Frankly, it is a breath of fresh air to have leadership in
place that believes passionately in the Department's mission.
Before we hear from you, I will recognize our ranking
member, Tom Latham, for any opening remarks he would like to
make.

Opening Remarks of Ranking Member Latham

Mr. Latham. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And welcome,
Secretary Donovan. Thank you for taking on this Department. It
is a real challenge. If there is ever an agency in need of a
reform of some its programs, or even some of its partners and
stakeholders, it is probably HUD. It seems like we are always
asking what did HUD do with the money? And it is usually the
case that HUD gave the money to the next agency or group or
entity that was supposed to receive the money, and then we in
Congress really don't get a chance to hold that group, whether
it be a mortgage bank, public housing authority, project based
building owner or community developer accountable for their
performances. I hope you can make some progress on that.
In the interest of time, Mr. Chairman, I know we will be
voting here shortly. Mr. Secretary, I look forward to your
testimony. I hope everyone on the committee gets a chance to
ask their questions.
I yield back.

Opening Remarks of the Honorable Shaun Donovan, Secretary, HUD

Mr. Olver. Thank you, Mr. Latham.
Mr. Secretary, your complete written statement will be
included in the record. If you can keep your oral remarks close
to 5 minutes, then we will get on to questions.
Secretary Donovan. Understood.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Latham, members of the
subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before
you today to discuss HUD's 2010 budget proposal.
I want to thank the committee in particular for securing
nearly $14 billion for HUD programs as part of the Recovery
Act, and assure you HUD is working quickly to get these funds
to nearly 12,000 grantees across the country. I am equally
proud of the large number of competitive funds we have made
available, including the $2 billion in the neighborhood
stabilization program that the chairman discussed, and the $1
billion for greening our public housing stock. In fact, we had
the largest amount of competitive funds available today than at
any other time during the Department's history.
As you know, we have already begun to address the housing
and economic crises. Given our expectation that FHA loan
volumes will continue to be high until the credit crisis
passes, we have requested expanded loan commitment authority
for both FHA and Ginnie Mae. We are asking Congress for the
authority to endorse up to $400 billion in FHA insurance. And
in 2010, HUD is projecting that FHA will generate nearly a $1
billion more income than will be paid out in losses over the
life of those loans. In other words, we project our 2010
business to be in the black.
We also must have better informed housing consumers, and
this budget requests $100 million for HUD's housing counseling
program, a $35 million increase over 2009. HUD is also
requesting $37 million to better protect consumers and
taxpayers against those who commit mortgage fraud.
The second objective of the 2010 budget is to restore a
balanced, comprehensive housing policy, one that supports
homeownership, but also provides affordable rental
opportunities and ensures nobody falls through the cracks.
The President is proposing several key initiatives,
including $1 billion to capitalize the national housing trust
fund; full funding of the public housing operating fund; 12
months of funding for project based rental assistance; a $117
million increase in funding for homeless programs; and a $1.8
billion increase in calendar year funding for the voucher
program that will preserve affordable housing for more than 2
million households and give HUD and housing authorities new
tools to more efficiently allocate budget authority in order to
serve the maximum number of households within the funding
provided.
The third objective of the 2010 budget is to invest in
urban and rural communities. That includes full funding for the
Community Development Block Grant program at $4.45 billion, a
$550 million increase over 2009; creation of the university
community fund and the rural innovation fund; a $250 million
Choice Neighborhoods Program. And let me be clear, Choice
Neighborhoods is, in fact, a celebration of the successes of
Hope VI in that it takes the best practices of Hope VI and
expands them to encompass not just public housing, but also
privately owned assisted housing and the surrounding
neighborhoods of extreme poverty.
Choice Neighborhoods is based on a simple principle: When
you choose a home, you also choose the schools your child
attends. You choose transportation to work; you choose a
community. We look forward to working closely with the
authorizing committees to make Choice Neighborhoods a powerful
tool for creating viable neighborhoods with decent, affordable
housing, improved access to jobs, better schools, and increased
public transportation options.
The fourth objective of the budget is to drive energy
efficient housing and sustainable inclusive growth. In March
when I testified before this committee, I spoke generally about
our budget proposals to address the twin challenges of
coordinating housing and transportation investments and
improving energy efficiency. Today, families spend nearly 60
percent of their budgets on housing and transportation costs.
That is not only unacceptable, during an economic slowdown, it
is unsustainable. Building off of the work of Chairman Olver
who compelled HUD and FTA to work together on program and
policy integration, we are proposing a $150 million Sustainable
Communities Initiative to integrate housing and transportation
planning and support development of new land use in zoning
plan.
The proposed $100 million energy innovation fund would
support several pilot efforts within FHA and in a few
innovative communities in order to identify strategies that can
foster new approaches for financing energy improvements in new
and existing housing.
The fifth objective of this budget is to transform the way
HUD does business. We need better data and research about our
existing programs and the housing market in general.
Mr. Chairman, as I told you before, I am a numbers guy. We
need to be forward thinking and use demonstrations to test
ideas on how to transform our existing programs so they serve
more people with the same or less money. For example, HUD
spends about $5 billion on energy for our public housing and
Section 8 operations alone. Saving just 5 percent annually
could generate a savings of $1 billion over the next several
years that we could invest in affordable housing. We need the
flexibility to target technical assistance where it is most
needed, such as planning assistance for communities dealing
with the economic fallout from the troubles in our auto
industry, and we must transform HUD's procurement, hiring
practices, and data systems. For example, modernizing our FHA
and voucher management systems to meet 21st century housing and
community development challenges.
We are requesting that the Congress permit HUD to set aside
up to 1 percent of its total funding to be used for four
specific activities: Next generation technology;
demonstrations; research; and technical assistance.
So Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, with this
$44 billion request, I believe we are poised to meet our
current economic challenges and lay the foundation for building
the strong, sustainable communities America needs to prosper in
the decades ahead.
I thank you for the opportunity to be here today, and look
forward to your questions.
[The information follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Mr. Olver. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for your statement. We
would usually go directly to questions and follow 5 minute
sessions by myself and the ranking member and then the other
members who have come in in their order, but I would like to
recognize our big ranking member, Mr. Lewis from California,
and allow Mr. Lewis time to make what comments he would like to
make.

SECTION 8 HOUSING

Mr. Lewis. Thank you very much, Chairman Olver. Secretary
Donovan, I apologize for interrupting in this fashion. We have
some crazy things that are happening on the House floor these
days, and people like me and my big chairman have to be
attending them.
In the meantime, Chairman Olver, I want to raise with the
Secretary a very, very important item in my mind and raise by
way of that to the members of the committee concerns I have
long had.
Mr. Secretary, I had the privilege of chairing this
committee in the mid-1990s, and during that time, took note of
the fact that in the many years I had been on the committee, we
had been sending virtually millions and millions of dollars
around various communities for Section 8 funding. That housing
program is designed to provide opportunity for housing and
maybe even opportunity to climb up the ladder for middle
income, really low income and poor America.
Secretary Cisneros and I became very good friends during
that time because we had similar concerns. The Secretary spent
time with me going out and looking at Section 8 housing. While
he didn't attend this trip, he was certainly attentive to what
I experienced. The trip to New Orleans I will never forget,
where we had been sending $10 million to $15 million every year
for all the years, maybe for 10 to 15 years that I had been on
the subcommittee, to New Orleans. And the visit there was
startling. To visit Desire Homes, and I would urge you to spend
some time at Desire Homes. As a New York housing commissioner,
you know problems of impacted housing. But in turn, the place
was a shambles. Huge facilities that were built during the big
war years to bring people to work in the shipyards. The two
major buildings in the center were controlled by the gangs, and
they ran drugs and other kinds of activities out of there.
I met with the inspector general. I met with the inspector
general in the offices of the FBI because we could find almost
no other significant public housing in spite of the millions in
New Orleans. And as we were discussing these challenges with
the inspector general, the guy from the FBI who was sitting
there interrupted and said, Congressman, if I could just say
something, it seems to me that the least you could do if you
want to get a handle on providing housing dollars in New
Orleans, you would bring a full-time inspector general here
because this guy flew in from Houston today to talk with you.
Well, that led to a significant, $9 million that I
remember, recalling off the top, increase of the inspector
general funding for the housing authority. That led to work
that looked at largely urban centers around the country. And as
a result of the work and investigation, a number of people went
to jail. That particularly impacted communities of significance
in California. The then-secretary is now attorney general of
New York, and he was very unhappy with my involving myself with
the inspector general because the inspector general is somewhat
of an independent voice. My God, can you imagine, inspector
general, the authority dare being independent. Well, in turn,
that led to the housing fraud initiative in which we were
trying to broaden that base. Leadership changed after the next
election. I went to another subcommittee. The following staff
was not particularly interested in having an inspector general
have this kind of expanded funding. But nonetheless the problem
continues. There is not any doubt that you and I are committed,
if at all possible, to provide an opportunity for especially
the poorest of the poor to climb these ladders. But if the
money we spend does not get to those people, and maybe by way
of local authorities is used in different ways, then to say the
least, we have been a disservice perhaps not just to the
poorest of the poor, but to ourselves.
I would urge you, Mr. Secretary, to look at that background
and consider what we can do to expand our ability to measure
what is really happening at those commissions, especially in
the urban centers.
Mr. Chairman, I appreciate so much your allowing me to take
our time. You are a chairman who is willing to get into the
nuts and bolts. Between you and Mr. Latham, if you would take
this on, and do this with Secretary Donovan, it could make the
biggest contribution this subcommittee has made to the housing
process. Thank you.
Mr. Olver. Mr. Lewis, thank you for your comments. I am
sorry I had not heard this from you at some point earlier.
Mr. Lewis. I have said it so many times, I almost forget.
Mr. Olver. Not before me, not when I have been present at
least. Thank you for that.
Mr. Secretary, would you like to make any comment or would
you rather have time to explore this before you comment?

Inspector General

Secretary Donovan. I very much look forward to following up
on that. A couple of things, first of all, I couldn't agree
more that the inspector general has an incredibly important
role to play. I meet almost weekly with Ken Donohue. In just
the first few months, our teams have begun working. They meet
weekly on Recovery Act funding, and we have asked Inspector
General Donohue not just to tell us mistakes after we have made
them, but to be there right up front as we were designing the
processes of distributing the close to $14 billion in Recovery
Act funds, the largest share of which is going to public
housing, to make sure, particularly on the troubled housing
authorities, that we are preapproving literally every line item
that they were going to be spending in the Recovery Act
funding.
So I think the Recovery Act, in particular, has been a very
good start in a collaborative relationship, knowing in prior
times there have not been those kinds of collaborative
relationships. I think that is very, very important.
The last thing I would say is that an area I am
particularly concerned about is mortgage fraud, more generally
in the market as well as within FHA. The President recently
signed a bill that expanded funding for the inspector general
at HUD as well as the Department of Justice, Federal Trade
Commission, and gave us more authority to go after bad actors
in the FHA program. I could agree with you more that we need to
do everything we can to ensure that funds are spent for the
right people in the right way.
Mr. Lewis. I thank you for that.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

Mr. Olver. We will then go on to questioning.
Mr. Secretary, I would like to just get a little further
thought from you about the sustainable communities program. You
announced earlier this year with the Secretary of DOT the
sponsorship of the Sustainable Communities Initiative to
incentivize regional planning efforts, combining housing and
transportation, and I think you then included energy along the
way. I applaud that effort because I have always considered
that energy and housing and transportation are part of a three-
legged stool and you have added a fourth. I think that adds
some additional stability to it with EPA.
Can you tell us a little bit about the structure of the
program? Are there local efforts that you are trying to emulate
or guide what you have in mind that you think that we ought to
be replicating around the country? What are your hopes for the
communities, how communities will react to this initiative?
Secretary Donovan. Well, just to take that last question
first, we have seen enormous excitement and interest about
this. I have seen it myself at the local level, at the
metropolitan level. There has been a great interest and already
a great deal of work that has happened frankly without much
support from the Federal level to try to bring together
housing, transportation and other types of planning,
particularly around energy.
Really what we are trying to do through the Sustainable
Communities Initiative is to support and expand state and local
efforts that are underway. There are three key components, $100
million that would support regional planning efforts that would
better link transportation funding with housing funding.
Transit-oriented development is a perfect example of the kind
of planning that funding would support.
$40 million would go to support planning at the municipal
or local level rather than at the regional level. In order for
transit oriented development and other types of sustainable
development to be successful, it depends on first of all
getting many barriers out of the way, we are focused on
remaining barriers whether zoning or other barriers, that stop
the development often of multi-family and denser development.
Again, we must remove barriers, whether they are barriers in
terms of impact fees or other things that have traditionally
stood in the way of intelligent development. We must also look
at strategies like inclusionary zoning or others that would
ensure where you have transit-oriented development, which can
spur walkable communities. Our vision is not just to have
luxury housing development, but a mix of workforce development
that is available for a broad range to create truly sustainable
communities from an income level as well. That is the second
part.
The third part is $10 million dedicated to research. In
particular what we have begun working with the Department of
Transportation to pursue a relatively simple transportation
efficiency measure that takes a house or a home in one
community and considers, the expected transportation costs in
that area, versus in other places. I think this could be
enormously powerful because if I am a lender providing a
mortgage to a home where I would expect that family to spend 30
percent of their income on transportation costs, that is a lot
less safe a mortgage than one where the family spends 10
percent of their funds on transportation costs.
I think we can do a lot to unleash the power of the
financial markets, and others, if we can get good information
about transportation costs that are easily available to
consumers and to the market more broadly.
So those are the three components of the initiative. I am
also happy that we made real progress since we testified here
in developing six livability principles, and also beginning to
really analyze the barriers to this kind of development. There
are many ways that HUD programs stand in the way of in-fill
development and other kinds of development that contribute to
sustainable communities.
So we have begun a full analysis of that across the
Department, and I look forward to coming back to you with the
results of that to talk about what legislative changes we might
need to really support those.

NOFAS

Mr. Olver. Have you done regional meetings with people from
States and so forth to describe this out in the broader
community? I suspect from the way you have described this,
there is going to be some sort of notices of funding
availability for the three categories that you mentioned, or
two of the three, because the research may well be something
that you are going to do internally, but the other two look
like they lead to NOFAs?
Secretary Donovan. Absolutely. Should the Sustainable
Communities Initiative be part of the budget, we would run
competitions through--NOFAs to support the planning efforts at
regional levels and local levels.

SUSTAINABLE HOUSING

Mr. Olver. Have you reached out, because if you just send
out a NOFA, and if it comes as a surprise to everybody, I don't
know what you will get except more from several communities
that maybe have already learned how to do this sort of thing?
Secretary Donovan. I couldn't agree more. We have had
initial discussions, and we hope to be able to announce a
director of our new offices, Sustainable Housing and
Communities, within the next few weeks. And once that person is
on board, that person would lead exactly the kinds of
discussions that you are talking about. And we are planning to
do that over the summer in a range of different communities.
Mr. Olver. I could continue this. I am particularly
interested in what dollars transportation may be bringing to
this and other organizational things, but I am well on red.
Mr. Latham.
Mr. Latham. I was enjoying every second of it, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, normally in the Federal Housing
Administration, the Administration and the Congressional Budget
Office agree somewhat about how well the portfolio in FHA is
going to perform; and that disagreement is normally about
volume of business and not about the subsidy rate. But this
year, the CBO estimate was basically a complete rejection of
the administration's estimate in practically every respect. The
estimate rejects the notion that the fund will operate
profitably. Absent the underlying Credit Reform Act, there
would be a demand that we treat the program as if it were
losing money. This has real life consequences for the committee
since we have to make up for the shortfall that CBO estimates
will occur relative to your total budget. Quite frankly, it
seems just from appearances only that the administration
overstated the performance of the funds so it wouldn't have to
reduce programs or reduce the increases in the initiatives that
it wants.
Has your staff met with the Congressional Budget Office to
determine what specific elements of the administration's
estimates were rejected and can you tell us what those
differences were?

DIFFERENCES WITH CBO

Secretary Donovan. We have requested a meeting with the CBO
to discuss this. I have also had some discussions with the
Budget Committee and OMB about this, and we have provided some
information to them about it.
I think fundamentally, what we have seen, and I spent an
enormous amount of time personally with the Office of
Management and Budget analyzing these numbers, there have been
two major changes in FHA that may not be reflected in CBO's
numbers and I think it is important that we do get to the
bottom of this with them.
First of all, given the change in credit markets, the
average credit scores for FHA have gone up over 50 points
during the last year. So that for loans to be originated in
2010, we expect a significantly higher credit score on average
than we have had historically.
Second, and I thank Congress for working with HUD on this,
the elimination of the seller-funded downpayment loans in the
portfolio, that change alone, our estimate is, contributes a
$2.5 billion swing to the performance of loans that will be
originated in 2010.
So I do feel quite confident in our estimates, and we are
pursuing a resolution with that of CBO. And any support that
the committee could provide in doing that, we would greatly
appreciate.
Mr. Latham. So you intend to--our problem is that we have
to live by CBO. Whether you talk about OMB or whatever, but
that is not the reality here for us. But you are going to work
with them to try to revisit your methodologies. How are you
going to address this?

METHODOLOGY

Secretary Donovan. We have approached them, requested a
meeting, and supplied information how we got to our estimates.
I hope we will get into the details with them to be able to
resolve the difference.
Mr. Latham. Okay. Just another item that has kind of popped
up; you are proposing to continue the reverse mortgage program
for seniors even after it has been shown to be a huge drain on
the taxpayer, and the program is not part of the basic mission
of FHA, has never been implemented by the private sector.
Moreover, many have warned since the inception of the program
that it is doomed to fail; now, a lot of people believe it has
failed, and the Department wants to continue it anyway.

TAXES

Why would you ask the taxpayer to incur, I think it is
about $800 million, to incur such a huge, long term liability
on top of all of the other long term liabilities?
Secretary Donovan. During this time in the economic crisis
that the country is facing, which has been particularly
difficult for our seniors, reverse mortgages continue to be an
important opportunity for seniors to face these difficult
economic times and to do longer-range planning to support their
health care and other needs.
We looked carefully at this and felt that it made sense to
continue to support seniors during these difficult times.
Having said that, I would also note that the proposal that we
have put forward was dependent on not changing the underwriting
terms for the HECM program. There are some relatively simple
changes we could make that would limit participation in the
program, but that could offset that request for credit subsidy.
I would be very happy and look forward to our staffs discussing
those options and making decisions together with the committee
about whether we ought to make changes to the program.
Again, we are not advocating those, but there are options,
whether it is around the premiums, or around effectively the
loan to values that seniors could take which would enable the
program to be credit subsidy neutral for 2010.
Mr. Latham. I just would note the reserves are basically
deleted or gone now as a result of the foreclosures, and it is
going to be a real problem. I thank you.
Secretary Donovan. Just to be clear, the FHA program, the
reserves continue to be above the congressionally mandated 2
percent overall. I want to be very clear that the program is
not in a negative position overall. And we do continue to
monitor that very closely. We expect to have a reestimate this
summer, and I think based on our latest estimates, the
likelihood is it does remain above that 2 percent. But
depending on the way that the market goes over the summer, that
could change. We will keep the committee very closely apprised
of that.
Mr. Olver. Thank you, Mr. Latham.
We will now go down the line in order of seniority for
those who were here when the gavel came down, and then those
who arrived after the gavel came down. That procedure leads me
to Mr. Pastor.
Mr. Pastor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning. Congratulations.
Secretary Donovan. Thank you.
Mr. Pastor. And best of luck.

CDBG

The questions I am going to ask deal basically with CDBG. I
am from the city of Phoenix, and its population has doubled. It
was 600,000 in 1970, and now it is 1.4 million. And so the past
30 years has brought a lot of change. And the growth has
brought with it 18 percent poverty level in the city's
population. Phoenix has experienced increases in the low income
single parent household; housing overcrowding; aging housing
stock; and moderate and low income senior citizen housing.
The CDBG program formula was developed in 1974, about 30
years ago, and has not been revised since the program's
inception, as you well know. This year you request $4.18
billion for CDBG. And as I understand it, you are requesting
the fiscal year 2010 funding to be distributed using a revised
formula. What does that mean?
Secretary Donovan. Well, first of all, the $4.18 billion
that you talked about, we are also proposing--that would just
be for formula funding, and we are proposing beyond that new
initiatives, like the Sustainable Communities Initiative, that
brings the total up to over $4.5 billion. But even just the
$4.18 billion of formula funding, represents a significant
increase over last year for filling the President's commitment
to fully fund CDBG.
I think there is broad agreement, as you discussed, that
the formula created more than three decades ago has not kept
pace with changes in metropolitan areas and in rural areas
across the country, for example, in Phoenix, other parts of the
southwest and the west. And so we do believe that there needs
to be an updating of the formula. We also understand that is a
difficult discussion because there are different interests in
different parts of the country.
That is why it is so important that we have proposed a
significantly increased level of funding which would allow us
to implement a hold harmless provision for jurisdictions across
the country so that no jurisdiction, even with a formula
change, would lose funding for the 2010 budget years.
So we believe that with this increase of funding now is the
time to relook at the formula and to develop a formula that is
more closely targeted at needs, while at the same time, looking
at ways that we can continue to provide the flexibility that
CDBG provides, but to have greater accountability in terms of
measuring progress and impact for the CDBG program which has
been difficult given the broad flexibility the program has.
Mr. Pastor. I would agree it is going to be very difficult
politically because over the last 30 years, you have had
population changes and there have been major shifts as you see
in the makeup of Congress. Yes, it would be very difficult
because there are regions today that probably would be very
much opposed, and regions that would be very supportive,
especially in the west and southwest. So to hold harmless, it
would be for 2010?
Secretary Donovan. I think there are a number of ways to
implement that.
Mr. Pastor. But you said hold harmless 2010? That is what I
heard.
Secretary Donovan. Certainly at the very least for 2010.
There are a number of ways to implement this that would have
budget consequences in future years.
Mr. Pastor. That is what I am getting to. What are you
going to do in 2011? You are still going to have the political
pressure and the redistribution in the formula?
Secretary Donovan. We believe, at the very least, that the
budget proposal for 2010 needs to hold harmless across the
country. We have not made a proposal in the budget for 2011
given that is not part of the budget proposal.
Mr. Pastor. It is too early. I will take your answer.
The fiscal year 2010 budget proposal mentions that economic
need will be used to target CDBG moneys. Can you tell me what
factors will be used to determine economic need?
Secretary Donovan. There is a proposal that we would be
happy to discuss in more detail and provide you. There are a
range of factors that we have looked at in terms of income
levels, condition of housing, and a range of others. I think
the best might be for me to provide to you and the committee
more detail about what possible formulas would be.
Again, I think we believe strongly this is an important
discussion to have with the Congress. We are not locked in, I
would say at this point, on a specific formula, and we have a
number of options that we have developed that have differently
weighting of different factors. I believe it is very important
that we have a discussion about the merits of various formulas
and come to a joint conclusion about that rather than for us to
simply say there is a single formula that we think would work.
Mr. Pastor. That is why I bring up the issue because when
you talk about formulas, especially those formulas that have
not been changed for 30 years, and there is the likelihood they
haven't been changed for 30 years because the people who
benefited 30 years ago don't want to give it up.
So I would highly recommend to you that your attitude of
working with Congress and looking at the various formulas, the
various factors, is very important, that you consider that and
work with the Congress because if it is something you spring on
Congress or do not have much conversation about, you are going
to get caught in the crossfire. So I highly suggest that you
continue your dialogue just so that your future initiatives
will progress forward and will be able to be implemented.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Olver. Just to add to that slightly, the formula was
authorized in law once in the middle seventies. It has been the
same for all of those years. We are going to have a census that
will be out before the 2011 budget gets completed. And seeing
the history of it, one ought to deal with whatever this new
census data are around the factors that are you talking about.
But the communication has to be with the authorizing committee,
so start that communication.
Secretary Donovan. Yes. I would also just add, I want to be
very clear, there has been discussion about the formula for a
number of years, but it has taken place in the context by
attempts, by the last administration, to dramatically cut the
CDBG program.
The President made a pledge during the campaign, which we
are living up to in this budget, to fully fund CDBG. I believe
it shows a commitment to the importance of this program to
local communities. And in addition to that, it gives us the
ability to implement changes, as difficult as they might be, in
a context where nobody will lose funding under a hold harmless.
So I believe we have an opportunity to have a discussion
about it in a different kind of way than we have had in the
last few years, and I look forward to that conversation with
this committee and with the authorizing committees.
Mr. Pastor. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Olver. Mr. Rodriguez.
Mr. Rodriguez. Thank you very much, and welcome to the
committee and congratulations, Mr. Secretary.

OVERRUNS

Let me follow up on a comment made by the minority ranking
member, and that is in terms of making sure that we look at
past abuses. And I was just wondering, and this is an open-
ended question, have you done anything to do an assessment
through GAO or others to look at cost overruns in the past 4 to
8 years, or whatever, in some of those programs, and I would
ask you to comment on that. Like anyone who comes new to a
program, you want to know that it is up and running
appropriately. I know we have found some $300 billion cost
overruns in just 4 years in the DOD facility from 2004 to 2008.
Have you done anything on that aspect or asked for anything to
be done?
Secretary Donovan. Two things I would mention on that
front. I talked earlier about the close working relationship
that we have established with our inspector general; but that
also goes beyond HUD to other agencies, Department of Justice
and others, around mortgage fraud which given the growth of
FHA's programs and many of the new lenders that we have had
come into the program, we have begun to step up significantly
our efforts, whether it is through swat teams, whether it is
enhanced legal authority that we just got from Congress and
signed by the President just a few weeks ago, to go after. One
of the problems that we have had historically is we had powers
to go after companies, but not the individuals that made up
those companies. So we could debar, suspend a lender. They
could then reconstitute.
Mr. Rodriguez. Please let us know if we need to do anything
legislatively that would help you in cleaning that up.

RESOURCES/NEEDS

Based on the numbers that we are seeing, there is a big
disparity between the need that is out there versus the
resources we are providing. And it seems that gap is even
bigger now than ever before. Have you made any plans in terms
of looking at some alternatives that you might come up with or
looking at any specific goals that you want to accomplish to
try to meet those gaps?
Secretary Donovan. A couple of things on that. I couldn't
agree more that particularly given the economic crisis that we
are facing, the needs are substantial. That is why I think it
is so important that you passed a Recovery Act that had almost
$14 billion to try to meet some of those needs. One thing I
would mention in particular, is a billion and a half dollars
for homeless prevention and rapid rehousing, that has been a
very important effort that we have been working with over 500
jurisdictions around the country to make sure that we help
those families that on the edge of homelessness to be able to
stay in their homes. It is also why we have proposed a
significant increase in funding for Section 8 vouchers, which
are a particularly important tool in these economic times in
the budget proposal; as well as for the very first time funding
for a national housing trust fund for extremely low-income
families.

NEIGHBORHOOD STABILIZATION PROGRAM

Mr. Rodriguez. Just a little more specific on one item,
there are a lot of national organizations and groups that want
to participate and have been participating, yet your guidelines
also kind of discriminate and put them at a disadvantage. I
would ask you to look at those guidelines that you have for
national organizations because what you request on some of
those specific targets in areas puts those national
organizations at a disadvantage, and I would hope that you kind
of look at that and go back, just like you should go back in
terms of those formulas for areas that have continued to grow.
I represent a more rural area than anybody else on the
committee. I have 20-something counties in west Texas, and so
housing is essential and is important. I know that there is a
big waiting period and there is a waiting list of people
waiting to get access to the resources there. So please look
specifically at the national organizations. There are some
specific items that your organization asks for that places them
at a disadvantage. So when the scoring comes up, they are not
going to be able to compete, especially as it deals with the
neighborhood stabilization program and those kinds of things.
I don't know if you have any comments on that or if you are
looking at that now.
Secretary Donovan. In fact, based on the feedback we got
from the committee and others, we did make changes to our
neighborhood stabilization program NOFA that we have published
to try to provide as much flexibility as possible so national
organizations could compete effectively, as well as giving
points in that NOFA for things like leveraging, working across
jurisdictional areas which obviously national organizations are
particularly well suited to do. So we think we have constructed
a NOFA for neighborhood stabilization and made changes to it
that will be particularly useful in getting more national and
regional organizations involved.
Mr. Rodriguez. The comments that Congressman Pastor talked
about, looking at changes in the last decade in growth patterns
and those kinds of things, I would ask on the recovery
resources, you look at those and prioritize those in terms of
where the greatest needs are.
Secretary Donovan. Thank you.
Mr. Olver. Thank you. Ms. Kilpatrick.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Mr. Secretary.
I am loving the HUD budget for the first time in my 13
years here. I appreciate the creativity and future vision that
you have, as well as the President, and I commend you for that.
I don't think we can express enough how important it is
that you go through the authorizing committees. Chairman Frank
on our side and Senator Mikulski on the other side have worked
hard on our issues, and they support what we are doing.
Chairman Obey always says we are appropriators, and we are not
authorizers and there is a distinction. I think that is
important. As much as I like it, I see a roadblock coming. If
not now, on the floor; and if not today, soon. I can't express
how important that is.

CHOICE NEIGHBORHOOD INITIATIVE

I want to talk about the Choice Neighborhood Initiative. I
really like how it sounds. You also talked about a couple of
categories that you have put together that you are looking at.
The Harlem Children's Zone sounds, as I read a bit about it,
might fit in some of these categories. I know that it takes
Hope VI, which has been zero funded for several cycles in this
committee, and the Senate always puts it back in, but we are
not sure that we are going to do that this time because of the
new initiative that you have. I am not sure that it needs to be
authorized first. But setting that aside, can you talk about it
and how it parallels the Harlem Children Zone?
Secretary Donovan. Absolutely. First of all, I completely
agree on the importance of working not just with this
committee, but also with the authorizing committees. And Choice
Neighborhoods is a perfect example. My staff is meeting today
with Senator Milkuski's staff, and we have many on the calendar
and others we are setting up with the various authorizing
committees on both sides of the Hill, to make sure that we have
a full discussion about what is appropriately done as part of
the budget and what is appropriately done in authorizing
language. So thank you for that comment.
Specifically on Choice Neighborhoods, I think the
importance here, and I want to go back to something you said,
Mr. Chairman, in your remarks, we believe very strongly that
public housing and the work that has been done in Hope VI not
only has worked and been effective, but needs to be expanded.
And that is why we are proposing an increase from the current
funding level from $120 million to $250 million for Choice
Neighborhoods.
Based on our analysis, there are roughly three times as
many distressed public housing units as there are distressed
assisted housing units in neighborhoods of concentrated
poverty. We would expect that public housing will get an
increase of resources under the proposal in Choice
Neighborhoods. So I want to be very clear about that.
We also know that assisted housing and privately owned
housing can be a big part of the problem. I have often heard
directly from housing authorities, wanting to be able to
include, whether it is foreclosed homes or other types of
housing surrounding public housing, if we are going to truly
remake neighborhoods. That is one point I would make.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Juxtapose schools into that last
discussion, please.

