[Senate Hearing 114-18]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 114-18
THE IMPORTANCE OF MAP-21 REAUTHORIZATION:
FEDERAL AND STATE PERSPECTIVES
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JANUARY 28, 2015
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works
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COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma, Chairman
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana BARBARA BOXER, California
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
MIKE CRAPO, Idaho BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon
ROGER WICKER, Mississippi KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York
DEB FISCHER, Nebraska CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey
MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska
Ryan Jackson, Majority Staff Director
Bettina Poirier, Democratic Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
JANUARY 28, 2015
OPENING STATEMENTS
Inhofe, Hon. James M., U.S. Senator from the State of Oklahoma... 1
Boxer, Hon. Barbara, U.S. Senator from the State of California... 2
Sessions, Hon. Jeff, U.S. Senator from the State of Alabama,
prepared statement............................................. 66
WITNESSES
Foxx, Hon. Anthony, Secretary, United States Department of
Transportation................................................. 5
Prepared statement........................................... 7
Bentley, Hon. Robert, Governor, State of Alabama................. 31
Prepared statement........................................... 33
Responses to additional questions from Senator Boxer......... 44
Response to an additional question from Senator Crapo........ 46
Response to an additional question from Senator Sessions..... 47
Shumlin, Hon. Peter, Governor, State of Vermont.................. 48
Prepared statement........................................... 51
Bergquist, Darin, Secretary of Transportation, State of South
Dakota......................................................... 55
ADDITIONAL MATERIAL
Statements of:
Hon. Dennis Daugaard, Governor of South Dakota............... 68
Responses to additional questions from:
Senator Boxer........................................ 73
Senator Crapo........................................ 76
Hon. Dannel P. Malloy, Governor of Connecticut............... 79
Hon. Deb Peters, U.S. Senator from the State of South Dakota. 84
PCA, America's Cement Manufacturers.......................... 90
THE IMPORTANCE OF MAP-21 REAUTHORIZATION: FEDERAL AND STATE
PERSPECTIVES
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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2015
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Environment and Public Works,
Washington, DC.
The full committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m. in
room 406, Dirksen Senate Building, Hon. James Inhofe (chairman
of the full committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Inhofe, Boxer, Vitter, Barrasso, Capito,
Crapo, Boozman, Sessions, Wicker, Fischer, Rounds, Carper,
Cardin, Sanders, Whitehouse, Merkley, Gillibrand, Booker,
Markey.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES INHOFE,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA
Senator Inhofe. It is great to have all our visitors here
from Oklahoma. I came in last night and they were having a
dinner, I thought two or three people. I knew Gary Ridley would
be there; he is always there. And I looked over and there were
all familiar faces there.
So we have this concern, there are a lot of things about
what is government really supposed to be doing. Quite often,
and the reason I got on the committees that I did 20 years ago
was because this is what we are supposed to be doing. Defending
America and building infrastructure that is it. We all
understand that in Oklahoma. We know that we have gone through
a process that most of us, some of us remember, most of us have
not been around that long. But I do recall when I was over in
the House, on the T&I committee over there, at that time,
Secretary Foxx, do you know what was the biggest problem we had
in the Highway Trust Fund? Too much surplus. That was the
problem that we had.
Now, we all know what happened since that time. We all know
that we can't continue to do as we have done in the past. I do
have an opening statement which I will submit as a part of the
record. I think the significance of this meeting, I say to my
friends on the left and right, is that we want to do it right
this time. We have done patchwork and we have put together
things that we think are a good idea, and I have to say this:
we have had successes.
I didn't like the way things went back in the 27-month bill
that we had. I didn't like the idea that a lot of Republicans,
my good friends, were demagogueing it and not realizing that
what they were doing, they were thinking they were doing the
conservative thing, because it was a big bill. But it is not.
Because the conservative thing is to pass a bill instead of
having the extensions. Secretary Foxx has been out in Oklahoma
and we have talked about this at length, the cost of
extensions. We have never calculated it, but I think it is
somewhere around 30 percent off the top.
Well, the good news is that the House, when we went over
right after this bill and told them, talked to them about this
thing about our constitutional responsibilities, every one of
the 33 Republican and the Democrats on the House T&I committee
voted for it. That is a major breakthrough at that time. I see
that happening again here.
So we are going to be doing the right thing now and as we
know, we decided to do, that we are going to make one change in
this committee. We are not going to have everyone have an
opening statement, because we have so many witnesses coming in
and we spend all of our time listening to each other.
So with that, I will just yield to Senator Boxer, and then
we are going to continue this hearing.
[The prepared statement of Senator Inhofe follows:]
Statement of Senator James M. Inhofe, U.S. Senator
from the State of Oklahoma
Welcome to the first hearing of the EPW Committee this
year. I want to extend an especially warm welcome to our new
Committee Members--Senator Capito, Senator Rounds, and Senator
Sullivan--and to our witnesses who took time out of their busy
schedules to be here today. My top priority this year is to
pass a fiscally responsible, long-term highway bill.
Unfortunately, what used to be the best transportation
system in the world is now rapidly deteriorating. While we
struggle just to maintain the existing condition of our
infrastructure, our global competitors are greatly outpacing us
in their infrastructure investment. I know Secretary Foxx will
talk more about this.
As we are all aware, the Federal highway program is
operating on a short-term extension that expires at the end of
May.
My staff is already working with Senator Boxer's staff on a
long-term bill that will give our partners the certainty they
need to plan and construct important transportation projects.
More short-term extensions are not the answer. Our states,
industries, and economy need long-term authorizations that
ensure funding and allow for the planning of big, long-term
projects of regional and national importance. I have often said
the conservative position is to prevent short term extensions,
because as history showed us after 9 extensions between
SAFETEA-LU and MAP-21, we lose 30 percent of the Highway Trust
Fund's resources when we fail to achieve longer term funding
bills. I believe we can do better.
Our infrastructure investments are a partnership between
the Federal Government and the States. We need to keep up our
end of the bargain and pass a fully funded, long-term bill. I
know the Governors that are here today will all discuss how
critical it is for their states that we maintain a strong
Federal program.
Today, we sit at a crossroads. We could take the
responsible course and pass a long-term reauthorization of MAP-
21, or we could kick the can down the road and find short-term
patches that continue the uncertainty facing our partners.
I am committed to doing the right thing, and I thank all of
our witnesses for helping spread this message and being here
today.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BARBARA BOXER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Senator Boxer. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for making
this your first hearing. Nothing could please us more, because
know this is an area that there is bipartisan support for. I
think Senator Vitter and I, it is no big secret, we don't see
eye to eye on much, but we were able to get a good bill done
through this committee. And I have to make a point, Mr.
Chairman, we were the only committee to act last Congress. No
committee of the Senate or the House but this committee. And
with your leadership, we are going to be working together here
to get this done.
I am going to ask unanimous consent to put my statement in
to the record and I am going to make four very brief points.
First, we can do nothing more important for jobs, for
businesses, for this economy, for this middle class, than
passing a multi-year highway bill. That is the first point.
There is nothing better that we could do.
Second, we have a great record of bipartisanship on that
issue. So nothing should stop us. And again, I point to last
year, when we acted, when no other committed acted in the
Senate or the House. There was bipartisan paralysis, except for
us in this committee. I am so proud of that. And we need to
take the leadership again and hopefully this time it will be
emulated.
Three, we have to have the courage in the Senate and in the
House to fund a multi-year bill. We cannot leap over that idea
to an extension.
And that leads me to my next point. We are getting
perilously close to the bankruptcy of the Highway Trust Fund,
May 31st. Mr. Chairman, I would ask rhetorically, if you go to
the bank and you want to buy a house, and the banks says, oh,
great. We will lend you the money, but only for 5 months. You
are going to walk away. You are not going to buy a house if all
you know is you have credit --that is what they have done here.
When I say ``they,'' the vast majority of our colleagues punted
this.
And this is awful. This is the greatest Country in the
world. We will not remain so if our bridges are falling down,
if our highways are crumbling and so many other ramifications
of not investing. So we need certainty.
I do want to say, today I learned from my staff, I don't
know if your staff has informed you, that the deficit in the
trust fund is less than we thought it would be. We were
anticipating $18 billion a year over 6 years; it is $13 billion
a year over 6 years. Now it is a lot less than we thought it
would be. It is $13 billion a year.
Now, if we can't find that, I think it is a $1.2 trillion
budget, on discretionary spending, if we can't find that to
build the infrastructure, we have failed as a Congress. So with
your leadership and with all your strong support from Oklahoma,
I think we are going to get things done here. I look forward to
it.
[The prepared statement of Senator Boxer follows:]
Statement of Hon. Barbara Boxer, U.S. Senator
from the State of California
I am pleased that the EPW Committee's first hearing in the
114th Congress is focused on the importance of Federal funding
for our nation's transportation infrastructure, because we are
facing a critical deadline in four short months.
Transportation bills have a long history of bipartisanship
in Congress and I am hopeful that we will continue working
together across the aisle in the coming months. In November
2011, this Committee reported MAP-21 out by a unanimous vote of
18-0. MAP-21 passed the Senate in March 2012 by a vote of 74-
22, and the conference report was enacted in June 2012 by a
vote of 74-19 in the Senate. In May 2014, this Committee
approved the 6-year MAP-21 Reauthorization Act by another
unanimous vote. This shows the strong bipartisan support for
enacting transportation bills and why I believe we can do so
again.
A robust, multi-year surface transportation bill will
support millions of jobs for American workers and help the
construction industry, which was hit hard by the Great
Recession. There are approximately 1.6 million fewer
construction workers today compared to 2006--which equals
roughly 20 percent of all construction jobs--and over 600,000
construction workers remain out of work in the U.S.
As you know, the law that currently authorizes our surface
transportation programs is set to expire on May 31st--right as
the critical summer construction season is beginning.
The Highway Trust Fund is projected to face cash-flow
problems around the same time. That means that billions of
dollars in transportation funding to the states will be delayed
or stopped.
There is a growing chorus from states in recent months that
the Highway Trust Fund is in serious trouble and much-needed
transportation projects are in peril. Arkansas and Tennessee
have already delayed or canceled construction projects due to
the uncertainty in Federal transportation funding, and other
states are considering similar action as the construction
season fast approaches. When we approached a transportation
funding shutdown last summer, numerous states took preemptive
action to cancel transportation projects due to the uncertainty
whether Federal funding would continue.
The projected shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund creates
funding uncertainty, and that is bad for businesses, bad for
workers, and bad for the economy. We already know that an
insolvent Highway Trust Fund will have a domino effect that
will be felt throughout the economy.
Addressing the Highway Trust Fund shortfall and passing a
long-term transportation bill before the May deadline will have
a real economic impact across the country. It will provide
funding stability for State and local governments and
businesses that rely on Federal transportation funding, and it
will create or save millions of jobs.
A modern transportation system is the foundation for a
strong U.S. economy. Maintaining and improving our roads,
bridges, and transit systems is necessary to ensure our global
competitiveness. Nationwide there are 63,500 bridges that are
structurally deficient and 50 percent of our nation's roads are
in less than good condition.
Transportation is and should be a nonpartisan issue. Taking
action to save the Highway Trust Fund and invest in our aging
infrastructure is strongly supported by businesses, labor, and
transportation organizations.
The 6-year reauthorization of MAP-21 that this Committee
unanimously approved last May built off of the substantial
reforms included in MAP-21 and provided long-term funding
certainty for highway and bridge programs. I am hopeful we will
have similar success in our Committee this year.
I am also hopeful that the Senate Banking and Commerce
Committees will move quickly on their portions of the surface
transportation bill, and the House must act as well as soon as
possible.
We also need to identify a bipartisan, dependable source of
funding for the HTF. Finding that sweet spot will require us to
consider a broad range of options in order to find a long-term
solution to our transportation funding crisis. I am currently
working across the aisle on a proposal to provide stable
funding for the HTF through repatriation, which would not only
save the HTF, but would stimulate the economy by bringing back
hundreds of billions of dollars in offshore earnings.
We have two excellent witness panels today and I am so
pleased to welcome Secretary Foxx back to our Committee. I am
also looking forward to hearing from our second panel with
Governors representing diverse regions of this nation who will
discuss how important Federal transportation funding is to
their states.
Congress cannot shirk our responsibility to get our work
done this year. States, businesses, and workers need the
certainty from a long-term transportation bill. We must act now
because failure is not an option.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Boxer.
It is my honor to introduce and present, not really
introduce, Secretary Foxx. He has been really a great Secretary
of Transportation. It has been a very difficult job. We have
had a chance to break ground on a lot of great things out there
in my State of Oklahoma. So I am so thankful that you are doing
what you are doing and you are going to be in on the big kill
and we are going to do it together.
Secretary Foxx.
STATEMENT OF HON. ANTHONY FOXX, SECRETARY, UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Mr. Foxx. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for your kind
words and for your leadership as well as the leadership of
Ranking Member Senator Barbara Boxer. The work you all have
done and will continue to do on this issue is vitally
important. I want to tell you that we appreciate your service.
