[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 169 (Thursday, November 20, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E2351-E2352]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


            THE TRANSPORTATION EQUITY ACT: LEGACY FOR USERS

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JAMES L. OBERSTAR

                              of minnesota

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, November 19, 2003

  Mr. OBERSTAR. Mr. Speaker, for most of the 20th Century, the primary 
focus of surface transportation policy was constructing a safe, 
efficient highway system, the Interstate and Defense Highway System, to 
connect our cities, farms, and defense bases. We invested more than 
$114 billion in constructing the 42,800-mile Interstate system and that 
investment has paid phenomenal returns in mobility, productivity, and 
economic growth. It is an unparalleled success: 1 percent of highway 
miles carry 24 percent of traffic. Today, the vision of that system is 
complete.
  As the Interstate era came to a close, a new vision of transportation 
began to emerge--shifting from a focus on moving vehicles to providing 
transportation choices. The early framing of this vision was embodied 
in Congress' passage of the Intermodal Surface Transportation 
Efficiency Act (ISTEA) in 1991. The ``highway bill'' became more than 
that as we focused new efforts (and funding) on transit, congestion 
mitigation, intelligent transportation systems, and transportation 
alternatives such as pedestrian and bike paths. The landmark 
achievement of ISTEA was its vision for transportation policy: moving 
beyond where highways now lead us, to where it is people want to go and 
how we can give them choices to get there.
  In 1998, Congress built upon ISTEA by ensuring that we would begin to 
make the necessary infrastructure investment to achieve this vision. 
With passage of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA 
21), we authorized $218 billion for our highway, transit, and highway 
and motor carrier safety programs--the highest surface transportation 
funding levels in U.S. history and 44 percent more than ISTEA. However, 
we knew too well that increased ``authorization levels'' meant nothing 
if they did not become a reality. We unlocked the Highway Trust Fund 
and codified a principle: the highway user fees collected from the 
traveling public will be invested in our surface transportation 
infrastructure each and every year. That is the landmark achievement of 
TEA 21 and, over its life, we invested $214 billion in our Nation's 
surface transportation infrastructure--$100 million more in that 6-year 
period than in the 40 years of building the Interstate.
  On the first anniversary of TEA 21, I joined our Committee Leadership 
(then-Chairman Shuster, Chairman Petri, and Subcommittee Ranking Member 
Rahall), then-Senator Chafee, Senator Voinovich, and Secretary of 
Transportation Rodney Slater and said: ``Although the legacy of the 
surface transportation system of the 21st Century is far off, we have 
begun the journey of writing that legacy here and now. ISTEA and TEA 21 
have set the framework for the beginning of the new century. 
Nevertheless, we must continue to develop innovative solutions if we 
are to overcome our Nation's many transportation problems.''
  The journey of writing that legacy continues here today. The 
``Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users'' bill builds upon the 
vision of ISTEA, maintains the guaranteed funding principle of TEA 21, 
and outlines its own landmark achievement: providing the investment 
levels necessary to maintain and begin to improve our Nation's highway 
and transit infrastructure. The bill provides a 72 percent increase in 
funding over TEA 21. We increase investment in highway and highway and 
motor carrier safety programs from $177 billion under TEA 21 to $306 
billion under this bill. Similarly, for transit, we almost double the 
investment over 6 years: growing from $36.2 billion guaranteed under 
TEA 21 to $69.2 billion under the introduced bill.