SCHOOLS

Secretary Donovan. It is exactly the same issue. If we
don't fundamentally remake the schools and create schools of
opportunity in these neighborhoods, we are not going to be
successful long term in creating sustainable communities there.
That is why I have begun work with Secretary Duncan around
integrating early childhood education and secondary education
into the Hope VI efforts, not even just in Choice Neighborhoods
but this year, we are looking at making more explicit
connections with school reform in those communities. And then
specifically on Harlem children's zone, the President talked
about a Promised Neighborhoods Initiative modeled on what the
Harlem Children Zone has done, which is really almost from
birth through finishing high school, an effort to follow
children, to give them not just at school but full day supports
where they may need it with tutoring and other things, and it
has been extremely successful in raising the academic
performance and college attendance of kids in that neighborhood
in Harlem, and we are looking to model it and link it.
One of the reasons that we called this initiative Choice
Neighborhoods is to explicitly make that link with the Promised
Neighborhoods Initiative that the Department of Education will
be implementing as promised by the President during the
campaign. So we are working closely to bring together not just
different types of housing but also school reform efforts and
early childhood education efforts with the efforts around
housing in the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative.
Mr. Kilpatrick. I like it, and I hope you keep Members of
Congress and this committee and subcommittee involved. It is
very important as you go out that we become leaders in that as
it rolls out. I like the coordination and it is the way to go.
Thank you.
Mr. Olver. Mr. Carter.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

LOCAL MATCH

I want to start off with when we had Hurricane Ike hit
Texas, the communities were told that they could not use CDBG
money to fulfill the Federal match required for other grant
programs that would have aided disaster relief. This was a
reversal from the previous disasters. Is there a reason CDBG
money cannot be used in local matches; and was it just
particular to some reason for Hurricane Ike, or do you know? Is
there a chance we could reduce the 75-25 percent Federal-local
match that many communities face to receive grants that would
help them when they are in the middle of a big disaster?
Secretary Donovan. This is an issue I have discussions with
Governor Perry, Senator Cornyn and others about. There is a
specific provision in the legislation that established the CDBG
funding for Hurricane Ike that required that match to be in
place. That was as you say accurately, different from prior
statutory authorizations for CDBG disaster funding. So it was a
statutory restriction that we have implemented as directed by
Congress.

HURRICANES

Mr. Carter. We don't have any concept of why all of a
sudden one particular hurricane is different than the one
before it? You have to ask Congress.
Secretary Donovan. This was passed well before my time, and
I don't know well enough the history of why that was added. But
it has been an issue, particularly in Texas, that I have heard
about a number of times.
I would just add as well that one of the issues in
effective disaster recovery has been exactly this, that each
time there is a disaster, there is a different CBDG
authorization that is created. They have been different in
different circumstances. And it is almost like we have had to
reinvent the wheel each time. And I think it is very important
that we have begun work with a number of the committees and at
the White House to think about a way to create a sort of model
CBDG program that would be specifically tailored to disaster,
remove some of the barriers like the one you are talking about
and others to make it more flexible and more effective in
recovery and speed up recovery efforts.
So I think it is important that we think about this issue
in a broader context to make sure that we have an effective
program to be able to respond.
Mr. Carter. That is a satisfactory answer, and I thank you
for that answer.
And by the way, I apologize for being late.

SECTION 8 HOUSING

The other question I have, this is kind of off-the-wall,
because I don't know the names of the programs. But I did a lot
of work with Section 8 housing back in my youth, and now I did
a ribbon cutting on a program where the HUD was actually
assisting people in purchasing homes. I don't know if you are
familiar with that. But it was a fantastic concept because
these people were actually buying a house.
And one of the things that I have always been concerned
about since--for 30 years--is that as we subsidize housing for
people, we never give them the opportunity, that caused you and
I, and our families to have risen out of where we started, and
that is the ability to accumulate wealth. You never accumulate
wealth if you are renting in a subsidized housing project.
And let's face it, even though our real estate market is in
the tanks right now, historically Americans accumulate--they
begin to accumulate wealth in their home. Are you familiar with
that? It is a very small program being experimented with, but
it was hugely successful where we did it because, all of a
sudden, people who had never owned anything owned something.
Secretary Donovan. And this would be specifically the
Section 8 voucher homeownership.
Mr. Carter. But it was homeownership, not rental.
Secretary Donovan. In fact, in my prior work, I ran the
fourth largest voucher program in the country, and we did have
a voucher home ownership program as well. It is a program that
has frankly remained small, and I think it is one we could look
at ways to try to create more flexibility and to expand. But
more broadly, I agree with you that we need to continue to
provide opportunities for low- and moderate-income people to
become homeowners.
I do not take the lesson from the recent crisis that we
have seen, that low- and moderate-income people can't become
homeowners. In my own work, we created or preserved 17,000
units of home ownership at the local level with only 5
foreclosures. So I think it is really a question of doing it
right, get back to basics on underwriting, providing the right
kind of counselling and assistance and also benefits, like the
$8,000 first-time home-buyer tax credit that Congress provided
in the recovery bill which has been an important benefit to get
families into homeownership for the first time and to help to
begin to stabilize housing markets around the country.
Mr. Carter. I believe my time has expired.
Mr. Olver. Thank you, Mr. Carter.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Thank you for being patient.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Welcome, Mr. Secretary.
In recent years, HUD has given funding incentives to
agencies that offer permanent housing for the chronically
homeless. The unintended result has been providers have shifted
away from offering support services in favor of creating
housing. In the absence of support-service dollars, the
homeless population loses access to critical services, such as
those addressing mental health, substance abuse and medical
services.

HHS/HUD PARTNERSHIP

It seems to me that a coordinated effort between the
responsible Federal agencies would help to make the
availability of housing with complementary support services
more sustainable and efficient. Since most of the support
services are provided by the Department of Health and Human
Services, would you consider developing some kind of a
partnership or coordinated efforts between HHS and HUD that
would allow for a more dedicated stream of funding for these
very, very important services?
Secretary Donovan. I could not agree more with everything
that you said, that this is both, based on my own experience in
developing support of housing in the nonprofit sector and
private sector as well as in the public sector, the linkage
between services and housing is absolutely critical and in fact
has led to real progress on this issue. In fact it has led to a
30 percent decline in chronic homelessness between 2005 and
2007 based on these advances.
And oftentimes, frankly, local areas have had to do it in
spite of a lack of help and even barriers between Federal
agencies. So I think what you are talking about is absolutely
critical. In fact, yesterday, we had our first Interagency
Council on Homelessness meeting of the administration, and I
became the new Chair of it.
And one of the things we discussed at the meeting--I was
sitting next to Secretary Sebelius. And we have begun
discussions already but are very committed to expanding them
around linking up, whether it is Medicaid or other forms of
funding, because ultimately not only do we serve people better,
but we can actually reduce costs by serving people effectively
in supportive housing.
There have been good studies now showing that we reduce
costs of emergency room care, shelters, even prison time for
the chronically homeless by bringing services that can be
funded through HHS's budget directly into supportive housing.
So I couldn't agree with you more. And I would be happy to
share more information as that partnership develops.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. I would appreciate that.
I hear quite a bit from the Asian-Pacific Islander
community, which has not been immune to the foreclosure crisis
but yet, as you know, has a very specific linguistic and
cultural need in terms of service. And although they have been
highly impacted, less than 1 percent of HUD-approved housing
counseling agencies throughout the country have the capacity to
meet the unique needs of the API community. Can you please tell
the committee what is being done to ensure that the API
community is adequately served in home foreclosure prevention
and mitigation efforts?

API COMMUNITY

Secretary Donovan. Two things I would say on that. One is,
in this budget proposal, we have proposed a significant
expansion in housing counseling funding from $65 million to
$100 million, and we feel, given the current crisis that we are
facing, that it is an absolutely critical investment in
resources. So that should open up the opportunity for more
groups to be funded.
But second of all, we need to go beyond that to make sure,
just as you said, that we are targeting linguistically isolated
groups. And that is why we have begun an effort under our fair
housing programs as well as our counseling programs to publish
information in many more languages. We are moving to 12
different languages, from fewer than that in all of our
materials.
And also we need to work effectively--I was meeting earlier
this week with a group called Esperanza, which works with
Latino communities around the country and has the same issue,
that they are trying to get into significant mortgage
foreclosure issues in their communities and are trying to
expand counseling. And we are working with them closely.
I would be happy to follow up with the particular groups
that you are hearing from to see how we could get training and
information to them and connect them to groups like
NeighborWorks that do effective training for housing counseling
work.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Thank you.
Mr. Olver. Thank you.
Mr. Price.
Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, Mr. Secretary. Glad to have you with us, and I
appreciate your testimony.
I was listening very carefully to your answer to Ms.
Kilpatrick, and I want to follow up on the question of Choice
Neighborhoods and the link with the considerable Hope VI
backlog that I know the department is facing due to the drastic
cuts in recent years in that program.

HOPE VI

I want to know a little more about that transition and what
it portends for communities that are still waiting and have
been waiting for the particular kind of comprehensive support
that Hope VI provides. I know you are familiar with that issue
and with the way this program had a kind of checkered history
but got refined and improved. I can show you in my district--in
both Raleigh and Durham--the difference that the Hope VI
program has made.
And there is more to do. In the last 8 years, the public
housing advocates, including our chairman and myself, have had
to struggle to push back against the Bush administration's
attempts to actually zero out Hope VI. Now the new
administration is advertising Choice Neighborhoods as, on the
one hand, a celebration of Hope VI, but also as a way
presumably of incorporating and going beyond Hope VI's key
goals. That is what I want to explore with you because, as you
can tell, my assessment is that the work of this program is far
from complete, and I want to make sure we don't celebrate Hope
VI prematurely in a way that leaves behind unfinished business.
Let me give you an example and a couple of questions that
will let you know what I am getting at. We have a major need in
Raleigh, North Carolina. It is a great candidate for Hope VI.
We have a good track record there. I wonder how well we would
fair under Choice Neighborhoods.
Walnut Terrace houses 700 residents in an outdated,
inadequately-equipped and poorly designed facility. The first
question has to do with the link to neighborhood schools, which
I think all of us would agree is a very positive linkage, but I
want to be wary here of unintended consequences. Because of a
progressive diversity policy in the countywide school system,
the children who live in this particular development attend a
variety of schools.
Under Choice Neighborhoods, as I understand it, funding
preference would be given to projects that link housing
redevelopment to school reform, which sounds like a good idea,
and in many places would be a good idea, but I worry that it
could inadvertently disadvantage public housing communities
that aren't served by community-wide schools. In the case of
Walnut Terrace, this example I am citing, I am not sure their
application would make the cut under the kind of scoring system
you have described.
I will ask my second question, and then I will stop. Right
now, Hope VI is funding four to five projects per year. I know
you are going to double that funding; you have offered
assurances about that here this morning. But you are also
expanding eligibility to projects of privately-owned stock. And
here, too, there is a lot good about that idea. But combined
with these new preferences, I am not sure whether you are going
to dilute the funding available to publicly-owned housing.
So beyond this celebration aspect, I would like to know how
you envision Choice Neighborhoods, vis-a-vis Hope VI? How do
you address this Hope VI backlog? This work is not done. And
the supply and demand imbalance under the current funding
level, how do you address that? What can we expect as we make
this transition in terms of the needs that have piled up,
frankly, all over this country due to the drastic reductions
that we experienced in Hope VI?
Secretary Donovan. Very important questions.
First of all, I would say that one--we believe strongly in
the administration that public housing needs investment, that
it has been underfunded for years, and that is one of the
reasons why there was $4 billion in the recovery bill that we
have moved to get out very quickly, and in fact the type of
development that you are talking about would be a good
candidate for a competition we have available right now with a
billion dollars in competitive funding for public housing,
transformation and other efforts.
So we have more resources available right now than we have
had in any time in HUD's history to do this kind of work. So I
think it is important to recognize that we are trying to attack
that backlog in many different ways, not just through Hope VI
and Choice Neighborhoods.
The second thing I would say is, on the dilution question
that you asked, we have looked very carefully at the stock of
dilapidated public housing around the country, as well as the
stock of dilapidated assisted housing, privately owned, and
there is roughly a 3-to-1 ratio of public housing to assisted
housing. So with the more than doubling of funding that we are
talking about and the demand in the eligible housing, we expect
and are targeting a significant expansion of the number of
public housing projects that could be eligible. So I do believe
this will not in any way dilute the funding available to public
housing redevelopment; it will significantly expand it, even
with the broader eligibility.
The last thing I would say is, we are not looking to be
prescriptive about exactly what local communities should be
doing to create successful schools. If you have got a
development in a neighborhood where that school reform has been
effective and there is quality--quality educational options
available to those children, my sense is that we haven't
written the NOFA yet because obviously we are in discussions
with you all about the development of the program. But my
expectation is that if there are quality educational
opportunities available in that community, that that would
score well on a NOFA looking to ensure quality education rather
than poorly.
We are not looking to knock down schools if they are
already functioning effectively or if there are opportunities
available in that community. So this sounds to me like a
question of making sure that, if the program gets enacted, that
we work closely with you and the committee to ensure that it is
written in a way that is flexible, that meets local needs in
the way that we intend.
Mr. Price. Thank you.
I know my time has expired.
As to your first point, very quickly, I understand the need
to look to various sources to get the support we need, and
believe me, our housing advocates are very good at that, but I
am also very wary of assuming that there is a ready substitute
for the kind of comprehensive assistance that Hope VI has
offered.
My experience has been that this is a unique program in
many ways and that we have really suffered from its decline.
And so we want to deal with this backlog and with the needs
that have built up.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Olver. Ms. Kaptur.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, Mr. Secretary. Great to have you here.
I want to focus on a few areas in my questioning. The first
is areas of our country enduring very high foreclosure rates
that are not going down but are rising, and I would ask your
particular attention to meeting with Members of Congress who
represent these areas.
Our foreclosure rate is now over 12 percent and rising in
the greater Toledo area, and I daresay I guess Congresswoman
Kilpatrick and perhaps other on the panel have the same
problem. Here are some of my recommendations. You use your
considerable power within the administration to ascertain
whether unemployment benefits that have been passed by this
Congress can be used as income in calculating the mortgage
agreement where we are trying to work out and help people save
their homes at the local level. There is some problem with some
of the banks and mortgage companies, but since the Federal
Government is sending in that stream of income every month, I
would think you might be able to do something about that. If we
don't, we are going to get more foreclosures in areas that
don't need any more foreclosures. That is number one.
Number two, I want to make you aware of a situation in
districts like I represent where auction houses are now coming
in, and they are buying off these properties at fire-sale
prices before the local communities can even get in there and
bid on their own behalf. There was a dysfunction between the
arrival of HUD money and auctions that are ongoing. I would ask
you to draw your staff's attention to this problem.
I can tell you, in my community, since the beginning of the
year, nearly 90 percent of the homes that have been sold have
been sold to outside investors. This is appalling. They don't
take care of their properties. And for what they are being sold
for, we could have put the original owners back in those homes.
There is something really wrong when Citigroup and J.P. Morgan
and all these same characters can come in and end up owning the
property, and the local community can't even defend itself.
So again I ask for your perhaps meeting with Members of
Congress. I am sure Congressman Cardoza is one of these people.
There are many of us in this situation, and we cannot get a
handle on what is happening at the local level. Our real estate
communities are outraged, and none of what is passed up here is
making all that much difference. So I wanted to communicate
that message to you.
Number three, in terms of a stimulus, I would urge you to
look at the possibility of working with the director of FEMA.
In communities like my own, we have had flash flooding and lots
of difficulties with flooded houses and so forth. And there is
a real possibility in places like Toledo and Fort Wayne to use
this moment to look at FEMA's prehazard mitigation funds and
some of the HUD funds to begin acquiring properties that are in
these areas, some of which are vacant, some of which are
occupied. We could rip them down. We could relocate people. We
put money into the local economy, and we could take up some of
the other extra housing stock that is around the communities.
It is a real opportunity right now. But it would need some type
of strike force on your part to go to those communities that
have this type of profile. It would help us ease some money
flow into our regions using both your funds and the funds of
FEMA.
The other point I would like to bring up, sort of a
different subject, relates to the proposal for university
development in your--I don't totally understand what that is--
but it sounds pretty good. But I have noted, in my community,
where we have dilapidating areas, we have people with no
building skills. And the programs of the Federal Government and
the localities don't work very well to try to seed building
skills in areas where we have significant housing need. The
need for building skills is as great as the need for housing.
And I would urge your attention to legislation that existed
back in the 1970s and 1980s, called Neighborhood Self-Help
Development that HUD had authority to work with Community
Development Corporation, and they became the mechanisms to
access labor money, HUD money, local money, building trades
money to do really incredible things in those neighborhoods. So
many of those authorities have just died, and as a result,
neighborhoods die.
Finally, I wanted to just mention something. Every year in
a community like mine, a community of about 320,000 people in
the biggest city, we get about $4 million to $6 million, to $7
million of HUD money through CBDG. Meanwhile every year we get
over $100 million in food stamp assistance, and I really
believe that food stamps are the largest source of economic
development dollars that a community like mine has. It has been
really hard to get the public housing authorities to look at
extra land that they own and properties adjacent to them and
become part of greening the city.
I think the President has a real commitment to this, and I
think what we could do there is unbelievable with new modern
agriculture. Tom Vilsack really cares about this. And if you
mention my name, he will say ``urban agriculture.'' It can
happen, and it can certainly happen in the Midwest where land
is arable. I know my time is up. But I just wanted to urge you
to look at demonstration programs in places where HUD and USDA
can cooperate to grow product where it is desperately needed
through local efforts and then to turn those efforts into food
stamp redemption sites. So you begin to capture the dollars
that people could earn through the sale of food, and some of
your housing authorities could actually create credit unions
and capture those dollars on site. None of that is happening in
regions like mine, and I think it is really needed, and it
could work in other places of the country.
I thank you very much for listening. I don't think I have
any questions. If you want to respond, go right ahead.

MAKING HOME AFFORDABLE PLAN

Secretary Donovan. I won't respond to all of those points.
I think they are excellent points, and we will follow up on a
number of them and get you more information on a few of them.
One thing--two things I would say, first of all, that this
issue of unemployment benefits where families are at risk of
foreclosure is very important. One of the important pieces of
our Making Home Affordable plan, which has really now been
stood up and implemented, and we are starting to see
significant takeup. We have had now about 200,000 modification
offers under the plan, including 40,000 alone last week. So we
are really starting to see the scale ramp up.
And one of the critical things about that is that it was
intended to establish a standard modification process on many
different issues, including on what can be considered income.
And actually, in the plan we have explicit guidance about using
unemployment benefits as income for the plan. So I would be
happy to get you more information about that. But that is--as
the program takes hold, hopefully many of the less-than-
satisfactory modifications that were happening before get
replaced with modifications that used the standardized guidance
and process that we established.
The other thing I would mention, in addition to the idea
about FEMA, is that we do right now have the Neighborhood
Stabilization Program competition available, $2 billion to buy
up foreclosed homes. That could be used in a number of
different ways, land banks and other things. And I would just
encourage, particularly communities like yours that have been
hit by the foreclosure crisis, to be looking carefully at that
and coming in and applying for those funds in addition to a
discussion that we could have about FEMA.
Ms. Kaptur. Could I ask you, Mr. Secretary, what can you do
about these auction houses coming in and sort of ripping the
local market apart basically?

AUCTION PRICES

Secretary Donovan. It is difficult for us at the Federal
level, obviously, to stop them from coming in.
Ms. Kaptur. It is the same boys. It is the same boys. J.P.
Morgan, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, the same ones. They use Hudson
and Marshall out of Texas, and they are going right through our
areas.
Secretary Donovan. One major real problem for many of the
neighborhood groups, localities that want to be at those
auctions and want to be able to compete for those properties,
particularly using Neighborhood Stabilization funds, is a lack
of information about what is happening with those properties.
So one of the things we are doing through the Making Home
Affordable Plan, all of those services that you talk about
participate in the plan. We are now, as of next month, we will
be able to access very detailed data about loans where
modifications haven't been successful and are likely to be
foreclosures. And what we are looking at doing is creating a
centralized database where we can provide information very
early on, before it ever gets to foreclosure, to localities, to
community groups, so they can be prepared to come in and
negotiate even ahead of a foreclosure sale or to be prepared to
go and bid earlier than they are. That is at least one aspect
that we have been working on.
There are others that we can do to go after some of the
speculators who have not been--whether it is committing fraud
or doing other things that are really problematic in some of
the communities.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you.
Mr. Olver. Thank you.
We are going to try to do some more here. I am not quite
sure exactly when the votes will be. But I am told within half
an hour or so. So we will try to get through another round. I
am going to cover some things rather quickly.
I just want to comment to Ms. Kaptur, because she may not
be able to have a second round. She has pointed out that the
big boys that were a part of the creation of the problem in the
first place are in there at the base of those auctions, and
they have all the information, but the people who might be at
the communities to know when or to create the auctions in the
first place, they are not in as good as a position to get the
information. So they are really at a competitive disadvantage,
plus the fact that the Neighborhood Stabilization moneys came
rather late in the process in getting out. So, yeah, they have
a problem.
I am noticing--this is quite a different thing. In one
sentence in your testimony you mention the University Community
Fund and then the Rural Innovation Fund, and leaving a few
words out, for addressing the problems in distressed
neighborhoods and rural communities. Well, the Rural Innovation
Fund For Rural Communities, the University Community Fund
sounds like distressed neighborhoods. My guess is the graduate
students at those universities would agree that they were
probably being housed in distressed communities.

CHOICE NEIGHBORHOODS

To go back to the Choice Neighborhoods and the relationship
to Hope VI, I had commented at the beginning the worry that two
others have now reiterated that one cannot move on to a new
concept without realizing that there is a lot of the old
concept that still hasn't gotten where it ought to be. And
there are several things that come to mind in that.
I think there is a great need for technical assistance when
you are working with any of those communities, and we have, on
Hope VI, we have a number of projects which have barely
gotten--either not or barely gotten off the ground within a 5-
year period. There has to be some other reason for some lack of
technical assistance, or there is some disconnect in the
choice--in the original competition process as to who has the
capacity and who has the will to get things like that done. We
have a number of projects, unlike what Mr. Price had mentioned,
where they have had such good experience. Some communities have
had exceptionally good experience with it, and some others just
can't seem to get off the ground after they have been awarded.
That is number one.
And then on the question of Choice Neighborhoods, it is a
difficult question because we have had an authorized Hope VI
program which has been underfunded deeply for quite a number of
years, and there have been--there are lots of large
communities, but also a lot of medium-sized communities. Ms.
Kaptur's community was 300,000, or it was; the Census is down.
But it is a perfect community to be having the Hope VI program.
They never had one. There are a lot of communities in the
500,000 down to even those in the 50,000 to 100,000 range that
have never been in such a thing, and they need to be considered
and be allowed to come into it. So there is all of those going
on.
And my final comment I guess here because I am going to be
on red in just a moment, my final comment on this one is that
we had an authorization that passed the House of
Representatives for an extension of Hope VI last year with
about $750 million or $800 million intended per year. It never
was taken up by the Senate. Our side is thinking about doing
another authorization for Hope VI. They have particular angst
because they have done an authorization and might be inclined
to do essentially the same thing again. And you better get
talking with the authorizers because there is angst about the
Choice Neighborhoods program there, though your comment about
recognizing that there is three-quarters of the need remains in
communities where there is public housing, and maybe a
quarter--I am not sure that you are specifically saying that
there may be distressed housing in the HUD-assisted group that
is at the proportion of 1 to 3 in the public housing remainder.
That is a reason for having demonstrations.
Do you want to comment?
Secretary Donovan. Sure. I want to reiterate very, very
clearly that I believe strongly Hope VI is an outstanding
program, and one of the things that we are trying to do with
Choice Neighborhoods is expand the funding available to exactly
those types of developments. And I have heard consistently from
housing authorities that the ability to include privately-owned
housing or other forms of housing as part of Hope VI
developments would really help to transform those neighborhoods
even further than the existing programs do. Because there are
times when you can rebuild the public housing, but if there are
foreclosed homes or other abandoned housing nearby, you simply
don't have the same kind of impact. So this would give public
housing authorities doing Hope VI type developments or wanting
to do Hope VI developments broader opportunity to expand what
they are doing.
You may be arguing that $250 million isn't enough. That is
something that if you believe there ought to be more funding
for a program like this to expand the opportunity, I would be
happy to talk about that. But fundamentally, I have heard from
many, many mayors that Hope VI has been terrific. They have an
assisted-housing program that is as bad a blight on communities
as Hope VI. It is not as many, but where there is one, it has
been devastating, and I have seen them very personally myself.
So I believe that we need to take the opportunity to learn from
the success of Hope VI and be able to take on new efforts.
I don't think it is an either/or. And I am concerned that
the committee seems to be seeing this as an either/or choice. I
don't think it is an either/or choice. We need to expand the
funding available to Hope VI type redevelopments, and we need
to expand those lessons to other types of housing that have the
same kind of negative impacts on communities. And I believe
strongly that we can find a way to do that to assure that we
expand the amount of public housing that gets redeveloped as
well as to expand those lessons to other kinds of housing.
Mr. Olver. Well, I thought I was giving you a chance to
knock the transformation initiative out of the ballpark.
Mr. Latham. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Mr. Latham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I saw recently there is an announcement about livability
grants, which I guess is interesting.

LIVABILITY GRANTS

Just for the record, would you define what ``livability''
is and tell me where these grants are going and what is
supposed to be done with these grants? And I think for the
committee's sake, what funds are you using for these grants?
There is no line for livability grants.
Secretary Donovan. These grants are actually not HUD
grants. If I understand correctly, the announcements that you
are talking about; they are not HUD-funded grants. We are
proposing in the budget Sustainable Communities Initiative----
Mr. Latham. Where would that come from?
Secretary Donovan. I believe the ones you are talking about
come from the Department of Agriculture. But I am not--I am not
sure. I would have to--if you could get me more information
specifically about the ones that you are thinking about, I
believe they are Department of Agriculture, but I am not 100
percent sure about that.
Mr. Latham. Sometimes it gives the appearance that maybe
the administration is kind of working at cross purposes. We are
promoting the notion of livability and people living close
together and in near proximity. Being from Iowa and coming from
a big town of 168 people, I would not consider that to be
livability. I like the open spaces. I live in the suburbs a
mile outside of town there.

LIVABLE COMMUNITIES

And on the other hand, we have through the stimulus
package, there is huge investment as far as extending Internet
and broadband out into the most rural areas all over the
country. Obviously I am supportive of that, but it would seem
somewhat at cross purposes. We are talking about having these
clusters, and then we are also talking about having more people
live out farther away or being able to live out farther away. I
don't know, who wins the battle here? Are we just throwing
money at both and seeing which one can come out on top?
Secretary Donovan. I guess, Congressman, I see it
differently, that what livable communities is about is
providing more choices for people in terms of how they get to
work, how they get to shopping, how they live their lives.
Right now, I think folks are voting with their feet frankly and
saying, we don't want to be spending hours and hours in traffic
and cars. We want to be home with our kid. We want to have a
better quality of life. And so we are both in urban areas,
suburban areas, rural areas. The livability partnership that we
have established, including--I was talking to Secretary Vilsack
about this yesterday.
He is creating more options for people in all of those
different areas. We are not looking to tell people where they
should live. The opposite. We are trying to make sure that,
whether it is in rural areas, through access to broadband or
other things, that they have more choices.
Just to give you an example of that, as you know, Secretary
Vilsack is from Iowa as well, and one of the big issues facing
many towns of 1,000 people or 5,000 people is vacant stores in
those towns with vacant units up above, and we were talking
about the opportunity to provide more retail and maybe to even
provide senior housing in places where, without getting in a
car, because often seniors can't drive, being able to get
access to the pharmacy, to the grocery store right there within
the town.
So I think there are lots of things that we can do through
this agenda to provide more choices, and frankly, the Federal
Government has often been in the way, and I think a big part of
this is getting out of the way of allowing people to make those
choices and local communities to develop in the way that they
want.
Mr. Latham. Well, I am keenly aware--I have a 92-year-old
mother that lives in this town of 168 people, and she has to
drive 10 miles to get a gallon of milk or a gallon of gasoline.
There are virtually no stores. You don't want to be on the road
when she is going to the grocery store. God bless her. I love
her. What is HUD's role in a town like that? We just passed a
bill yesterday in Ag Appropriations, $3 billion through USDA
for grants, $18 billion through rural development. Does HUD
need to be in Alexander, Iowa, along with USDA?

HUD'S RURAL ROLE

Secretary Donovan. Not only do we need to be, we already
are. We fund, through our range of programs, tens of thousands
of rural housing units and others. Let me just give you----
Mr. Latham. As far as handling those, it often goes through
USDA?