I also want to thank the entire committee here. We are in a
new year with a new Congress. But I am here to discuss an old
issue: the need for a new Transportation Bill. As has been
said, a multi-year transportation bill with funding growth and
policy reforms, focused on America's future.
America is in a race, not just against our global
competitors, but against the high standards of innovation and
progress our Nation has shown for generations. We are behind in
that race. And when you are behind, you must run faster and do
more than just keep pace.
The transportation system itself does not care about the
political challenges of addressing its needs. From its
perspective and from mine, we are either meeting those needs or
we aren't. In the past year, I have been to 41 States and over
100 cities. Mr. Chairman, you were kind enough to invite me to
Oklahoma, where we saw a stretch of I-44 just south of Tulsa
that needs to be widened. But the funds just aren't there.
There are thousands of miles of highway projects in
Oklahoma that the DOT has said are critical. But they are
either not being built or they are not being repaired.
Unfortunately, Oklahoma is not alone. I have also visited
the Brent Spence Bridge that connects Kentucky and Ohio. It is
well over 50 years old and is carrying more than twice the
traffic it was designed for. Chunks of concrete are now falling
from the bridge's ramps on cars parked below. It must be
replaced. But there is no real plan right now on how to pay for
it.
Or you could look at Tennessee. The State DOT here has
actually postponed $400 million in projects and the thousands
of jobs that come with them because of ``funding uncertainty''
here in Washington. Now, Tennessee is not the only State to
slow or stop projects. But it may be the first State to tell
the unvarnished truth about what is happening to our
transportation system, about how gridlock in Washington is now
creating gridlock on Main Street.
Last year we sent you a comprehensive, multi-year proposal,
the Grow America Act, which included 350 pages of precise
policy prescriptions and substantial funding growth, all
focused on the future. What America received in response was a
10-month extension with flat funding, which, while averting a
catastrophe, falls short of meeting the Country's needs.
It was not the first short-term measure or patch that has
been passed. It was, by my count, the 32d in the last 6 years.
As a former mayor, I can tell you that these short-term
measures are doing to communities across America what the State
DOT says they are doing in Tennessee, literally killing their
will to build.
At this point, we must concern ourselves not only with the
immediate situation that confronts us in May, but also with the
cumulative effects of these short-term measures and the policy
uncertainty. I urge you to make a hard look at it now, from the
rear-view mirror to the front windshield. Look at our aging
system. Look at the opportunity we have to grow jobs and the
economy. Look at our own children and grandchildren. In order
for the system to be as good as the American people, we must do
something dramatic. To hell with the politics.
That is why we sent you the Grow America Act last year, and
why we will send you a new and improved Grow America Act this
year. We certainly know that the Grow America Act is not the
only approach to solving the infrastructure and mobility
challenges of the future. We look forward to full engaging with
this committee and others on both sides of the aisle to chart
this path together.
But we believe there are some essential principles that any
bill must have. First, we are going to need a substantially
greater investment. We are also going to need a greater level
of investment over time, not just 6 months or even 2 years.
If we want communities to build big projects that can take,
in some cases 5 years or more, we need to ensure funding for
roughly that same amount of time. I think Senator Boxer's
analogy of trying to buy a house with a 5-month loan is a great
analogy.
There are important policy changes that need to be dealt
with, like streamlining the permitting process, so projects go
from blueprint to steel in the ground as fast as possible. We
believe we can do that while ensuring better outcomes for the
environment. We also believe in opening the door to more
private investment and in giving communities and MPOs and
freight operators a louder voice in what gets built.
We believe in strengthening our Buy America program to make
sure the American taxpayer dollars are being invested in
American projects built by American hands with American
products. And we believe we must do everything possible to keep
Americans safe as they travel in 2015 and beyond. That includes
obtaining the resources and the authority we need to combat
threats we might not expect in this new century.
In the end, both I and my entire department have great
respect for what this committee has done and the challenge
ahead of it, including, as we look back, getting MAP-21 passed,
a huge achievement. Now it is time to build on that work.
When I was sworn in, I took the same oath that you did, to
protect and defend. For me, that means protecting and defending
Americans' fundamental ability to move, to get to work, to get
to school, to get goods from the factory to the shelf. But I
can't do that, they can't do that, and we can't do that unless
we take bold action now.
So I am here to work with you and I am also looking forward
to your questions. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Foxx follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I have often
thought in that particular job, in your job, there is no better
background than to have been a mayor of a large city. You and I
have talked about that in the past.
When you see the things that you know work, you wonder
sometimes how can we build on these and do even a better job. I
know the press, when we walk out of here, the only thing they
are going to want to talk about is, how do you pay for it. We
don't know yet. We are going to have all of the above and try
to work on it.
But there are some areas that are sometimes controversial.
I have to appreciate both sides working together on some of
these enhancements. You mentioned the enhancements and some of
the streamlining. We have done a lot of good things already.
What more is out there that is obvious to you that would make
it go faster, get more done for less money and get off the
ground quicker?
Mr. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, it is a very important
question. We do have experience in the recent past building on
some of the work of MAP-21, of doing concurrent reviews in our
permitting process, which effectively allows all of the Federal
agencies to sit at the table at the same time at an earlier
point in the design and construction of a project, to comment
on that project at a point at which the project can still be
changed to respond to the permitting.
I will give you an example. There is a project in New York
called the Tappan Zee Bridge, it is a $5 billion project. We
applied concurrent reviews to that project and we were able to
reduce the permitting time from what could have been three to 5
years to 18 months, as a result of doing that concurrent
process.
Senator Inhofe. That was really a direct result of the
changes that we made in coming to this point.
Mr. Foxx. It was building on a lot of the work that MAP-21
contained, and there was also some administrative work that
went into putting that on our dashboard and ensuring the
agencies worked together. We think there are additional tools
that could be provided to enable that to happen more.
The good news there is that when you do concurrent reviews,
you are not sacrificing the environment. You are actually
putting the environment in an earlier stage and you are
actually getting better results there too.
Senator Inhofe. That is right.
Senator Boxer.
Senator Boxer. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, I am going to just press you on what is
actually happening on the ground right now. We have failed as
government to give any certainty to this process.
We know that Tennessee and Arkansas have already delayed
hundreds of millions of dollars in highway projects for this
year. Last summer, over two dozen States had taken similar
preemptive action as the Highway Trust Fund neared insolvency.
This whole game of waiting and then somebody steps up in the
House or Senate and says, oh, I am going to save this for 5
months, this is a disaster. Can you discuss the likelihood that
we are going to see these cutbacks continue if we don't take
action soon to shore up the trust fund?
Mr. Foxx. Thank you for the question. This is a crisis that
is actually worse than I think most people realize. Your point
is very well taken.
We have until May 31st, 2015, the point at which the
funding of the 10-month extension runs out. But the State
departments of transportation are having to figure out what
their plan of work is going to be during the height of
construction season, which starts right about the same time
that the extension runs out.
So I predict that over the course of the next few months,
you are going to see more State departments of transportation
start to slow or stop projects because they don't know what is
on the other side of May 31st. So from a timing perspective, I
think we have a problem sooner than May 31st in terms of the
situation on the ground. I think what you are going to see is
States pulling back even before May.
Senator Boxer. That is basically my question. I am not
going to take any more time.
One point I am going to make over and over again to anyone
who will listen. Some will and some won't. This is our duty,
this is our job, this is the best thing we can do for the
Country. This is the most bipartisan thing we can do. And this
committee, I am urging, and I know the chairman feels as I do,
that we need to step out here. I would say to colleagues here,
we have a really great role to play by stepping out again and
doing the right thing. We have the blueprint, Senator Vitter
and I put it together with all your help. That may not be the
exact blueprint we go with. But it is a definite start.
So thank you for, in your very calm and collected manner,
for letting us know that lack of action is already happening,
having a result and impact on the ground. And the impact is
bad. It is bad for businesses, it is bad for jobs, it is bad
for communities, for our local people. That is the point I
think I wanted to make and you made it very eloquently.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Boxer.
Senator Vitter.
Senator Vitter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to echo the
comments that have been made about the bipartisan work of this
committee on infrastructure. Last Congress, this committee, on
a completely bipartisan basis, produced a really good water
resources bill, water infrastructure bill that was very
important for our ports and waterways and that infrastructure,
maritime commerce. And as Senator Boxer mentioned, we put
together a very good highway bill in this committee.
Now, we have the easy part, quite frankly, so I don't want
to overState it. We put together the transportation part of the
highway bill, a good bill, very bipartisan basis. But the
Finance Committee has the hard part, which is the financing
part. I want to cut right to that, so let's cut right to the
chase. I agree with you, we need to get this done. We need to
get it done on a medium to long-term basis, not another band-
aid approach.
My suggestion for all of us who truly want to do that is to
cut right to the chase and to really dive in to those
discussions about how we finance it in a realistic way. Folks
on the left, including the Administration, may have ideas that
are perfectly valid ideas that just objectively are going
nowhere in this Congress. Folks on the right in this Congress
may have ideas that are perfect valid ideas that are going
nowhere with this Administration. My suggestion is we blow past
that, don't waste time, and cut to the chase of where we may
find a common solution.
I believe realistically there are three realistic
categories to focus on. One is, the traditional gas tax, a
traditional means of financing the Highway Trust Fund. I
believe that is only realistic, only a possibility, in my
opinion, this is just my political judgment, I can't prove
this, but I think it is only a possibility if we give all
middle class and lower middle class taxpayers a tax offset,
something off their income tax or withholding, something, so
they are held harmless, so they do not pay a higher Federal
overall tax bill.
Second big category, I believe, is tax reform, maybe
focusing on business tax reform and using elements of that,
namely repatriation, to have a significant amount of money for
the Federal highway program. That is not a truly permanent
solution, but those are big dollars that could fund a
significant bill of a significant duration.
And then the third big category is some domestic energy
production with the additional royalty and revenue dedicated to
the Highway Trust Fund. I would like to see that to a much
greater extent than I am sure is realistic, given the
sensibilities of folks on the other side of the aisle and the
Administration. So in the spirit that I began with, I am not
suggesting David Vitter's lease plan for the OCS, which is a
great one, by the way, but I am suggesting some expanded
production which is good for American energy independence, good
for our economy and would produce significant new revenue at
least when the price of oil gets to a better place, a more
stable place that could be dedicated to the Highway Trust Fund.
So my question is, what is the Administration doing to cut
to the chase, as I said, and explore those three categories?
Mr. Foxx. Thank you for the question. Let me answer your
question directly and also make a point. The Administration has
put forward a proposal to use pro-growth business tax reform to
pay for our infrastructure. What we would basically do is put,
in addition to what the gas tax is currently spinning off, of
course it is less than what the Highway Trust Fund needs to be
level, but we put another amount of a like amount into our
infrastructure to not only replenish the Highway Trust Fund but
to do more than that.
Which leads me to the point I want to make, which is that I
think there needs to be a conversation about what this is. What
number are we trying to get to and what is it going to get us.
If you think about me and our department as contractors, we can
try to go out and build what Congress urges us to do. But I
want to make it very clear that we can't go out and build a
great big mansion if we have the resources to build a hut. I
think that our system right now really needs a substantial
injection of a long-term bill, but also substantial growth to
counteract the cumulative effect of the short-term measures in
the recent past.
Senator Vitter. And Mr. Secretary, just one followup, real
quickly, on that specific point. Is there a version of that
proposal you are talking about that doesn't have the big tax
increase on successful folks as part of it? Because going back
to the spirit of my comments, I am suggesting that we get real
and we cut to the chase so we actually solve this in a
meaningful way by May. So if we are just talking about that
version, in all due respect, I don't think that's sort of
meeting my test.
Mr. Foxx. Well, the Green Book last year published three
specific ideas about pro-growth business tax reform that I
think potentially would meet your test. One was eliminating
LIFO, another one was eliminating accelerated depreciation. And
a third one was pulling some of the untaxed corporate earnings
overseas and bringing those back home. And those there ideas,
very specific ideas, are ones that seem to be within the
parameters that you have mentioned.
Let me also extend to you, Senator, and to the committee,
and to the entire Senate and House, the full measure of my
attention to help you get to yes on a solution here. Because I
think it is vital for the Country.
Senator Vitter. Thank you.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Vitter.
Senator Carpe.
Senator Carper. I am happy go after Senator Cardin.
Senator Inhofe. All right, Senator Cardin.
Senator Cardin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that.
Secretary Foxx, thank you for your work. I strongly support
a robust reauthorization, long-term, of our transportation
needs. It needs to be long-term. As has been pointed out, our
States and counties cannot plan without the long-term
commitments from the Federal Government as their partner. It
needs to be robust because it is not only the new roads and
bridges and transit systems that we need, but it is also
maintaining the infrastructure we have. So we have to focus on
this.
I do want to maintain, and I think this is the important
part, the flexibility. I represent Maryland. The Baltimore-
Washington area is the most congested area in the Nation. We
need to invest in transit and we have a game plan to do that.
We want to stay on that game plan.