  Although these funding levels are significant increases over current 
levels, it is important to note that they are not our numbers, they are 
the Department of Transportation's own estimates of the Federal 
investment necessary to maintain and begin to improve our Nation's 
surface transportation system. These funding levels recognize what the 
Texas Transportation Institute has repeatedly told us: congestion is 
beginning to cripple our largest cities, the primary engines of our 
Nation's economic growth. In 75 large metropolitan areas alone, the 
cost of congestion is $69.5 billion--including 3.5 billion hours of 
delay and 5.7 billion gallons of excess fuel consumption. The average 
annual delay for every person in these cities has climbed to 26 hours. 
While these statistics are startling, the average American family does 
not need them recited--they are stuck in traffic on their way home from 
work, picking up the kids at daycare, or running the endless errands 
that seem a part of today's society, and they lose what precious little 
time they have together.
  More importantly, our Nation's highways, bridges, and transit systems 
are not as safe as they need to be and the highway death toll is 
unacceptably high. Over the past 25 years, 1.2 million have died on our 
roads. Last year, 42,815 people died and 2.9 million more were injured 
on our highways. Highway fatalities remain the leading cause of death 
of our youth (people ages 4 to 33). In addition to the personal tragedy 
of each of these deaths and many of the injuries, the economic cost of 
these accidents is more than $230 billion per year.
  Considering the congestion and highway safety impacts of insufficient 
investment in transportation alone, our economy is losing $300 billion 
per year because we are not investing the necessary resources to 
maintain and improve our Nation's transportation systems. We cannot 
afford to continue to shortchange our Nation's transportation systems. 
To effectively reduce congestion, to increase mobility, to truly 
improve highway safety, and to achieve continuing long-term increases 
in productivity and economic growth, we must invest in our Nation's 
transportation future. And we must do it now. That is why we join 
together today to introduce this bill to authorize $375 billion over 6 
years.
  The bill increases the minimum guarantee rate of return from 90.5 
percent in FY2003 to 95 percent in FY2009. The bill also provides 
significant increases for the core highway programs. The National 
Highway System increases from $27.4 billion under TEA 21 to $39 billion 
under this bill. In addition, after a portion of the minimum guarantee 
funds are distributed to the core highway programs, NHS funding 
increases to $49.3 billion over the next 6 years. Similarly, the Bridge 
program grows from $19.3 billion under TEA 21 to $34.3 billion with the 
redistributed minimum guarantee funds. Finally, the CMAQ program almost 
doubles--growing from $7.9 billion to $13.9 over the next 6 years.
  Moreover, the bill provides similar increases for transit. Guaranteed 
transit funding increases 92 percent to $69.2 billion. The core transit 
formula programs increase to $34 billion and the transit capital 
program (new starts, rail modernization, and bus capital invesment) 
increases to almost $30 billion over the 6 years of the bill.

[[Page E2352]]

  Beyond building upon the success of ISTEA and TEA 21, as I said at 
the TEA 21 anniversary, we must continue to develop innovative 
solutions if we are to overcome our Nation's many transportation 
problems. Let me touch on a couple of new programs included in the bill 
that propose new and different way to address transportation issues.
  As I have traveled the country over the last several years to review 
the condition of our Nation's infrastructure, I have noted that, 
despite the significant funding increases of TEA 21, current levels of 
surface transportation investment are insufficient to fund critical 
high-cost transportation infrastructure facilities that address 
critical economic and transportation needs. These projects, whether it 
is Alameda Corridor East or Chicago's CREATE, have national and 
regional benefits, including facilitating international trade, 
relieving congestion, and improving transportation safety by 
significantly improving freight and passenger movement in critical 
transportation bottlenecks. The bill creates a $17.6 billion Projects 
of National and Regional Significance program to enable the Secretary 
of Transportation to competitively select such projects of national 
significance (project cost of more than $500 million).
  I also want to touch on a much smaller, but equally important, new 
program: Safe Routes to School. Several years ago, I began working with 
two communities, Marin County, California and Arlington, Massachusetts, 
to develop a program to enable and encourage children to walk or bike 
to school. These two pilot projects have been incredible successes. 
With this experience in hand, the bill creates a new $1.5 billion Safe 
Routes to School formula program to enable and encourage children to 
walk or bike to school; to make bicycling and walking to school a safer 
and more appealing transportation alternative, thereby encouraging a 
healthy and active lifestyle from an early age; and to improve safety 
and reduce traffic, wasted fuel, and air pollution in school 
neighborhoods.
  Finally, the Committee's proposal will provide badly needed economic 
stimulus. The Federal Highway Administration reports that every $1 
billion of federal funds invested in highway infrastructure creates 
47,500 jobs and $6.2 billion in economic activity. When enacted, the 
Committee's introduced bill will create and sustain up to 3.6 million 
family-wage construction jobs, including 1.7 million new jobs.
  Moreover, a recent study found that the Committee's bipartisan 
proposal to invest $375 billion in surface transportation over the next 
6 years would add $290 billion more to the Nation's Gross Domestic 
Product than the administration's proposal to invest only $247 billion. 
The Committee's proposal would also lead to an additional $129 billion 
of household disposable income and. an additional $98 billion in 
consumer spending--millions of new, good-paying jobs, billions of 
dollars of new consumer spending: now that's the way to get the economy 
growing again.
  I join with Chairman Young, Subcommittee Chairman Petri, and 
Subcommittee Ranking Member Lipinski, and the Members of the Committee 
on Transportation and Infrastructure, in introducing this bipartisan 
bill today. We will continue to work together on the journey of writing 
the legacy of our surface transportation future.

                          ____________________