USDA

Secretary Donovan. We often provide subsidies to be
available to them. Let me give you an example. We have a senior
housing program which, because of a number of restrictions in
that program, tends to support new construction on greenfield
sites, whether it is environmental restrictions and other
things. Exactly the example I just used, for a senior living
where they have to drive 10 miles to get to something, maybe
the answer is the Department of Transportation providing more
options for vans or other kinds of transit that would support
those seniors being able to have a better quality of life. That
might be a transportation answer.
On a housing side, the answer might be to change our senior
housing program so that we could redevelop the second floors of
those buildings in the town that can walk to those services or
have them readily accessible with a service coordinator or
other folks. So really this is about providing options that
will improve the quality of life, not just through transit
options like I talked about, but as well as making sure our
programs don't stand in the way of towns like the ones we are
talking about being able to develop in ways that support the
residents with a good quality of life. It is a simple example,
but that is the kind of thing we are looking at to try to get
all the barriers in our programs out of the way of this
sustainable community agenda.
Mr. Latham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Olver. We now have had votes called. But if we could do
3 minutes and the remaining 5 people can have their time
before--Mr. Pastor.

HOPE VI

Mr. Pastor. Mr. Secretary, I will make the offer.
At your convenience, I would like to sit with you and just
give you a history of Hope VI at this side so maybe you might
understand it is not either/or, but some of the encounters you
are going to have both in Congress and what is causing probably
some of our doubt. You are starting another program, an
initiative which I hope you have a great success. But in this
committee, we don't legislate on an appropriation bill. And
many of your initiatives are going to have to be authorized. So
that is our reluctance.

PRIORITIES

But let me ask the question, how do you justify taking
funding in the coming fiscal year from programs that are sorely
needed in this economy to fund longer-term priorities? Why do
you decide on this particular structure to transfer authority,
rather than putting more money into the working capital fund or
into the policy development and research office? And this deals
with your transformation initiative.
Secretary Donovan. Two things I would say about that. The
working capital fund, I think it is clear based on the systems
that--and the working capital fund funds our information
technology development and maintenance that there has not been
the kind of investment that would be necessary to make HUD an
effective, efficient agency, whether it is not having effective
systems to count and provide to this committee what we are
spending on Section 8 and what will be needed in the following
years.
And in a range of other areas, we simply haven't invested
in technology. And that technology, frankly, can ultimately
lead to more people being served in our programs, because
today, without the kind of information technology, without the
research to know what is working, it has been very difficult
for us to make sure that our programs are effective and as
efficient as possible. So I believe that the transformation
initiative, which would give us the ability to expand funding
for technology, for research, is intimately linked to the
department being more effective and ultimately being able to
serve more people with the same amount of money.
Right now, because we haven't been able to invest in that
technology, whether it is on Section 8, whether it is in the
FHA programs, I think, frankly, we waste money that should go
to people with real needs on the ground. So I see it
particularly as a time of great economic need in this country
that an effective, efficient HUD will only go to greater
support the fundamental mission of the agency. And that is why
this transformation initiative, which would increase the amount
of money we have in addition to the working capital fund for
systems, is so important.

WORKING CAPITAL FUND

The working capital fund in our proposal would fund the
maintenance of existing systems, and then we could use the
transformation initiative to fund new development of technology
at the agency.
Mr. Pastor. Thank you.
Mr. Olver. Mr. Carter, 3 minutes.
Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This committee
recently spoke with Secretary LaHood regarding the Livable
Communities Initiative between DOT and HUD. I will direct the
same question to you that I asked him. Currently EPA gets $50
million for Smart Growth programs. Is this Federal money
duplicative of your efforts? If not, where are the lines drawn
regarding responsibility for these efforts? Which agency, DOT
or HUD, is leading the effort?

LIVABLE COMMUNITIES

Secretary Donovan. We have formed a working group with the
Department of Transportation and EPA to work jointly on these
issues because the fact is that ultimately we can't be
successful in this initiative if we don't have EPA programs,
transportation programs and housing programs, all working
together rather than at cross purposes. EPA specifically has
responsibility for issues like water quality, brownfields, a
range of issues that are critical to the sustainable
communities initiative. HUD has responsibility, lead
responsibility for housing; and Transportation, obviously, has
lead responsibility for transportation.
So I don't think these efforts are duplicative in any way.
This is about getting out of the old way of operating just in
silos where we don't communicate, where we work at cross
purposes to each other, to make sure that we are coordinating
the Transportation investments--that Transportation is making,
the housing investments that HUD is making with the kind of
brown fields and water quality investments that EPA is making.
So we are not taking each other's responsibility.
I think it is clear who has lead responsibility in each of
these areas. What we are doing with this initiative is trying
to make sure those are coordinated in ways that they don't work
against each other in the future.
Mr. Carter. So you are working in tandem is what you are
saying?
Secretary Donovan. Absolutely.
Mr. Carter. Thank you.
Mr. Olver. Thank you.
Mr. Rodriguez, 3 minutes.

SECTION 8

Mr. Rodriguez. Real quickly, following up on Congressman
Pastor's comments regarding the transformation. In terms of
your plans, how are you going to prioritize that? Is it going
to be a pilot program or in specific areas? Have you figured
that one out? Are you going to be looking at that?
Secretary Donovan. We have begun to develop detailed
information about the efforts that we would pursue under the
transformation initiative under systems; very specifically
improving FHA systems will be a very high priority as well as
improving our Section 8 systems. Again, HUD has not been able
to provide to this committee in the past adequate transparency
and information about the voucher programs, and that would be a
very high priority.
We would be happy to share greater detail about the
committee about what we proposed. We would also propose that
there be a very strong accountability that we have on these
funds, proposing plans for your approval and feedback and any
changes reported to the committee during the year in terms of
how those funds are being used?
Mr. Rodriguez. Are you still flexible in some of those
areas? They asked me to ask you specifically on the--if there
is any compromise between the flexibility of that 1 percent
transfer authority or no flexibility without the initiatives?
Is there a middle ground that can be reached or----
Secretary Donovan. Absolutely. And we have already begun
some of those discussions with the staff, and I think we are
very happy to meet your needs in terms of specificity and
reporting on it. Let me just give you an example of the kind of
thing that we are trying to get to. FHA, given the economic
crisis we are facing and the mortgage crisis, FHA's volume
expanded dramatically quite quickly, and yet FHA didn't have
the flexibility to go out and buy fraud systems that would have
helped us effectively limit the fraud in the FHA program.
So there are examples, and I would be happy to share
others, where not having this kind of flexibility I believe has
stood in the way of us using taxpayer resources as wisely and
as effectively as we possibly can. But I do think there are
ways that we can give you the kind of assurance that you need
to ensure that this funding is being spent well and the kind of
specificity in advance that you are looking for.
Mr. Rodriguez. Thank you.
Let me quickly, I know Congressman Carter talked about the
importance of home ownership, and there are programs where
people participate and provide, for example, the lot and
provide some of the work that is done to build those homes. I
would ask that you come and look at that, especially in some of
the rural communities and urban areas that have empty lots and
where people own the lot but might not have property because
that is a key point.
Mr. Olver. Thank you.
Ms. Roybal-Allard, there are still 364 people who have not
yet voted. So I think we can get 2 more 3s in here. Go ahead.

HOPWA

Ms. Roybal-Allard. Mr. Secretary, as the Housing
Opportunities for Persons With AIDS, known as the HOPWA
program, has successfully allowed about 91 percent of clients
to achieve housing stability and has to a large extent been
instrumental in helping to end homelessness among persons with
HIV/AIDS. In light of the success of this program, it was
disappointing to see that the administration has proposed flat
funding for HOPWA. And since this flat funding, as I understand
it, is expected to not only serve the 131 existing city and
State programs but also to serve any new jurisdictions that
become eligible this year. This level funding is essentially a
cut to the program, and I would like to know what the rationale
is for essentially cutting this very important and very
successful program.
Secretary Donovan. First of all, I would say that, given
the set of choices that we had and overall the growing deficit
that we have, we felt that--and HOPWA is not alone. There were
many programs, in fact most programs in the budget that we have
proposed, flat funding for. So HOPWA was not singled out in any
way relative to other programs that also have significant
needs, but we had to make choices in the budget, and we did
that, given the overall budget environment.
I would also say with HOPWA, having worked closely with the
program in my prior job, I know the effectiveness that it can
have. I also believe at that time we have made significant
progress under HOPWA and have not seen the kind of enormous
growth caused by the economic crisis, for example, around
family homelessness and other types of funding that were
particularly needed during the economic crisis. We didn't see
the same kind of growth and needs around the HOPWA program that
we saw in other programs, and that is really what led to our
decision.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. But the problem is it is going to undo
much of the progress that has already been made, and we could
provide you with information showing that in fact there is a
growing need for this program and that--the fact that is not
only flat funded but expected to deal with any additional new
jurisdictions, that it is going to have a very negative impact
on this population.
Secretary Donovan. I would be happy to look at that
information.
Mr. Olver. Thank you.
Ms. Kaptur.
Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for your
interest on many levels. Thank you.

FORECLOSURES

Mr. Secretary, very quickly, would you be willing to serve
as a convener among a meeting that would involve J.P. Morgan
Chase, Bank of America, HSBC, Wachovia, Wells Fargo, major
foreclosers and servicers and Members of Congress who come from
districts where these firms are still wreaking havoc?
Secretary Donovan. I would be happy to do that.
Ms. Kaptur. I would hope we could bring our mayors to that.
I would urge you to look at districts that have over 10 percent
foreclosure rates as a start. And I know Congressman Cardoza
and I are very, very of like mind on this, though we represent
very different districts.
The FHA is very important to these companies. So is Fannie
and Freddie. And I think you have a unique position where we
can have a direct dialogue. There are serious questions to be
addressed at such a convening. Thank you.
If I were to ask for information, and this will be my last
request very quickly, if I were to ask HUD in historical order
to provide a list of the first financial companies to invent
and to promote the subprime mortgage instrument and then to
securitize it, could your staff do it?
Secretary Donovan. Let me find out for you.

FREDDIE AND FANNIE

Ms. Kaptur. And also, does your staff have the ability to
take a look at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae between the years of
1995 and 2005 and address the issue of what happened to the
risk standards and the risk evaluations of the mortgage
instrument that allowed the crisis to occur? Do you have the
ability to look up what was done as they changed their risk
standards, particularly between 1999 and 2002?
Secretary Donovan. We recently did put together a report on
the history and the causes of the subprime crisis that included
some information there. We would be happy to provide that to
you. If that is not sufficient, we can certainly try to get you
more information on that on this issue.
Ms. Kaptur. I thank you very, very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Olver. Thank you very much for your testimony. It is
very helpful to us, and I think very informative for all the
members who are here. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
And this hearing will be closed.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009.

LIVABLE COMMUNITIES, TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT, AND INCORPORATING
GREEN BUILDING PRACTICES INTO FEDERAL HOUSING AND TRANSPORTATION POLICY

WITNESSES

HON. SHAUN DONOVAN, SECRETARY OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
HON. RAY LAHOOD, SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION

Opening Remarks of Chairman Olver

Mr. Olver. The subcommittee will come to order. I was
reluctant to stop you. You were conversing so casually there
that I thought you might be making big decisions that we would
hear about in the process as we go along. And so I didn't want
to stop you at all from that.
But anyway, this subcommittee of Appropriations is the
Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development,
occasionally called the THUD committee. And we have a
confluence of the stars today, in that both of our Secretaries,
the gentlemen chosen to lead the administration in
Transportation and in Housing and Urban Development, the two
are both here to testify on the issue of Livable Communities,
and subtitled Transit-Oriented Development and Green Building
in Federal Housing and Transportation.
So let me welcome the Secretaries, the Secretary of
Transportation, Ray LaHood, an old colleague. We are happy to
have you before us. And Secretary for Housing and Urban
Development, Shaun Donovan. Happy to have you as well.
And I want to let both of you know that I am really very
pleased both of you are testifying about this issue in this
way. In my mind, a livable community is a neighborhood that
links the transportation mobility needs of old and young alike,
with affordable housing, shopping, job opportunities and green
infrastructure.
In my view, transportation, housing and energy policy have
been conducted as separate spheres, like silos, with little or
no coordination on the Federal, State or local level for far
too long. Improving Federal policies among agencies and
creating a Federal partnership with local communities to build
livable communities that combine transit-oriented development,
affordable housing and green infrastructure should be a
national priority. And we finally have two agency heads that
share a belief in livable communities and a willingness to work
together across agencies to better coordinate the Federal role
and prioritize this type of development.
Over the last 2 years, our Subcommittee, working with our
friends on the Authorizing Committees, when appropriate and
necessary, have worked to make communities that are livable. We
have promoted green building and access to transit within the
HOPE VI affordable housing program, and we have urged the FTA
to work with grantees to incorporate green building practices
for newly constructed transit facilities. We have provided
funding for the Departments of Transportation and HUD to
explore ways the two agencies could better coordinate
transportation and housing programs to promote affordable
housing near transit.
I believe that the Federal Government should be a partner
and a resource for local communities that would like to create
livable communities. I also strongly believe in efforts to
promote green building and transit access in Federal housing,
because green housing is cost effective and can create
substantive energy savings and healthier living environments
for families.
Each of you has given voice to the challenges and
opportunities we face as we strive to build such livable
sustainable communities. Secretary LaHood, you stated during
your confirmation hearing, and I quote, ``The era of one-size-
fits-all transportation projects must give way to one where
preserving and enhancing unique community characteristics, be
they rural or urban, is a primary vision of our work rather
than an afterthought.''
And similarly, Secretary Donovan, at your hearing you
stated, ``HUD can help develop communities that are livable,
walkable and sustainable. By joining up transportation and
housing, HUD can give families the choice to live closer to
where they work and, in the process, cut transportation
costs.''
This afternoon we will have an opportunity to learn more
about each of your visions for livable communities and what you
hope to accomplish in the short and long term in this regard.
Tomorrow we are going to hear from a panel of outside witnesses
who will share some additional thoughts on how we can better
coordinate transportation and housing.
And so, with that, let me recognize our ranking member, Mr.
Latham, Tom Latham from Iowa, for any comments that he would
like to make.

Opening Remarks of Ranking Member Latham

Mr. Latham. All right. Well, thank you very much, Mr.
Chairman. I appreciate your interest in this issue and your
fervor, I guess, in this whole subject matter.
And Secretary Donovan, it is nice to meet you. I look
forward to getting better acquainted over time here and to work
with you.
Ray LaHood, classmate of mine--you are missed; there are
fewer of us all the time, Ray. But I welcome you here. And
congratulate both of you on your appointments. That is
tremendous, and I think you will do a great job.
On the outset, I would like to say that we might want to
revise the term ``livable community'' simply because I think
what is livable to some might not be livable to others; and in
our large, very diverse Nation, we know there are significant
demographic shifts taking place in our country. But we also
know that the experts don't agree on the trends--totally on the
trends that are under way.
Some assume that the aging and young populations all want
to live near public transportation and that jobs are moving to
the cities and that we should break large areas into villas
surrounded by public transportation. The reality probably is
closer to the notion that the use of cars today is a larger
part of our daily life than ever before, as both parents of
young families today work full-time, carry out a lot of
different tasks in a day.
I think it is important to note that many jobs are moving
out of the cities to suburban areas where the skills are and
the new opportunities are, where schools are, you could say,
unfortunately, oftentimes better, and the crime rates can be
lower. These characteristics are going to also influence people
in their choices of where they are going to live.
If people continue to migrate to the suburbs, the
marketplace, I think, will dictate costs and land uses. And it
is a hard thing to overcome the marketplace and what actually
happens in those communities. In that context, a bus or a train
may not be a viable alternative for a working parent who must
get to daycare, the dry cleaners, go to work or the grocery
store all in the same day.
The D.C. Metro system is a good example of the truths on
both sides of the public transit systems. On the one hand, rail
transit has resulted in residential areas that are not
affordable to many people, but who would like to have Metro
access. On the other hand, the rising land values have been
good for the local economies. So it is a trade-off.
I think there are many positives in the area of transit-
oriented development for some communities, but probably not for
all communities. One-size policies do not always fit well into
the broad, diverse nation, and we need to recognize that fact
as we go forward here.
But I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today and
exploring the subject more in depth. I appreciate it very much,
Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Olver. Thank you.
Now let's hear from the Secretaries. Your complete
statements will appear in the record. If you manage to keep
your comments under an 8-minute limit, we will be happy. And
then we can get on to questions, because I am sure this can be
quite a good conversation among us today. Thank you.
And with that, Mr. LaHood.

Opening Remarks of Ray LaHood

Secretary LaHood. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I may have spent
maybe a total of 8 years in this room. I am very glad to be
back. When people ask me if I miss Congress, what I tell them
is, I don't miss the roll calls, but I do miss the
relationships. And it is wonderful to be back in the
Appropriations room and to see friends across the dais here. I
thank you for the opportunity.
I think the stars have really aligned for you today, Mr.
Chairman. You have both the Secretary of HUD and the Secretary
of Transportation together here talking about something that I
know you have been passionate about: livable communities. It
must truly be a great day for you and for those that have been
promoting this idea.
And so I would like to read my testimony, but first say to
you, sir, congratulations. You have hung in there long enough
to see this day finally occur when both of our Departments, as
well as others, are working together on a very, very important
concept, not only for this administration, but for the
Congress, too.
Mr. Olver. I will admit that I am pleased.

Opening Statement

Secretary LaHood. Chairman Olver, Ranking Member Latham and
to the other members of the committee, I thank you for inviting
me here today with Secretary Donovan to discuss the U.S.
Department of Transportation's goals and actions in support of
livable communities.

LIVABLE COMMUNITIES

Fostering livable communities is a key aspect of President
Obama's urban policy agenda and Vice President Biden's Middle-
Class Initiative. The way we design our communities has a huge
impact on our citizens' social, physical and economic well-
being, yet many Americans live in neighborhoods without
sidewalks or access to public transportation. Therefore, one of
my highest priorities is to work closely with Congress, other
Federal departments, and the Nation's Governors and local
officials to help promote more livable communities through
sustainable surface transportation programs. By focusing on
livability, we can help transform the way transportation serves
the American people and create safer, healthier communities
that provide access to economic opportunities.
As you know, over the last 4 years, our Department has
worked closely with the Department of Housing and Urban
Development on a range of initiatives to promote transit-
oriented development. Last year, your Committee directed the
Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Federal
Transit Administration to continue this work.
Specifically, you asked us to identify creative ways to
support transit-oriented development with an affordable housing
component. I am pleased to report we have made good progress
and are building on that work.

DOT/HUD TASK FORCE

Today, my Department and HUD are announcing the creation of
a new, high-level interagency task force to better coordinate
Federal transportation and housing investments. This
partnership will help American families gain better access to
affordable housing, more transportation options and lower
transportation costs. We have identified strategies to give
American families more choices for affordable housing near
employment, access to shorter commutes and safer and healthier
sustainable communities. We will do more than ever before to
ensure that these goals are realized.
Our Departments will work to coordinate regional
transportation, housing and land use planning. We will
encourage metropolitan planning organizations to conduct this
integral planning to help them assess their future growth
alternatives.
Transportation is the second highest cost for American
families, behind housing. So fostering mixed-use, high-density
development and affordable housing near transit hubs is key to
reducing this cost and fostering economic growth.
We will identify best practices. We will create new ways to
measure, track and evaluate livable factors at the local and
regional level, and we will engage in joint research. These
efforts will help communities to plan effectively for the
future and encourage them to focus on livability issues.
In addition to our partnership with HUD, the DOT policy
office is also developing a Departmentwide livability
initiative. Fortunately, many on-going programs already
contribute to this effort, ranging from bicycling programs to
congestion mitigation and airport noise reduction. But more
needs to be done to promote strong and connected communities.
Everyone in urban and rural communities alike needs safe and
affordable access to work, medical services, schools, shopping,
recreation and other essential activities.
And our transportation investment decisions must be
consistent with our policies on greenhouse gas emissions. These
and other issues will inform our livability policy.
In the coming months we will work closely with Congress and
our stakeholders on a new authorization package for surface
transportation. I hope and expect to make livability a
centerpiece of the final proposal.
We have a clear opportunity at this moment in our history
to offer bold new approaches to the way we plan, design and re-
energize cities and communities across America. We must use
this opportunity wisely to revitalize our downtowns, foster
walkable neighborhoods and bring people, employers and housing
closer together through public transportation. Livable
communities are essential to a vibrant, sustainable America.
I look forward to working with you, with the Congress, the
Department of Housing and Urban Development and the
transportation community on achieving our goals for livable
communities.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thanks to the subcommittee for
offering the opportunity to present our testimony today.
Mr. Olver. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
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Mr. Olver. And now, Mr. Donovan from HUD.

Opening Remarks of the Honorable Shaun Donovan

Secretary Donovan. Thank you. I am also very pleased to be
here today to testify before the committee on the importance of
an integrated approach to housing and transportation. It is
especially gratifying to be here with my colleague, Ray LaHood,
from the Department of Transportation.
Our presence here is a tribute to your awareness, Chairman
Olver, of the need for our Departments to work together to
address the many intersections of Federal housing and
transportation policies and programs. I am excited by the
potential for this partnership to improve housing and
transportation choices for all Americans.
HUD's central mission, ensuring that every American has
access to decent, affordable housing, can be achieved only in
the context of housing, transportation and energy costs and
choices that American families experience each day. During my
confirmation hearings, I indicated that with the economic
fallout across the country, the first step to fulfilling that
mission was to address the foreclosure crisis. That is why the
administration worked swiftly to establish the President's
Housing Affordability and Stability Plan, a plan that not only
helps responsible homeowners at risk of losing their homes, but
prevents neighborhoods and communities from decay.
As we act in response to the crisis, we must also turn our
attention to the factors that stressed many families' abilities
to make ends meet. Over the last few years, many homeowners and
renters have traded high housing costs for high transportation
costs in their search for affordable housing.
Affordable housing was affordable only when gas prices were
low and the broader economy was strong. The average American
household now spends 34 percent of their annual budget on
housing and 18 percent on transportation, a combined total of
52 percent of their budgets wrapped up in these, the two
largest single expenses.
For low-income, working families, the impact is more
serious, with transportation representing almost a third of
their costs. For these families the expense of transportation
poses a particular burden, inhibiting wealth creation,
hindering home ownership and pushing family budgets closer to
the brink.
As decentralization and accompanying sprawl have increased,
the spatial mismatch between the location of affordable housing
and employment and educational opportunities in metropolitan
areas has worsened, hurting metropolitan economies. Fewer low-
wage families can find housing near their work, as affordable
housing remains disproportionately located in urban and older
suburban areas. And businesses located in those areas must find
workers who can commute, incurring higher transportation and
energy costs.

TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT

In response to these challenges, State-, local- and
regional-level actors have pursued innovative solutions. These
local projects point to the need to coordinate Federal action
across agencies. Our local counterparts in Chicago have already
recognized this and undertaken an ambitious, integrated land
use and transportation plan, the Go to 2040 plan, to address
projected growth in population and employment.
Cities and suburbs across the country have been increasing
their focus on transit-oriented development. Denver is in the
midst of a plan that facilitates transit-oriented development
with special attention to the land use that is appropriate for
each area of development, recognizing that a civic center
downtown will support very different development than an older
urban neighborhood.
Careful data collection in the cities and suburbs has
demonstrated that the cost savings associated with living near
transit are significant. A study of four neighborhoods in
Minneapolis/St. Paul found that the combined costs of
transportation and housing are most affordable in areas best
served by public transit, with an average savings of $3,000
annually.
To reinforce and support these local initiatives, HUD will
work closely with the Department of Transportation in the
coming months and years. Last year, your committee directed HUD
and FTA to identify incentives and take other actions to
support transit-oriented development that includes mixed-income
housing and other affordable housing choices.
Mr. Chairman, it is an honor to say here, in light of all
your hard work over the years to join housing and
transportation planning, that Secretary LaHood and I will build
on the principles laid out by that HUD-FTA working group and
announce today a broader HUD-DOT partnership to address the
critical issues our Departments jointly face.

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES INITIATIVE

As the President noted in his initial budget submission,
our detailed plan will include the establishment of a
Sustainable Communities Initiative. As you know, I cannot go
into great detail about this plan, but I would like to speak
generally about some elements I hope you will find compelling.
First, HUD and DOT will jointly administer a fund to
encourage metropolitan regions, via competition, to develop
integrated housing, land use and transportation plans and to
use those integrated plans to drive the planning and decision-
making of localities. The goal of this initiative is not just
to develop plans; it is to set a vision for growth that is
tailored to distinct metropolitan markets, and then apply
Federal housing, transportation and other investments in an
integrated manner that supports that broader vision.
These efforts will benefit urban, suburban and rural
communities. Given the decentralization of people and jobs,
estimates show that nearly 50 percent of people who live in
rural places live within the boundaries of metropolitan
statistical areas. This requires a level of integrated planning
that spans jurisdictional boundaries in new and unprecedented
ways.
As we work towards an integrated planning process, we will
refine the definition of affordability in America. The costs of
transportation now approach or exceed those of housing for many
working families, yet Federal definitions of housing
affordability fail to recognize their interdependence. We will
work to jointly develop with the Department of Transportation a
housing and transportation affordability index that will inform
consumers and businesses about their choices in real time.
In the coming months, we will be conducting an intensive
review of programs to ascertain how to support the marrying of
housing and transportation and to emphasize location efficiency
in all that we do. In housing programs, for example, perhaps we
can preference those projects that give participants choices
for public transit, employment opportunities and other
important advantages. I pledge to you that we will subject all
of our programs, including FHA, to a rigorous review that
determines how we can orient the business of our Department in
support of this integrated planning.
Finally, we will also establish a jointly administered
research and evaluation effort. This effort will aggressively
engage in joint data development, information platforms,
analytic tools and research to better track housing and
transportation expenditures by location. It will establish
standardized and effective performance measures, engage in
rigorous analysis of the transit-oriented development projects
already in existence to identify best practices and evaluate
location-efficient mortgages and energy-efficient mortgages.
This data collection, research and evaluation will serve not
just Federal programs, but will be shared to move information
into the marketplace and inform private investment decisions.
This partnership between DOT and HUD is part of a broader
effort to ensure that Federal housing policy supports not only
sustainable communities but also enables the construction and
renovation of energy-efficient homes and building. In the face
of sweeping climate change, our two Agencies and others we have
partnered with and will partner with, like the Department of
Energy and EPA, can have a significant impact on creating an
energy-efficient-built environment in the coming decades.
Your efforts in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
have given us a jump-start on that effort. A significant share
of this funding is eligible for energy efficiency and green
building practices in public and assisted housing: $4 billion
for public housing modernization, $510 million invested in
Native American housing, and $250 million for energy retrofits
of assisted housing.
The steps we have already taken and the partnership we have
committed to today will help us integrate the Federal
Government's policies and investments in housing and
transportation. In the coming months, HUD will work with DOT to
improve coordination between our Agencies and apply the
principles I have discussed with you today to programs
throughout my Department.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to answering your
questions.
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REGIONAL PLANNING AGENCIES

Mr. Olver. Well, thank you very much. The two of you have
given us a great deal to think about, and I think we will have
a very interesting conversation here today.
First, let me say I really want to applaud you for this
announcement of the partnership with HUD, between the two of
you, HUD and Transportation, to develop your Sustainable
Communities Initiative. I am going to be waiting with almost
bated breath, certainly impatiently, to see the details of that
and how that works out in the budget submission later on in the
year. We may have some questions along those lines along the
way.
I would like to ask you, Mr. Donovan--you had mentioned
some experiences in Chicago and Denver and Minneapolis; I think
I have them right. You work with the exact same regional
planning agencies on affordable housing issues that
Transportation works with for all of the transit-oriented
issues as they go into the States and to the local, regional
planning agencies.

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES INITIATIVE

Can you give me a sense, the two of you together--not
exactly speaking at the same time, but to the question of how
you are going to actually reach out to those regional planning
agencies--to get them into the swing of things as you roll out
the Sustainable Communities Initiative?
And I guess I should let--well, Mr. LaHood, do you want to
answer that first or----
Secretary LaHood. Well, we haven't choreographed this, Mr.
Chairman, but I think the way that we should approach this is
to invite all the stakeholders to Washington, or a
representative group of them. We can tell them sort of what we
have in mind, but more importantly, listen to them about how we
can work with them and use the talents they have in the
communities from which they are coming in terms of their
ability to carry off the kind of coordination that both
Secretary Donovan and I want to accomplish.
I say that because even before the President signed the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, we at DOT
invited all the Secretaries of Transportation to Washington.
Forty-three of the fifty-three came. We wanted to ask them if
it was possible to implement the $28 billion program in the
time constraints established by the law.
It was a very, very good meeting. Forty-three came and
shared good ideas about how we could work with them to do what
was necessary under the law to get this money out the door.
I think we need to get a good representative group of
stakeholders involved and bring them to Washington to share
with them what our vision is, but also to find out if that
comports with what they would like to do out in the
communities.
Mr. Olver. Mr. Donovan.
Secretary Donovan. I think that is exactly right. And we
have--this is not just a question of us going out. We have
already heard around the recovery act and, more broadly,
enormous interest. Many folks are already coming to see us
about those plans.
And as you know, the real energy and initiative around
these ideas has been at the local and the regional level, to
date; I know from my own experience in New York, as well as the
other plans that I have seen, that I talked about in my
testimony.
I think the issue we are really trying to address with this
Sustainable Communities Initiative and the broader partnership
is that, if anything, at this point, the Federal Government
does very little to help and, if anything, hurts those efforts.
We have, in Community Development Block Grant and other funding
programs at HUD, requirements for 1-year and 5-year plans.
Transportation has requirements for 1-year and 20-year plans
that don't link up in any way currently.
We also have done very little, frankly, to provide funding
for the kind of regional, integrated planning that we are
talking about; and I think the Sustainable Communities
Initiative is directed at trying to support some of those
efforts.
I think also the research that I talked about in my
testimony is guided at really trying to build a set of best
practices. I hear from many areas--rural areas, metropolitan
areas, urban areas--that they are very interested in this kind
of planning, but don't know how to proceed. I talked about some
of the best examples, but many others that haven't made much
progress and need the kind of guidance and assistance that, I
think, really developing jointly best practices could help to
lead to in those areas.
So those are a few ideas.
Secretary LaHood. Can I just say one other thing, Mr.
Chairman?