But a large part of it depends upon the ability of a
sustained Federal partner and that requires a long-term
reauthorization of a robust bill.
I also want to emphasize the need for giving our local
governments flexibility. I have worked with Senator Cochran on
the Transportation Alternatives Program that allows locals to
make decisions, our mayors, our county people to make decisions
as to what is in their best interest, so we have livable
communities where you can walk and bike and keep cars off the
roads when they are not necessary.
And then you emphasized safety. I want to emphasize that
point also. We had a tragic bike accident in Baltimore just
recently. It is critically important that our local governments
have the ability to keep their people safe. Of course, we just
recently had another tragedy on the Metro system here in
Washington, and we have been working with your staff to make
sure that we find out as soon as possible how we can make the
Metro system safe. In other words, we don't want to wait a year
for the full review before we implement changes to make sure
that the passengers are as safe as possible.
So I just really wanted to underscore the points that you
have made, that we do want to work with you in partnership.
This is a bipartisan committee. We want to have the resources
to modernize our transportation systems. I have the honor of
living in Baltimore and commuting to Washington every day. I
never know whether it is going to take me 1 hour or 3 hours to
get in.
So it is a challenge for people in our region, people in
our Country. I urge you to be bold. I think this committee is
prepared to be bold. It just seems to me with the price of
energy today we should be able to get the resources we need in
order to do what our constituents want us to do, have a modern
transportation system, be able to maintain that, and create the
economic engine that will create jobs for the people of our
communities. That is our goal, that is what we are trying to
do.
I just want you to know we appreciate your commitment to
this. You have a lot of partners on this committee.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you.
Senator Fischer.
Senator Fischer. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being here today. I
appreciate it.
In your testimony you State ``Too often projects undergo
unnecessarily lengthy reviews, and we need to be able to make
the types of reforms that will expedite high priority projects
and identify best practices to guide future efforts.'' I
couldn't agree with you more.
As you know, in Nebraska, our department of roads, our
cities, our counties, they have been very frustrated with the
Federal Highway Administration's what I would call
unpredictable approach to the environmental review process. You
know that we have been trying to work on that. I don't believe
that it comports with the performance based, data-driven
approach of MAP-21. I think those reviews need to be
performance-oriented, not solely process-based and certainly
not inflexible.
I appreciated your earlier comment about a concurrent
review process, where you can cut it down from three to 5 years
to 18 months. That would be great. That would be great if we
can do that. I hope that the Federal Highway Administration is
going to continue to work with Nebraska so we can get there. As
you know, limited resources become even more stretched and
stressed when we have a process that I believe is not working
the way it is supposed to.
What do you think we can do to be sure that State of good
repair projects within existing rights of ways are exempt from
what I would call a counterproductive consultation with
regulatory agencies? And what is the value added to
environmental protection by conducting even a CE level review
on a resurfacing project or another project in an existing
right of way where a transportation facility already exists? Do
we have to study and document things over and over and over
again and just pile up paper?
Mr. Foxx. Thank you for the question, Senator. I know that
specifically with respect to Nebraska, the Federal Highway
Administration has been working very closely with the Nebraska
Department of Roads, making a lot of progress on making greater
use of categorical exclusions to expedite projects. I think you
are going to see some good news occurring there over the next
several months.
But more generally, the work of MAP-21 did some very
important things to give the Department tools to make greater
use of categorical exclusions. In addition to that, we have
begun to take a look at the State review processes. If they are
redundant and essentially at the same standard the Federal
review would be, we have begun allowing some States to
substitute their State review processes for the Federal review
processes. Texas has just gone through that process. So we are
working to expedite where we can.
I want to emphasize that I think that through our new bill,
Congress could give us additional tools to enable us to
operationalize concurrent reviews. Again, I think we get
perhaps even better environmental outcomes by doing it that
way, because the environmental considerations get brought up
early and dealt with early.
Senator Fischer. I would be very happy to work with you on
those, with my office, especially so we can stop the redundancy
that I believe is happening.
If we can move on to TIGER grants. Do you think they are
being distributed in an equal manner? I know that when we look
at rural America, open country, small towns, it seems that we
are not getting really TIGER funds in those areas. Can you tell
me why that would be?
Mr. Foxx. A couple of points. The TIGER program requires a
minimum of 20 percent of each round to be distributed into
rural America.
Senator Fischer. And the definition of rural America at
that point is?
Mr. Foxx. I would have to have my staff confirm this, but I
believe it is a community of 50,000 or fewer people.
Senator Fischer. I am talking about very sparsely populated
areas, where in many cases there is one person per square mile.
But yet in a State like Nebraska, we have miles and miles of
roads that are necessary for commerce, for safety. And I would
think we could look at maybe a new definition of rural America.
Mr. Foxx. You know, we are following the statutory
definition, but if there is a new definition, we will follow
what this Congress tells us. What I would also say are a couple
of other points. We in the last round exceeded that 20 percent
minimum. We think of it as a floor but not a ceiling. We are
looking constantly to make sure that we see good
transformational projects across the Country wherever they
happen to come from.
Second, we have done more outreach to extend technical
assistance to rural communities, because in some cases, it is
communities that have fewer tools, aren't able to hire fancy
consultants to help prepare their applications, that sometimes
don't get through. So we want to make sure we are being as
equitable as possible from that standpoint.
So we will continue to work with you and others. I also
want to applaud Nebraska for Omaha's TIGER grant this last
round, for a bus rapid transit system, the very first in the
State of Nebraska.
Senator Fischer. Yes, it was great.
Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. I appreciate your work.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Booker.
Senator Booker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First and foremost, I want to echo some of what has already
been said. You are an extraordinary public servant, one of the
best Cabinet members the President has. I say that with no
particular bias, I am also your friend for many years and a
fellow former mayor.
[Laughter.]
Senator Booker. I just want to thank you also for your
numerous trips to the State of New Jersey and for your
partnership on a number of very specific, important projects.
As you know, New Jersey is the most densely populated State in
America. It is home to the most valuable freight corridor in
this Country, it is home to the busiest airspace in this
Country. It has the third busiest seaport in the United States.
We have 39,000 miles of public road, 6,500 bridges and nearly
1,000 miles of freight rail. In many ways, when it comes to the
economic prosperity of our State, New Jersey is the
transportation hub that really drives our economy.
I don't want to reState anything that has been said already
in terms of the importance of moving a long-term funding
mechanism forward. But I do want to just for the record ask you
some questions which are obvious but important to the State.
First and foremost, delays in adequately funding our
infrastructure actually cost the taxpayer more money. In other
words, it will drive the expense of this transportation deficit
even higher. So in other words, all the fiscal conservatives,
and I include myself, having been a mayor, and you as well,
having to be fiscally conservative, that we are delayed by our
lack of funding, our short-term actions actually are driving
more costs to taxpayers over the long run. Is that correct?
Mr. Foxx. Yes. Absolutely. We have estimates, American
Society of Civil Engineers estimates on a State by State basis
the cost of poor infrastructure on our roadways. In most cases,
the amount people are actually paying into the Highway Trust
Fund, for instance, is less than the costs they are
experiencing as a result of poor road conditions, whether it be
having to buy new tires or get a new axle fixed, or the cost of
gasoline or whatever. Folks are paying more than they are
getting.
Senator Booker. So it is the height of your responsibility,
from just a dollars and cents balance sheet analysis, for us to
do nothing, or short-term fixes, not just for the public
treasury, but as you said already, motorists in my State on
some estimates are spending over $2,000 a year because of poor
road conditions.
So our inaction makes people pay twice: once with our
taxpayer dollars and then also with their own dollars out of
their pockets, in addition, their own dollars for direct
payments because of repairs to their cars, congestion, lost
productivity because you are sitting in traffic. Actually,
Congress is making people pay twice.
Mr. Foxx. Yes. And money is one thing, but time is
something none of us can create more of. When folk are spending
40 hours on average more a year in traffic, that is time they
don't get back. That is a soccer game or a work hour or
whatever. I think that we as a Country, we have stopped
thinking about our transportation system as something that gets
us there fast.
Senator Booker. Right. So I know the importance of finding
the mechanism is really important, but it is almost like saying
we either pay now or we pay much more later.
Mr. Foxx. Yes.
Senator Booker. So the last thing I want to ask you to
comment on, one of my colleagues did something that many people
might think is radical. Senator Sanders has called for a
trillion dollar investment, far more than the Administration is
asking for. Can you just give your opinion on that? Knowing
that our deficit for transportation investments is far more
than a trillion dollars, how do you view Senator Sanders' call
for the trillion dollar investment?
Mr. Foxx. It is a bold step. It is a bold step and a
statement about where we are as a Country. We need to invest
more. I think everyone strains to figure out how to pay for it.
But to your further point, what happens if we don't? We are
going to pay probably more anyway on an individual basis. We
are going to lose opportunities to bring jobs to this Country.
For every billion dollars we invest, we estimate 13,000 jobs
come as a result of it.
And in the transportation sector writ large, only about 12
percent of folk who work in transportation have college
degrees. So you look at that versus the long-term unemployed,
this is also a jobs issue. So we are not capturing
opportunities as a Country, because we are not investing as we
should.
So I think it is very, very important, and I applaud
Senator Sanders for taking a bold step and actually talking
about the needs we actually have.
Senator Booker. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Booker.
Senator Capito, it is my honor to introduce Senator Capito
for the first time in this committee. She will make great
contributions here.
Senator Capito. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you,
Secretary, for being here with us today.
I was able to meet you first when I was over on the
Transportation Committee on the House side. And I was also on
the Conference Committee with the Ranking Member when we did a
lot of the streamlining of the environmental permitting for
projects. I am glad to know it is moving along. I understand
there are things still to be done. So I appreciate that effort.
Also I would tell my colleague, Senator Fischer, that in
West Virginia, the rural community of Ranson was a recipient of
two TIGER grants for economic development. We are very
appreciative of that, they have been very innovative with that.
I think it is going to really grow that local and regional
economy. So I am very appreciative of the set-aside for rural
America. Because we were the beneficiary of that.
The big question is, how do we afford all this? We know
that is the elephant in the room and what we are all trying to
struggle with. I would ask you, in the TIFIA and the public-
private partnership arena, are you finding across the Country
that States and local communities and business entities are
really stepping up for this public-private partnership? We see
some of this in West Virginia. I am wondering how that is going
nationally and what your perspective is on that. I notice in
your written comments you talk about expanding the TIFIA
opportunities.
Mr. Foxx. Thank you very much. We do see a lot of promise
in public-private partnerships. There are some really clear
examples just in the last few months of ones that we have been
able to move forward. One of which that comes to mind is in
Pennsylvania, where there were 500 some odd bridges that the
State of Pennsylvania needed to update. Many of them were
deficient. And not one of those bridges by itself would
necessarily have attracted private capital.
But they pooled those bridge projects together, and we were
able to issue, I think it was $1.2 billion in private activity
bonds to support getting all of those bridges done. So we are
looking at creative ways to move forward.
Having said that, I think we have some problems that I want
to be very clear about. No. 1, this issue of the cumulative
effect of short-term measures has hurt us as a Country because
it has hurt our planning process. States and local governments
that haven't had the luxury of counting on Federal support over
a long-term period have pulled back on their planning. So the
big projects that are most likely to attract large scale
private capital in many cases aren't actually being planned,
they are not going through the review process, they are not
teed up, if you will, to rapidly move into a public-private
partnership.
The second challenge we have it that the programs that we
have with within USDOT are relatively stove-piped. TIFIA works
through some agencies within DOT but not all. RRIF works
through the Federal Rail Administration. PABs works through our
Office of Policy. But we think one of the things that
additional policy could do is help us pool those resources
together so we could have a dedicated team to really focus on
public-private partnerships.
Senator Capito. Thank you for that. I share your
frustration. Certainly in West Virginia we had State
transportation day, because the legislature has come in. There
is a lot of frustration at the local level and the State
government level about the inability here for us to do a long-
term highway bill. I am certainly committed to that.
I think what happens and where the frustration for a State
like ours falls is because the money comes in smaller chunks,
you end up really just doing maintenance. You don't do anything
innovative, you don't do anything that really is telling your
population that we are moving to the next century.
So we see that in our home State, and I think that is very
frustrating to local citizens, businesses and people who are
trying to grow the economy at the same time. So I share that
frustration.
So I would join with you to try to make this work and to
find the magic formula that we can give the confidence to the
States and local folks that we really can get this done. I
think there is a great impetus for this and I look forward to
working with you. Thank you.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Capito.
Senator Markey.
Senator Markey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and
congratulations to you on this first and most important hearing
that we will be discussing. I know that you and Ranking Member
Boxer are working very closely together to advance this
legislation. I think if we do it correctly we can have a great
success this year, and I thank you for your work on it.
Mr. Secretary, if I may, I would like to talk first of all,
transit-oriented development. You came up to the Ruggles
Station in Boston, and we are having great success there with
the help of the Federal Government to encourage development in
an area that historically has been underserved, but which has
potential to be explosive in terms of growth and the use of
public transportation.
Could you talk a little bit about that and the role that
Congress can play in partnership with the Department of
Transportation to continue to advance it? What role do you see
that in terms of it being built into the legislation that we
are considering?
Mr. Foxx. Thank you very much, and it is a very exciting
project in Boston. What is happening in Boston and across many
of the metro areas around the Country is population is starting
to concentrate there. If you go to some cities, I was with
Mayor Garcetti in Los Angeles, actually, and he mentioned to me
that they literally don't have more highways that they can
build. They need to integrate transit choices into what they
do.
When you build a station like Ruggles, what that does is it
captures the imagination of real eState developers and they
start to build dense developments and bring amenities into
communities that may traditionally not have them. I think the
challenge for us is that right now, if we look at the amount of
money we are putting into transit, I think the demand for it is
going to increase substantially over the next several years
because of sheer population movements. That is one of the
reasons why I would urge a more robust investment in transit,
first of all. Second, I would urge that we do more to partner
with local communities, whether it is MPOs or mayors or even
Governors in some cases, to help them develop the tools to
utilize the land use opportunities that come about as a result.
Senator Markey. Boston had 800,000 people who lived there
in 1950. It drifted all the way down to about 600,000. But now,
with increasing transit-oriented development, Boston has gone
back up to 640,000 and the arrow is straight up in terms of the
number of people who now want to move back, use public
transportation, live closer to all of the amenities of the city
but also the jobs that are being created around these transit
projects. Which then has reduced, as you know, the number of
vehicle miles driven by automobiles all across the Country over
the last five to 6 years. It is just going down and down and
down because people want to live and work closer to their mode
of transportation. And increasingly it is public
transportation. So thank you for all of your work on that.
Could I talk with you a little bit about the Complete
Streets program as well? I also find that to be very exciting,
where pedestrians, bikers, children, seniors, everyone is
included in kind of a project approach that ensures that all of
these facilities can be used by everyone. Can you talk a little
bit about that, and again, the role that the Congress can play
in authorization and partnership with the Department of
Transportation?
Mr. Foxx. Through our Transportation Alternatives Program,
we have been able to be a bit of a catalyst in helping
communities develop best practices around the greater use of
Complete Streets. What that really means is creating ways in
which all users on a roadway can safely use those facilities.
So you will have a lane for vehicular traffic, you will have
places for pedestrians that are safe and bicyclists as well.
And we have found that it not only helps with safety, but
people actually use the entire roadway in different ways. It is
healthier, it is cleaner in some cases.
I think that continuing to support the Transportation
Alternatives Program and helping us build additional tools to
support States as they measure safety of the bicyclists and
pedestrians and really bringing bicycling and walking up to a
standard that we expect of every other mode of transportation.
Senator Markey. Right now we are seeing that upwards of
three-quarters of pedestrians who are killed are killed in
urban areas. So the more that we can work together to create
strategies that reduce those numbers and make the streets safe
for everyone I think the better off we are going to be. I am
looking forward to working with you. I think it is a very
exciting area and by the way, I think you are just doing a
fantastic job. I think you understand cities, having been a
mayor. I appreciate all the work that you do.
Mr. Foxx. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Inhofe. That is great. Thank you.
We will recognize now Senator Rounds for his first
introduction on this committee. We are delighted to have him
serving on the committee.
Senator Rounds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, thanks for the opportunity to visit with you
just a little bit today. Coming from South Dakota, our home
State, we are between 800,000 and 900,000, except during the
time of the Sturgis Rally, then we bump up considerably. It
seems as a former mayor of Boston, the discussion there in
terms of, you have had the opportunity to work on
transportation projects from a different point of view, a large
metropolitan area, yet one in which you are dealing with the
Federal guidelines and rules that are required in order to
qualify for Federal funding.
In South Dakota, we have similar challenges but on an
agricultural basis and a rural area basis. I am just curious as
to your thoughts with regard to the projects that, as you
indicated earlier in your statements, need to be modernized. We
have to be more efficient if we are going to expect taxpayers
to put more dollars in at some point in the future. How do you
move forward, from the Federal side now, when you are working
with communities, large and small, States large and small,
differing expectations in terms of the quality and yet at the
same time the need for modernization of different projects?
What do we do to convince and gain the confidence of the
individual taxpayers who look at a Federal operation here that
under traditional operations, takes a huge amount of time just
to get a project ready to go, approved and then actually built?
What do we do to convince them that we have modern ways and
more efficient ways to actually deliver those projects on a
timely basis?
Do you have some ideas? Would you share your thoughts in
terms of what we can do to actually deliver, a simpler way of
saying it, more bang for the buck when it comes to the dollars
that we are going to be expected to invest in order to maintain
the infrastructure?
Mr. Foxx. Sure. We have had some conversation already about
project delivery and things that could be done to improve it.
There is another idea that I haven't mentioned that I think is
worthy. Essentially, I think we can greatly accelerate the
delivery of projects, speeding them up, in other words, by
having more concurrent reviews occurring at the Federal level.
I would also urge creating tools that incentivize the
States to do the same thing. Because sometimes the delays that
occur are not just Federal delays, sometimes there are State
reviews that have to take additional time. Giving the States
more tools to be able to accelerate is also useful.
In addition to that, there is a quirky thing in the Federal
Government when it comes to multi-modal projects, ones that
involve potentially highways or rail or transit. That is that
the reviews are sometimes, they require separate reviews. So
even within our own department, on a project that has different
modes involved, sometimes we have to have two different sets of
reviews occur. And it doesn't make sense to me that we do that.
But it is a requirement that comes that I think could be fixed
by legislation.
So I think cleaning some of that up would be useful. It
would also allow us to move forward without compromising the
environment and ensuring project integrity.
The other thing that I would say though is that, I think
the public has gotten used to a deteriorating system. I would
urge that if you give us the tools to help speed up projects,
which I would urge in the way that I just discussed, that we
also look hard at making sure that we have the resources to
make the kind of impact on folks' commutes and their ability to
get goods from farm to market or whatever, and make sure that
this counts. If you are going to go through the brain damage of
trying to figure out how to get this done, make it count for
America and make it so that people actually see it and feel it.
I think another part of the bang for the buck issue is that if
we are essentially managing a declining system, folks are also
going to lose confidence even if we speed up projects.
Senator Rounds. Mr. Secretary, thank you. Thank you, sir.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Rounds.
Senator Merkley.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank
you, Secretary Foxx. Thank you for the steady hand and detailed
presentation and the points that you are hitting on certainly
resonate in Oregon regarding movement of freight, urban
transit, innovative financing, support of transportation for
manufacturing, the connection between rural communities and
markets, all of these. Well done, and thank you for coming out
to Oregon to take a look at our Tilikum Crossing that certainly
the Federal Government was a huge partner in. The network of
light rail and streetcars and rapid bus transit that is being
utilized to try to address some of those job to work or home to
work challenges, the lost time that my colleague from New
Jersey was talking about.
Something that has really struck me and certainly resonated
in my town halls across Oregon is the low percent of our GDP
that we are investing in infrastructure. I think that is a
point worth reiterating.
The numbers I have generally seen, but I have a feeling you
have better, more detailed insights on this, is that the U.S.
is now spending less than 2 percent of our GDP on
infrastructure, that Europe is spending 5 percent, that China
is spending 10 percent. And I was struck in two trips to China
10 year apart watching Beijing going from being basically a
bicycle city to having a bullet train running 200 miles per
hour. To be on that bullet train was one of the more surreal
experiences of my life, given what I had seen just a decade
previous. Massive change due to a huge commitment to
infrastructure.
Are those numbers in the ball park, and how does that
reflect on the difference between the foundation we are
building for the economy of the next generation and what our
competitors are doing?
Mr. Foxx. It is a great question. Those numbers are in the
ball park. There are several challenges, some of which you have
pointed out. One of them is that our global competitors have
the benefit of picking and choosing from the things we have
done with our system and figuring out which of those things
they are going to engage in, whether it is rail or highways or
ports or whatever. It then becomes a matter of, if you are a
manufacturer, if you can get things from shop to port faster
somewhere else, it creates a competitive disadvantage for us.
So one thing is that the rest of the world has looked at
what we have done and they are building new stuff that in many
cases is better than ours.
Second, we have an aging system. Some of the stuff that you
are talking about in China is relatively new. We have two
problems. We have new things we need to build that we are not
building and we have old things that we built a long time ago
that need to be fixed up. Both of those problems create a huge
challenge for this Country.
The third issue that we have is, and I mentioned this
before, but I think that we have allowed our system to be
stove-piped. The reality is that if we are going to improve our
ports, we need to improve our road systems and our bridges and
our rail systems. If we are going to do all that, we need to
also make sure that we are taking care of our inter-coastal
waterways and ensuring free movement there.
So our system is a system of systems. But we can't starve
it and expect it to perform for us. To your point, we are
under-investing.
Senator Merkley. Thank you very much. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you.
Senator Carper.
Senator Carper. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. I want to applaud you
and Senator Boxer for the spirit in which you approach this
work. It is an inspiration to me and I think to all of us. And
I hope it is an example to our colleagues in the Senate and the
House.
Senator Inhofe. We will make it work.
Senator Carper. Mr. Secretary, a lot of nice things have
been said about you this morning. Some of them really over the
top. You have been referred to as the Mayor of Charlotte,
Boston, I don't know what else you have in your background.
There is an old saying in our State, it says flatter won't hurt
if you if you don't inhale. So all these nice things that are
being said about you, just don't breathe too deeply and you
will be fine.
One of the takeaways from me, one of the major takeaways
for me from the election last November was, really three
things. One, people want us to work together and the spirit
that Senators Boxer and Inhofe bring to these proceedings is, I
think, what the folks are looking for across the Country. They
want us to get something done, something real done, not just
talk about it, not just bemoan the fact that we are having a
hard time getting things done, but actually get things done.
The other thing they want us to do is find ways to further
strengthen our economic recovery, which is now in almost its
sixth year and starting to move well. Still, people are
hurting, there is still a good deal that needs to be done. But
one of the best things we could do, and others have referred to
this, a lot of people are sitting on the sidelines who would
like to do construction work. I understand that a fully funded,
robust transportation plan would put 600,000 or 700,000 people
back to work, including a lot of people who haven't worked for
a while.
The other thing we have heard, there are any number of
studies from people a lot smarter than me that have talked
about it and computed what happened to the growth in our gross
domestic product if we would actually do a robust
transportation plan for America. It is not just a tenth of a
percentage point, it is like between 1 percent and 1.5 percent
growth in GDP. It is real growth.
I think it was Senator Capito who used the term the 800
pound gorilla in the room. I go back to those, there is an 800
pound gorilla in the room, and it is really our unwillingness
to really pay for things that we want, or pay for things that
we need. The energy policy we have, an all of the above
approach would include generating electricity from gas, coal,
nuclear, from wind, hydro, solar and other sources. I think
what we need is maybe an all of the above approach in terms of
providing transportation funding. Not just financing. There are
a lot of ways we could finance stuff, which basically means we
are borrowing money. But we need to fund it as well.
But through public-private partnership, there is room for
that, and infrastructure banks, there is probably room for
that, repatriation could be helpful, especially getting one-
time projects. I think for example, the tunnel I came through
coming down the northeast corridor this morning under Baltimore
was built in the Civil War. That is an example of a one-time
project. It needs a lot of money and could be funded by
something like repatriation where you have tolling, we have
vehicles miles traveled. There are some interesting experiments
in vehicle miles traveled, very slowly advancing. But I think
it is a good example.
So all those are available. But the idea that we have not
talked about a whole lot here is user fees. We have paid for
our transportation infrastructure for years through user fees.
The gas tax, as we know it, that was adopted 21 years ago,
about 18 cents, it is worth about a time, the diesel tax was
adopted around 21 years ago, it is worth about 15 cents.
Meanwhile, our asphalt, concrete, steel, they have long ago
gone up. And we need something like a baseload for our energy,
coal, nuclear, gas, we need some baseload here for our
transportation funding.
There is going to be introduced some bipartisan legislation
in the House and Senate probably next month that would raise
that user fee, the gasoline tax, three or four cents a year for
4 years, index it to the rate of inflation, raise about $175
billion. It would be a real infrastructure investment program.
And on top of that, we still need to do a whole lot more. Those
other items that I referred to would be very helpful.
My question. You and I have had some good conversations of
late. Some of my Republican colleagues have talked about, why
don't we just offset an increase in the user fee by reducing
personal income taxes for lower income people or others. The
problem with doing that, we have a $480 billion budget deficit.
To the extent that we go about reducing the personal income
taxes, we make the budget deficit bigger.
One of the things we talked about is finding savings with
the way we do transportation projects. You have shared a couple
here today, ideas how we could actually save some money to
offset whatever increase we have in user fees. Could you just
briefly talk about two or three of the most important ones,
most doable ones you think we should focus on and what we could
do to help?
Mr. Foxx. I think the project delivery work is an
opportunity, done right, in a way that doesn't compromise the
environment, I think it can be done very well. And it would
save money, not just money at the Federal level, it actually
would work downstream at the State and local levels as well.