LIVABLE COMMUNITIES

There are actually communities such as Portland, Oregon
that are right on the cusp, thanks to people like Earl
Blumenauer and Mr. DeFazio and the Senators. If we give them a
few more resources, particularly transit opportunities for
streetcars they can create a truly livable community. I have
talked to them at length about this.
We have inhibited their ability to do it, but some
communities have done it in spite of Washington, D.C.
Mr. Olver. Well, I think there may be some regional
planning agencies which will be enormously pleased to hear that
you might come out and listen to them at some point or draw
them here. You may want to go there, but after it quiets down
here a while--things are a little bit hectic at the present
time in getting your Departments together.
And the second thing, I think, would be a joint plan for
getting your vision to the two authorizing committees for the
areas that you of T&I and, of course, Financial Services, to
get some of the ideas directly into the legislation, as
appropriate.
Thank you.
Mr. Latham.

GAS TAX

Mr. Latham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I am sure Mr.
LaTourette down here, having been an authorizer for a long
time, will learn the wisdom of the Appropriations Committee
here very soon.
I, too, I want to congratulate both of you for your efforts
in working together. It is not often in government today that
we see the kind of coordinated effort that you are talking
about to address a real problem. And I do congratulate you on
your announcement today.

FUNDING FOR SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES INITIATIVE

Ray, Secretary LaHood--do I have to call you Secretary
LaHood? Okay. In the report, you are recommending major
subsidies for housing, community development, infrastructure;
and I make the presumption that that would mean probably fewer
cars and ideally, less gas burned. And I guess the big question
is always how you pay for it, and under that scenario, who
would be responsible for maintaining the Nation's roads and
infrastructure? Gas tax isn't sufficient today to do that, as
we all, unfortunately, well know.
I do look at the effect--and, you know, my district is
probably more rural than what yours was even--how this affects
rural America. When the gas prices go way up, a lot of these
people who are low-income have to drive the farthest, have
the--least energy-efficient vehicles to get to their jobs that
are 20, 30 miles away.
Do we raise the gas tax, raise tolling, some kind of
driving penalty somehow, or just take it out of the general
fund? Is there an answer to this question?
Secretary LaHood. We have benefited in America from the
Highway Trust Fund. It built the Interstate Highway System.
People from around the world come here to look at our
Interstate System because it is the model, just as we go over
to look at their high speed rail because it is the model.
But I, along with many of you gathered here, voted for an
additional $8 billion to restore the balance in the Highway
Trust Fund last year because it was running low, and it will
probably run low again towards the end of the fiscal year. So
we have to think creatively. I have consistently talked about
thinking outside of the box, and building on the Highway Trust
Fund.
This Administration is not ready to raise gasoline taxes
when the economy is as bad as it is.
But the Highway Trust Fund can still be a part of how we
pay for our transportation system. Another part of it can be
public-private partnerships; perhaps an infrastructure bank,
which has been proposed in the Senate. For example, I rode on
I-95 in Miami about 2 weeks ago. They built another lane along
I-95, and they paid for it with tolls. It works, and it has had
public support.
In Los Angeles County, they passed a referendum to help pay
for their infrastructure needs. So there are lots of ideas out
there, and I think we should consider them seriously.
I hope all of you will consider them. I hope the T&I
Committee will consider them because the Highway Trust Fund is
not going to fund all our transportation needs. And so we have
to think outside the box, and I hope people are willing to do
that.

RURAL AREAS

As far as the rural areas go, I represented a 20-county
district for 14 years. Almost all of it was rural, and so we
worked in many different, creative ways to try and get transit
districts that were close to these rural areas to provide
service. We also tried to provide programs to help aging people
who needed medical care to reach big hospitals. Again, we have
to think creatively, because some people age to the point where
they can't drive their cars anymore, but they still need to get
to a health care center or their doctor.
The purpose here is for Secretary Donovan and myself to
begin to think outside of the box about how we meet these needs
in a way that reflects the values of the communities in which
people want to live.
Secretary Donovan. If I could just add to that, to build on
what Secretary LaHood has said, I think what we are talking
about here is not a zero sum game either; that what we can do,
as I mentioned in my testimony, given the size and the growing
size of transportation expenses for the average family, what we
are looking at here is the opportunity to lower those costs in
both urban and rural areas.
If you think about the kind of spread-out development
patterns that the kind of planning that we have has encouraged,
what you have done is to not only raise costs, hurt the
environment, you have also hurt rural areas where pressure on
farmers and other areas within those rural areas has been a
significant problem; and you have, overall, raised the cost of
infrastructure development by having it spread out.
Whether it is as simple as being able to make a single
vehicle trip into a town in a rural area, and have development
centered there, rather than spread out in the way that we have,
whether it is laying sewer lines and electric lines that are
much more expensive in spread-out development patterns, I think
what we are talking about are things that can lower costs--not
just the distribution of costs between different types of
transportation, but, in fact, lower costs for families and
lower costs for government.
As well, I also think there is the opportunity to bring
private investment into this by providing greater information.
To date, when you go out and buy a car, there is a number on
the window that says what kind of energy efficiency that car
achieves. We have never done that with houses. We haven't done
that by pricing in location to mortgages very extensively.
All of those things, by giving consumers the power of
information, the private market can begin to price that in to
get private capital flowing to where decisions make sense.
Mr. Latham. Okay.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Olver. Mr. Rodriguez. The tradition on the committee is
that we go back and forth in order when people arrived here on
the scene. So in that vein, Mr. Rodriguez.
Mr. Rodriguez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And good seeing
you, Mr. Secretary, once again. Let me just also--Mr. Secretary
of HUD, also thank you for being here with us today, and having
both of you.
Let me just--I know you initially started by making some
comments, and I want to just open it with some remarks and then
ask you to make any comments that you think might be
appropriate.
One is, in terms of getting down some of the regulations,
not only at the Federal level, but what we might be able to do
from a State perspective in terms of--the States also have a
lot of guidelines and regulations, and we need to work with the
States in reducing some of that.
Secondly, just an overall comment about, I know that we
have been somewhat, maybe, negligent in some areas in not
putting enough resources into our infrastructure. And if it is
true that the number two cost for families is transportation,
how do we begin to bring down that cost as a Federal
Government? And what role can we play in making that happen?

LIVABLE COMMUNITIES IN RURAL AREAS

And thirdly, from a rural perspective, my district is
probably the most rural in the country and probably one of the
largest. How--what does it mean to have, you know, livable
communities in a rural setting?
And I will ask you to--you know, first with housing?
Secretary Donovan. I think I mentioned a couple of things
that are quite important about thinking in sustainable and
livable ways development in rural areas as well. We have many
areas where the kind of spread-out development patterns that we
have have encouraged the sprawl of neighboring urban areas and
suburban areas to encroach on farmers and have raised taxes,
have raised infrastructure costs that have hurt the traditional
rural way of life in this country. I think it is very
important.
We have seen examples in a number of metropolitan areas
where denser, more compact urban development has helped to
preserve agricultural land and to support the continued ability
of farmers to make a living and to contribute to those areas.
I think smarter, more coordinated growth across counties
that are rural can mean that we don't have traditional towns
within those areas that die out, whose retail ends up being
lost to larger suburban tracts that encourage three vehicle
trips rather than one vehicle trip to go shopping.
So I think there are a number of ways that thinking about
what smart growth means not just in urban or suburban areas,
but in rural areas, can contribute to lowering costs as well as
promoting the traditional farming way of life that is so
important to this country.

REGULATIONS

Mr. Rodriguez. Anything on the regulations of both State
regulations as well as Federal? Because we really need to move
on getting some of those barriers out of the way.
Secretary Donovan. Well, we sure have lots of regulations
that we could talk about.
My own experience has been that one of the biggest problems
in--let's say, we are trying to do in-fill development in urban
areas where it makes sense, accessible to transit, but the
combination of brownfields and the inability to develop
brownfield sites, complex building codes, a whole range of
overregulation, I think, is a real issue.
And I worked very hard in New York to completely revamp the
building code, working with our buildings department there.
That is one example of the kind of things we can do to get out
of the way of the kind of smart growth and development that we
are talking about.
Mr. Rodriguez. Secretary LaHood.
Secretary LaHood. Well, Mr. Rodriguez, let me say this: I
was at a Senate Banking Committee hearing with Chairman Dodd,
and there were probably seven or eight Senators there, and just
about every one, to a person, complained about the numerous
rules and regulations surrounding transit funding. I have
spoken with our transit team about creating a process that
people can understand that follows the rules and regulations,
and does it in a way that is much more efficient.
And so, I take your point on this. I have heard this on the
other side of the Rotunda, and we are committed to looking at
these rules and regulations and collaborating between our two
Departments. I think we can be very helpful in establishing
rules and regulations, but not overburdening people, and making
sure that our staff are working together to get these programs
going in the most effective way possible.
Certainly in the transit area, which is a big part of what
we are talking about as far as livable communities, we are
going to try and make that coordination happen.
Mr. Rodriguez. Thank you very much.
Mr. Olver. Thank you.
Mr. LaTourette.

HIGHWAY TRUST FUND

Mr. LaTourette. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I thank both of you for coming. And to you Secretary
LaHood, congratulations. It is nice to see one of our class
make it and do well.
One of the sadnesses that I have in this Congress, for 14
years, the scoreboard in the House Chamber said LaHood, Latham,
LaTourette. And I could always come in and see how you voted,
and then I could see how Latham voted, and I knew I needed to
vote like you did, and not like him.
And now I am completely rudderless. I don't know what to
do.
Mr. Latham talked about the Highway Trust Fund and although
they are attempting to reorient my thinking from an authorizer
to an appropriator, you have laid out the case: It is broke. A
1956 model doesn't work at 18 cents a gallon. There is no
political will to raise the gas tax.
Somebody recently talked about vehicle-miles traveled, and
somebody said, we are not talking about that anymore.
Your predecessor, Mary Peters, when she was the Secretary
of Transportation, came in and talked about the many diversions
from the Highway Trust Fund. It was started to build a National
Highway System, and now it does transit. It is probably the
biggest diversion.
If you look at ISTEA, the allocation in SAFETEA-LU for
transit is double what it was in 1991 when they did ISTEA. And
everybody has an important program, a worthy program, like the
programs that you gentlemen are talking about today. But there
is only so far you can spread 18.4 cents a gallon.
Have you taken--I know you are new on the job, but have you
taken a look at or a thought about that argument that highway
funding should be highway funding; and if you want covered
bridges in Madison County, Iowa, if you want transit funding,
that should be the responsibility of the general fund and it
should stop throwing things onto the Highway Trust Fund?

HIGH SPEED RAIL

Secretary LaHood. Well, the President personally put $8
billion in the recovery plan for high-speed rail, and following
this budget, there will be $1 billion in each year for the next
5 years. Some people have suggested that we should create a
trust fund for high-speed rail. It is something we ought to
think about.
The Highway Trust Fund is not going to support everything
we want to do. We need to build on it and think about other
ways to do these things.
Transit is really coming into its own, and people are very
interested in the transit funds in the recovery plan, because
they see them as a way to get people out of their automobiles,
onto buses, and onto light rail. Transit is an efficient way to
move people around their congested communities.
So we need to think about transit. We need to think about
high-speed rail, and we need to think about how we fund it all.
Mr. LaTourette. And I am all with you. I think that as you
continue to dilute the Highway Trust Fund--and by the way, my
office is across the hall from Chairman Oberstar, the chairman
of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee; and the
President's budget initiative to tear down the fire walls and
make everything budget authority and eliminate contract
authority has his blood pressure up. I saw the attending
physician in his office a couple of different times.
Let me talk to you about the high-speed rail, because we
have been joined now by my Ohio colleague, Ms. Kaptur. We are
more than interested in that initiative. And if you talk about
getting people out of the cars, saving the planet, becoming
more like the Europeans and the Asians when it comes to that
mode of transportation, I can't applaud more that $8 billion.
When you put it on top of the $350 million a year that Mr.
Oberstar put in the Amtrak reauthorization last year, it is
real money for the first time.
What we are concerned about, we have read news accounts
that a line is going to go from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and so
forth and so on. Have you developed a strategy or a plan as to
how you are going to dole out the $8 billion? Just selfishly,
the Midwest is ready to go. Ms. Kaptur and I would love to see
a line from Chicago to Cleveland. And to make it more
palatable, we will even have it to go up to Duluth, Minnesota
so we get Oberstar's support.
But have you figured out how we are going to compete for
those funds? And are you able to tell us that we are going to
have just as good a shot, if we have a worthy project, as
somebody else?
Secretary LaHood. I want to make it very clear, this $8
billion was put in the recovery bill by the President. He
directed his chief of staff to put the money in there. I
believe that this President really believes that we need to
jump-start our ability to develop high-speed rail in America.
And we have sent the President a memo which outlines several
prime corridors in the country. Some are just in the beginning
stages, and could use some money for a study. Some are at
another stage where they have passed referendums to set aside
money to help themselves get high-speed rail going. Other
communities are in between.
So my point is, the President has a memo, and we are
waiting for some guidance in terms of where we can begin to
talk about how many dollars are needed, over what period of
time, to really get high-speed rail in two or three places in
the country.
And as soon as we do, we will let you all know about it.
Mr. LaTourette. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Olver. Ms. Kilpatrick.

PLANNING

Ms. Kilpatrick. Thank you very much, sir.
To Secretary LaHood, it is certainly good to see you. It is
refreshing to see a former Congressperson, who understands how
we work, in that seat. Congratulations.
And to you, as well, Mr. Donovan--Secretary. Thank you very
much.
This is an opportunity in time that we have in our country,
with the downturn and all that it represents, to do exactly
what you are talking about: livable communities that are
connected through transit and housing, that everything else
stems from through transit, is all kind of development. So I am
excited about it. The downturn of the economy is bad, but it is
also an opportunity; and that is how I like to look at this.
With what you have brought us today in the planning and
understanding of the President, how we move forward from here
using the resources that we have, it is important that we not
miss the opportunity.
The MPO in my area, every year we put--every 10 years, this
10-year plan. You have probably seen them on your shelves--this
thick, and we never get through them. I want to throw that
playbook out; I think it is time for a new playbook, and what
you all have presented to us today is the beginning of that.
How we get to it depends on how the two of you work
together and how we move forward on that. So the first thing I
want you both to do is, in Transportation, the MPO, the book
they are using, please have them throw it out and let them know
what we are talking about this morning. That has got to be
first because everything is going to be local.
I almost think we need a local transit-oriented development
person both locally and in our State DOTs to be on the same
page so that we kind of march together.
And then, between your two organizations, there are some
conflicting rules and regs that relate to, for example,
duplicate planning, zoning--something has been mentioned about
that--parking requirements, other kinds of permitting. That--as
you bring that together, not only will it change the
administration and free up some dollars, because we are moving
now into sync in another way in this decade.
By the end of the decade, phased in over time, we will see
some of this happening. It is a real opportunity.
So, Mr. Donovan and Mr. Secretary, first of all, all of
what I just said, what do you think about--if we just leave it
here in D.C., it won't happen. It has got to be State--MDOT, in
my case, Michigan, and all the other DOTs as well.
It may even have to be a local something; and even the MPOs
that are put together and authorized in Federal legislation, we
need to take a look at those, too. If we leave it here just
with us, I am afraid we will lose the moment.
Can you comment?

SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES INITIATIVES

Secretary Donovan. I couldn't agree more. So much of the
energy and engagement around these issues has been at the State
and local level.
And I know from my own experience, when we were looking
under Mayor Bloomberg's leadership in New York to significantly
expand both the capacity for housing, to grow the housing
supply in a transit-oriented way, but also to begin to use
inclusionary zoning as a way to make sure that we got a mix of
market-rate and affordable housing, we were looking for models
around the country. HUD was not able to be of assistance to us.
So I think that the first thing that we need to do is to be
able to provide technical assistance, to provide leadership to
local areas around what are the best practices, who has the
best examples of these programs.
And then I think we need to move to actually support these
kinds of integrated planning efforts with funding. It is
something that, again, you will see as we release more details
of the budget proposals, that this Sustainable Communities
Initiative that we are talking about can operate at a
metropolitan planning organization level, but it can also
operate, in terms of zoning and other planning, to support
local efforts to have best practices, to have new ways that
this is done, building on what has been done in local areas.
Just to be very clear, planning is one of the most
important local responsibilities. We are not talking about
dictating that they have to have follow in these directions,
but supporting local areas that are interested in these things
with planning dollars, with best practices, I think, is a very,
very important direction that we need to move.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Okay. Thank you.
Secretary LaHood, any comments?
Secretary LaHood. Well, I do think that the partnership
that Secretary Donovan and I are forging is the kind of
partnership we want to form with the communities, whether they
be metropolitan planning organizations, cities, or the
Governors. When it comes to transportation issues' we need to
form these partnerships if we are going to develop livable
communities in the areas where people want to move.
We are going to have to be flexible, too, in trying to
develop the kinds of opportunities that both of us and, I know,
all of you believe are possible.
So I think partnership is probably the best word, and we
need to take what is going on in Portland, Oregon, in terms of
livable communities, and see if they can share that expertise
with some of us.

PRESIDENT'S BUDGET REQUEST

Ms. Kilpatrick. And when will we get the budget numbers? We
are waiting with bated breath for the budget. When will we get
that?
Secretary Donovan. There has been the broad outline of the
budget that included some discussion about sustainable----
Ms. Kilpatrick. That is words and paragraphs that
authorizers use. We do dollars and decimals.
When might we get that.
Secretary Donovan. I believe that it will be mid to late
April is my understanding of when these details will be
available.
Ms. Kilpatrick. And then you expect us to pass a budget
before we get that?
That is rhetorical; that wasn't really--thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Secretary LaHood. You need to get Mr. Orszag to come by and
talk to you.
Mr. Olver. Thank you.
Mr. Carter.

WESTERN STATES

Mr. Carter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And welcome, both of you. I am especially glad to see my
friend, Ray LaHood. He always gave me good advice when I was
here and kept me out of trouble most of the time. So I am glad
to be able to talk to you.
Of course, I live in a little different environment than
the one you are describing. There are 254 counties in Texas,
and at least three of them are the size of several States on
the eastern seaboard. And so we have a little bit different
challenge.
And I may be wrong, but I think--my wife is from Holland;
they have probably got one of the best transportation systems
on the face of the Earth. If you want to see bicycle paths done
right, go to Holland. They have their own signals. They have
their own cement roads and brick roads. And it is a whole
integrated transportation system.
I used to ride from Schagen on the North Sea all the way to
Delft and beat every car that left my neighborhood by 30
minutes. So I understand bicycle paths and concentrated
efforts.
But, in turn, in Texas, the city that I grew up in is
Houston. In 1959, I made the mistake of hitchhiking back home
to see my folks. It turned out they weren't there, and I found
out it was 68 miles across Houston for me to get to my house.
It was a bad day; we won't go into that.

URBAN SPRAWL

Right now it is about 150 miles across Houston, okay, so it
is urban sprawl defined. And if I understand what you are
trying to do, you are trying to develop what I think very much
fits the East Coast and Midwest model of cities, but doesn't
seem to fit the Texas model of cities too well, concentrating,
reconcentrating the--and redensifying existing cities and
basically stopping the growth outside of the cities.
Texas is land rich, a lot of other things poor--well, we
won't admit that, but that's the way we have built our State.
So land is the cheapest thing we have got, and that is why our
cities spread out all over the world.
I am 34 miles from Austin. If I got to Austin without a
car, I couldn't go anywhere, okay, not at any time. So when you
put this transit plan--as you apply it to a large Western State
like the State of Texas, some real adjustments are going to
have to be made or else you are going to have to put an awful
lot into inside-the-city mobility. Because, quite frankly,
there is just limited bus service in Austin, and Austin is
probably the most progressive city in the State.
So those are the--these challenges. I hear about rail; in
fact, we are opening up a rail project, supposed to have opened
on the 15th of April, from Leander, which is 35 miles from
Austin, into Austin. Unfortunately, the mobility group lost
$200 million, and so it is going to be delayed a little bit.
But the point is, the real question is going to be on
whether, when people ride that train and get to town, can they
get to work? Because really there is not any way--if you drop
them off downtown, they are 16 miles from IBM; they are 14
miles from Motorola. So there are big spaces that have to be
covered, and there is no transportation authority that will get
you there in any reasonable length of time.
So as you plan this out, have you thought out the real
complications of, we are a barrier-less State. We don't have
any national land barriers or anything else in our State. So--
whereas California is limited by mountains and so forth. So are
you looking at the sprawl that we have, by the very nature of
our cities? And how would you resolve those issues with your
idea of a European-style city?
Mr. Olver. May I just say, Mr. Carter, has taken all of his
time to lay out that question, a very short question as it
comes down to it. So take not more than a minute between the
two of you, 30 seconds each as an answer here.
At this point, we also have a set of votes that has just
been called. So we have about 10 or 15 minutes before we have
to go, and we will get as far as we can here.

DEVELOP NEW TRANSIT OPTIONS

Secretary Donovan. Very quickly, I would love to talk to
you more about the specifics.
As I think we both indicated, this is not a one-size-fits-
all kind of planning that needs to happen. Smart growth means
very different kinds of things in Texas, just in Houston; and I
know exactly what you mean about the different type of
development from the East Coast, not being landlocked. But
still, as we look at future development, there is the
opportunity, if there is rail coming in, to think about how
denser development can happen around those rail stops, for
example, so that as future development happens, it encourages
lower transportation costs for the kind of--whether it is
office development, residential development that can be built
around those stops.
That doesn't mean stop serving existing development, the
way it is, but it means, think about, as we develop new transit
options, as we develop a range of transportation investments,
that we integrate the way that we plan our housing with that,
and be able to provide, whether it is energy efficient
mortgages or other incentives that will help consumers be able
to benefit from those lower costs that they get by living
closer in those areas.
Mr. Olver. Secretary Donovan has taken your time and his
time on the next question as well. So I would like--we have a
group of seven votes, and it seems to me it would be at least
an hour once we do recess.
I think we will give each person 2 or 3 minutes--Mr. Berry
is next--and if you will do that, we will get a quick answer
from one of them. And see if you can do the question in 1
minute, and we will get one round through and get the four of
you.
We will have other chances to talk with each of the
Secretaries later on, but probably not together.
Mr. Berry.

AFFORDABLE HOUSING

Mr. Berry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will do my best.
Secretary LaHood, there was much applause; it was like--
when you were appointed Secretary of Transportation, it was
like your team making the NCAA tournament. We were all proud
and pleased.
And, Secretary Donovan, even though I don't know you, it
sounds like y'all got some good ideas, and I applaud that and
encourage you to keep on.
I have to tell you, it makes me a little nervous; you know,
the Secretary of Agriculture last week said the solution to
farmers' support was going to be for them to some way or other
sequester carbon. I don't know exactly how that works. I have
been on a farm all my life. But I can tell you this, there is
nothing that takes the place of cash money. So it makes me a
little nervous when I hear someone from the Administration from
New York expressing concerns about farms, especially, I
suspect, you have never lived on one or made a living there.
And I offer that as no criticism of you personally, but if you
are going to take any action, I would encourage you to talk to
somebody that knows something about it first.
I also become a little concerned as I hear you talk about
national land use planning and getting off into that from the
Federal level. I think that is real dangerous, and it concerns
me a lot. And I hope that you would consider these partnerships
with State and local and city and county governments as you
develop these ideas. I think they are good ideas.
As far as paying for all of these things, I don't know what
the method is going to be, but I can tell you this, we have got
to figure it out and get it done. If we don't, we are going to
be a Third World country. We are all going to be riding
bicycles, and hope we don't hit a pothole in the road in the
process.
But having said that, I will conclude my remarks and thank
you for being here, both of you.
Mr. Olver. Ms. Roybal-Allard.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Welcome, Secretary LaHood. Welcome,
Secretary Donovan, as well.

FEDERAL FUNDING ALLOCATIONS

Let me just get straight to the point. Some States like
California have created public funding programs to support
affordable housing projects located near transit hubs. And
California, which prioritizes these projects and their existing
funding programs, as well as other States, would greatly be
aided in meeting our mutual goals.
If there was a Federal funding stream allocated to support
the construction of TODs, will you consider a Federal TOD
program that would allocate construction funds, either
competitively or through a participating jurisdiction formula
like the HOME program?
Secretary Donovan. I think, as you know, the vast majority
of our funding that we provide to development of affordable
housing runs through State and local governments. HOME is a
perfect example. And there are many, if not most, allocating
agencies that have begun to use energy efficiency and other
kinds of criteria, like you are talking about, to allocate that
funding.
We have not considered at this point imposing requirements
on HOME that transit-oriented development or something like
that be a criterion, but it is certainly an idea that we would
be happy to look at as part of this broader partnership that we
have.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. And creating separate funding.
And let me just say one more thing: When a Federal TOD
program is finalized, I know that cities like Los Angeles are
hoping that definition of transit-oriented development includes
projects that are located within a half-mile radius of public
transit and that it includes clearly defined transportation
modes such as light rail, which is being used more and more
particularly in cities like Los Angeles that hope that its new
and existing light rail infrastructure would be competitive in
any new or modified Federal transportation funding program.
So I just wanted to make you aware of that and hope that
that will also go into the mix of what you are considering.

SURPLUS FEDERAL PROPERTY

Secretary LaHood, under the McKinney-Vento Homeless
Assistance Act, which has been a very successful program,
surplus of Federal property is made available to State and
local government agencies and nonprofit organizations to be
used to provide services to homeless persons. Given the high
cost of land near metro stations, a similar Department of
Transportation regulation to make surplus property available
for the development of affordable housing near transit would
help to address a very huge obstacle to the development of TOD
projects.
Would your agency consider a regulatory requirement that
SAFETEA-LU grant-receiving transportation authorities first
make surplus properties available to the locality for
affordable housing development?
Secretary LaHood. Well, I don't know enough about that to
really give you a definite answer, but it is certainly
something I will look into and get back to you.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. I would appreciate it.
Secretary LaHood. Of course.
[The information follows:]

FTA does not have authority to direct transit agencies to offer
surplus property to localities for housing. However, as we develop our
reauthorization proposals, we are closely examining our policies and
regulations to identify ways to better link housing and transportation
at the local level.

Mr. Olver. We will get that question for the record, and
you can answer it specifically.
Ms. Roybal-Allard. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Olver. Thank you.
Mr. Price.

HOPE VI

Mr. Price. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me also welcome our
two Secretaries, especially our friend and former colleague,
Ray LaHood.
I want to reflect briefly on what seem to me to be two
implications of the partnership you have announced and the
program you are embarking on. And since we have a limited time
for responses, I will simply accept ``yes'' for an answer, but
you may want to elaborate.
The first has to do with you, Secretary Donovan. As you
know, the HOPE VI program is a shadow of its former self. That,
I think, is an accurate statement. Yet, it is a program that
has been uniquely useful and productive in my district and in
many others. It is one of the most--probably the most--
comprehensive housing program we have in terms of transforming
entire neighborhoods and integrating transportation elements
into a healthy kind of development.
So I would assume that one implication of this joint
initiative is that we are going to revitalize HOPE VI and that
we will see that reflected in the President's budget.
Secretary Donovan.
Secretary Donovan. Yes.

ELIGIBILITY FOR TRANSIT FUNDING

Mr. Price. Good. All right. That is what I am looking for.
The second has to do with you, Secretary LaHood.
Many have touched on eligibility for transit funding and we
all, or many of us, I think, hope to get past some of the
limitations and the rigidities of the past formulae. We are
going to, of course, be reauthorizing that program this year. I
would assume that this initiative would bespeak the need for a
new kind of flexibility in the way transit funding is thought
about and is approved--the funding formulae, the eligibility
criteria.
I would gladly swap a lesser Federal share for more
flexibility, for example, in taking into account creative
public-private partnerships which often would include a large
housing element.
So I would hope that the implications of this initiative
won't be lost on any of us as we reauthorize our surface
transportation programs.
Secretary LaHood. I had mentioned before you came that I
was at the Senate Banking Committee, and this issue was raised
by every Senator who was at that meeting. We are going to work
very hard at the Department to develop an opportunity for more
flexibility and less bureaucracy when it comes to our transit
program.
Mr. Price. Thank you.
Mr. Olver. I would just comment that the House passed a
HOPE VI reauthorization with a quite substantial number, in the
$500 million range, last year that never was moving the Senate
at all. But it had the strongest provisions for green building
in it that any such authorization has seen.
So, with that, Ms. Kaptur, we actually have--you have your
full 3 minutes.

RECOVERY ACT FUNDING

Ms. Kaptur. Wow. See how fast I can talk. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman, very much.
And obviously to Secretary LaHood, welcome back to your
real home. And we wish you great success in your current
responsibilities. We are very proud of you.
And, Secretary Donovan, to you as well, I don't know you,
but we look--your reputation is very good, and we look forward
to working with you.
My request to both of you is probably the same, and that
is--and I think if we take different districts and we make them
a microcosm of what you deal with in the other 434 districts,
maybe a pattern will become evident.