In addition to that, I think in terms of saving money, I
think the more we work to accelerate projects that move through
the system at any given point, whether it is design,
environmental review, or even as we work on become better with
innovative financing tools like private activity bonds and so
forth, those are places where I think we can also stand to
accelerate and get projects done a little faster. We have
worked very hard to make the TIFIA program move better and
faster. I think that has been a success.
But RRIF still needs some help, and I think the private
activity bonds work could use some as well. We will continue
working on those things.
Senator Carper. I realize you could help us buildup to that
list and be real partners in this. To the extent that we, as we
raise moneys, I hope through user fee increases, phased in over
several years, modest, but real, and to find ways to offset
those increased user fees through savings, and be able to find
ways in how we are doing transportation projects to actually do
them, not in a way that degrades our environment, we are not
interested in going there, but help us define this. I know you
are going to have some of your people do that, and we are
grateful. Thank you.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Carper.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very
much for being with us, Mr. Secretary.
In your statement you talked about we must expedite high
priority projects. I agree. In Wyoming we have high priority
projects which could be as small as replacing a single lane
bridge and as big as replacing a segment of InterState 80. So
can I ask you to please share how your recommendations on
expediting project delivery are going to benefit rural areas
and rural States like Wyoming?
Mr. Foxx. What we would like to do is to operationalize the
concurrent review process so that we are doing that on a more
routine basis, it is not just some of the high profile, big
dollar projects. But it could be more on a routine basis for
virtually all projects. I think working with Congress to
develop those tools, again, to do it in a way that is
environmentally sensitive, I think we can get that done and
actually move the ball forward a good bit.
Senator Barrasso. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, in light of the fact that we have a number of
Governors waiting, I will defer until they get here.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Barrasso.
Senator Gillibrand.
Senator Gillibrand. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman and
Madam Ranking Member, for holding this hearing. This is an
incredibly important issue for New York State.
Mass transit is critical to the economic viability f not
only New York, but every State in the Country. On an average
weekday, nearly 8.5 million Americans ride the trains, subways
and buses in New York City, which generates significant
economic revenue. Would you agree that it is critically
important for mass transit to continue to receive designate
funding through the mass transit account of the Highway Trust
Fund? Can you discuss some of the negative impacts to our
national economy and to regional economies across the Country
if the Congress were to cut funding for public transit?
Mr. Foxx. Absolutely, I agree that we need to maintain
resources for mass transit. It is vitally important, of course
in the State of New York and many other parts of the Country.
There is also a very substantial rural transit program we have
that is also vital to many rural communities as well.
If Congress were to eliminate that funding, what would
happen is that our roadways in high-use areas of the Country
would become inundated with traffic. Freight movements and
commutes would actually stall. That would be a disaster for the
Country.
What we really need is a Nation that moves more toward
multi-modal movement, and one in which the users have choice.
The more choices they have, potentially you get more cars off
the road. That enables more bandwidth for trucks and other
commercial activities to occur. So this is all symbiotic. If we
lose the transit piece, I think we end up creating other
problems.
Senator Gillibrand. Super Storm Sandy resulted in a
whopping $8 million of physical damage to the region's
transportation infrastructure and affected nearly 8.5 million
public transit riders, 4.2 million drivers and 1 million air
travelers. For nearly 2 years after Sandy, New York City has
not only worked to repair and restore its transportation
infrastructure from the storm's damage but is also taking steps
to improve the resiliency of its transit network. However,
there is much more work to be done.
Can you speak to some of the challenges with regard to
constructing a more resilient transportation network, what has
been effective so far, and what policies would be most helpful
to ensure that the DOT as well as State and local governments
have the tools they need to improve resiliency and plan for
future extreme weather?
Mr. Foxx. This is another very important topic, and it is
one that cuts across many of the Department's programs, whether
they are highway, rail, transit, maritime, etc. We learned a
lot when we got involved with the Hurricane Sandy recovery. We
are taking the learning we derived from that and trying to
build into more of our programs routine resilient construction.
So for instance, we found that stoplights needed to be
wedged into the ground deeper to be more resilient. We found
that in the subways in New York, where the electrical wires had
been under the trains, that putting them above the trains and
encasing them in a thicker material would provide more
resilience. So these best practices aren't being left in the
Northeast. We are actually trying to see those get implemented
in other parts of the Country, so that we are building more
resiliently going forward.
Having said that, one of the challenges we are going to
keep running into is, we are under-investing in our
infrastructure overall. So in terms of actually building a more
resilient America, the less funding we have available, the less
we are going to be able to make an impact.
Senator Gillibrand. My last question, I know you addressed
already but I will ask it, improving pedestrian safety is a
critical issue in New York and one that local leaders in my
State are working very hard to address, whether it is Vision
Zero in New York City or projects to improve sidewalks and
crosswalks in upState New York. Building pedestrian
infrastructure into how we design our streets saves lives.
As this committee works to reauthorize MAP-21, we should
make sure that we continue to invest in critical safety
programs that protect the safety of pedestrians, including
children and the elderly and people with disabilities. What
would be the implications of failing to adequately address
pedestrian safety at the Federal level?
Mr. Foxx. It is an incredibly important question, Senator.
Between 2009 and 2013, we actually saw an uptick in pedestrian
and bicycle deaths as well as accidents. It is one of the few
areas in our entire Department where we are actually seeing
that uptick. So we have to attack this as a Country. We have to
use a multi-tiered strategy. Our Transportation Alternatives
Program, which provides us resources to help support bicycle
and pedestrian programs, has been useful. We have also made
significant investments through TIGER to help promote best
practices, including New York City's Vision Zero program.
Finally, we are working with mayors across the Country now
to encourage them toward best practices in information sharing.
A lot of the capital expenditure for road assets across the
Country are at the local level.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you. Thank you, Secretary Foxx. We
are going to really enjoy this ride with you. I think you are
the right guy at the most difficult time. We will make this
happen together. Thank you for your service.
Mr. Foxx. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking
Member Boxer.
Senator Inhofe. I would like to ask the second panel to
come in. I believe they are all in the anteroom. Our first
introducer will be Senator Sessions. He is trying to get to
another committee hearing. We will have our witnesses please
come in and sit down.
Senator Sessions. Mr. Chairman, I think our new Senate is
trying to get busy today. We have four major committees at this
exact time going on that I am a member of. I know others are
having conflicts, too.
Senator Inhofe. And on top of that, something like 16
votes. We are going to be busy.
At this time, I would like to welcome our panel. We have
had a little bit of illness around, and it has changed the
makeup of the panel a little bit. I would first like to
introduce for introductory purposes Senator Sessions.
Senator Sessions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am honored to introduce Governor Robert Bentley, the 53d
Governor of the State of Alabama. He is a long-term practicing
physician. It is reported he finished at the top of his medical
class. I haven't asked him that under oath, but I would not be
surprised. In fact, I am sure that is accurate.
He served in the Air Force, and he made job creation a
priority with automobile, airspace and manufacturing industries
in Alabama, showing some real growth. He is Vice Chair of the
Economic Development and Commerce Committee of the National
Governors Association. He has a great understanding of the
fiscal challenges facing our States. He was just re-elected
despite having to make some real tough decisions to control
spending. Had a big victory in this past election. He
understands the fiscal challenges we face, what our States need
to do to assure taxpayers' money is spent wisely. He has been
leading a host of efforts to streamline and reduce unnecessary
costs and spending.
Governor Bentley, thank you for coming. It has been a
pleasure for me to work with you. I have the highest respect
for you. I would say this, Mr. Chairman. I won't be able to
participate in the questioning, I don't think. We will see how
that works out. I hope to get back. But I share your view and
that of Senator Boxer that we need a highway plan that we can
pass that is soundly financed and paid for that allows our
Governors to rely on the future, so they can plan for their
future. It is cost money, or reducing the value of the money we
spent, because of the uncertainty that is out there. Even
though you know I am a frugal budget person, somehow we need to
make this one work. I will try to be positive in that regard.
Thank you for your leadership and thank you for inviting
Governor Bentley.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you very much, Senator Sessions, for
that fine introduction of the Governor.
We recognize Senator Rounds for his introduction. I believe
I met your guest when I was up in South Dakota.
Senator Rounds. That is entirely possible, Mr. Chairman and
Ranking Member Boxer. My opportunity today is to first of all
introduce the Secretary of the Department of Transportation in
South Dakota, Darin Bergquist. I have known Darin for years,
and I had the opportunity to actually appoint him as the
Secretary of Transportation when I was Governor. So I can share
with all of you, he has seen the ins and outs and challenges of
trying to work with limited funding and in a rural State in
which there is always a challenge in terms of how you take the
dollars and spread them out and literally deliver the best you
can and yet come back to a legislative body who is always
questioning how you are spending the money.
If I could, I just want to share with you, in South Dakota
we have challenges like everyone else. But it is a rural State,
we are 200 miles up and down and 400 miles east and west. We
have 85,000 miles of highway. Local governments own 57 percent
of the Federal aid highway miles within the State and 91
percent of the State's structurally deficient bridges. The
Federal Highway program is vital to ensuring South Dakota has
the funds that we need to manage our State's highways and
bridges, thereby providing for economic growth and ensuring
that all South Dakotans can travel safely throughout the State
every single day.
I can share with you that I look forward to working with
the other members on this committee and with you, Mr. Chairman,
and Ranking Member Boxer. We do need an infrastructure bill, we
need a Highway Bill, one that delivers for transportation needs
across the entire United States. I just hope that as we move
through this process, we find an appropriate way to fund it on
a longer term basis, and we also recognize that we have to do
this as efficiently as we possibly can, and that means cutting
through as much red tape as we can when it comes to delivering
these services.
Something else, and that is that we work through this in a
positive way, rural and urban areas, recognizing that our needs
are truly different in many cases. But we are going to have to
find a way to keep all of us in the same game, and recognize
the needs of both the rural and the urban States in this
methodology.
With that, Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you for that very fine introduction.
Senator Sanders.
Senator Sanders. Thank you very much, Senator Inhofe. I
apologize for not being here earlier, but I was in another
committee.
Thank you very much for inviting Governor Peter Shumlin of
Vermont to be with us today. As Senator Rounds just mentioned,
I think everybody on this committee understands our
infrastructure is in many ways collapsing. We used to lead the
world in terms of infrastructure. According to the World
Economic Forum, we are now in twelfth place. That is not
anything that anybody on this committee should be proud of.
In the State of Vermont, we have the same infrastructure
problems as a rural State that every other State in the Country
has. We have communities with a whole lot of potholes, we have
congestion. We have bridges that are in disrepair. Some years
ago, and Governor Shumlin played a very active role in helping
us in that regard, we were hit with Hurricane Irene.
Devastation to our infrastructure in parts of the State. We
worked very hard to rebuild that infrastructure.
So I appreciate your efforts, Mr. Chairman, and you are
going to be working with Senator Boxer. There is a lot of
division in the Congress today but I would hope that on this
issue there is a common understanding that we are doing our
kids and grandchildren a great disservice if we don't own up to
the infrastructure problems that we have right now, that we
work with Governors around the Country to go forward on this
issue.
Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator.
Let me just make this comment. We are very proud to have
all of you here. We had some illness, and the full panel is not
here. But I appreciate very much your coming. It is important.
And I do believe, when I look at this politically, it is going
to be necessary to have a lot of pressure, a lot of pressure
from the State in order to have the support necessary to get
this through. It is going to be heavy lifting, but we know you
guys are available and able to do that.
We will start with opening statements. Governor Bentley,
you will be recognized first.
STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT BENTLEY,
GOVERNOR, STATE OF ALABAMA
Governor Bentley. Thank you, sir. And good morning,
everyone.
It is a pleasure for me to be with you, Senator Inhofe and
Senator Boxer. I appreciate Senator Sessions' great
introduction of me. He is a good friend, and I appreciate all
of you, all the members of this committee.
I am here on behalf of the National Governors Association
and also the people of Alabama. Governor Tomlin and I are on
the National Governors Association Economic Development and
Commerce Committee. We serve together on a bipartisan basis.
All the Governors of the States have basically the same
problems that have just been mentioned today.
I am here today to highlight some of these problems and
some of the situations that we have. The first priority, when
we look at priorities, is really to continue to maintain a
strong partnership between the Federal Government and the State
governments. There are selected projects across this Country
that are of national and regional significance, that States and
the Federal Government can partner together on that will
benefit our entire Country.
One such project is in Alabama, it is our Mobile River
Bridge, also known as the I-10 Bridge. Senator Sessions, who
had to step out, he knows this very well. This is a project
that reduces congestion in the tunnels that helps with the
growth of our great city there, Mobile. This is a major project
that we need to be working on.
One of the second priorities that we need to look at is
long-term funding, which has already been mentioned. Funding
certainty at the Federal level is essential for planning and
for budgeting for future projects. We as Governors are CEOs of
the States. We understand how important transportation
infrastructure is to creating jobs in our States. Certainty
allows Governors the ability to plan and to execute long-term
multi-year transportation projects.
Since I took office in 2011, we have recruited 63,000 new
and future jobs for the State of Alabama. Good infrastructure
is a key part of the environment that is needed to create the
jobs in our State. In Alabama, we are witnessing first-hand the
successful partnership of job creation and infrastructure
improvement. The first week, my first term of office, I met and
recruited a $100 million company, Golden Dragon Copper Tubing,
to Wilcox County, which is the county with the highest
unemployment rate in the State of Alabama. This new facility
will employ 300 people and not only will it change this
community, but it will change those families that live there
and it will change a way of life.
The State gave $7 million of construction money to build
roads to this plant. And it will make a difference in the lives
of the people of that area.
The third thing that I would like to mention is the
flexibility that we need in Federal dollars. The earmarking of
Federal dollars hurts the ability of Governors to allocate
funds within our States. I want to share also in my testimony
very quickly, I want to share a program that I have started. It
is an innovative program that we have started in Alabama. It is
something we call the ATRIP program. We have put $1 billion to
repair the roads and bridges of every county in the State of
Alabama. We use Garvey bonds to do this.
We have been able to borrow these at a very low interest
rate. And the fact that have ourselves used our gasoline money
to back these bonds, we have been able to save $35 million
more.
Every county in the State of Alabama, 67 counties, will
receive projects. And the least any county will receive is $6.6
million. This spring, Congress will have the opportunity to set
a new vision for infrastructure investment in America.
As a Country, we must show that if we are serious about our
economy, that we must get serious about investing in our roads
and bridges. Governors urge Congress to pass a long-term
transportation bill that provides the certainty needed to plan
for future projects and the flexibility needed to tailor those
projects to the unique challenges that faces each State.
Governors look forward to working with you, Congress, and the
Administration, to authorize long-term funding. I thank you
today for the opportunity to come and testify before you.
[The prepared statement of Governor Bentley follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Governor Bentley.
Governor Shumlin.
STATEMENT OF HON. PETER SHUMLIN,
GOVERNOR, STATE OF VERMONT
Governor Shumlin. Thank you so much, Chairman Inhofe. I
really appreciate your inviting us down. To Ranking Member
Boxer, thank you so much for hearing us out, and to the entire
committee. I want to thank Senator Sanders for that
introduction. It is a real honor to be here.
I am honored to be here too with Governor Bentley on behalf
of the NGA. Governor Bentley and I have worked together on
opiate addiction issues, lots of other issues. And I think he
stated the case well in saying that Governors in all 50 States,
on a bipartisan basis, want to partner with you to get this job
done. Because we all know that our economic prosperity, our
national security, and our ability to improve the quality of
life depends upon fixing our crumbling and aging
infrastructure.
I know that I am looking forward to hearing from Secretary
Bergquist as well. I know that his Governor wished to be here.
I send the regrets of Governor Malloy of Connecticut. We got
whacked pretty hard in the Northeast, a little bit of a
snowstorm, and our transportation infrastructure. He would be
here if he were not digging out. In Vermont we got hit, too,
but our southern States are not as accustomed to snow as we are
up in Vermont. So he is still digging. That is the deep South,
too, Governor Bentley.
[Laughter.]
Governor Shumlin. I am going to paraphrase a little bit,
because I know that my comments were put in. Governor Bentley
basically just sent my message for me. We know that we can't
prosper as a Nation unless we fix what Senator Sanders referred
to, which is, we used to be No. 1, we are fourteenth. You all
together with the U.S. Senate have the ability to fix this
challenge for us with Congress.
I want you to know, sort of on the ground, as a Governor,
what this means to a small, rural State, and what it means to
Vermont is not all that different than what it means to Wyoming
or Alabama or Idaho or South Dakota or North Dakota or New
Hampshire. Our challenge in smaller, rural States is that we
sometimes forget that 80 percent of our transportation network,
3.1 million miles of roads and thousands and thousands of
bridges, runs through our rural States.
So if you take Vermont as an example, when we talk about
crumbling infrastructure, you can say, well, you know, Vermont
doesn't have that many people. So why does it really matter to
the Nation's economy? Well, it matters not only to Vermonters'
quality of life, but we happen, as an example, and many other
rural States are in the same boat, bordering Canada, we are the
transportation conduit to our biggest trading partner in
America, Canada.
Projections going forward are that in the next three
decades we are going to see our freight transportation increase
by 50 percent. And we have a crumbling infrastructure right
now.
So in terms of jobs and prosperity, the rural States
actually carry a bigger burden, because we have more to
maintain. And we all know that infrastructure is crumbling and
it has to be rebuilt.
So I just want to make the point that when you look at this
challenge of reauthorizing the Transportation Trust Fund, it is
important to remember that the rural States really have a
special burden. Now, the Northeast States have an increased
burden as well just simply because of climate. If you look at
what we are facing together, we are dealing with a much
shortened construction season. We obviously have freezing and
thawing that takes an extraordinary toll on our pavement and
our bridges. And we have to throw salt on them like there is no
end to it, which is really terrible for steel, which is
critical to bridges. It frankly doesn't help pavement much,
either. So in a sense, the colder States, I would argue, but
all the rural States are in this one together.
I want to just say a word about, in listening to the rural
States' challenges, I want to say a word about the funding and
what it really means for those of us who are in that challenge,
as we are losing the battle. For me, and Governor Bentley just
made reference to it in his Garvey bonds, he is in the same
boat. We rely upon an ongoing funding stream from the Feds to
do our work. What happens to a Governor like me is that when
there is uncertainty about funding or when the Fund is out of
money and you are literally unable to send the match back to
the States, we are in a terrible position of having to dig for
cash that we didn't anticipate we would need. Or turning to
contractors and simply saying, we can't do the work that we
contracted with you to do, because we are not sure we can pay
the bill.
This is the reality for Governors across America. So we
have to remember that when we talk about getting this done, and
we know that May is the drop-dead date, in my case, next month
we will start letting contracts for the work to be done next
spring. And remember, in a State like Vermont or in the
Northeast, your paving season and your building season runs
from mid-April, if you get lucky, early May, until October,
somewhere around Thanksgiving it starts to freeze and you can't
make pavement below 32 degrees, as you know. So those are the
challenges that we face together, both timing and funding.
I just want to make a comment about funding. There is
sometimes the perception that States can go it alone, that they
can figure this out without the partnership of the Federal
Government. I want to remind us that, particularly the small,
rural States don't have the options for funding that some of
the larger States might have. I go across the George Washington
Bridge with the EZ Pass and I dream of having that kind of
volume and that kind of passage to get over a bridge. We are
often asked, when we hit our transportation challenges, why
don't you do tolls in Vermont? Well, we don't have enough
people to pay the tolls. We don't have enough traffic to go
through. It literally would not be a great giving proposition
for us, in all the studies that we have done.
So let's remember that while the small, rural States have a
more intense infrastructure, more miles and bridges to
maintain, we have fewer funding sources to do it. So I really
appreciate the opportunity to be before you today, and we would
love to answer any questions that you have.
I just want to make four quick recommendations, if I could.
[The prepared statement of Governor Shumlin follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Senator Inhofe. I am afraid we can't do that, Governor.
Thank you very much for your presentation. Secretary
Bergquist.
STATEMENT OF DARIN BERGQUIST, SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION,
STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA
Mr. Bergquist. Thank you, Chairman Inhofe, Ranking Member
Boxer, Senator Rounds and members of the committee.
I appreciate the opportunity to be here in front of this
committee this morning on behalf of South Dakota Governor
Dennis Daugaard. Governor Daugaard really wanted to be here
himself to tell you our story, because he understands and
appreciates the importance of strong transportation investment
to our State. He sends his regrets that he was not able to be
here today.
But on his behalf, I would like to highlight a few of the
key points of his written statement. First of all, we thank you
for holding this hearing early in this Congress. This tell us
that the committee appreciates the prompt action to pass good
Federal surface transportation legislation that will benefit
the Nation. The Nation needs strong Federal transportation
funding and long-term financial stability for the highway and
transportation program in order to strengthen the economy and
the Nation.
We believe the transportation program should continue to
distribute the vast majority of funds to the States by formula.
It should further simplify regulations and program
requirements, providing States with additional flexibility to
meet their unique individual needs.
The Federal transportation program must connect a Nation,
including rural areas like ours. A rural State like South
Dakota is far from markets and population centers, but our
contributions are important to the national economy. South
Dakota and other rural States are the sources of products,
resources and recreational opportunities that help define us as
a Nation. Our highways connect cities like Chicago and to the
west coast, enable agriculture and other goods to move to
national and rural markets, and allow people to visit great
places like Mount Rushmore and other parks and attractions that
are located in rural areas.
Extensions and very short-term authorizations are a
particular problem for a State like ours, with a cold climate
and a very short construction season. Without a multi-year
funding, we have to focus more than we would like on short-term
and smaller projects.
I also want to empathize that the need for highway and
transportation investment is apparent, and States are taking
action. In South Dakota, Governor Daugaard just this week
introduced a proposal to our legislative session that would
significantly increase State investment in transportation in
South Dakota.
While we are trying to do our part, States cannot do it
alone. We need a strong Federal program. Large rural States
like South Dakota have very few people to support each mile of
Federal highway and be able to maintain our potion of the
national highway system. The rural population of 7 billion
people is expected to grow by 70 million a year, and we need to
export our crops and products to help feed them.
Sixty-five percent of the truck traffic in South Dakota is
through commerce, meaning it does not originate in nor have a
destination in our State. But it certainly serves the Nation.
Before closing, Mr. Chairman, we would like to encourage
you to do what you can to simplify the transportation program
and make it more flexible. We know there necessarily must be
some requirements for the Federal program. But this is an area
where, for the public interest, less is more. As an example,
one proposed rule, States collect multiple data items for all
public roads. As it turns out, this includes gravel and dirt
roads, which make up the majority of the roads in our State.
This is not a priority use of scarce funds. So we urge the
Congress to simplify the program where it can so that program
dollars can provide more transportation investment in projects
that improve our system.
In summary, strong and stable Federal funding, along with
flexibility that reduces requirements, will help States provide
the transportation system that the Nation needs. Congress
should continue to distribute the vast majority of program
funds by formula and of course, Federal surface transportation
legislation must continue to recognize that significant Federal
investment in highways and in rural areas like ours is in the
national interest.
Again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity. I would
be glad to answer any questions.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Secretary Bergquist, an
excellent statement.
The Chair is going to take the prerogative to go ahead and
start, if it is all right with the rest of you, with Governor
Bentley, who has a particular scheduling problem. So I will
recognize you at this time to respond to questions.
And I would only make this one comment, Governor Bentley.
You talked about certainty. This is always a problem that you
have when you are dealing with government. Right now, there is
always the uncertainty of all these regulations that are out
there that are creating hardships on people. Certainly it is
true in this area, too.
Is there anything you would like to elaborate on concerning
the certainty issue that you raised?
Governor Bentley. I think certainty probably is the most
important thing that we are asking for on a State level. And if
we have the certainty, whatever that certainty is, we can deal
with it. It is so difficult for us as a State to not know
whether or not we will get funding. If this ends in May, which
it supposedly will, it makes it difficult for all of us.
One of the things that I have put in place in Alabama, that
I have talked about, is we put $1 billion into the repair of
our roads and bridges. We need to repair what we already have.
We can't just build new roads and bridges. We have to repair
what we have and make sure that they are functional.
So we have borrowed $1 billion and we have gotten it at
such a low rate simply because we have such a high bond rating
in Alabama. But we need $69 million every year to pay off those
bonds over the next 18 or 19 years.
So we just need certainty, whatever that certainty is.
Whatever the Federal Government can help us with. And we
appreciate that partnership. That is one of the things, it is a
partnership. All the States connect, obviously, so it is a
partnership.
So the certainty to me is the most important thing, and
that is what we need the most.
Senator Inhofe. Very good. Senator Boxer.
Senator Boxer. Thank you. I just want to thank our panel.
Mr. Bergquist, I just want to make a quick point and then I am
going to ask the Governor.
I am so for simplification and flexibility. I work with
Senator Inhofe, and he will tell you that I came a long way on
that point. But we do have to protect taxpayers here. So I
think for me, I want to make sure I am protecting taxpayers. So
just keep that in mind, that we have to find that sweet spot.
That sweet spot may look a little different to you than it does
through my eyes. But we are going to work together on this.
Governors, thank you. I know how hard it is to get here and
to take you away from your States. Governor Bentley, I was so
interested in your Alabama Transportation Rehabilitation
Improvement Program. It is a $1 billion dollar program, am I
right on that point?
Governor Bentley. Yes, ma'am.
Senator Boxer. A billion dollar program. And the reason you
can do this, you are counting on future Federal dollars. So you
have the Garvey bonds, is that a correct explanation of how it
works?
Governor Bentley. Yes, it is.
Senator Boxer. Yes. And so I just guessed, because I think
your point about certainty is so key, we would like you in
another way, in your very eloquent way, explain to us why
certainty is so critical. And if you didn't have the certainty
of this Federal bill, how it could impact you back home. Again,
I know it is repetitious, but that is the message I would like
to see go out of this hearing.