TELEVIDEO MEETING OF DOT/HUD ISSUES

I would like to request a televideo meeting with both your
Departments, where you would sit here in Washington and gather
for us the key officials that are important to be in the room,
and we would do the same back home in the following areas:
For the Department of Housing and Urban Development, in the
area of foreclosure mitigation right now, there is great
separation between various programs.
Here would be my idea: You find the best people you have at
HUD. We gather them here in Washington. I am sitting out there
in Ohio with the best people we have in Toledo and surrounding
counties where we have 10 percent of our stock foreclosed.
The various Federal moneys that are coming at us are coming
down different chutes. I spoke with Chairman Rangel about this
yesterday, and I said, we need some bigger thinkers about how
to make the best use of the dollars that are coming at us.
For example, in the Neighborhood Stabilization Program our
community of Toledo received $12 million. And I just want to
focus on Toledo, but--there are other communities, but I will
just use Toledo as the main example of the largest city.
Neighborhood stabilization, $12 million; public housing
authority through the recovery bill, $6 million; CDBG, an
additional $2 million infusion; the additional funds that were
there for Section 8; the tax credit funds that are coming to
us; the housing counseling moneys; the weatherization moneys;
over at Treasury, the CDFI program; and then the recovery
bonds. And there may be other relevant bond programs.
We would like to use the dollars, the hard dollars we are
getting. We would like to have a conversation about how to
leverage those. And in a community where you have, last year,
4,100 foreclosed units, we have to have more than 34 units
helped by the funding that is coming to us.
We need to link the discussion certainly between HUD and
Treasury; I would ask you to please think about that. And
perhaps you could--John Buckley from Ways and Means, here is
the person who wrote the recovery bond language. I think we
need to think about these various dollars and how best to use
them. And right now they are just--you know, they are coming at
us in different ways; and I don't think we are getting the
maximal solution.
Then, for the Department of Transportation, Mr. Secretary,
I would like to ask the same, particularly focused with Mr.
LaTourette on the high-speed rail. If I would have a wish, it
would be that we could find an easement that would get us off
the freight rail line. And between Chicago and Cleveland, there
is a natural gas pipeline that runs. And there are lots of
issues dealing with how we prepare ourselves for this freight
rail--or, excuse me, passenger rail discussion. What is the
role of the Feds? What is the role of the localities?
We want to involve our county commissioners--frankly, they
are more knowledgeable than the State people are about what is
actually on the ground--our county commissioners across the
northern band of Ohio. And it would really, when you are ready,
that would be, I think, very valuable to us.
Beyond that, I wanted to give you a sense of how recovery
dollars had come down to us in Toledo versus Dayton, two cities
of similar size, both high rates of unemployment, over 15
percent. Dayton got $20 million through the transit money.
Toledo got $8 million.
We love Dayton. The reason Dayton got $20 million through
the transit money is because they had some kind of fixed
guideway system from 25 years ago or something. We don't have
anything like that. But we have two universities--well, two
campuses of a university that want to interconnect; and we have
a plan in place to do that.
For some reason, our transit authority didn't get anything.
I just think that somehow in the recovery dollars and the
transit, if we are really serious about this, maybe a
discussion there could help.
And I also just want to throw this idea out. What we really
need is a new garage in our area. Talk about carbon footprint.
The city, county and transit authority ought to have one green
garage. They have three carbon-producing garages, every one of
them.
Secretary LaHood. Well, the money could be used for that,
Ms. Kaptur. The transit money could be used for that kind of a
facility, and there is no match required.
Ms. Kaptur. They are so stressed for that, Mr. Secretary,
right now they have laid off people, they have cut back routes.
The money just isn't there.
Secretary LaHood. The transit money in the recovery plan
can be used for that kind of facility with no match.
Ms. Kaptur. They are going to use it to retrofit their
engines.
Secretary LaHood. Well, we are not going to decide how they
are going to use it; they will decide that. But if you think
they need a building, you ought to tell them that and apply to
the Department for that money. It is available for that
purpose.
Ms. Kaptur. But the allocation is $8 million and--I mean,
frankly, they need the motors in the buses, the engines in the
buses to be converted, I guess.
Secretary LaHood. Well, you know what? I will get their
names and call them. But we ought to start with what their most
important needs are and then try and build on that in the
future.
Ms. Kaptur. But my point is, if we had--though our guideway
isn't in, we have the proposals. So Dayton gets $20 million and
we get $8 million; I would appreciate somebody looking at that.
Secretary LaHood. I will give you an explanation for it.
Ms. Kaptur. Great. And Columbus got $20 million, too.
Mr. Olver. Columbus is somewhat larger.
Thank you very much.
Mr. LaTourette. Mr. Chairman, could I just ask unanimous
consent to submit a question to Secretary LaHood, for the
record, relative to the application by Continental Airlines on
their ability to enter the Star Alliance?
Mr. Olver. Everyone, you don't need unanimous consent. We
will have certainly 3 days to offer questions for the record
and get those kinds of answers.
Mr. LaTourette. Thank you.
Mr. Olver. Yes, that will be possible. I should have said
that at an earlier point.
[The information follows:]

The reason for the difference in funding provided under the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to Dayton and Columbus versus
Toledo is based upon each city's specific transit system size and type.
The formula used to apportion Transit Capital Assistance and Section
5340 Urbanized Area funds uses several factors including: population,
population density, bus vehicle revenue and passenger miles, fixed
guideway track miles, fixed guideway vehicle revenue and passenger
miles, and operating costs. In simple terms an urbanized area (UZA)
receives a share of the available funds relative to its calculated
percentage of the national total for each factor.
The Toledo, OH-MI urbanized area transit data for these factors are
significantly less that those for the Columbus, OH and Dayton, OH
urbanized areas. As a result Toledo's percentages of the national
totals are significantly lower than Columbus and Dayton, as is its
apportionment.

Mr. Olver. Well, I want to just thank you very much for
being here. We have got to go--in fact, everybody should leave.
I will have to walk a little faster to get to these votes. And
we will be seeing you, as I said before.
I thank you very much. And I just wish you the best of luck
with the initiative that you have taken today. And really, we
will do our best to work with you as you proceed on this. And
we will see you again. Thank you.

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Thursday, March 19, 2009.

PART II: LIVABLE COMMUNITIES, TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT, AND
INCORPORATING GREEN BUILDING PRACTICES INTO FEDERAL HOUSING AND
TRANSPORTATION POLICY

WITNESSES

GRACE CRUNICAN, DIRECTOR, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, CITY OF SEATTLE
MARY A. LEARY, SENIOR DIRECTOR, EASTER SEALS TRANSPORTATION GROUP
JOHN O. NORQUIST, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, CONGRESS FOR
THE NEW URBANISM
ROBERT PUENTES, SENIOR FELLOW, METROPOLITAN POLICY PROGRAM, BROOKINGS
INSTITUTION

Opening Remarks of Chairman Olver

Mr. Olver. The subcommittee will come to order. This is the
fourth hearing of the Subcommittee on Transportation and
Housing and Urban Development, and we are now engaged in
talking about livable communities.
Over the past few years this subcommittee has urged the two
agencies that are part of this subcommittee's jurisdiction to
work together to help communities coordinate their
transportation and affordable housing plans.
Yesterday we heard from the Secretary of Transportation,
Ray LaHood, and the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development,
Shaun Donovan, on their vision for how we could create more
livable, sustainable communities across the nation, and I was
very pleased to hear that the two Secretaries have come
together to establish a Sustainable Communities Initiative.
Specifically, this initiative will provide planning grants
to help communities integrate housing, transportation and land
use planning, as well as better coordinate DOT and HUD programs
on research. We will see the details of that when we see the
budget a little bit later, but they both assured that there
would be comprehensive plans for how that initiative might
function.
As I mentioned yesterday, to me a livable community is a
neighborhood that links the transportation mobility needs of
the old and young alike with affordable housing, job
opportunities, shopping, and green infrastructure. In my view,
transportation, housing and energy policy have been handled as
separate spheres or silos with little or no coordination on the
federal, state and local level for far too long.
Over the last few years, our subcommittee has promoted
green building and access to transit within the Hope VI
Affordable Housing Program. We have urged the FTA to work with
grantees to incorporate green building practices and standards
for newly constructed transit facilities, and we have provided
funding for the Departments of Transportation and HUD to
explore ways that the two agencies could better coordinate
transportation and housing programs to promote affordable
housing near transit.
This morning we have a distinguished panel of experts and
practitioners who will help us further explore the
opportunities and challenges associated with building
communities that link transportation and housing in order to
achieve more sustainable, livable communities that serve the
young and old alike.
From my left to my right is Robert Puentes, Senior Fellow
in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution
and an expert in transportation and housing policy. We have
Mary Leary, the Senior Director of Easter Seals Transportation
Group, who has extensive experience in transportation, housing
and health care issues facing our aging population.
We have John Norquist, president and CEO of the Congress
for the New Urbanism and former mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin,
and, last, to my right, we have Grace Crunican, Director of the
Department of Transportation in Seattle, and previously served
as the Secretary of Transportation for the State of Oregon and
the Deputy Administrator of the Federal Transit Administration.
So we have government people, former and present, at the
municipal levels, we have the think tanks, and we have the
nonprofit organizations that do work in this field. We look
forward to a lively discussion among the few of us who are
here.
But usually some more people do come in, and always on this
day there are a number of different subcommittees that are
meeting at the same time so we take what we get. We are looking
to have a good discussion as we seek to build these sustainable
communities for America.
With that, let me recognize the Ranking Member, Tom Latham
from Iowa, for any comments that he would like to make.

Opening Remarks of Ranking Member Latham

Mr. Latham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not going to
really make any statement other than to note that yesterday our
hearing was abbreviated somewhat by votes, and I am looking at
the schedule here. I see this morning, that the same thing may
happen again. I look forward to the testimony. Thank you.
Mr. Olver. If everybody is merely waiting for the votes,
then we will have a quick discussion among ourselves and maybe
get it all discussed before anybody else can get their words
in.
So let us hear from the panel. Your complete written
statements will be in the record. If you would sort of contain
your comments at this stage to five minutes or thereabouts that
would help us move forward, and we will perhaps have questions
of you for the record from us or the staff or from other
Members as they come in afterward. I hope you will respond to
those.
So with that, we will start first with Robert Puentes.

Opening Remarks of Mr. Robert Puentes

Mr. Puentes. Thank you very much, Chairman Olver, Ranking
Member Latham and Members of the committee. I am pleased to be
here today and very much appreciate the invitation.
The purpose of my testimony is to discuss the connections
between housing and transportation and the need for integrated
planning as a way to drive decisions that lead to productive,
sustainable and inclusive growth. In so doing, I would like to
share some thoughts about how I think federal policy can
strongly influence those decisions.
Between now and 2030, it is anticipated that this nation
will develop another 213 billion square feet of homes, retail
facilities, office buildings and other structures. That is two-
thirds the amount of built space in the United States today.
How and where we accommodate that growth carries far
reaching implications for the health of our environment, our
energy security and our economic recovery and will continue to
impact our metropolitan areas' success and our ability to
compete globally.
Unfortunately, at the precise time when this nation
desperately needs to prioritize its limited investments and
resources, given the economic downturn, federal policy is only
slowly coming into focus. There are several problems.
First, the federal government is absent where it should be
present on such critical matters as stimulating metropolitan
problem solving. Next, federal policies addressing housing and
transportation are compartmentalized and ultimately fail to
make the necessary connections with land use. Third, in
addition to being separated, some related federal policies
actually seem to work at cross purposes.
Mr. Chairman, the subcommittee should continue to play a
critical role in the push for better and more integrated
decision making and reward problem solving that crosses
disciplines and joins up solutions. Going forward, we need a
three-pronged strategy.
First, the federal government should lead by embracing a
new, unified vision for transportation and housing policy. As
directed by this subcommittee in 2007, the Federal Transit
Administration and the Department of Housing and Urban
Development established a joint working group to coordinate
activities between the two agencies.
This has been a worthy effort, and the recommendations from
this group should be prioritized. However, given the myriad of
additional needs to coordinate between HUD and other
transportation agencies, especially the Federal Highway
Administration, the FTA/HUD Working Group should be elevated to
a DOT/HUD Working Group.
The federal government should also lead by directing the
coordination of long-range housing and transportation plans. At
minimum, consolidated housing plans should be required to
report on the relationship of HUD investments to transit, and
transportation improvement plans should be required to report
on how the proposed transportation investments support the need
for affordable communities.
The federal government could also condition large pots of
federal funds, especially transportation, on achieving new
performance goals that would require localities to coordinate,
innovate and make land use changes.
For instance, meeting a specific jobs/housing balance by
increasing accessibility indices; eliminating or converting
vehicle trips to other modes; providing a fair share of
affordable housing; or requiring certain percents of housing at
transit sites to be affordable.
Second, the federal government needs to empower states and
metropolitan areas by challenging them to develop truly
integrated transportation, land use, and economic development
plans in order to envision how, in what form and what kind of
infrastructure will be necessary to serve the projected growth
over the next couple of decades.
In this regard, the federal government should assist states
and metropolitan areas in one of their hardest tasks:
Transcending the stovepiping of disparate programs that remains
a serious cause of undesirable development outcomes.
Sustainability challenge contracts could be awarded in the
competitive process to those that devise the boldest, most
interdisciplinary proposals to link up local objectives such as
employment growth, development of low-income housing and
alternative transportation choices and accessibility with
national objectives of promoting energy independence and
environmental sustainability.
The applications should demonstrate real partnerships
between some combination of states, localities, metropolitan
areas, the private sector and citizen advisory groups, and
eligible projects and activities could include blueprint style
metropolitan planning and technical assistance, strategic
implementation, such as regional workforce housing initiatives
or taking local initiatives like conclusionary zoning and
making it metropolitan, as well as certain capital investments.
The third strategy is for the federal government to
maximize not just its own workings, but that of its partners,
to optimize metropolitan prosperity. In order to commit to a
paradigm of integrated decision making, a major overhaul is
needed in how the federal government collects, assembles and
provides data and information.
For one, the definition of affordable housing should be
redefined to take into account not only the cost of the
housing, but also the cost of transportation and energy that is
associated with that housing. Only the federal government can
ensure that multi-agency coordination necessary to keep the
databases that such disclosure is dependent on of high quality
and up-to-date.
With the nation's housing and transportation challenges
escalating at the same time that growth and development and
climate change and energy security issues are on the rise, many
are calling for the federal government to chart a new path
forward. Mr. Chairman, I believe rewarding greater coordination
between housing and transportation would help address these
related challenges.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before
you today, and I look forward to your questions.
[The information follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Mr. Olver. Thank you very much. Ms. Leary.

Opening Remarks of Ms. Mary A. Leary

Ms. Leary. Good morning, Chairman Olver, Ranking Member
Latham and distinguished subcommittee Members.
It is an honor and privilege to have time this morning to
share why livable communities with seamless access to
accessible transportation is such an essential element of long-
term health, wellness and quality of life for older adults and
people with disabilities.
The need is great. A compelling example is a story we were
told at one of our events associated with safe mobility. It is
about an older gentleman from a rural community. At a town hall
meeting, this man told local officials that when he can no
longer drive he did not want to live. A hush went through the
room and people said oh, my goodness. He shot himself. And that
is exactly what he did. When he went to a local DMV and he
could no longer drive, he went home and killed himself.
So at Easter Seals Project ACTION, a longstanding center at
Easter Seals, and the National Center on Senior Transportation
where we partner with the National Association of Area Agencies
on Aging, we focused on improving the lives of people with
disabilities and older adults through enhancing mobility
options. These are cooperative agreements with the Federal
Transit Administration where we provide training, technical
assistance, applied research and outreach.
Over the next few minutes, I will share information and
best practices from our centers' activities, and from our
working partnerships we know that collaborating and innovating
to streamline access to services is the right approach. Now
with movements such as livable communities, we are gaining even
more insight into what is needed to enhance the health and
wellness of Americans.
Here are a few facts about older adults. They volunteer.
They help raise grandchildren. They are caregivers. To support
older adults in these roles, we need to expand sustainable and
livable communities where everyone can remain at home whether
or not they have mobility impairments. This is especially true
given the difference in quality of life and cost between aging
in place versus aging in an institution.
Evidence of this need is reinforced by three very, very
well-documented realities. First, when people lose the ability
to drive they become depressed, as we have seen. When people
are depressed, they have reduced health status, and reduced
health status equates to higher health care costs. If we can
keep people safely mobile through livable communities with
transportation options, we will ensure that no one is stranded.
One of the most compelling practices we see is mobility
management. We believe that an investment in mobility
management is one of the single, most effective things that
Congress can do to help communities assure that the mobility
needs of people with disabilities and older adults are met and
thus make their communities livable.
Mobility managers link appropriate service to individuals'
specific mobility abilities. They help identify service gaps
and expand transportation options so that people who can no
longer drive have other ways to get around.
Volunteer driver programs are cost effective and popular
ways to expand services for older adults, especially in rural
and frontier communities, and in urban regions they are useful
ways to expand and connect service to existing transit systems.
Technology is an area of great potential, and several
grantees are fielding information technology scheduling,
dispatching and cell phone-based callback systems to increase
customer satisfaction and coordinate rides. Transystems of
Massachusetts has also done research for us that studies bus
rapid transit, approaches to stop announcements and
transportation service for people with disabilities in rural
and small urban communities.
Just as the recent FTA/HUD action plan on better
coordination of transportation and housing programs suggests,
in our activities we have found that coalition building is an
essential and a highly effective way in increasing mobility.
Planning activities should be pervasive and include leaders
from the transportation, health and human services, local
officials, nonprofit, faith-based and business communities so
that they incorporate the perspectives of key stakeholders. For
success, we found it is especially important that the users and
the consumers of these services, older adults and people with
disabilities, are at that table.
Coordination creates change and acts as a catalyst for a
variety of policy approaches to increasing transportation
access. In one of our publications called Stories of Changed
Lives, a woman who uses a wheelchair talks about how when she
was told that she could no longer use paratransit services
because a fixed route system had become more accessible she was
actually very concerned about her ability to do that, but once
she learned how to do it and used it all of a sudden she had so
much more independence and mobility, and she was so, so happy.
So we have a vision for livable communities. They are
places where housing is located adjacent to transportation
choices, where people can be healthier, where cars are not the
only means of transportation, where everyone has access to
walking/rolling paths, safe street crossings with appropriate
signage and signals and curb cuts and public rights-of-way that
are easily navigable.
Where bus stops are safe, well lit and plentiful, where
light rail and major bus routes have neighborhood feeder
systems with enough on-demand transportation and where all of
these services are affordable, well advertised, available, and
planned and reviewed regularly with user involvement across
rural, urban, suburban, and frontier environments. The American
dream cannot be realized without a viable and sustainable
transportation infrastructure that is a part of the whole
community.
Thank you for your time, your support and your vision. We
need your guidance and leadership to help our country be a
place where everyone can live inclusive, independent lives and
we can continue to benefit from the wisdom and experience of
older generations and ensure the multi-generational
neighborhoods that we all know we need.
Thank you very much.
[The information follows:]

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Mr. Olver. Thank you. Mr. Norquist.

Opening Remarks of Mr. John O. Norquist

Mr. Norquist. Thank you, Chairman Olver and Ranking Member
Latham. I am John Norquist, the CEO of the Congress for New
Urbanism, a group of 3,500 architects, planners, traffic
engineers, developers, real estate investors, and in this
climate some former real estate investors.
We are proud to have been involved in some federal policy
in the past. The design guidelines for Hope VI were written by
some of our members under Henry Cisneros' administration at
HUD. We are very concerned about the design criteria in federal
programs, and so today I want to talk to you about
transportation and its intersection with housing.
I want to compliment you and your committee for bringing
housing and transportation together. It is a tragedy when
programs are often silos by themselves, when specialties take
over the thinking instead of bringing them together with
synergy, so thank you for doing that.
One of these specialties is traffic engineering. Current
road policy has focused on highways, arterials and collectors
as individual road segments with the goal of reducing
congestion by adding lane capacity and separating the street
from the built environment. In other words, getting everything
out of the way of the traffic.
The system depends on large road types that attract traffic
and ultimately grow congested, particularly at rush hour when
you need them the most. For thousands of years of human
history, urban thoroughfares have served three purposes:
Movement, commerce and social interaction.
This is the street that engineers were trained to build in
the first half of the twentieth century. It was called the two
rod street: 50 feet of pavement, eight foot sidewalks, two rods
from the center lane to the building line.
This street, Kinnickinnic Avenue in Milwaukee, an old
neighborhood in Milwaukee Bayview, clearly fulfills the three
traditional functions of an urban thoroughfare. Here are three
sets of streets coming together in Wicker Park in Chicago, a
successful neighborhood that has done well in this economy and
held its value.
Most streets today, however, are built for only one
purpose: Moving traffic. There are huge setbacks so that roads
can be widened later. There is no money left over then for
sidewalks, so people end up having to walk on a dirt path along
an arterial or, as an alternative, they can walk in the gutter.
When you have lots of streets on small blocks, as in say,
for example, Northampton, Massachusetts, the streets do not
need to be so big. Many streets share the burden, giving
travelers lots of choices, including walking. Networks like
Northampton are a great setting for jobs, good living, and they
hold high value per square mile.
And yet federal and state road policies put over half the
monies spent on pavement in the United States on grade
separated highways, the top end of the functional
classification system.
We now understand that freeways do not last forever. In
1973, New York's Elevated West Side Highway collapsed and was
replaced eventually by a street. With views of the Hudson
restored, Manhattan's Lower West Side gained residents, jobs
and vitality.
In 1989, an earthquake damaged the Embarcadero Freeway,
which had replaced the Boulevard in 1950. The Boulevard is now
restored. The freeway is gone, and jobs and residents are back.
Even the traffic has improved since the Boulevard helps
distribute cars more evenly across the grid.
In Milwaukee, without an earthquake, we removed a freeway
segment, replacing empty lots and surface parking with the
beginnings of good redevelopment, but by far the most dramatic
change of all can be seen in Seoul, South Korea, where an
elevated roadway built on top of a river at the end of the
Korean War was replaced in 2005 with two surface streets on
each side of the restored river.
This is the man responsible, Lee Myung-bak, who was elected
mayor in 2001. See how happy he is? He had the courage to do
the right thing, and now he is president of South Korea and
maybe not quite so happy. He was successful because he embraced
the complexity of the city. Rising above the narrow concerns of
traffic specialists, he saw the whole; the combination of
river, neighborhood and infrastructure, as greater than the sum
of its parts.
CNU and our allies at the Institute of Transportation
Engineers have collaborated on exciting reforms to make
transportation work for people in communities, not just for
vehicle movement.
In cooperation with FHWA and EPA, we developed a manual
that provides design guidelines to resurrect the street, the
avenue and the boulevard. These are road types that federal and
state departments of transportation should allow and encourage.
Let us start to plan urban and suburban transportation
movements around highly connected networks of streets and
transit rather than just individual road segments. We need to
better appreciate the value of networks like this one, the plan
of Washington, D.C. by Pierre L'Enfant.
The street network absorbs and distributes traffic just as
wetlands absorb and cleanse water. The grid serves as a setting
for valuable economic and social activity, just as the wetlands
provide rich habitats for diverse plant and animal life.
We have learned that paving street beds is not always the
best answer. Street networks, especially connected with
transit, make life convenient and strengthen the bonds of
communities. They also dramatically reduce household driving
and lower household greenhouse submissions.
Residents of Atlantic Station, a new neighborhood with a
walkable street network on the site of an abandoned can plant
in Atlanta, drive an average of eight miles per day compared to
the regional average of 34 miles per day.
Through its partnership with the U.S. Green Building
Council and the Natural Resource Defense Council, CNU helped
create the nation's first certification system for green
development on a neighborhood scale.
To qualify, these green neighborhoods must have highly
connected networks of walkable streets with at least 150
intersections per square mile, including alleys, which just
happens to be less than the 158 intersections per square mile
in, for example, Wausau, Wisconsin, just to name a community at
random of your Chairman, David Olver.
Anyway, the oversized highways and arterials that the
federal government typically fund lead to not only higher
infrastructure costs and carbon emissions, but less viable
neighborhoods. These road designs should no longer be the
centerpiece. They should no longer be promoted as the preferred
option by federal policy. They should be an option, but not the
preferred option.
Research by the Center for Neighborhood Technology of
Chicago and the Brookings Institute confirm that neighborhoods
with connected street networks and transit service give
families real relief from high transportation costs. Consumer
preferences show that people are eager to live in complete,
convenient, walkable neighborhoods. Future transportation
policy should support that preference.
Transportation investments should be at a compatible scale
with the neighborhood. They should build on rather than
undermine the efficiency and environmental performance of
walkable mixed use neighborhoods.
I urge you to take advantage of the opportunities to
realign federal transportation policies around sustainable
networks. Thanks to Senators Carper and Specter and
Representatives Latourette and Blumenauer, the CLEAN TEA
legislation now being considered includes language about local
street and transit networks.
Likewise, T4 reauthorization is an opportunity to further
direct investment toward infrastructure that actually adds
value to communities. Key CLEAN TEA provisions could be
incorporated in T4 to help move it beyond the predictable
highways versus transit modal split debate.
States and regions that receive T4 funds would benefit from
plans that take into account the carbon impact of their
transportation investments. Such planning will lead to high
performance street and transit networks that achieve
transportation and environmental goals through effective use of
federal dollars.
Transportation engineers at CNU and ITE realize that the
federal highway program must evolve into a federal networks
program. Congress can help speed that transition by asking FHWA
to extend its successful contact sensitive thoroughfares
project to provide research and guidelines for sustainable
networks formed by those streets.
Our new President, Barack Obama, has declared his
commitment to reforming and improving transportation. We need
only look to the internet, employed so effectively by his
election campaign, for a telling example of how 21st century
transportation systems should work.
Internet traffic makes use of a network of linkages,
breaking up large volumes of data into small packets and
distributing them through a web of available nodes. It is fast,
and it is reliable. The same model applied to transportation
networks will allow all modes of traffic to flow over multiple
routes, reducing travel times, making driving, walking and
bicycling easier and making transit service and emergency
response more effective.
CNU, the Institute for Transportation Engineers, the Center
for Neighborhood Technology and the T4 American Coalition,
which we are a partner in, are ready to help you to get
transportation moving in the right direction, adding real value
to America's communities and economy.
Thank you.
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Mr. Olver. Thank you. Grace Crunican.