Governor Bentley. Again, let me say, I think certainty is
the most important thing that we have to deal with. Over the
last five or 6 years, we have not had that certainty,
obviously. And so we need it to plan. If we don't have, we need
five, six, ten, whatever the number of years that you decide,
we just need to know what those are. And we need to plan
accordingly.
And this program that I have put in place and was able to
actually put in place without legislation, because the people
of Alabama had allowed us to borrow the Garvey bonds. And so we
are using future Federal dollars.
Senator Boxer. Right.
Governor Bentley. And so the certainty is so important for
me, because I have signed $1 billion on bonds. And I want to
make sure we pay it back. And we can pay it back in two ways.
No. 1 is, if the Federal Government will help, continue to give
us some certainty about what they are going to give the States.
Plus the fact that we can do it better because in Alabama we
have such a great bond rating. We have a better bond rating
than the Federal Government.
So we were able to borrow this money at such a low rate,
certainly lower than inflation rate for delaying the repairs on
these roads and bridges. So certainty is just, it is essential
to us.
Senator Boxer. Thank you, Governor. I know you speak for
both Governors here.
My last question to you is, it is interesting to learn
about the I-10 bridge project. And you noted there are some
projects of national and regional significance that are too
large to be funded without specific Federal assistance.
Do you believe a Federal program to allow these types of
projects to compete against one another, in addition to core
highway formula funding, would be popular among the States,
these projects of national significance?
Governor Bentley. Well, I would rather have them to compete
than not have it at all.
Senator Boxer. I hear you.
Governor Bentley. Because I think that competition is
always good. I think that as a Federal Government, and I am not
speaking for the Federal Government, because I run the State of
Alabama. But I think that you do have to look at what is the
most important for our security, for our economy, for our
safety. All of those things you have to look at when you look
at these types of projects outside of the normal funding
stream.
Senator Boxer. Thank you so much.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Boxer.
Senator Boozman.
Senator Boozman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all
for being here.
In relation to this, can you tell us the impact of the 2-
year bill versus a five-ear bill, what that does as far as
certainty, the necessity of the longer bill versus the 2-year
bill? The other thing I would like for you to think about along
with that is, one of the frustrations we have is, you mentioned
that we were No. 1 in infrastructure. I think if you look back,
when we were No. 1, probably the percentage of what the States
were doing was more than it is now, as opposed to what the Feds
are doing.
I think one of the frustrations we have is that as we put
money into the States, because of the fiscal constraints of the
States with things like prisons and Medicaid and education and
things like that, the States have a tendency sometimes to
shrink back and things stay the same as opposed to increasing.
You mentioned, Governor Shumlin, about your small State.
Arkansas is a small State. To our credit, we passed a half cent
sales tax to try and overcome the problems that you have. I
wish coming across the 14th Street Bridge every day that we
could give you some of our traffic.
[Laughter.]
Senator Boozman. That would make my life and many other
commuters a lot easier.
But comment on the two versus the 5-year bill. And then
also the problems, how do we ensure that as we try and do the
very best that we can do to get money into the States that is
actually an improvement versus the State shrinking back?
Governor Shumlin. So in terms of the two to five, the more
certainty you can give us. Obviously five is better than two. I
have to say that Governor Bentley and I have both served in an
environment where we would love to have two, because we have
been working month to month. Since we have been Governors, we
have been Governors for 4 years.
So needless to say, the more certainty you can give us, the
longer period of time, the happier all Governors will be.
Particularly in a situation where you are dealing with Garvey
bonds, as Governor Bentley is. He said to Wall Street, we have
an ongoing funding source from the Feds, so I can to the folks
of Alabama and say, with certainty, we are going to be all
right. But we need it too, because obviously we make similar
decisions. All Governors do.
Senator Boozman. So the two versus the five actually drives
the cost up. Not only is there a certainty issue, but with your
contractors, things like that, you are actually driving up the
cost of the construction projects also.
Governor Shumlin. Absolutely, Senator.
The second piece is in terms of the partnership. My
experience has been that we have had to increase our State
contribution just to keep up with our Federal match. What I
mean by that is unfortunately, the gas tax is a dwindling tax.
Not so unfortunately, it is for good reasons. People are
driving less miles and they are driving more efficient
vehicles. But we all know that in the long run, we are going to
have to figure out another way to drive revenue, both
nationally and in the States. We are going to have to go to
miles traveled or some other way of doing this. There is no
reason why an electric car shouldn't be paying for the roads,
too.
Having said that, in my State as an example, we could not
keep up with our Federal match because of dwindling gas taxes
without asking for more from Vermonters just to meet what we
had already gotten in the past. In other words, I was about to
give up $40 million of Federal funding, which for me, an
average transportation budget of about $400 million, that is 10
percent, we are talking real money, having to cancel projects
that are critically important as our bridges and roads
crumbled.
So what I did is, and I don't like raising taxes, but we
raised it from 20 cents to 26 cents. We triggered half of it
toward volume and half of it toward sales, so that we would be
able to play the price as they go up and down without obviously
in a period like we are in right now, where the price of gas is
cut in half. We would have been totally demoralized if we
hadn't based at least part of it on volume. But Vermonters are
making a bigger effort to just, from a tax standpoint, to make
that Federal match, than we were in the past. So I don't know
if Vermont is unique, but I can tell you we are definitely not
backing off on our residents' commitment to rebuild roads and
bridges. We have been asking for more from them, and I think a
lot of Governors have.
Senator Boozman. Mr. Bergquist.
Mr. Bergquist. One of the challenges with the 2-year to the
5-year program is that due to the length of time it takes to
deliver any project of any size, once we have that security of
having a 2-year program, by the time we can start planning and
deliver a project the program is unfortunately over and we are
back into a short-term situation like we are unfortunately
accustomed to dealing with.
I agree with the Governor's comments, too, on some of the
negative impact of the short-term, month to month type of
business that we are doing now. It is resulting in not
necessarily being able to do the optimal treatments to our
roads. We are just doing what we can in a short period of time.
Oftentimes it is a band-aid type fix that may not be the
financially best thing to do, but the only thing that can be
done at the time.
Senator Boozman. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you. Senator Whitehouse? And we are
trying to confine our questions right now to Governor Bentley,
if we could.
Senator Whitehouse. Thank you, Chairman. These will
certainly be Governor-oriented questions. In Rhode Island, let
me say what we are seeing, and if it sounds familiar to the
Governors, let me know. We are seeing the Federal formula
highway funds increasingly subscribed over time. And we are
seeing static revenue from that. We are not seeing big Federal
increases that are funding growth in the highway program.
We are also seeing maintenance costs for the existing
infrastructure climbing. That eats into the static Federal
revenues. We are seeing debt service on our Garvey bonds eat up
a chunk of what would otherwise be going out into roads and to
bridges. And we are seeing uncertainty in the out years about
whether that Federal funding is really going to be there.
What we get from all of that is a distinction between
little projects that you know you can fund that can run for a
year or two, you can get it done, and that you can fit into
that shrinking remaining available portion of our highway
budget, and the big projects that our transportation officials
know are out there, know we have to grapple with some day. But
there is no slug of money big enough to take them on. And if
you are going to spread them out over many, many years, that
raises the cost in many cases. It also takes you beyond your
comfort level of whether the Federal funding is really going to
be there, given the uncertainty that has been created by all
the fiscal and budget hijinks that have gone on here in
Washington.
So what that leaves us with is some big projects that we
really have no way to get into our highway program responsibly.
Does any of that sound familiar to the Governors? I see both
heads nodding, let the record reflect. So what I want to make
sure that we do, and this echoes a little bit the Ranking
Member's question, is that there be a pool of funding for
projects that are big and significant. Instead of giving them
out, because I know a lot of people don't like earmarks, it
should be a competitive grant program. But it would at least
provide a vehicle for those big projects to be brought online
before a big calamity happens, a very expensive bridge, a major
highway overpass or intersection, things like that just strafe
small State budgets.
Does that seem like a sensible notion to you, that for
these big projects there be a specialized source of funds that
you could compete for to get them handled, where they can't be
reached through ordinary funding?
Governor Bentley. I personally believe that what you said
is exactly what I said in my testimony. There has to be a
different stream of funding for those type projects. And they
should be, they should be competitive. And we need to decide
their national significant. We need to decide the safety of the
area. For instance, I mentioned the bridge over the bay in
Mobile. We have all the highways coming to one tunnel. We have
hazardous material that is transported through that. And so
there are so many things that you have to look at. Competition
is good. I think you shouldn't have a bridge to nowhere.
I personally am against earmarking just for the sake of
earmarking for political reasons. I believe that the earmarking
should be done for what you are talking about, and I believe I
am talking about, which is national and regional significance.
And you do have to compete, in order to get those funds.
Senator Whitehouse. Mr. Chairman, if I could make one final
remark. One of the flaws in the stimulus program that we put
together and passed in the depths of the recession was that our
rush for shovel-ready projects meant the only ones we could get
into the pipe were the ones that were already on the books of
our transportation organizations. So those big ones that are
waiting out there, which would have been a great opportunity,
we missed.
So that is another reason, I think, that we need to make
sure we do this projects of national and regional significance.
I thank the Chairman for his courtesy.
Senator Inhofe. Thank you, Senator Whitehouse.
Senator Rounds.
Senator Rounds. Mr. Chairman, I will yield. I will just say
it is refreshing to have Governors come in and give that good
dose of common sense. We appreciate it.
Senator Inhofe. At this time we will excuse you, Governor
Bentley. I know you have a scheduling program. Thank you very
much.
Governor Shumlin, I didn't mean to be discourteous to you
when you were first talking. You had four points you were going
to end up with which I did not hear, since I didn't give you
time to express them.
Governor Shumlin. I think we have covered them, actually,
Mr. Chairman. Thanks for that opportunity. I would like to
respond to the question of competing for large projects. I
would just add that I think that Senator Whitehouse is on
target. A program like that makes sense. I do want to point out
that the small, rural States who have 80 percent of the
highways, roads and bridges to maintain, have a tough time
competing with big State projects. So if you are going to do
that, some kind of set-aside to recognize the difference in
steel is important. Because while we have more miles covered
and more bridges on those miles, we don't necessarily have the
huge individual project that frankly, a heavily populated State
would have.
Senator Inhofe. Yes, and Governor, that is something we are
all going to be working on. Because it is very meaningful.
Let me just make one comment. When they were talking about
the earmarks, there is a great misunderstanding here. One of
the few, and this is my observation, one of the few things that
really does work well with the Federal Government is the way
the Highway Trust Fund is set up. It responds back to the needs
of the State.
I think not many people knew that when we did our last,
particularly the 2005 bill, we made an effort to listen to the
States, recognizing that they know more what is good for them,
whether it is Alaska or anywhere else, than our infinite wisdom
here in Washington. So I think it is something that has worked
well. The problem was, if they would use another word when they
are messing around with this thing, then we wouldn't be having
the problems we are having now. There is a big difference
between earmarks as most people think of earmarks and earmarks
as they come from the States, from the departments of
transportation. That is why I think it is great, and hopefully
we can address this and take care of these problems we are
talking about right now. That would be kind of fine tuning it.
The big problem is, though, we have all those issues out
there, and we have to do it. I know a lot of people kind of
forget, it always sounds good when you say, well, let's just
keep all of our money in the State. Well, that is fine if you
are in a position to do that. But if you are from Wyoming or
South Dakota or North Dakota, you have lots of roads and no
people.
So we are going to address this, and we are going to try to
do this one right.
You have covered your four points?
Governor Shumlin. Yes.
Senator Inhofe. That is good. All right, Senator
Whitehouse.
Senator Whitehouse. I will just second the Chairman's
remarks. I am actually not an opponent of earmarks, I am a
great fan of my senior Senator, Jack Reed, who is our Rhode
Island appropriator. I would think that his judgment about
where Federal money should be spent in Rhode Island is probably
a good deal better than the bureaucrats in all these various
departments.
But my point was, we don't need to have that fight to have
a good projects of national and regional significance portion
of this bill. But I am with the Chairman on that fight, and
particularly as it applies to these transportation issues.
I think my questions have been adequately answered. I would
just put on the record that we got a full answer from Governor
Bentley under the Chairman's request. Governor Shumlin was
nodding vigorously throughout, but didn't have a chance to say
anything. So I would just offer him a chance, if he had any
comments to make on this, in addition. Otherwise, I think the
record is clear that the Governors before us were in accord on
this subject.
Governor Shumlin. I think we are in your court. The only
point I would make that hasn't been made in terms of this
conversation generally is, when we talk about reinvigorating
the trust fund, which we all know was created in 1958, has
served us well, that was a time when we were building
infrastructure for the first time in America. It is what made
this Country great. It is what made us the most powerful
economy in the world. We couldn't have done it without that
infrastructure investment, without that trust fund. I think
Governors are united on that.
Senator Inhofe. The first covered bridges, you are talking
about?
Governor Shumlin. The first covered bridges, you have it.
And the challenge we face now from just big picture for a
second, because sometimes we get into the weeds on how we
should allocate the money, and I suspect that all 50 Governors
would agree on this one, is that we have two things facing us.
The first is obviously the aging infrastructure, the fact that
what we built so effectively in the late 1950's, early 1960's
across the Nation is now crumbling.
But the other challenge I am facing, I can tell you, and I
bet other Governors are facing it too, is the weather
challenges have made the transportation infrastructure more
vulnerable than I believe it was when we built the
infrastructure. I can tell you, as a Governor who has served
for 4 years now, I have managed three really devastating
storms, the toughest storms that Vermont has ever seen in our
history. We lost, in our teeny little State of Vermont, we lost
hundreds of miles of roads. We lost 34 bridges. We saw
infrastructure destroyed, not only in Irene, but in two
separate, significant storms. This was created by just the kind
of rain that we have never seen in Vermont, where we would
suddenly get these what I call Costa Rican style deluges of 10,
12 inches of rain dumped on our little State in a matter of
hours. Just didn't used to happen that way.
So we have to remember that we have crumbling
infrastructure, we have a climate that is really putting
additional pressure on all the assumptions we made about where
we put roads, where we put bridges. Suddenly we have flooding
challenges in places that never had them before.
Senator Whitehouse. Governor, can I jump in on that?
Because there is an interesting statistic, I think it comes out
of the national property casualty insurance industry. If you
look at the number of billion dollar storm and weather
disasters that the Country has had in recent decades, in the
1980's, every year those billion dollar disasters numbered zero
to five. That was the range in the 1980's. You had none or
maybe you had as many as five. But that was the range.
By the 1990's, the range was three to nine billion dollar
disasters every year. A minimum of three, a maximum of nine. By
the 2000's, the range was two to 11 billion dollar disasters
each year. In the 2010 decade so far, it has been six to
sixteen.
So the point that the Governor is making about what he has
seen in Vermont is one that we are seeing all across the
Country and we have seen it in Rhode Island with 100-year
storms appearing one after another, certainly not 100 years
apart. I yield back my time.
Senator Inhofe. Senator Rounds.
Senator Rounds. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with the
Senator from Rhode Island when it comes to the issue of who
should be making the decisions. I like the idea of providing
ample opportunity for the States and local governments to make
those decisions about where the dollars should be spent.
I think we should be very liberal when it comes to allowing
the States, recognizing their ability to make good decisions
for their citizens about infrastructure development.
I was going to go to Secretary Bergquist just for a moment
and talk a little bit about some of the common sense things
that States do or would like to be able to do if provided the
opportunity. I think when we go back to taxpayers, when we talk
about additional revenue sources and so forth, one thing they
want us to do is deliver as efficiently as possible those
needed infrastructures or those needed bridges, roads and
everything that comes with it.
Part of that means making good decisions about how we spend
the dollars. Sometimes I think good advice coming from the Feds
is just that, it is advice. But it shouldn't necessarily be
requirements. There should be ample opportunity for States and
departments of transportation to make good choices about what
they want that infrastructure to look like.
I am just wondering if the Secretary could share a little
bit about some of the efficiencies that might be able to be
found if some of the red tape was eliminated, or at least some
of the restrictions on the use of those funds, that could be
examined. Would you care to comment on that a little bit?
Mr. Bergquist. Sure, if I might, Mr. Chairman. Two
immediate things come to mind, Senator Rounds. One, I followed
with interest your dialog with Secretary Foxx earlier on the
need to further streamline the review process that goes into
projects. As Secretary Foxx indicated, there were certainly
improvements that were made as part of MAP-21. I would welcome
the opportunity to continue to work with the Federal Highway
Administration on further refining that process. I think there
are still additional enhancements that can be made to that, to
shorten that time period so we don't have the problem of the
projects taking so long to deliver that can can't actually
start construction until, whether it is a 2-year or 5-year
bill, until that bill is over. I think that is one of the areas
of opportunity.
The other area that I see as an opportunity, and I touched
on an example of that earlier in my statement, is the balance
between the funds and resources that you invest in collecting
data and reporting and those types of things versus what
actually goes into asphalt and concrete and bridges. I
mentioned the case, or the potential requirement to gather all
the data on our gravel and dirt roads, which you are very
familiar with. I am not sure that is the best use of those
funds, when we have bridges, you mentioned the bridge numbers
in South Dakota, we have over 1,000 that need to be replaced.
That money may be better spent there.
Governor Shumlin. I think, Senator, your question on
efficiency and how we can all work together to use our
transportation dollars better is right on. I know that I for
example have been successful doing a couple of things that
really made a difference for how we spend our limited dollars
in Vermont. One, when I became Governor, I found that there
was, frankly, a rivalry between, or lack of communication and
often real annoyance between our Agency of Natural Resources
folks and my Transportation folks. My Transportation folks
would go out and get ready to build a bridge or build a road,
and they felt like the ANR folks would come in and go searching
for arrowheads or whatever, and they were all fighting and
carrying on and it would take years to do anything. They would
let the blueprints just pile up in the offices. I said, we have
to end this.
So my State offices got flooded in Irene. So all the State
offices were wiped out, destroyed. I used that as an
opportunity when I reorganized them to put them in the same
office building. They had to eat lunch together in the same
cafeteria. And guess what? They found out they like each other.
They are working much more effectively together to get the job
done.
So now our ANR folk will go out with our engineers, they
will go on the ground together and make the decisions on the
ground that sometimes took t here years; they now take 3 days.
So it is a big difference.
The other piece is technology. I just want to mention that.
Governors are embracing across the Country smarter ways to do
things, more efficient ways to do things. And residents are
willing, if they understand it saves them tax dollars, to be
more patient.
I will give you an example. We have cut the cost of our
bridges, building bridges significantly by saying to citizens
wherever we can, instead of building a detour bridge, which you
have to go through permitting, takes forever, huge costs. And I
bet you anything Secretary Bergquist is doing the same thing. I
have my Secretary Minter here, she could speak more eloquently
about this. But we literally say to residents, if you would let
us close that bridge for six to eight, 12 weeks, we can rebuild
that bridge in that period of time. And you come in with these
pre-fab bridges or you use the technologies for literally half
the price or a quarter of the price and much less time.
So we are all interested in finding ways to be more
efficient, to cut red tape. States can do it, the Feds can do
it. Together we could use our dollars more effectively.
Senator Inhofe. That is good.
Senator Boozman. Very quickly, Mr. Chairman, following up
on Senator Rounds. The committee worked really hard under
Senator Boxer's and Senator Inhofe's leadership in trying to
identify things to cut the red tape. The problem is that some
of those things don't come under our jurisdiction. So we can
cut red tape here. What I would really like for you all to do
and our comrades is come up with the things you mentioned, the
State problems that we have sometimes, and also other Federal
problems that aren't under the jurisdiction of the committee,
so that we can work with those committees in the next
reauthorization, which hopefully will happen very soon. And
then again make sure that we do that.
We have talked about the challenges of getting more money
into the system. This is a way to save tremendous amounts of
money. We have examples. I got to go visit the bridge that fell
down in Milwaukee. That thing was rebuilt in a year. That would
be a 10-or 20-year project, probably. But again, because of the
necessity the agencies worked together. We didn't have the
``gotcha'' attitude. It was, how can we help you get this thing
done.
So we have great models. But we really would appreciate
your input. I believe very strongly that the input needs to
come from you all, you are on the ground fighting the battle.
No one can tell us better, from your experiences.
If you would do some homework, I will give you a little bit
of responsibility in that regard, that would be very, very
helpful to the committee. And I hope, Mr. Chairman, that we can
work with other committees that have some jurisdiction in that
area and with the States and try and figure out how we can move
the projects forward. Thank you.
Senator Inhofe. Senator Boozman, we had a similar situation
right across your border into Oklahoma, when the barge ran into
the bridge, you might remember that. We actually rebuilt that
thing in one half the time it normally would have taken. And we
have been making a steady case out of that also.
So necessity is the mother of virtue or something like
that. Hopefully that will work.
I just want to make one further comment because I know
there is misunderstanding here when we talk about the way this
system works. But there is a reason that we do it the way we do
it. All the States don't do it exactly the same. In my State of
Oklahoma, as those people behind you can tell you, we will list
a number of projects. We will have people going out with eight
transportation districts in my State of Oklahoma, make their
own priorities, so that really, my job isn't so much to see
what needs to be done in the State of Oklahoma, it is where
those priorities come from the State. And people just overlook
that.
So that is one of the systems that does seem to work well.
Hopefully we are going to be able to do a really good job with
this bill.
So any further comments you want to make, any closing
comments?
Governor Shumlin. Mr. Chair, I want to thank you and the
committee members. You have a tough job. And it is an
incredibly important job. I just want to say that the
Governors, all 50 of us, on a bipartisan basis, will partner
with you in any way that can be useful to get predictability,
get the trust fund reauthorized and give us certainty. I think
it is in all of our interest.
Senator Inhofe. Within your States. I think that is so
important that we do that.
Governor Shumlin. Absolutely.
Senator Inhofe. I think that there is another thing you can
do too, and that is apply the pressure necessary to our own
elected people to let them know what their No. 1 priority is.
If you run out of things to say, I will give you an idea.
[Laughter.]
Senator Inhofe. To use the constitutional argument, Article
I, Section 8, that is what we are supposed to be doing here.
So I have heard it say many times before, when people were
trying to make comments about how conservative they are or
something like that, when it gets right down to transportation,
I have heard them say, oh, I wasn't talking about
transportation. So it is something we are going to deal with.
What I wouldn't like to see is have a system change where
you take States out of the system. You are the ones who know
where the priorities are, what needs to be done and you know
where your members, your elected officials live. So that would
be very helpful.
Senator Rounds, did you have any further comment?
Senator Rounds. Mr. Chairman, just to echo what you are
suggesting, sir.
Senator Inhofe. Well, thank you both very much for being
here. We appreciate it. We are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[Additional material submitted for the record follows.]
Statement of Hon. Jeff Sessions, U.S. Senator
from the State of Alabama
Thank you Chairman Inhofe for holding today's hearing. As
our committee begins the process of examining MAP-21
Reauthorization, I look forward to working closely with State
and local officials to making sure that Alabama families and
workers can continue to rely on a safe, effective, and fiscally
sound transportation infrastructure system.
The solvency of the Highway Trust Fund is a serious issue
that deserves Congress's attention. But as we begin to consider
potential ways to address this issue, we should recognize that
Americans deserve more transparency with regard to how their
transportation moneys are spent--the Federal Highway
Administration obligated $41 billion in fiscal year 3, an
enormous sum. We need to root out unnecessary expenditures in
an era of scarce public dollars.
For example, last October, in response to a request from
Senator Vitter, the Government Accountability Office (GAO)
issued a report titled Highway Trust Fund: Department of
Transportation Has Opportunities to Improve Tracking and
Reporting of Highway Spending. In the report, GAO observed that
``[w]hile Highway Trust Fund dollars are used for a wide
range of activities, such as road or bridge improvements,
information about these activities is not readily available to
Congress and the public.''
The report further observed that
``DOT's annual fiscal-year budget reports provide
information on total spending at the program level, but do not
provide detailed information about the types of activities and
administrative expenses funded with the Highway Trust Fund
moneys.''
Notably, the GAO report found that the Federal Highway
Administration does not collect and report aggregate spending
data for non-``major'' projects, which represented nearly 88
percent of all fiscal year Federal-aid highway obligations.
The GAO report confirms that while the long-term solvency
of the Highway Trust Fund is a real problem, Federal agencies
need to do a better job at demonstrating to Congress and the
American people that limited taxpayer dollars for
transportation are being used efficiently and effectively.
I am glad this Committee recognizes the fiscal issues
surrounding the Highway Trust Fund as well as the importance of
transportation infrastructure to our states and local
communities. In Alabama, the I-10 Bridge in Mobile is a
critical link for the transportation of goods and services
throughout the country, yet traffic congestion leads commercial
drivers to avoid the bridge and pursue longer, costlier routes.
Any Federal transportation bill should provide State and local
authorities the flexibility to make sure that vital projects
like the I-10 Bridge can serve their communities in a way that
meets the nation's commercial needs.
I also appreciate the efforts State and local organizations
take to make sure that our road systems are safe and built as
cost-effectively as possible. In particular, the National
Center for Asphalt Technology at Auburn University is working
with the Minnesota Department of Transportation to help develop
technologies, pavement systems, and construction methods that
lead to safer, quieter, lower-cost and longer-lasting roads. In
a time of limited budgetary funds, these organizations are
leading innovative efforts to provide safe roads in a fiscally
sound manner, and their commitment to cost-effective research
should be an example for State and Federal agencies throughout
the country. I look forward to leveraging such resources in
lowering the costs of the Highway Trust Fund in future years
while continuing to ensure we have the transportation links our
economy requires to thrive.
Again, thank you Chairman Inhofe for holding this hearing.
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