Opening Remarks of Ms. Grace Crunican

Ms. Crunican. Thank you, Chairman Olver and Mr. Latham.
Thanks for holding this hearing today. I think it is an
important one. It is long overdue, and I am very pleased to see
that the two Secretaries were here yesterday. It is a good step
forward.
When you said experts and practitioners, I would be on the
practitioners side of things, and I would like to walk you
through several projects in Seattle. I am first going to start
with three of the key principles we use in doing our
transportation and housing coordination.
As I go through the presentation I just want you to keep in
mind that Seattle is already built out for the most part. If
you are going to build a new project, you are going to tear
down what is there now and recreate. We do not have any
greenfields to speak of. It is mostly in-fill and
redevelopment. We have narrow streets and relatively dense
neighborhoods.
We have accomplished a lot through leadership and
coordination of the mayor, council and the region, and there is
a lot that we have learned from CNU and others as we have made
progress in Seattle. We have a long way to go, but I would like
to walk you through some of what we have done.
In 1994, Seattle adopted an urban village strategy to
concentrate new jobs, new housing and services near one another
in a small, tight area. These policies make walking, biking and
transit, as the other speakers have noted, very viable options
for us.
Our concern for housing and housing affordability has been
enhanced by Mayor Nickels' Race and Social Justice Initiative,
and he has asked us to coordinate with the communities much
more closely than we have in the past. It has made a big
difference, as was mentioned by Mary, that the citizens most
affected have the most intelligence, in my opinion, to add as
to what they are looking for.
The mayor also challenged us to make Seattle the most
walkable and bikeable city in the nation, and that is no small
feat in Seattle because we have quite a few hills. Seattle is a
desirable place to live, and we have enjoyed a strong housing
and economic market over the last two decades.
We were sort of the last to slow down with the most recent
recession, but during the time from 2000 to 2008 the median
price of a single family home increased 73 percent in eight
years--it went from $270,000 to $468,000 by the end of 2008--
while the annual median income only increased 31 percent, which
was from $49,000 to $64,000.
To combat this, Seattle has in place some requirements and
incentives for affordability and new development. Three of
Seattle's aging subsidized housing communities have seen a
rebirth through the Hope VI funding over the last 10 years.
This housing has been built near transit and in coordination
with transit.
I think an important thing for the committee to understand
in the relationship in a person's pocketbook, the single
highest expense that most people have is housing, and the next
highest expense is transportation. The difference between
owning a car average about $667 a month for a car and $72 for a
bus pass in Seattle.
If you take that difference and you turn that into a
mortgage, a 30 year mortgage, you can buy $90,000 more of a
mortgage if you give up a car. With that in mind, we have a
little thing on our website where citizens can go in and
measure what the situation is and figure out if they want to
try a program we have, which is Way To Go, which individually
allows people to figure out the change in their life from what
they can do to use bus passes, and we have a program, Zip Car
Rent-A-Car, in order to make their lives equal to what they had
before, but leverage that $90,000 toward a mortgage.
We are working hard to protect our region's landscape from
heavy commuter traffic and environmental damage. Mayor Nickels
began an initiative with the Conference of Mayors in order to
take up the Kyoto challenge at the local level. We now have 900
mayors that have accepted this challenge to reduce greenhouse
gases and improve our carbon footprint.
I have up on the screen New York's carbon footprint. Every
city has to do their own analysis, and we do not have the tools
in place right now. I do not think the science is there yet.
That is something that some of the think tanks could help us
with, but on the whole you will see from these slides that New
York City has in the transportation related areas, 20 percent
of their carbon footnote comes from transportation. In Seattle
it is 59 percent.
So we are not that much worse. It is that we have
hydropower for our electricity, so our buildings are using a
green source from the beginning. Therefore, our focus has been
largely oriented towards transportation.
So in Seattle in 2007 we adopted as a challenge to meet
this global climate change a complete street policy. The
complete street policy provides for facilities encouraging more
people to walk, bike, take transit and support freight
movement, and it was very much in line with what John Norquist
was saying about roads that have specialty functions. Instead,
we are trying to integrate the function; make them accessible.
So every time we go to repave a street we have a process
where we go back and look and see; could we add a bike lane
here? We have a bike plan that calls for certain streets to be
improved, but as we go through our pavement program if we can
add a Share-O, which is a shared use lane, or a bike lane, we
make that improvement.
This is especially important for those who do not have a
car, or cannot drive. It provides a place for people to walk.
We also have a sidewalk improvement program that is underway.
Twenty-three percent of our city, though it is all built out,
has no sidewalks.
The key to our complete streets policy is continuous review
and improvement and to remember that the car is no longer the
organizing principle. In some of our western cities and rural
communities the car has been the organizing principle. We are
trying to make it one of the organizing principles.
As I mentioned earlier, Seattle is in the retrofit
business. Everything we build is usually within an existing
urban fabric. The three projects I would like to quickly walk
you through describe how we are trying to put our principles to
work.
The first one is in South Lake Union. This is a segment of
the South Lake Union streetcar. It opened in 2007. It is a 2.6
mile line constructed in 17 months in financial partnership
with adjacent property owners. They put in about half the
money. We did receive about $15 million from the federal
government, but it was mostly through the process where at the
local level we distributed the money.
It was not through the New Starts category. We did have
some earmarked, but it came through the Federal Highway
Program, so that is why we were able to construct it in such a
short period of time. We were not using the FTA New Starts
process.
It carries over 500,000 passengers, but, more importantly,
since 2004 with just these couple of miles of streetcar line we
have connected 2.9 square feet of commercial office space,
1,980 new dwelling units, and that is on a base of 2,800 units,
so we will almost double by the time this gets going, and there
is about 9,000 new jobs that have come on-line.
We have connected with that 2.5 miles--those jobs, those
housing units and commercial office space--with our main, soon-
to-be-open light rail line in a hub called Westlake Center, so
this extension of downtown has been enabled through this
streetcar.
By 2024, the neighborhoods expect to build an additional
4.4 square feet of office space and add 9,000 new dwelling
units--that is again on about 2,800 units that were there to
begin with--and 20,000 new jobs.
One can see the changes happening in the neighborhood.
There are grocery stores being built. Parks are being
redeveloped. These are essential components to shape a
neighborhood, especially for transforming industrial and one
story retail to six stories, and in the future possibly 20
story buildings which will house the mixed use of office,
residential and retail.
My second example is a 15 mile light rail segment, which
will begin operation this summer. It will connect from downtown
to the airport. It runs through the middle of Seattle's most
diverse neighborhoods and is shown here by this purple line.
Building walkable communities sends a signal to the car. It
says that the car will be put in this place, which is park
here, and it should fit here. It takes away the dominance of a
car and puts the dominance--you can build a community for
people or for cars, and in this case we are orienting toward
the people and putting the car in its place, so to speak. This
promotes biking and walking and transit that was not available
or as available before.
Over 67 languages are spoken in this particular part of
Seattle. There is a large immigrant community, and it is
important to keep the housing affordable. This has always been
the entryway to Seattle, whether you are talking about the
Italian community as it moved to Seattle or the African-
American community, and now we have communities coming from
Africa that land here. It needs to be affordable. It is the
role that community plays.
With help from $35 million in Hope VI grants, we replaced
484 worn out public housing units that were built in 1940. We
built 850 households that are mixed apartments, townhouses and
single family. We replaced low income housing with 310 on-site
units and 174 off-site units.
New Holly is another example of light rail attracting
investment, receiving $47 million of the Hope VI grants to help
replace 871 units. We built 1,400 affordable units and market
rate housing units with 100 percent low income housing replaced
on-site with this one.
Our third example in planning is a project that is in the
planning stages. We would be transforming Yesler Terrace,
providing housing and office and retail space. Yesler Terrace
was built in 1939 and was the first racially integrated housing
project in the nation and currently houses about 1,200
residents in 561 apartments.
The existing community is actively involved in planning for
the future. The project is solely locally funded and will
include an existing number of low income units, as well as a
sustainable amount of market rate housing. We believe
sustainability and affordable housing can go together, and we
are trying to achieve a lead gold standard with this
development.
The community will be served by an extension of another
Seattle streetcar project, which was funded through local
levies. The next segment will connect this Yesler Terrace with
the regional light rail system and with the major medical
centers in the city. The retrofit of Yesler Terrace community
is scheduled to be accomplished by 2014 and will be served by
the streetcar, as I said before, linking.
As I said in the beginning, Seattle is retrofitting our
transportation system. We are improving our productivity, and
we know we can move many people in different ways. Here you see
200 people being moved in 177 cars, this is 200 people that can
travel in three buses, and this is 200 people that can travel
with 200 bikes. We do not have any bikes made for two,
apparently, in this slide.
We are trying to find new ways to manage our right-of-way
to move more people and goods. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Latham, we
know resources are tight, and we are trying to get a better
return on taxpayer dollars.
Thank you for your efforts to do the same with the multiple
public policy goals we have been discussing here today.
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Mr. Olver. These have been very interesting, very
provocative, I must say, comments that have been made by each
of you. I may go back to the written questions the staff has
prepared, but let us start here.
We are going to go back and forth for five minutes with me
and then five minutes with Mr. Latham, and we will go back and
forth until we get reinforcements here or we get the bell which
takes us off to the next thing. I have thoughts with each of
your testimonies.
Mr. Puentes, you put forward a very strong case for
comprehensive planning. We have regional planning agencies
which do the planning for all of our transportation
infrastructure, in that silo, and they also have the
responsibility of doing the economic planning, at least in my
area.
They have the same responsibility for doing regional
economic development planning and for the concept of the
regional housing plan, but then in my state--and it must
change--we do not have strong counties. We have virtually
eliminated them in the southern part of New England at least,
but I think in some places, in other places in the country, the
counties are strong and I do not know exactly how those relate
then to the local communities.
In my state, the real question of who plans land use and
who plans zoning and so forth, ends up being done at the local
level, and you have a patchwork quilt. The overall regional
plans may be required for getting certain federal funds in some
of our silos, ways of looking at it. How do we get around that
I guess is the question?
The other point I wanted to make is that in your
comprehensive plan we really need something in all those
comprehensive plans that ties energy in. Energy and economic
development and housing, more broadly economic development and
transportation, are a three-legged stool in essence for our
future it seems to me, at least those.
Ms. Crunican has mentioned the carbon footprint, so the
question of the carbon footprint and what are the implications
for energy usage in any of our transportation or our housing
plans seem also to be how do we get around, though, the
business? How do we bridge that gap between the local community
plan? How do we do that in a political way and effectively?

CARBON FOOTPRINT AND ENERGY USAGE

Mr. Puentes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a very
difficult question to answer. I would not pretend I have all
the answers. The local prerogative for local planning is
something we hold very dearly, no doubt about it, and trying to
understand that they are not going to voluntarily give up their
prerogative for local planning is not going to be easy.
There is, however, a new imperative I think that we are
facing in metropolitan areas all across the country, and there
is an understanding that the uncoordinated nature of how we
plan our communities has ramifications that are not always that
positive.
In the northeast and the midwest--you gave examples in your
district--and other places, the hyperfragmentation of locality
within metropolitan areas is well understood. Metropolitan
areas or localities in Pittsburgh and Chicago, places with
literally hundreds and hundreds of local jurisdictions, each
with their own local land use by any power, is very difficult
to overcome, so we know all that.
The large counties in some southern metropolitan areas like
this one here in Washington present a different problem. They
are very powerful, large counties with a million people, more
like here in Fairfax County, and so they kind of act as their
own kind of de facto regional organization and so that regional
planning is a challenge to them as well.
All that said, I think that there is an opportunity for the
federal government to incentivize the kind of planning that I
think many localities and metropolitan areas are now willing to
experiment, to innovate with. We have seen tremendous examples.
We have heard from Seattle and from other places--
Minneapolis, Denver, Sacramento. There are numerous examples of
where metropolitan areas and localities are coming together
voluntarily and trying to devise their own solutions to bridge
these tremendously difficult challenges that you have talked
about.
I think the federal government, just through leadership and
a little bit of money, can incentivize those kinds of plans.
Not direct how it is done, but allow localities and
metropolitan areas to define their own visions for how they are
going to grow in the future.
It is certainly not easy, but I think if there are some
incentives there that the federal government can provide we can
start to bridge those gaps.
Mr. Olver. It sounds like bribing them to do this rather
than extorting them or something like that.
Mr. Puentes. Well, indeed, but I think it is more about
unleashing the innovation that we know that is there. The WIRED
program, the federal program, I think did that as well.
There was an Urban Partnerships Initiative that the federal
government had with the Transportation Department over the last
couple of years with maybe a little bit of money, but it helped
unleash those great ideas that are out there.
And the willingness I think for folks to do something
different is possible, and I think this program----
Mr. Olver. I think we are going to need to talk more about
the incentivization, how we set up incentives that can be
effective and will work. Mr. Latham.
Mr. Latham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would indulge you if
you wanted to go longer on your questions also.
Mr. Olver. We do not have anybody else here. We can break
the rules.
Mr. Latham. I am always interested in the notion that, and
I think Mr. Puentes mentioned sometimes government programs or
initiatives are at cross purposes.
In the economic stimulus bill I think there is $7 or $9
billion that will be going to have rural America hooked up to
broadband so that we can keep people in rural areas, keep them
dispersed out in the countryside, and in fact what we are
talking about is more urban sprawl when you think about the
areas that are going to get these funds so that everybody has
access to high speed internet.
This is for the whole panel; does anybody have any comment
on that? I mean, just so you know where I am coming from, I,
until two years ago lived in a town of 160 people. I lived a
mile outside of town in the suburbs of 160 people. Rush hour in
Alexander, Iowa, was when Nancy Schermer went home from the
bank at 3:00 in the afternoon.
So we have a lot of different ideas, I guess, about how
things affect rural America, but are we at cross purposes on a
bunch of these initiatives? Can you comment? Go ahead, John.
Mr. Norquist. Well, yes.
Mr. Latham. Good answer.
Mr. Norquist. I think your example of the broadband--you
know, as a former mayor in Milwaukee I always had second
thoughts about the Rural Electrification Program and all this.
You know, our constituents----
Mr. Latham. Be careful.
Mr. Norquist [continuing]. Subsidize everybody else. Yes.
Mr. Latham. Okay.

ECONOMIC FUNCTIONS

Mr. Norquist. But then I stopped them after I visited with
Paul Carver in Dave Obey's office, and I understood the purpose
of the Rural Electrification Program.
Just to answer your point, I think there can be cross
purposes, and that is inevitable in politics, but there are
things that the federal government does that are
counterproductive that are not just at cross purposes, but are
actually counterproductive to economic goals and environmental
goals, which actually often converge.
You know, using less energy per unit of production is a way
to make the economy function better, and that is when the
metrics are bad and the never ending problem with how do
regional planning commissions do better work and all that sort
of thing. It is going to be hard, you know, whether it is
incentives or anything else.
But the one thing that really works against good planning
is bad metrics. In the 1920s there were good metrics. If you
take the average main street, any main street in a city in Iowa
if you go around and check--Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Ames,
whatever--you are likely to find that exact street with two
rods from the center lane to the building line, 50 feet of
pavement and an eight foot sidewalk.
When somebody went to Iowa State and learned civil
engineering, that is what they learned, to build that street.
Now they go there, and they are going to learn to build a 72
foot arterial with a 20 foot median so you can have a double
left turn lane with a blown out side, a 100 foot setback on
each side.
You cannot build the American main street that you see on
cookie cans and everything else. You cannot build it anymore.
It is illegal in most of America. That is a bad metric.
And so the federal government does not need to necessarily
intervene more. It actually needs to allow these urban types to
be part of the federal pavement program. You can see this over
and over again where there are examples, you know, in terms of
Republicans trying to be for less government.
You put your finger on one that is probably popular in most
rural districts, the broadband thing. It would be hard to
oppose. But in this case the road metrics should not be looked
at as pro rural because every little town in Iowa that was
built before World War II has urbanism.
You know, the little village of Decorah, Iowa, which I am
very familiar with because I had a related town in my district,
well, Decorah, Iowa, has a nice, charming little downtown that
could not be built new because the metrics that Iowa DOT and
the FHWA have out there encourage just the exact opposite, and
that needs to change.
Male Voice. And we have a great Nordic Fest parade that
goes right down that beautiful street every year.
Male Voice. Yes. Yes, sure.
Male Voice. Go ahead.

RURAL COMMUNITIES

Ms. Crunican. I would point out two areas that might be of
help. One is on coordinated transportation, which is in the
rural areas. Some of it does come back to Congress.
When you have a rural community and you need transportation
to get to the hospitals--which are not in the rural community;
they are in an urban area--we have stovepipe programs for
transportation, and some of them allow both the service and
transportation in the money that flows to them, and some of
them have discrete money that goes just for transportation.
So, you know, in the community everybody knows each other,
but it is not okay if you get money through the AAA, the Area
Association on Aging. What is it? Someone in the audience
knows.
But the aging program will fund a trip for someone who
qualifies in that program, Veterans Affairs will fund the trip
to the hospital for the vet, and there may be a disability
program either through schools or through welfare programs for
a child to go, but very often the AAA cannot carry the child
and the vet to the hospital at the same time.
It is convenient for everyone to go on Tuesday, but the
programs do not allow that sharing. It is common sense.
Everyone out in the rural area knows it is common sense, knows
that someone goes or would take all three, and breaking down
those walls is something Congress could do.
The second area is in highway and transit, the money. You
have to be very creative and know how to work the system to be
the most productive with the money. The programs are set up.
The state FHWA is very comfortable dealing with the state. They
are very uncomfortable dealing with the cities or the
metropolitan areas. They feel comfortable getting the okays and
the certifications through the state.
Well, in our state the metropolitan area, the Seattle Puget
Sound area, state highways are extremely important, but the
orientation Olympia has is the same orientation when I ran the
DOT in Salem, Oregon. You have to find the right people to go
work with in the urban areas, but they still have to go home to
John's traffic engineers that were educated at the state
college and were told certain standards back in 1965 or 1975.
They approach the problem like this: The money that federal
transit gives to the transit system, we have two large transit
systems. Nobody gives money to the city. I mean, you have to
really work hard to get the money to come to the city. The city
is the entity most likely to address the housing problem you
are talking about and try and make that coordination.
While we have STP and CMAT, those are the most flexible
funds, and that has been a success at the local level in the
three areas I am familiar with--San Francisco, Portland and
Seattle--because it allows flexibility and it allows the locals
give and take, but short of that the institutions are all set
up to really fund a certain provider. They are not looking on
the ground where the jurisdictions are quite different.
Mr. Latham. Can we continue with more answers, here Mr.
Chairman?
Mr. Olver. Sure.
Mr. Latham. Okay. Go ahead. Mary, go ahead.
Ms. Leary. You know, five years ago GAO admonished federal
agencies on that very issue as it related to transportation,
and it said there are over 50 transportation programs, over $3
billion, and that is probably maybe 20 percent.

UNITED WE RIDE INITIATIVE

And so the United We Ride Initiative was born, and the
really exciting part that we have seen in that, and I was
privileged to be part of that for the Administration on Aging,
was there is something called BORPSAT. I do not know if you
guys have heard this. Doug Birnie always talks about it at
Federal Transit Administration, but it actually came from
Connecticut. It is called Bunch of Right People Sitting Around
the Table.
What we found across communities in the United States is
when people have gotten together and they have talked to each
other; the aging community using Older Americans Act funds
getting together with the transportation community and
utilizing Federal Transit Administration funds, whatever they
are, including the exciting new Freedom Initiative Program or
Veterans funds or Labor, Education. We have found that they
have done some absolutely amazing things.
You know, in some places there were perspectives that they
were going to have to cut Medicaid funds and then therefore
there were not as many medical rides available and they were
actually able to reduce Medicaid funds for rides by opening up
and increasing the accessibility of the fixed route system.
They did that in Pennsylvania in Pittsburgh, which they are
doing a lot of really interesting things there and interesting
things across the United States.
And just recently--I mean, this has continued on--the
Administration on Aging and the Federal Transmit Administration
just fixed the longstanding cost sharing issue that has just
been making people crazy at the local level. You can now take
Older Americans Act Title III-B funds or any Older Americans
Act funds for transportation, connect that with Federal Transit
Administration funds to put some of these programs together.
So there are some successes. We have been trying to break
down those barriers, and that work is ongoing and there are a
lot of people still very dedicated to that.
Mr. Latham. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Olver. Okay. I think we are going to have to put
together some questions from the staff, new ones around this
issue of stovepipe examples that all of you I think know about
and of incentives that some of you I think have very clear
ideas about.
I have a couple of other thoughts here. There will be other
categories I think that will come forward that we could benefit
from I think.
Anyway, I have to go, Mr. Latham. I was wondering what was
it that was causing the traffic jam when the banker left the
office? I was thinking that when the banker left the office
everything else closed up and the roads rolled up.
I was brought up in a very similar community, about 200
people, in Pennsylvania. We had a roller skating rink and a
bowling alley. They were in the same building. The roller
skating rink was above the bowling alley. That was the only
recreational thing there in the community. It was 100 miles
from New York City and had a lake nearby.
In the early 1900s it had a group of about a dozen boarding
houses, so it was a summer tourism thing because of the lake.
Otherwise it was a farming community. I was thinking the only
traffic jam was at the time that the bowling alley and skating
rink opened in the evening each evening.
By the 1950s, the skating rink and the bowling alley were
dead, and the boarding houses, because cars and motels and so
forth, people traveling, everybody having a car; those were
dead. The community was dead. You could have not found anybody
around.
But you raised the issue and I was very much taken, Ms.
Leary, about the example of the gentleman who when his car was
going to be taken away ended up committing suicide ultimately.
I suppose we have more than a few of those. That is one of the
biggest problems for a family when their parent becomes 85 or
90 or something. You have to take the driver's license away.
It made me send my staff out because going along with that,
a couple of times you made a point that especially in rural
communities there was a difference. We have been talking
largely about planning in urban areas; the practitioners here,
largely about urban areas.
That map over there. I sent my staff out to bring that map
in. That map shows the pink areas are the counties that are
losing population in this country, losing population census by
census for several censuses. When that happens, what is
happening is that the young people in large measure are going
away for education and staying away for opportunity. There is
disinvestment in the services, in transportation, in the
medical capacities, and so forth.
You mentioned the problem of where you could get medical
services and how that might happen. Ultimately of course once
the young people, the people who are of childbearing age, have
left then those counties are actually counties that have in
general the oldest profile of its population, and eventually
that means that there is going to be a further dive in
population.

BROADBAND

Now, broadband might provide an opportunity for--might--
education learning, long-distance learning and maybe for some
jobs to be created there, but I am not sure that we can turn
that around. I do not know whether you think that can be turned
around. I think that is part of your question, Tom.
So I am wondering. How do you think we deal in those kinds
of communities? It is happening, and really there is a long
group of those--Iowa and Illinois and in Appalachia. You see
the pink ones up and down the Appalachian area. The same thing
is happening. It is the same.
Those are states and areas that are going to lose
representation eventually. They are losing population or at the
point of stagnant population where the population is moving
from the rural areas into the urban areas where we really need
to plan with good planning what is going on when we do move
into the urban areas, but what do we do with the rural areas?
Tell me.
Ms. Leary. Well, it is a really, really difficult question,
Mr. Chairman, and one of the reasons why that story is so
compelling, sometimes when we talk about things like depression
and mobility management it seems so clinical. You know, when
you hear the story you really feel it. It is your gut.
We learned so much with the civil rights movement for
people with disabilities over the last 20 years, about the
triumph of the human spirit, and particularly in rural
communities what we really find is there is a lot of activity
around volunteer driver programs and the whole concept of
mobility management, and taxi services are kind of in some
cases on the resurge.
There are also a lot of social services, services that are
still there. You know, as you have noted, there often times are
not a lot of services in some of these communities, and you
really have to leverage what you have so the whole concept of
mobility management, that is really what it is.
Mobility managers, when we have them at that local level,
are those--I like to call them the Marines because every
mobility manager I have ever met, they have such a esprit de
corps. They love what they do. They get very connected to the
people in the community. They understand what they need. They
get connected to the resources in the community, and they bring
them together.
So we really believe that with a strong infrastructure
connected by some capacity building mechanisms to share best
practices that a network of mobility managers could be one of
the most important elements to create mobility.
Also, we have to redefine what mobility is. You know, so
often mobility is getting in my car and driving, but if we can
help people understand that mobility in the United States is
related to this fabulous transportation infrastructure that we
have built so citizens can get around whether or not they have
a car and whether or not they have a mobility impairment, well,
that would be an amazing thing.
And then we would not have people being very concerned when
they can no longer drive, and we would have the greening of
America. People would be healthier. They would walk more. They
would stroll more. We always like to say walk and roll in our
world. And so those are the two things I would say.
You know, I just got back from listening to either further
demonstration and grant successes at the American Society on
Aging/National Council on Aging Conference, and these volunteer
driver programs and these volunteer programs, you would just be
so amazed at what they are doing. They are doing really
essential things, and many folks are using mobility managers as
a connector for these processes.
Mr. Olver. In a way you are suggesting we need a much
broader type of conversation with people who are in the health
services area, for instance, and other kinds of social service
areas with what we are talking about about transportation
disincentives from rural areas either. One of the people who
came and talked to us earlier said we ought to remove a whole
lot of the roads in order, I guess, to make the possibilities
for agri business to be more successful and allow for larger
family farms, at the very least, if there were going to be any
left, I am not sure.
But mobility management, the question of incentives and
what connection our two departments have to make with other
departments and other subcommittees to think about this in a
more comprehensive way. Anybody else want to talk about this?
Yes?

REPOPULATION OF RURAL AREAS

Mr. Norquist. Well, first of all, on the question of
repopulating rural areas or any area where you have a
government program, I would approach it with a little bit of
humility. I mean, Mao Tse Tung tried to repopulate the rural
area with the cultural revolution and that did not work out so
well. So instead I think a better way to look at it is not what
program could cause a place to repopulate but look at maybe
there are some programs that are actually causing the problem
in the first place.
I have already mentioned road metrics, but let us just look
at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which have been in the news a
lot. One aspect that they have which was not intended but ended
up having some side benefits that have been devastating for
rural small towns, medium sized towns--getting back to Decorah,
Iowa, let us look at that, for example.
Freddie and Fannie both have rules that say that no more
than a certain percentage, 20 percent in the case of Freddie,
25 percent in the case of Fannie, can be nonresidential, and so
the impact on that in New York City is not much because you
have the first floor and then 30 stories of housing so the
building is not going to be more than 25 percent of
nonresidential, but if you go to Decorah, Iowa, and you have a
traditional main street with the first floor and then two or
three stories of apartments which was built, you know,
throughout the history of these midwestern or northeastern
cities, then all of a sudden it does not fit into Fannie's
secondary mortgage market and then all the other banking
institutions copy that regulation.
Why did they do it? They did it because they wanted to have
Fleet and Magic and all the other mortgage companies, you know,
have some way for them not to be dominating the business, so
that was a restriction they came up with. The unintended side
effect of it was to not be able to build Main Street. It was an
unintended side effect, but it should be removed. When you are
reviewing Fannie and Freddie now and looking at it and trying
to figure out what to do with it, I would get rid of those, the
20 percent and the 25.
You mentioned bowling alleys. Why is not that bowling alley
in that town in Pennsylvania anymore? Well, one of the reasons
is parking restrictions. If you look particularly in the
midwest where this started, somebody went to a planner, maybe
it was an alderman--we think it started in Ohio. If you talk to
Don Schoop at UCLA, he sort of studied this, and somebody went
to a planner and they said how many parking spots should we
require for a bowling alley?
For some reason, the planner said five. Five per lane.
There are only four bowlers in each lane, but five parking
spots. All of a sudden you started seeing these mega bowling
alleys being created with giant parking lots everywhere, and so
you get down to, you know, what it should be. There should be
no regulation. That should be between the property owner and
the person that is going to the place.
You know, if they want to have parking, you know, you could
restrict it maybe, but you do not want to encourage it. So that
is why your bowling alley is missing, and that is why small
bowling alleys started disappearing all over the country. So
the intervention turned out to be counterproductive. It was in
a silo, like Grace was talking about. This is an issue that I
think could bring Democrats and Republicans together.
If you look at these things, a lot of the impacts are
really nasty from a social justice standpoint. You get rid of
the grid, you get rid of all the streetcars in the country like
federal policy did in the end, and then you start hurting poor
people really badly. When you look at the expense on the
taxpayer from doing these, from a Republican standpoint, it is
the same thing.
Mr. Olver. I still think that I am looking for ways of
repopulating the rural areas so much as I am feeling great
concern for the degradation of the quality of life for those
who remain to the point where somebody turns out the light
essentially, so do not mistake my thought for thinking that in
all but four of the counties of North Dakota that we are going
to suddenly switch. I do not even think that they particularly
want it, but whatever. Anyway, back to you, Tom.
Mr. Latham. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Interesting debate. I
enjoy the references to Decorah, Iowa. It is a great community
there. Mary, just a couple things. First of all, thank you for
all the work you have done; the same for Jennifer, on the
agribility over the years. That has been a great partnership.
My mother is probably going to kill me if she ever finds
out that I say this, but your point about the health and mental
health, well-being of the senior citizens is a good one. My
mother is 90 years old, she was just turning 90, she is 92 now,
but at that time she was just diagnosed with breast cancer and
had a mastectomy, which I know she will kill me for saying. At
the same time she had lost her driver's license and is living
in Alexander, Iowa, where you have to go 10 miles to get a
gallon of gas, gallon of milk, and any kind of services, doctor
or anything.
Of the two, it was not even close. Losing her driver's
license and losing her mobility was far more devastating to her
than her medical condition. The Chairman was just talking about
repopulating and growing those communities back; I am not sure
it is possible, but there is no alternative for her, really, as
far as getting anywhere, other than to drive herself.
Fortunately, she has got a daytime driver's license now.
She can go 10 miles. I am not sure about the other people on
the road. But she is back, so she can go to church and all
these good things. In Seattle there was an article about the
restrictions on land use. I do not know if you want to say
anything, Mary, about that, but I am curious about how the
restrictions there are have increased.
You mentioned in your testimony an increase in the cost of
a dwelling by $200,000. There are different aspects to that,
but is it going to be affordable for anyone? You were talking
about the median income of $60,000, $70,000, something like
that. How can a middle or lower income person live in the
community like that? It is virtually impossible, is not it, to
purchase?
Ms. Crunican. It is getting that way. I mean, we have the
blessings of success, we have some industries that are going
great guns, but the price of housing in Seattle proper has gone
fairly high, as has the entire region, so we have passed a
housing levy, I think it is up this year for the third
installment of a seven year housing levy, to help create
affordable housing and provide incentives.
We have provided height incentives to developers, so if you
want to go up a little higher, you have to create a certain
number of affordable units of housing, and we are looking at
our HOPE VI grants to help convert, but it is the curse of
success, I think. The livability also, it is a highly desirable
place, assuming you do not mind a little rain once in a while,
to live.
The jobs are, I think we have something like over 80
percent of people have high-speed internet service in the city.
It is an extremely literate city, and it has got high density
so it is a high-performing city, but the cost of housing is
beginning to scare everybody so we are looking at how to make
those prices affordable. One of the things to do, frankly, is
to have a transportation system that means you pay less for an
automobile. Maybe your family does have a car, but they do not
have two or three, which you do have in more rural settings or
even more suburban settings.
Mr. Latham. Does not the price of the home increase next to
your light rail?
Ms. Crunican. Right.
Mr. Latham. If your home is closer to that, is not the
price higher? Does not it make it more expensive?
Ms. Crunican. It does. It increases the value of your home
to be located next to a transit station, but, again, the
tradeoff is there, as I talked about, the $90,000 difference in
mortgage that giving up the car can buy you, that translates
back the other way, too, if you have the transit pass. In many
cases the employer provides the transit pass. That is another
program we have fairly successfully instituted in Seattle.
Mr. Latham. In your testimony, I was caught by one
paragraph in it. The federal government should act to ensure
that housing consumers and suppliers are made aware of the full
direct costs of housing. The definition of affordable housing
should be redefined to take into account not only the cost of
the housing but the transportation and the energy associated
with that. Is there a definition or is there a matrix or
something out there that you use to demonstrate this definition
now?

CENTER FOR NEIGHBORHOOD TECHNOLOGY

Mr. Puentes. We are working on it. I think we are getting
there. The reference was made to a thing called the Center for
Neighborhood Technology in Chicago. It has been doing some work
across the country trying to make this direct connection. For a
long time in this country our formal housing policy was drive
until you qualified. And as gas prices peaked about $4 a gallon
last summer, this became front and center I think in most
people's minds, that transportation as the number two household
expense really had a dramatic impact on household budgets.
So the Center for Neighborhood Technology has created this
Housing and Transportation Affordability Index. We worked with
them on this. They are trying to take this nationally I
believe. I think it is an excellent opportunity for DOT/HUD
joint working groups to use that and maybe pilot that for
something for the future. Certainly getting us ready for census
2010, it will be very helpful, not just for those transition
things.
Mr. Latham. Right. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Olver. Ms. Crunican, your description of what Seattle
has done is very compelling. The examples that Mr. Norquist has
given were also very compelling in a broader kind of a picture.
Yours were very much associated with one large city, yours were
a few here, there, good practices and so forth.
In the case of Seattle, the geography has sort of dictated
that you do not really have more space, I think, in part. You
are sort of between the Sound and a large lake or something
like that or a mountain, and maybe it is a mountain that is
beyond the lake, or whatever, and you are contained, and so you
are doing infill and things are being removed and better things
put in place, and each time you have made big improvements.
I think that must be essentially the way major European
communities have functioned. I am thinking of Copenhagen, for
instance, which is quite contained. It could sprawl out into
its island but they do not allow that to happen. Instead they
have good, wide boulevards and a lot of narrow streets, and one
way streets and bicycles down those streets.
There are safety problems, because in Copenhagen you have
one-third of all commutation by bicycle, one-third of it by
transit and one-third of it by personal vehicles, essentially,
and all of those function within that city. It is quite
remarkable. They make it work and it seems to be quite a
livable place. There are a couple of places that I have had a
lot of contact with recently.
In Denver I was struck by the fact that if you look, the
sprawl went in all directions to the skyline, to the horizon
essentially, and now they are trying to figure out how, after
all that had occurred, to correct for that by some transit
operations. But also, downtown they have done some major
things. My impression is that Phoenix is a place, it is a very
similar, that has sprawled long before they got to the point of
thinking seriously about how to correct that and now they are
working hard at that.
That is the other end. We need to figure out, I suspect,
ways of helping them, being flexible enough to help them in all
of their various programs and to help them get to where they
want to go once they have figured out what has to happen for
them, that it just not working or going to work that way. You
have gone through that and you are contained by your geography.
Gets me back in a way to the original business of how do we
overcome this planning problem, providing the incentives in the
process, to help people do the right things and to just not
allow them to do what is ultimately going to be bad in the
whole way for the society in a whole? Anybody want to further
comment on that?
Mr. Norquist. I think you are hitting exactly on the
question, which is what I appreciate about this committee
combining housing transportation because then it gets you to
think outside the box. If you look at any of these communities,
if they are going to be dealing with FHWA, or the ASHTO
standards, or their own DOTs, they are going to fall into the
trap of having these large, blown out roads.
Phoenix is trying to figure out how to urbanize itself
again, how to have a community that is walkable, at least in
the places where they can achieve it. The law needs to allow
that to happen, it needs to encourage that to happen. That is
why it is important for the Congress to work with the DOT and
work with the ASHTO and everybody and allow these urban forums
to reemerge.
Then you will start to see it come back, whether it is a
small village, or whether it is a big city like Phoenix, or
whatever, but right now it is not even allowed. You can see it
with coding and zoning in California. For years they had a law
that almost required separate use zoning throughout the state
except in a few places that were so dense, like San Francisco,
they could not impose it.
A few years back they changed the law to allow, they did
not force it, but they allowed mixed use or form-based codes to
be adopted by communities around California. Now the majority
of the communities in California have adopted those codes. Now
their planners know that they can legally create the kinds of
things that people want that are more efficient.
That is what your Committee is uniquely set up to do,
because you go to like the transportation committees in each
House of the Congress, and they are so focused on the
equipment, the paving machines, the different interest groups
that are around, and they do not see the impact on the rest of
society. So when you take Housing, Transportation and Economic
Development, put them all together and you can change these
things, and then the communities can start to heal themselves.
Mr. Puentes. Just to build off that, I think that is a
great comment. There are a lot of places where the federal
government should lead because of the sheer size and scope of
some of these issues. There are other places where the federal
government frankly should get out of the way and enable places
to do good things.
I think that there is an assumption in this country that
the decentralizing nature of growth that we have seen over the
last couple of decades is only the result of people voting with
their feet, and this is the preferred lifestyle and the reasons
are growing because that is what people wanted to do. Certainly
some of that is true, but there are direct policies that
actually encourage this kind of growth to occur.
So on the federal level we know that the modes operate on a
very unlevel playing field, for example. The highway program,
highway funds are sent out of the state level at an 80/20, 90/
10 match with no restrictions, really, on how that money can be
spent. The states have almost complete discretion in deciding
where the money goes. On the transit side it is very different.
It is a much lower match.
The process to get the funds approved is hypercompetitive,
hyperbureaucratic. It focuses, frankly, we think, on the wrong
things, on time savings as opposed to the ability to build the
right kind of communities, as Mr. Norquist mentioned.
So at least letting the federal government enable places to
make their own decisions based on equal requirements and rules
and regulations and weeding out that subsidy for sprawl, and if
it is going to occur, it is going to occur for lots of
different reasons, but it should not be incentivized as it is
right now on the federal, state and local policies. But the
things this Committee could do is to weed some of that out.
Mr. Olver. Okay. That sounds to me like lead or get out of
the way, laying out good guidelines, but that has to take into
account a broader vision than just transportation and housing.
That does need to take into account energy issues and energy
balance. What is our carbon footprint, and things of that sort.
Dave, you originally talked about incentives. Well, he says
there has to be some sticks as well, and you agree with that.
You say disincentives for doing the wrong thing, which is
sticks if you are doing the wrong thing. It is not necessarily
penalties for doing the wrong thing after the fact, but just
not disincentives for doing the wrong thing if you have proper
goals in the first place.
Mr. Norquist. Just one quick point on this. The goal needs
to be the right goal. The goal has been over simplistic.

CONGESTION

Mr. Olver. We could agree on the right goal, could not we,
rather easily. Probably quickly.
Mr. Norquist. I hope so, but one goal that I think has been
the wrong goal is the idea of defeating congestion. You will
sometimes hear people say, well, you know, you cannot build
your way out of congestion. Actually, you can. Detroit has
built its way out of congestion. Congestion is a really low
priority problem in Detroit. They built every road that
Michigan DOT ever dreamed of, and they have created a community
where congestion is not a big problem inside the city at all.
Mr. Olver. But it is depopulating very quickly.
Mr. Norquist. Right. So it was the wrong goal. The goal
ought to be what adds value? What adds value to the American
economy? What adds value to the local economy?
Ms. Crunican. Mr. Chairman, I assume those bells mean you
are going to be voting soon, is that fair? Maybe, maybe not.
Okay. There is something I would like to throw on the table as
a little history, a little perspective on how these programs
came together. In the 1960s the federal transit program known
as UMTA, the Urban Mass Transit Association, was created, and
it was created in the late 1960s basically because the private
transportation systems had failed.
The autos had been successful, people were escaping to the
suburbs and the economics of the private transportation systems
was failing, so new transportation systems, public
transportation systems, were forming. Because they were new,
this is my opinion having worked in the program a little bit,
the rules were created assuming that the new people were either
corrupt or inept, or could be, and so there is a lot of got to
watch out, gotcha kinds of elements to the late 1960s, early
1970s rules that were created for UMTA, then to be FTA.
The federal highway program started with the public road
system a long time ago and was basically, you know, the theory
if we can get out there, we grow, and it was not assumed that
there was a lot of corruption underway. Instead, there were
some well-intentioned grads out of state school going out
building some roads and some standards were set.
Very frequently the federal program is merely the
reflection of ASHTO, American State Highway Association
Official, and their guiding principle from a state road systems
point of view, and so they are bigger and wider. Just the
element, if you go back to the program of one of incentive and
the American dream versus we are going to get you if you do
something corrupt, you now have after, you know, 40, 50 years
worth of the public transit programs up and running, they are
quite competent, they are quite intelligent, they are quite
well-educated, the people that run these systems.
I am not saying that some bad things could not happen, but
no more so than some of the corruption you hear about
contractors at the state DOT. The programs themselves, the
federal highway is one of trust. Here is your allowance, you
get it pretty much, Congress sometimes provides some earmarks,
which I think are good. I used to be on an appropriations staff
where I did not think they were all that they are made out to
be in the press, but they can be for good projects.
In the transit world they have what is called the New Start
Program which is kind of a no start program. They hold the
money, they have less money than they have demand for, and so
they had to come up with some ways to judge the programs. It is
in that judgment if you are at the local level, you have got an
allowance coming your way at the state level, money
automatically flowing, and you have got a much smaller
allowance through STP and CMAC to make decisions for transit.
If you want to get transit money, for the most part, most
systems are beholden and coming to Washington and walking
through the Federal Transit Administration which has much more
control than the Federal Highway Administration does. So the
imbalance of the programs is one thing that is, I think, within
the control of Congress.
There is a lot of imbalance at the local level. People have
different utilities. The utility commissions in different
states operate different and provide incentives for development
or disincentives for the sprawl. That is an important role in
terms of development. Whether the big city gets along with the
little cities, we do not do that so well. I have made Seattle
out to be the golden city on the hill with some mountains in
the background and the water, as you mentioned.
You know, we do not do a great job of getting along with
some of our neighbors and the region has different policies. In
Portland the policies are pretty much the same: invest in
transit first, and highways have a place. In Seattle, that is
what Seattle would say, but that is not what our suburban
cities would say. They would say they have some huge highway
needs that need to be met. So I think, as Rob I think tried to
say, there are multiple parts to this problem.
The piece that is in Congress' hands can be to equalize the
programs, highway and transit, and can be to help. Just ask for
some of those connections, you know, the education programs,
the vet programs, the area agency on aging programs. I think
you can do a good job there.
Mr. Olver. You know, I am impressed in the case of Seattle,
and Washington more in general. For a big state, big state
population-wise, sort of right among the top 15, certainly at
the lower end of that top 15, you have probably the smallest
impact from the foreclosure crisis of any state that size or
larger by a large margin. Seattle does not seem to have enough
of a foreclosure problem to even have triggered HUD's
definition of how a city might get money for neighborhood
stabilization programs.
So Seattle has something to be emulated, I think, in a way.
I think perhaps Oregon is in a similar way. It is more or less
of an aside. We have probably 10 minutes here. Marcy, if you
are ready. We have been waiting for reinforcement here.
Ms. Kaptur. I am so sorry.
Mr. Olver. I am sure you would have had a great deal to
say. If you have something to say, I will let you go, and then
Tom.
Ms. Kaptur. Has Mr. Latham had an opportunity to----
Mr. Olver. Well, we have had several rounds, actually. We
have gone back and forth here several times, so we will let you
go for a bit here, or, if you want to, I will give several
minutes to Tom, and then you, and then we will close and I will
not speak again. Whichever way you want to go.
Ms. Kaptur. All right. Well, I just wanted to thank you
again, Mr. Chairman, for a most interesting set of hearings as
we begin this new Congress. Cutting across programs, more
thematic, more, I think, valuable to the American people. So I
just want to really thank you for your leadership in that
regard. I am very proud of what you are doing and I am proud of
our subcommittee. We want to thank all those here who have come
to help instruct the country and for your dedication to the
communities you represent and the organizations you represent.
I apologize for being late. I just left a hearing in my
other committee, Defense on AFRICOM. Totally different subject,
but, you know, really, it is about development, whether it is
on another continent or here, in our country, how to do it
best, how to do it wisely. I was very interested to come in and
to see this map up here. That is very instructive.
I am actually a city and regional planner by training and I
spent half my life doing that before I ever got elected to
Congress, so I think this must be the first hearing in my
entire career where somebody actually thought about population
and actually had a map when you walk in the room, so I feel
this is really comfortable, I can get along here, and to have
it instruct us as we move down into those census tracks as to
how to build livable communities.
I think for the part of the country that I represent, the
northern part of Ohio along Lake Erie's south coast, the fact
that our economy is different than other places in the country
makes it particularly stressful right now. Unlike most of the
growth communities in our country which are capital cities and
finance centers--I had a little discussion with Steny Hoyer
yesterday.
I said well, Mr. Leader, you know, you have got an easier
district than I do, you have got all these government jobs that
insulate you in downturns. I do not think he took offense at
that, but I said, you know, we do not have any landing pads.
When something goes wrong in the economy, we crash, because we
are a production platform, both in industry and agriculture,
and so we meet the global market head on.
I was very interested in the representative, is it
Crunican, from Seattle. You talk about the growth community in
Seattle. I am curious. You talk about Bio Tech. Are these
private companies or do they spin off a university hospital?
Could you describe why that area is growing, that particular
neighborhood that you talked about in your testimony? I am
interested in the economic underpinnings of it.
Ms. Crunican. Yes. We have both spin offs from the
University of Washington Research, the University of Washington
Health Life Sciences is there, as well as private firms,
ZymoGenetics is there, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is
locating there, a rather unique opportunity, but for the most
part it is Biomed Tech and private firms that are locating
there.
We have other combinations. It is because of its diversity
as well, Amazon is locating there, and so we have a synergy of
a lot of different companies. I think in part, the Chairman
mentioned before you got here the difference in the housing
foreclosures. It is because of two things, I think. Our diverse
economy. We started with Boeing in the 1970s, of course before
that, timber, but Boeing in the 1970s and we have expanded to
Microsoft, to Amazon, to Starbucks, and we have a range of
different economies in our base.
The second thing is that he mentioned growth management, I
mean, he mentioned a lack of housing and us not qualifying for
some of the housing that has been abandoned and walked away
from, mortgages abandoned, and I think a common element between
Oregon and Washington is the growth management policies that
have been in place which are sort of a substitute for energy
management policies 20, 30 and 40 years later.
Oregon started in the 1970s, Washington I believe passed
those in the early 1990s, so we have had some time to have that
contained growth happen, and so you do not live further out so
that if you do lose your job you have got maybe a more
affordable mortgage end. Though the price of housing is up,
your transportation bills are a little bit lower than they are
in the average. So I think it is a combination of things that
are going on there.
Ms. Kaptur. Well, what is really interesting, the way I
look at the world is that, okay, Boeing, I mean, that was
bedrock, those contracts relating to the defense of this
country, and they provided a real secure economic underpinning
for your region, and the universities that contributed to the
knowledge, I am sure, that moved that technology forward,
Microsoft locating there.
I do not know the whole history of Bill Gates in your
region, but there is no question that the defense industry spun
off the computer industry and the high tech industry all across
California to Silicon Valley and then up, and so regions like I
represent never had that.
When I look at where federal dollars have been invested,
and, you know, what they have yielded, to me, the way I look at
a community like mine now which is suffering under so much
unemployment, and has for a long time, if one looks at our
university corridors, and you referenced Bio Tech off your
university there, I really think in many ways our universities
are our growth corridors even though they are subsidized by the
taxpayer, either statewide.
They are a new spine. So the Bio Tech you are spinning off
in my region is translated to our university, which obviously
is all publicly subsidized, but we are spinning off research
that we are now the third largest solar center in the
hemisphere, and new knowledge that grew out of our glass
industry, which is an unsubsidized industry.
What is interesting about your pattern and our pattern is
that the proximity to knowledge and to the knowledge base and
to neighborhoods that may be adjacent to that, as we think
about new spines for development I think in many places the
university corridor becomes extraordinarily important. We look
at it in a different way than we did 30 years ago where it was
just an adjunct or it was just out there somewhere.
It has come into its own in a way. My community compared to
30 years ago, we now have a medical university, a graduate
university in medicine and we are talking about, you know, we
have a research technology park there and slowly we are
beginning to see companies that grow off of that. There is a
slow transformation, I think, occurring across our country, in
some places faster than others, where you can see a new urban
form taking shape.
What is interesting about it is that our bike trails, where
are they anchored? They sort of are anchored in our metro parks
but they all lead to the university. So it is just very
interesting. Now, do they lead there perfectly? No. Do we have
a long way to go? Yes. Do we need help in reshaping the urban
core? Our university is not located in the urban core but
proximate to it, not that far. The urban core for us will
become our government center.
But thinking about what are the job generators, and how do
you get jobs in job tight regions, you have to create them off
new knowledge. When you have no federal investment for the most
part other than in subsidy dollars--frankly, one of the
largest, and I will end with this, set of subsidy dollars
coming into our region, and I think Tom Latham will be
interested in this, every year in my little county $100 million
comes in in food stamps.
One of the issues we have been looking at in a very
agriculturally rich region like northern Ohio is how can we
weave ribbons of green and begin producing product for people
right back in the city in our food desert so that agricultural
corridors also are reintegrated back into our urban core? We
have the ability to do that. So I just appreciate your
testimony, and I will yield back the no time that I have. I
just appreciate your listening to me, and thank our Chairman
again.
Mr. Olver. I am deeply sorry that you were not here to
listen to Mr. Norquist's description of Detroit, which I
thought was an incredibly powerful cogent description. Toledo
is obviously, from what Marci is saying, in better shape, but
it is a little Detroit in a sense, a little like Detroit. We
have zero time left on the roll call but there are 283 people
who have not voted, so if you have a comment, or otherwise you
can go and I will stay until you folks have your chance to say
a couple of words and then we will go.
Mr. Norquist. Well, I was just going to say last summer my
wife and my two kids and I had the pleasure of wandering off
our trip across Ohio to Sandusky, which is kind of hard to find
because it is not on the normal routes people go, but it used
to be. It had good train service and all that sort of thing.
So as the transportation priorities change and there has
been a lot more investment in rail and so forth some of these
cities, like Toledo and Sandusky and so forth, their beauty
will be revealed again to people, and I think it will help it
capture some of the prosperity that places like Seattle have.
Mr. Olver. That is a hopeful thing.
Ms. Kaptur. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that comment. Just
to say, Carolyn Kilpatrick, Congresswoman Kilpatrick and I, we
want to tour Detroit together and look at urban farming in
Detroit because it is the very same issue and we want to ripen
it. Frankly, I think the biggest job generator for you besides
that has got to be your farmers' market. You could not do
enough there and build a wing on that to produce all winter
long off Eastern Market, but in any case, thank you.
Mr. Olver. Mr. Latham.
Mr. Latham. Thank you very much for all your testimony.
Mr. Olver. Indeed. I will simply second that. Thank you
very much. We will have good reasons to talk with each of you
more, okay? Have a good day.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009.

MEMBER'S REQUEST TO THE SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING

WITNESSES

HON. JOHN BOOZMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
ARKANSAS
HON. BETSY MARKEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
COLORADO
HON. DIANE E. WATSON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
CALIFORNIA
HON. HENRY CUELLAR, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF
TEXAS

Opening Remarks of Chairman Olver

Mr. Olver. The subcommittee will come to order. Good
morning, everyone, even some of our members. We are here to
take testimony from Members of the House on issues related to
the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development
Subcommittee's jurisdiction.
It has been a number of years since this subcommittee has
provided Members with an opportunity to discuss issues related
to their districts, and I am happy to be here to learn more
about the challenge that individual Members are facing at home.
The testimony provided by the Members that have taken the time
today to talk about their interests will assist the
subcommittee in crafting a bill that is responsible to both the
national needs and the needs of the Members' local districts.
This input is vital to the subcommittee in meeting its
responsibility to provide strong fiscal stewardship.
With that, I would recognize my ranking member, Mr. Latham
from Iowa, for any comments he would like to make.

Opening Remarks of Ranking Member Latham

Mr. Latham. It will be very, very brief. I look forward to
the testimony from our colleagues.
Let's proceed. Thank you.
Mr. Olver. Thank you. Our first witness is Representative
John Boozman from Arkansas. You may proceed with your
testimony. We have a written statement which we will place in
the record, but go ahead.

Opening Remarks of Representative John Boozman

Mr. Boozman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Latham, and members of the subcommittee. I really do appreciate
the opportunity to be here today and testify concerning
transportation appropriation requests.
Today, I have come to talk about the regional and the
national significance of the I-49 corridor. I-49 is a north-
south corridor from the Port of New Orleans, Louisiana, to
Kansas City, Missouri, where it connects with I-29 and I-35,
which run all the way up to the Canadian border.
A large portion of the interstate in my district is
complete. A large portion of the interstate from New Orleans
all the way up is actually complete, and a lot of that was due
to Congress in the past and especially the hard work and
dedication of one of my predecessors, John Paul Hammerschmidt,
who served with distinction for many, many years.
The uncompleted portions in the Third District are segments
from Bentonville north to the Missouri border and from Fort
Smith south to Greenwood. The Arkansas Highway Department is
supportive of this project and are committed to seeing it
through to completion.
The highway department is actively working on the northern
portion from Bentonville to the Missouri border. It will be
constructed as a bypass of the town of Bella Vista, Arkansas.
This bypass is extremely important because Bella Vista is a
retirement community and has the highest traffic count within
the Arkansas portion of the corridor.
The second uncompleted portion in Fort Smith is a project I
have submitted to your subcommittee for consideration. Work on
this portion of the corridor is vital to the economic
development in the region and will create a large number of
jobs, both those working on the interstate and those stemming
from businesses locating near the interstate.
Once completed, this portion of the interstate will assist
major companies locating in Chaffee Crossing to transport
products. Companies like Graphic Packaging, Mars Petcare,
Umarex and Pradco Outdoor Products are located at Chaffee
Crossing because of the central location and because it is an
area ripe for redevelopment. The completion of this segment of
I-49 will not only bolster industry in our area, but it will
also ensure that products can successfully move throughout the
country.
I am here today to not only educate the committee about the
status of I-49, but also to encourage you to give great
consideration to the north-south corridors while appropriating
money to transportation projects. These corridors are about
more than politics and more than the usual regional rivalries.
The corridors will provide an economic stimulus for the entire
country.
The fact is, our national highways must complement NAFTA.
In order for companies to remain competitive, they must be able
to ship goods in and out of Canada and Mexico. Companies are
striving to increase economic efficiency in our global economy
by keeping prices down, making their products more marketable,
and making their companies more successful. We have the
obligation to assist them by building the north-south
corridors. We must provide companies with choices of shipping
routes and the ability to keep their freight out of congestion.
The old system of warehouses across the country no longer
exists. The warehouses now, with on-time delivery, are the
trucks on the road and the trains; and it is crucial that we
keep the trucks moving.
The long-range economic benefit of building the north-south
corridors is incredibly powerful. Our Nation is connected from
east to west and now we must connect it from north to south. I
believe the map is truly our best argument. I-49 will not only
connect northern and southern Arkansas, but, more importantly,
will be part of a larger vein running through the middle of the
entire country.
In light of our unstable economy, we need to remain focused
on building the roads and infrastructure. Build it, and the
capital will come. With connectivity comes industry, and with
industry comes jobs.
Mr. Chairman, committee, I-49 is crucial to Arkansas, but
more importantly, is crucial to the entire country; and I ask
that you and your committee give this request your utmost
consideration.
Mr. Olver. Thank you very much and thank you for staying
within your time. You actually leave me a moment or two.
I had intended to pull out my atlas and see exactly where
I-49 went. My understanding of Arkansas is that this probably
doesn't go through Little Rock, does it? It passes west of
Little Rock----
Mr. Boozman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Olver [continuing]. Angularly?
Tell me what the three largest communities are, other than
Bentonville. Or maybe Bentonville is one of the three largest.
It goes by Fayetteville?
Mr. Boozman. Yes, sir.
Mr. Olver. And then on the south, Fort Smith is it?
Mr. Boozman. Fort Smith, and then down in Mike Ross' area,
down in Texarkana, in that region, in the southern part of the
State. So it comes from New Orleans, it goes through Louisiana,
through Shreveport, that area, running up, which--Louisiana has
been totally committed to the project and done a tremendous
amount of work--goes on up into Texarkana, up into Mike's
district, and then keeps going. And it really kind of hugs the
Oklahoma-Arkansas line, and goes up into Missouri, on up to
Kansas City, and there it divides into two interstates and goes
to the Canadian border.
Our interstate system was built primarily east and west.
Mr. Olver. That is the other thing I was curious about. You
commented and made the case that we really need to pay
attention it the north-south corridors. Well, the north-south
corridors are the odd-numbered routes, and in the east, 95, of
course, is the critical one. The major ones are 5, 15, 25, and
so forth.
The farther you get away--in the odd numbers away from the
5-numbered routes, the less important they seem to be, although
in our Northeast, 81 is quite important, and I have always
viewed 75 as very important. So your comment that we weren't
really paying attention to the north-south corridors was of
interest to me.
Mr. Boozman. It really is. I-35 going through Texas, those
corridors really are at full capacity. So this route would take
pressure off of some of those other routes.
The nice thing about this project is, some of the other
projects, again which I am committed to and which I think we
need to do, are right in the beginning stage. This is something
that with a fairly small amount of money, truly you can have a
north-south corridor that is complete; and that interstate
system would, again, run from New Orleans all the way up.
The Port of New Orleans, with more and more shipping going
to that area, more and more shipping going to Houston, things
are becoming more and more important.
Mr. Olver. I have exceeded my time.
Mr. Latham.
Mr. Latham. I just have two questions. This is not going to
restrict my access to the golf courses, is it?
Mr. Boozman. No. Not at all. In fact, it will make your
access easier.
Mr. Latham. If you have ever been down there, it is
absolutely an incredible area as far as a retirement community;
and lots of folks from Iowa actually live down there or winter
down there.
What is the request? How many dollars specifically are you
looking for in the appropriations bill?
Mr. Boozman. Well, again, I don't know that. I can't tell
you the specific amount. I should be able to do that.
But you guys on the back, you know----
Mr. Latham. Here we go.
Mr. Boozman. $10 million.
Mr. Latham. What would that do? What section?
Mr. Boozman. What I believe in, Mr. Latham, is I think you
go from the areas that have the most population density in the
sense that you are doing what you want to do, you are building
the interstate; but along with that you have the opportunity to
have economic opportunity on top of that.
So this would be south of Fort Smith, in that area. And not
only, like I say, are you building the interstate at that
point, but you are providing great economic opportunity in that
area also with some major industries that are coming in.
Mr. Latham. Thank you very much.
Mr. Boozman. Thank you all very much.
Mr. Olver. Mr. Pastor.
Mr. Pastor. No questions.
Mr. Olver. Ms. Kilpatrick.
Ms. Kilpatrick. No questions.
Mr. Olver. Thank you very much for bringing up this
interstate completion project. I thought the interstate system
was complete. You are raising a whole awareness. Thank you very
much.
Mr. Boozman. Thank you very much.
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Mr. Olver. Representative Betsy Markey from Colorado.

Opening Remarks of Representative Betsy Markey

Ms. Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee, for the opportunity to testify today.
I just want to give you a sense of where my district in
Colorado is. I represent the northern suburbs of Denver, so the
northern and eastern part of the State, and then also it is
like a big ``7'', the entire eastern plains of Colorado. My
district borders Wyoming to the north, Nebraska and Kansas to
the east, and Oklahoma to the south.
I have five projects that I am requesting appropriations
for. The first one is U.S. highway 287 in Berthoud. Berthoud is
a fast-growing community about an hour north of Denver. It is
about $330,000. The funding will accommodate much-needed
improvements along Highway 287 and the town of Berthoud,
including surface overlay, paving marking, seeding, mulching
and traffic control. This is a major connection road between
Loveland and Longmont, which also connects to the Boulder area.
As I mentioned, it is one of the fastest-growing communities in
the area, and traffic on this highway is going to only
increase.
The second request is for $1.5 million, a timber bridge on
U.S. highway 24 in Limon, Colorado. Limon is in eastern
Colorado. As you are coming in from Kansas on Highway 70, you
pass through Limon. This funding will accommodate the
reconstruction of a timber bridge just east of Limon. The
structure was originally constructed in 1934 and has now been
deemed structurally deficient.
The bridge is along the Ports-to-Plains corridor, which has
heavy traffic use. The bridge literally sways when cars, let
alone 18-wheeler trucks, drive over it. My staff was there just
a couple of weeks ago and said as soon as even a car or truck
goes over it, it shakes. It is a narrow bridge with low
guardrails. The Colorado Department of Transportation patches
up the bridge at least once a month.
The third is also a bridge replacement, the Upper Big
Thompson Canyon bridge replacement at a cost of $2.5 million.
This funding would replace two bridges on U.S. Highway 34 in
the Big Thompson Canyon near the town of Estes Park. The
improvements will include bridge replacement along with
pavement markings, guardrail improvement, seeding, mulching and
traffic control. These bridges are labeled as poor bridges by
the Colorado Department of Transportation. This highway, U.S.
Highway 34, is the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park,
which receives over 1 million visitors a year.
The fourth is State Highway 96, four bridges near Eads,
Colorado, in the eastern plains of Colorado. It is at a cost of
$600,000. The funding would be used for preliminary and final
design of structures on Highway 96 west of the town of Eads,
remove and replace existing structures. The work consists of
structural concrete, reinforcing steel, embankment, hot mix
asphalt, signing, stripping, seeding and mulching. These
bridges are also labeled poor bridges by the Colorado
Department of Transportation.
The last is Highway 385 in Julesburg. Julesburg is just
over the Nebraska border in northeastern Colorado. It is
$880,000. This is the first town you come into when you are
coming into Colorado in the northern part of the State.
The funding would be used to accommodate the much-needed
improvements along 385 south of Julesburg. The improvements
will include surface overlay, pavement markings, guardrail
upgrade, seeding, mulching and traffic controls. This road is a
very heavily used ag road. It is very important for local
agricultural producers. It has no shoulders whatsoever. Also
the natural gas industry is very active in this area and they
also use this a lot. So this is another and important road,
again needed improvements for agriculture.
The bridges, I believe, are also very, very significant. I
think they are disasters waiting to happen.
Thank you very much for the opportunity. I would be happy
to answer questions.
Mr. Olver. Thank you very much, Ms. Markey. You have really
focused on bridges. I didn't know you had that many rivers in
eastern Colorado. Of course, you stretch into the mountains as
well there.
Ms. Markey. Right.
Mr. Olver. There toward the north.
Ms. Markey. We have 36 structurally deficient bridges in my
district, according to Colorado--36 total.
Mr. Olver. And you have only hit 10, I think.
Ms. Markey. I have hit the ones that are most heavily used
and most in need of repair.
Mr. Olver. Just a quickie.
On your fourth one where you have the list of three or four
different bridges there, what is the estimated cost of
construction of those bridges, with the design funded here, by
what we might do?
Ms. Markey. About $1 million a bridge.
Mr. Olver. $1 million a bridge. They are relatively small
bridges.
Ms. Markey. They are small bridges. They are small bridges.
The rivers in Colorado are not as wide as they are in the
eastern part of the country.
Mr. Olver. I thought they were miles wide, like South Platt
and the Arkansas.
Ms. Markey. No. They are smaller bridges, but again, lots
of traffic along these. So about $1 million a bridge, $600,000
for the design of the four bridges.
Mr. Olver. Virtually all of these are on U.S. highways. I
notice most of them are on numbered U.S. highways.
Ms. Markey. They are on U.S. highways, correct.
Mr. Olver. Thank you very much.
Mr. Latham.
Mr. Latham. I really have no questions, other than to say I
am surprised you don't have something for Brush, Colorado,
here, because that is where my in-laws live.
Ms. Markey. I am sure I can find something.
Mr. Latham. I actually lived in your district going back to
the early 1970s, and 34 years later we are still married.
But thank you.
Ms. Markey. Congratulations.
Mr. Olver. Mr. Pastor.
Mr. Pastor. No questions.
Mr. Olver. Ms. Kilpatrick.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And good morning. Nice presentation. You mentioned these
are 5 of 30-some that need repair.
Ms. Markey. Yes.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Are they prioritized in terms of your ask?
Ms. Markey. Yes, these are prioritized.
Ms. Kilpatrick. What is the population around these
bridges? For example, take the first three.
Ms. Markey. The Berthoud area, that is not a bridge. That
is a road. But that is a community of 30,000, but it is just
outside of Denver and Boulder, which are the two major cities
in Colorado.
Limon has about 8,000 people in the Town of Limon, but
again, it is a major thoroughfare for truck traffic. Limon is,
if you are coming from Kansas into Colorado, you first hit
Burlington and then hit Limon, so it is a major truck route
along the east-west corridor of I-70.
And the Big Thompson, the two bridges near Estes Park:
Estes Park has about 11,000 people; however, it is the gateway
into Rocky Mountain National Park, which gets well over 1
million visitors a year. You have to go through Big Thompson
Canyon in order to get to Rocky Mountain National Park. So that
is heavy tourist traffic along those bridges.
Ms. Kilpatrick. In the Colorado DOT, that is how you found
out they are critically needed structures?
Ms. Markey. Yes.
Ms. Kilpatrick. I don't think we fund bridges 100 percent.
I am trying to see if it is 80-20 or whatever, but the chairman
or staff would know better than I.
Are they recommending these?
Ms. Markey. Yes, these are all supported by the Colorado
Department of Transportation. In Colorado, we are under
constraints of what is called the Taber amendment, so
transportation in Colorado, we have not had any money to fund
much-needed transportation projects in Colorado.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Thank you very much.
Mr. Olver. Is Rocky Mountain National Park in your
district?
Ms. Markey. Yes, Rocky Mountain National Park is in my
district. Yes, it is.
Mr. Olver. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Ms. Markey. Thank you.
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Mr. Olver. Let's see. I have Representative Watson from
California. Representative Diane Watson.

Opening Remarks of Representative Diane E. Watson

Ms. Watson. Mr. Chairman and committee, I want to thank you
for allowing me to testify before your subcommittee today on
two top priorities for the fiscal year 2010 appropriation
request for the 33rd Congressional District. I sincerely hope
that today's testimony will encourage the subcommittee to fund
these projects at their requested levels.
The first project I request is a $250,000 appropriation for
the Hollywood Business District Streetscape Improvement
Project. This is one of the shovel-ready projects that we have
been referring to.
The Hollywood Business District is one of the many diverse
business communities in Los Angeles that is in need of
revitalization. Project funding would be used to repair 80
stars and 184 squares of terrazzo on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame. Funding would also provide for the removal of debris and
curb repairs, which are primary activities of the restoration
work, which includes rehabilitation of the depth and the
anchorage of the zinc divider strips and the terrazzo topping
of each star and square; restore concrete underlayment; and
repair the utility vaults and service connections.
Completion of this project would help the Hollywood
Business District generate revenues and create jobs, as this is
a major tourist attraction and vital to the local economy.
My second project request is $250,000 for the Vermont Child
Development Center Project. The entity requesting the funding
is Para Los Ninos. Their goal is to ensure that when children
and youth leave their educational programs, they go home to
families that are prepared to provide a healthy, nourishing
environment, one that is well-equipped to meet their emotional
and developmental needs. Funding for this project would be used
to renovate restrooms at the Vermont Child Development Center.
These are projects that we have reviewed. I live in the
area, and as I travel worldwide and I reference my district as
Los Angeles, I get nice nods. But when I say Hollywood, I get
big smiles. It is a destination of millions of people that come
to the United States. They come directly to Hollywood thinking
they are going to see a star on every corner. They will see a
``star'' in the pavement.
So I want to thank you for the opportunity to testify
before the committee today, and I hope that you will give
strong consideration to my top two requests for fiscal year
2010.
Mr. Olver. Thank you very much.
Now, let me just ask, the Walk of Fame, how long is the
Walk of Fame?
Ms. Watson. I would say that in Hollywood it would go for
about 2 miles.
Mr. Olver. The section you are talking about where there
are 80 stars and 184 squares, how large are the squares of
terrazzo?
Ms. Watson. I would say, just off the top of my head, in
measurements, they would be about 2 by 3.
Mr. Olver. Two by three feet?
Ms. Watson. Yes. Those are the terrazzo boxes that the
stars are in.
Mr. Olver. Is this walk two terrazzos wide or three
terrazzos wide?
Ms. Watson. I would say it is about four terrazzos wide.
Mr. Olver. And a couple miles long?
Ms. Watson. Do you know the Grauman Chinese Theater?
Mr. Olver. I have been in Los Angeles once for a
convention.
Ms. Watson. It is a big attraction. This is where they put
their hands and feet and so on in the cement, so that gives you
some idea of where the walk is located.
Mr. Olver. I am curious, this sounds to me like it has an
important job creation kind of a role or business role. It is
an economic development job.
It is not a transportation job, is it? Is this an economic
development initiative request under the HUD Department? Or is
this under transportation?
Ms. Watson. Let me just say we are building the
transportation route down Hollywood in the Hollywood area. It
is all part of the connections that start with downtown Los
Angeles. The sidewalks on either side and the businesses on
either side will thrive from the fact that we have a
transportation system running there. They are in a catchment
area; and years ago I carried legislation that the businesses
will contribute to the maintenance of the Metro line that will
go near there, and also the businesses would thrive from the
tourism that is alongside.
So the catchment area is very important, the transportation
catchment area.
Mr. Olver. Okay. Your other project, the child development
center, is this a phased project? If I remember correctly, in
last year's legislation there was an earmark under EDI that was
sponsored on the Senate side by Senator Boxer and by you on the
House side.
Ms. Watson. Sustainability.
Mr. Olver. Is this a continuation, a second phase in the
same project?
Ms. Watson. Maybe even a third phase. It is the second
phase.
Mr. Olver. When you say the Vermont Child Development
Center, it is the same child development center, basically the
second phase of development?
Ms. Watson. It is.
Mr. Olver. Mr. Latham.
Mr. Latham. I have no questions, but thank you for your
testimony.
Mr. Olver. Mr. Pastor.
Mr. Pastor. I just have one question. What line is this
that is coming to Hollywood? The Red Line? Which line is it?
Ms. Watson. I think this is the Aqua Line.
Mr. Pastor. So going through Hollywood. Where will it
continue?
Ms. Watson. It will go out to the Pacific. We are hoping it
will go all the way to the airport as well.
Mr. Pastor. So are you under construction yet?
Ms. Watson. Yes, we are.
Mr. Pastor. To be completed?
Ms. Watson. Who knows. It is year by year by year. It
depends on the funding.
Mr. Pastor. So this development with the terrazzo----
Ms. Watson. Is all part of that catchment area, runway
area, all the way out to the Pacific, to the sea, and we hope
eventually to the airport.
Mr. Pastor. Thank you.
Mr. Olver. Ms. Kilpatrick.
Ms. Kilpatrick. Mr. Chairman, I have no questions.
Good presentation. Thank you.
Mr. Olver. Thank you very much. You are kind to be with us
today.
Ms. Watson. Thank you very much. My pleasure.
[The information follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Opening Remarks of Representative Henry Cuellar

Mr. Olver. Representative Cuellar, Representative Henry
Cuellar from the 28th District of Texas.
Mr. Cuellar. South Texas, yes.
Mr. Olver. South Texas. I understand you might get two or
three more districts in Texas----
Mr. Cuellar. Three minimum and maybe four, but probably
three. It has been growing very fast.
In fact, my district is one that has grown a lot, the south
Texas part of it, so I have to give up at least 120,000 to
150,000 individuals, because my districts has grown a lot down
there.
Mr. Olver. Do you get to choose exactly which ones you are
going to give up?
Mr. Cuellar. We will have some sort of input. That is why I
make it a point that I go visit. I was 14 years in the State
legislature, and I make it a point to go visit my former
colleagues at least every session without missing them.
Mr. Olver. Go ahead. Your testimony will be put in the
record so you can just proceed as you wish.
Mr. Cuellar. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of
the committee. I appreciate it very much for allowing me to be
here.
First of all, I want to thank you. You all have been very
generous in the past, and hopefully, you will be generous
again. I appreciate your work and that of the committee staff.
I know the staff does a lot of work, and I appreciate the work
that they do.
Mr. Chairman, my earmarks have always been very small. They
are small. I have 12 counties, so I try to see if I can get one
or two because of the different counties.
The first one is just a nonprofit to a theater in Laredo.
That is my number one request. It is $300,000. It is a theater
that has been there for young kids for years and years and
years and years, and it is basically helping them with
electrical wiring and audio equipment and some rehab. It was
put in a former Air Force base. The base was closed in 1974, so
it is one of the buildings that was there since the Air Force
base was built in 1945.
The second request is a hike-and-bike pathway, and it is
just trying to some hike-and-bike paths in that area. It is
$300,000 also. So it is 300 and 300.
The third one is a bus terminal for $650,000.
Those are my top three. My number one is the theater, and
number two is the hike-and-bike pathway.
I have some language also, my first report language, I
would ask you all to look at the FAA radar relocation. It is
basically in the border area. Mr. Pastor, you are from the
border area.
The Feds, we were pretty good at building walls on the
southern part of the area, billions of dollars we are talking
about in investment. But one of the things we have been trying
to do is have wind farms down there. The problem has arisen
down there on the border that you have radars; and on the
radars down there, we have been trying to work with the FAA to
help them relocate one of the radars.
For example, in my district we are trying to put a $2
billion investment in a wind farm, but the FAA has got in the
way saying, We have got a radar and we want to make sure we
catch the airplanes coming in.
So we are asking them, because apparently it is going to
cause problems in other parts of the border area, and it is one
of those things that I know can be worked out, where you can
relocate the radars and still not affect a $2 billion
investment in my area. So we are asking you to look at that
language itself.
The other things are just basically high-speed rails and
transportation infrastructure for the ports of entry, just
report language. But my main one is that FAA relocation,
because it has been a problem, because the Feds have been good
at putting a border wall, but now that we are trying to put a
$2 billion investment, they have been giving us a hard time.
I am on the Homeland Security Committee, and we were able
to put $10 million for the radar relocation, but FAA still
gives us a difficult time. So I would ask for your assistance
on that.
That is it, Chairman. I don't want to take up your time,
members of the committee. And I appreciate your help.
Mr. Olver. Thank you. Your district reaches into San
Antonio?
Mr. Cuellar. Yes, sir.
Mr. Olver. Do you have some of the city of San Antonio, or
do you have just the suburbs?
Mr. Cuellar. I have the suburbs. I have Randolph Air Force
Base in northeast San Antonio, and I go from San Antonio down
to Laredo, my hometown.
Mr. Olver. Laredo is your largest city?
Mr. Cuellar. Yes.
Mr. Olver. How large is Laredo?
Mr. Cuellar. Probably right now it is about 225,000 or
more.
Mr. Olver. And growing?
Mr. Cuellar. And growing.
Mr. Olver. The theater you mentioned is in Laredo?
Mr. Cuellar. In Laredo.
Mr. Olver. And the park and ride, or what was the term you
used for that?
Mr. Cuellar. That is a park in Laredo.
Mr. Olver. That is in Laredo.
Mr. Cuellar. 14,500 is the population I represent in
Northeast San Antonio, which is mainly the Randolph Air Force
Base. The largest block of population is Laredo. Roma is down
there in the southern part of the district.
Mr. Olver. Roma is where you were asking for the assistance
with a bus terminal?
Mr. Cuellar. That is correct.
Mr. Olver. That is in the Laredo area?
Mr. Cuellar. No, it is not.
Mr. Olver. Where is Roma then?
Mr. Cuellar. Roma is about 90 miles south of Laredo.
Mr. Olver. South of Laredo. Oh, I see. Toward McAllen.
Somebody, knowing that I love maps, has provided me with maps.
Sometimes I can't follow quickly enough.
Tell me where the radar--you are asking for language in
relation to that. I have not looked at it yet.
Mr. Cuellar. The radar is between Webb County, my hometown,
Jim Hogg, and Zapata. Basically, that area covers three
counties. There is an investment of $2 billion to put a wind
farm, but the problem has been----
Mr. Olver. Is this a Pickens investment?
Mr. Cuellar. No, it is not.
Mr. Olver. This is the State of Texas?
Mr. Cuellar. No, it is not. It is actually some folks from
the Corpus Christi area. It has nothing to do with wind farms
on the coast. This has to do with three counties that are in my
district. We have been working at it for a while. They are
talking about putting $2 billion. That is a huge investment
that would really transform those small counties--Zapata, Jim
Hogg and part of Webb County. It covers those three areas.
Basically, they have had a radar there for years. And like
I said, we got some money from Homeland, $10 million, and now
FAA is saying, Oh, it probably is more than $10 million.
It is almost one of those things where they are coming up
with excuse after excuse. First, it was the money. Here is the
money. Now they are saying, Oh, we have to look at it, because
we don't want a mistake with something that has a propeller.
And I said, Well, propellers are the ones that kind of move on
airplanes, and a windmill is one that stands stationary. So I
think we can work that out.
But, nevertheless, they are saying they have a problem.
They keep saying they are going to work it out. But here we
are.
It is a poor area, an extremely poor area of the country,
and we are trying to work with the FAA. I can understand border
security, because I am on Homeland and am from the Laredo
border area. But at the same time I am sure we can relocate
radars in such a way that it won't affect us or the windmills
in such a way that they won't affect a balance between an
investment and border security.
Mr. Olver. This must be a wind farm that is somewhere
between 500 and 1,000 wind turbines?
Mr. Cuellar. Right. Forty have been authorized already, but
the main part of it hasn't been authorized.
Texas, as you know, is the number one State in wind farms,
mainly in West Texas. But now we have a wind corridor in my
district and we are talking about investing, like I said, $2
billion. But we have had this trouble with the FAA.
I wish we could sit down. I have sat with them in Homeland
so many times. Now they are saying, We are waiting for the new
administrator. It is impeding our $2 billion, and for South
Texas and the border area, $2 billion is a lot of money. I
guess that would be anywhere else.
Mr. Olver. In my district we have had 2 years of delays on
one turbine, maybe two, somewhere within 5 miles of a very
small-capacity airport. So the FAA does have problems.
Mr. Latham.
Mr. Latham. I would just ask whether you want to move it,
or is it to get a different type of radar?
I had a similar problem in my district. They were building
a natural-gas-powered electrical generation plant and the
chimneys were going to affect the radar. Basically, we just had
to go to a modified Doppler system and that took care of the
problem.
Is it movement or is it the type of radar?
Mr. Cuellar. We are open, because the same experts that FAA
uses are the same experts that the folks are using from the
Corpus Christi area. They are saying, Look, we can move them,
we can adjust the height, we can do whatever you want us to do.
Just work with us on that.
They did authorize 40 of them. But this is a much bigger
project than just 40. It is huge. And it is either adjustment
of the radar--and by the way, without getting into too much
detail, the lease has expired; and now that the lease has
expired, FAA says we are going to condemn or use eminent
domain. It is like they are using every way they can. And we
are saying, Look, we are using the same experts that FAA uses;
we will work with you in any way you want to, either move them
up and down, move the radar.
If they talked about moving the radar, Homeland came up
with $10 million. Now FAA says, Oh, that is not enough. Every
time we come up with something, they come up with a reason.
It is an issue that I can understand. I can understand. But
it is something that--I always say there is always a solution;
there is always a way to try to figure it out. But trying to
get some of our bureaucratic friends up here, it can be
difficult.
Mr. Latham. What does the report language say? What do you
want them to do?
Mr. Cuellar. Basically we wanted them to sit down and come
up with a solution. It is kind of like put them in a locked
room, close the door and get them to come up with a solution.
Their own experts and our own experts, my constituents are
saying, it can be done, but FAA just keeps saying no, no, no.
Mr. Latham. Thank you very much.
Mr. Olver. Mr. Pastor.
Mr. Pastor. No questions.
Mr. Olver. Well, thank you very much then for your
testimony and for being with us today.
Mr. Cuellar. I appreciate it.
I know there are not too many members here, but I certainly
am one of those that I feel is giving us an opportunity. I sat
10 years in the house appropriations in Texas, and we always
gave this opportunity. Just giving Members an opportunity to
sit down means a lot. I wish more Members would take advantage.
It means a lot to me.
Mr. Olver. You were the fourth. The others had just left as
you came in, had gone as they finished their testimony.
Mr. Cuellar. Thank you very much.
[The information follows:]

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

Mr. Olver. Thank you. Have a good day.
The hearing is closed.

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

W I T N E S S E S

----------
Page
Anthes, R. A..................................................... 269
Bernstine, Nancy................................................. 245
Boozman, Hon. John............................................... 163
Bordallo, Hon. M. Z.............................................. 191
Capon, R. B...................................................... 278
Cook, Kristina................................................... 204
Crunican, Grace.................................................. 103
Cuellar, Hon. Henry.............................................. 163
Donovan, Hon. Shaun.............................................. 1, 39
Friend, P. A..................................................... 229
Hannig, Gary..................................................... 208
Howard, Bryan.................................................... 215
LaHood, Hon. Ray................................................. 39
Leary, M. A...................................................... 103
Lofye, Andrea.................................................... 226
Markey, Hon. Betsy............................................... 163
McNickle, Larry.................................................. 282
Millar, W. M..................................................... 259
Monks, Janice.................................................... 282
Mumford, Dr. G. K................................................ 254
Narvaiz, Susan................................................... 249
Norquist, J. O................................................... 103
Olson, Hon. Pete................................................. 193
Puentes, Robert.................................................. 103
Tsoodle, Chuck................................................... 217
Tulipane, Barbara................................................ 252
Watson, Hon. D. E................................................ 163
Wilson, Hon. Joe................................................. 195

I N D E X

----------

DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

Page
API Community................................................ 24
Auction Prices............................................... 29
CDBG......................................................... 16
Choice Neighborhood Initiative

American Public Transportation Association 259
American Society of Civil Engineers 199
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Austin, Texas 226
City of San Marcos, Texas 249
Coalition of Northeastern Governors 265
Illinois Department of Transportation 208
National Affordable Housing Management Association 204
National AIDS Housing Coalition 245
National Association of Railroad Passengers 278
National Recreation and Park Association 252
Oklahoma Tribal Transportation Council, Inc. 217
Town of Lexington, South Carolina 222
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research 269
U.S. Green Building Council 215
American Public Transportation Association 259
American Society of Civil Engineers 199
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Austin, Texas 226
City of San Marcos, Texas 249
Coalition of Northeastern Governors 265
Illinois Department of Transportation 208
National Affordable Housing Management Association 204
National AIDS Housing Coalition 245
National Association of Railroad Passengers 278
National Recreation and Park Association 252
Oklahoma Tribal Transportation Council, Inc. 217
Town of Lexington, South Carolina 222
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research 269
U.S. Green Building Council 215
American Psychological Association 254
American Public Transportation Association 259
American Society of Civil Engineers 199
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Austin, Texas 226
City of San Marcos, Texas 249
Coalition of Northeastern Governors 265
Illinois Department of Transportation 208
National Affordable Housing Management Association 204
National AIDS Housing Coalition 245
National Association of Railroad Passengers 278
National Recreation and Park Association 252
Oklahoma Tribal Transportation Council, Inc. 217
Town of Lexington, South Carolina 222
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research 269
U.S. Green Building Council 215

�08

Attendant_CWA, AFL�09CIO 229
Air Line Pilots Association, International 273
American Association of Service Coordinators 282
American Psychological Association 254
American Public Transportation Association 259
American Society of Civil Engineers 199
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Austin, Texas 226
City of San Marcos, Texas 249
Coalition of Northeastern Governors 265
Illinois Department of Transportation 208
National Affordable Housing Management Association 204
National AIDS Housing Coalition 245
National Association of Railroad Passengers 278
National Recreation and Park Association 252
Oklahoma Tribal Transportation Council, Inc. 217
Town of Lexington, South Carolina 222
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research 269
U.S. Green Building Council 215

�08

^{Transportation Association 259
American Society of Civil Engineers 199
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Austin, Texas 226
City of San Marcos, Texas 249
Coalition of Northeastern Governors 265
Illinois Department of Transportation 208
National Affordable Housing Management Association 204
National AIDS Housing Coalition 245
National Association of Railroad Passengers 278
National Recreation and Park Association 252
Oklahoma Tribal Transportation Council, Inc. 217
Town of Lexington, South Carolina 222
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research 269
U.S. Green Building Council 215

�08

^{254
American Public Transportation Association 259
American Society of Civil Engineers 199
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Austin, Texas 226
City of San Marcos, Texas 249
Coalition of Northeastern Governors 265
Illinois Department of Transportation 208
National Affordable Housing Management Association 204
National AIDS Housing Coalition 245
National Association of Railroad Passengers 278
National Recreation and Park Association 252
Oklahoma Tribal Transportation Council, Inc. 217
Town of Lexington, South Carolina 222
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research 269
U.S. Green Building Council 215

�08

Differences with CBO......................................... 14
Foreclosures................................................. 37
Freddie and Fannie........................................... 38
HHS/HUD Partnership.......................................... 23
HOPE VI

^{American Public Transportation Association 259
American Society of Civil Engineers 199
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Austin, Texas 226
City of San Marcos, Texas 249
Coalition of Northeastern Governors 265
Illinois Department of Transportation 208
National Affordable Housing Management Association 204
National AIDS Housing Coalition 245
National Association of Railroad Passengers 278
National Recreation and Park Association 252
Oklahoma Tribal Transportation Council, Inc. 217
Town of Lexington, South Carolina 222
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research 269
U.S. Green Building Council 215

�08

^{ssociation 259
American Society of Civil Engineers 199
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Austin, Texas 226
City of San Marcos, Texas 249
Coalition of Northeastern Governors 265
Illinois Department of Transportation 208
National Affordable Housing Management Association 204
National AIDS Housing Coalition 245
National Association of Railroad Passengers 278
National Recreation and Park Association 252
Oklahoma Tribal Transportation Council, Inc. 217
Town of Lexington, South Carolina 222
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research 269
U.S. Green Building Council 215

�08

^{282
American Psychological Association 254
American Public Transportation Association 259
American Society of Civil Engineers 199
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Austin, Texas 226
City of San Marcos, Texas 249
Coalition of Northeastern Governors 265
Illinois Department of Transportation 208
National Affordable Housing Management Association 204
National AIDS Housing Coalition 245
National Association of Railroad Passengers 278
National Recreation and Park Association 252
Oklahoma Tribal Transportation Council, Inc. 217
Town of Lexington, South Carolina 222
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research 269
U.S. Green Building Council 215

�08

HOPWA........................................................ 36
HUD's Rural Role............................................. 33
Hurricanes................................................... 22
Inspector General............................................ 11
Livability Grants............................................ 32
Livable Communities

�08

^{259
American Society of Civil Engineers 199
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Austin, Texas 226
City of San Marcos, Texas 249
Coalition of Northeastern Governors 265
Illinois Department of Transportation 208
National Affordable Housing Management Association 204
National AIDS Housing Coalition 245
National Association of Railroad Passengers 278
National Recreation and Park Association 252
Oklahoma Tribal Transportation Council, Inc. 217
Town of Lexington, South Carolina 222
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research 269
U.S. Green Building Council 215

�08

Local Match.................................................. 21
Making Home Affordable Plan.................................. 28
Methodology.................................................. 14
Neighborhood Stabilization Program........................... 19
NOFAs........................................................ 13
Opening Remarks, Chairman John W. Olver...................... 1
Opening Remarks, Ranking Member Tom Latham................... 2
Opening Statement, Hon. Shaun Donovan, Secretary of HUD...... 3
Overruns..................................................... 18
Priorities................................................... 34
Resources/Needs.............................................. 18
Schools...................................................... 21
Section 8 Housing

�08

254
American Public Transportation Association 259
American Society of Civil Engineers 199
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Austin, Texas 226
City of San Marcos, Texas 249
Coalition of Northeastern Governors 265
Illinois Department of Transportation 208
National Affordable Housing Management Association 204
National AIDS Housing Coalition 245
National Association of Railroad Passengers 278
National Recreation and Park Association 252
Oklahoma Tribal Transportation Council, Inc. 217
Town of Lexington, South Carolina 222
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research 269
U.S. Green Building Council 215

�08

282
American Psychological Association 254
American Public Transportation Association 259
American Society of Civil Engineers 199
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Austin, Texas 226
City of San Marcos, Texas 249
Coalition of Northeastern Governors 265
Illinois Department of Transportation 208
National Affordable Housing Management Association 204
National AIDS Housing Coalition 245
National Association of Railroad Passengers 278
National Recreation and Park Association 252
Oklahoma Tribal Transportation Council, Inc. 217
Town of Lexington, South Carolina 222
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research 269
U.S. Green Building Council 215

�08

Sustainable Communities

�08

Taxes........................................................ 15
USDA......................................................... 33
Working Capital Fund......................................... 34
Written Statement, Hon. Shaun Donovan, Secretary of HUD...... 6

LIVABLE COMMUNITIES, TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT, AND INCORPORATING
GREEN BUILDING PRACTICES INTO FEDERAL HOUSING AND TRANSPORTATION POLICY

Affordable Housing........................................... 82
Better Coordination of Transportation and Housing Programs... 51
Develop New Transit Options.................................. 82
DOT/HUD Task Force........................................... 42
Eligibility for Transit Funding.............................. 85
Federal Funding Allocations.................................. 83
Funding for Sustainable Communities Initiative............... 73
Gas Tax...................................................... 72
High Speed Rail.............................................. 77
Highway Trust Fund........................................... 76
Hope VI...................................................... 84
Livable Communities

�08

^{an Society of Civil Engineers 199
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Austin, Texas 226
City of San Marcos, Texas 249
Coalition of Northeastern Governors 265
Illinois Department of Transportation 208
National Affordable Housing Management Association 204
National AIDS Housing Coalition 245
National Association of Railroad Passengers 278
National Recreation and Park Association 252
Oklahoma Tribal Transportation Council, Inc. 217
Town of Lexington, South Carolina 222
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research 269
U.S. Green Building Council 215

�08

Livable Communities in Rural Areas........................... 75
Opening Remarks, Chairman John W. Olver...................... 39
Opening Remarks, Hon. Ray LaHood, Secretary of Transportation 41
Opening Remarks, Hon. Shaun Donovan, Secretary of HUD........ 62
Opening Remarks, Ranking Member Tom Latham................... 40
Planning..................................................... 78
President's Budget Request................................... 80
Questions for the Record, Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard......... 89
Recovery Act Funding......................................... 85
Regional Planning Agencies................................... 71
Regulations.................................................. 75
Rural Areas.................................................. 74
Surplus Federal Property..................................... 84
Sustainable Communities Initiative

0259
American Society of Civil Engineers 199
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Austin, Texas 226
City of San Marcos, Texas 249
Coalition of Northeastern Governors 265
Illinois Department of Transportation 208
National Affordable Housing Management Association 204
National AIDS Housing Coalition 245
National Association of Railroad Passengers 278
National Recreation and Park Association 252
Oklahoma Tribal Transportation Council, Inc. 217
Town of Lexington, South Carolina 222
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research 269
U.S. Green Building Council 215

�08

^{199
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Austin, Texas 226
City of San Marcos, Texas 249
Coalition of Northeastern Governors 265
Illinois Department of Transportation 208
National Affordable Housing Management Association 204
National AIDS Housing Coalition 245
National Association of Railroad Passengers 278
National Recreation and Park Association 252
Oklahoma Tribal Transportation Council, Inc. 217
Town of Lexington, South Carolina 222
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research 269
U.S. Green Building Council 215

�08

Televideo Meeting of DOT/HUD Issues.......................... 85
Transit-Oriented Development................................. 62
Urban Sprawl................................................. 81
Western States............................................... 80
Written Statement, Hon. Ray LaHood, Secretary of
Transportation............................................. 44
Written Statement, Hon. Shaun Donovan, Secretary of HUD...... 65

PART II: LIVABLE COMMUNITIES, TRANSIT-ORIENTED DEVELOPMENT, AND
INCORPORATING GREEN BUILDING PRACTICES INTO FEDERAL HOUSING AND
TRANSPORTATION POLICY

Broadband.................................................... 150
Carbon Footprint and Energy Usage............................ 145
Center for Neighborhood Technology........................... 155
Congestion................................................... 157
Economic Functions........................................... 147
Opening Remarks, Chairman John W. Olver...................... 103
Opening Remarks, Grace Crunican, Director, DOT, City of
Seattle.................................................... 135
Opening Remarks, John O. Norquist, President and Chief
Executive, Congress for the New Urbanism................... 127
Opening Remarks, Mary A. Leary, Senior Director, Easter Seals
Transportation Group....................................... 116
Opening Remarks, Ranking Member Tom Latham................... 104
Opening Remarks, Robert Puentes, Senior Fellow, Metropolitan
Policy Program............................................. 105
Repopulation of Rural Areas.................................. 152
Rural Communities............................................ 148
United We Ride............................................... 149
Written Statement, Grace Crunican, Director, DOT, City of
Seattle.................................................... 139
Written Statement, John O. Norquist, President and Chief
Executive, Congress for the New Urbanism................... 131
Written Statement, Mary A. Leary, Senior Director, Easter
Seals Transportation Group................................. 118
Written Statement, Robert Puentes, Senior Fellow,
Metropolitan Policy Program................................ 107

MEMBER'S REQUEST TO THE SUBCOMMITTEE HEARING

Opening Remarks, Chairman John W. Olver...................... 163
Opening Remarks, Ranking Member Tom Latham................... 163
Opening Remarks, Representative Betsy Markey................. 170
Opening Remarks, Representative Diane E. Watson.............. 175
Opening Remarks, Representative Henry Cuellar................ 181
Opening Remarks, Representative John Boozman................. 163
Written Statement, Representative Betsy Markey............... 173
Written Statement, Representative Diane E. Watson............ 178
Written Statement, Representative Henry Cuellar.............. 186
Written Statement, Representative Joe Wilson................. 195
Written Statement, Representative John Boozman............... 167
Written Statement, Representative Madeleine Z. Bordallo...... 191
Written Statement, Representative Pete Olson................. 193

OUTSIDE WITNESSES WRITTEN TESTIMONY

Association of Flight Attendant--CWA, AFL-CIO................ 229
Air Line Pilots Association, International................... 273
American Association of Service Coordinators................. 282
American Psychological Association........................... 254
American Public Transportation Association................... 259
American Society of Civil Engineers.......................... 199
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Austin, Texas. 226
City of San Marcos, Texas.................................... 249
Coalition of Northeastern Governors.......................... 265
Illinois Department of Transportation........................ 208
National Affordable Housing Management Association........... 204
National AIDS Housing Coalition.............................. 245
National Association of Railroad Passengers.................. 278
National Recreation and Park Association..................... 252
Oklahoma Tribal Transportation Council, Inc.................. 217
Town of Lexington, South Carolina............................ 222
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.............. 269
U.S. Green Building Council.................................. 215}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}