measures subcommittee and the oversight subcommittee on transportation needs this hearing is very timely this is the beginning of the summer vacation season and the dreaded words every father hates to hear are we there yet and then it will repeated at least one thousand more times as american families hit the road for vacations across the country whether it's by plane train or automobile our infrastructure will be tested and signs of aging  just a few years ago we celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of funding for the interstate highway system whether it is repair or replacement or modernization of the system substantial funds will be required the ways and means committee has responsibility over taxes dedicated to the highway trust fund for highways in transit needs trust fund expenditures need to be reauthorized as part of a six year bill that our colleagues at the transportation committee have been in visioning additionally there has been a shortfall  the fund for this year's activities and activities and congress must decide how to handle the issue i hope sooner rather than later our witnesses today will tell us about the price we pay for congestion they will tell us about the toll on the environment because of clogged roads energy and efficiency and the warn us of the dangers of our aging infrastructure at the forefront of every debate about transportation needs especially considering the tragic event this week in washington now let me recognize my friend for his opening statement thank you mr chairman thank you for holding this hearing today program authority in the current high authorization law scheduled to expire on september thirtieth of this year our colleagues at the transportation infrastructure committee have been working on reauthorization yesterday subcommittee on highways and transit consider and approved their proposal generally speaking funding for these programs provided from the highway trust fund ways and means committee has exclusive jurisdiction over the financing of the highway trust fund as i think we're all aware and i suspect we'll hear today the demand for additional highway spending has continued to grow at the same time however concerns of been raised about the short term and long term viability of the current highway trust financing structure indeed action will need to be taken within the next month or so to cover an anticipated shortfall  five to seven billion dollars in the trust on the second consecutive year that a shortfall has occurred these are important considerations and i'm glad that we're having this hearing today to begin examining these issues as they pertain to this committee to take a close look at the nation state of the nation's transportation infrastructure and the state of the highway trust fund upon which we depend to finance improvements to that infrastructure i also welcome the witnesses thank you today first we want to welcome roy the undersecretary of policy at the u s department of transportation next i want to welcome my friend and i mean that in the best sense of the term a real political talent lieutenant governor of state very difficult in the western central part of the state to win statewide office and he demonstrated that it could be done and much of it with good sound whether i'd also point out that there isn't anybody i think who's elected in massachusetts who knows more about the federal highway system largely because he's on it all the time he travels that state from one in to the other and he serves as the eyes and ears for governor patrick across the state former mayor of wister he understands how transportation infrastructure can greatly impact our growing  cities we welcome dr beverly scott the general manager and c e o of the metropolitan atlanta rap rapid transit authority dr scott also serves as the chair of the american public transportation association we welcome philip a director of president information technology and innovation found mr actions and serves as chair of the national service transportation financing commission was very fortunate to have a panel of experts from around the country to share their thoughts and our transportation needs we look forward to your testimony today and thank you for your participation without any objection any other members wishing to assert statements as part of the record may do so and we will start by putting chairman lewis statement in the record all written statements written proposed by the sort of the highway trust fund its financing and its future i want to talk a little bit about the backdrop in which this is occurring as as you know mr chairman last year we had a very similar situation at the end of the day in the waning days of september there was a general one transfer was made this year we find ourselves a somewhat similar situation although the presence of the recovery act causes there to be a somewhat different perspective on the ground and i'd just like to give a little report on that so far in the recovery act the department was given the ten or eleven deadlines that we had to meet and so far we've met every one of our deadlines the bill also contains a requirement for states to obligate at least fifty percent of their highway dollars to four hundred twenty days had elapsed from the signing of the act where a couple days short of that and all states have now complied with that requirement so on the expenditure side of the transportation dollars in the recovery act i think that that is going well going to plan there's over one hundred projects underway and many more coming online so i think we're reasonably happy with how that's gon nonetheless we find ourselves in a situation where the progress that's been made to increase infrastructure investment and have a quick economic effect is potentially threatened by the underlying unsustainability of the financing source for the trust fund  so and that really has to do with a couple of things but underlying economic conditions is the biggest one the history of of the gasoline tax which is the principal funding source for the fund has been a it's been it's been a very effective tax because it's been very stable over time and over the last dozen years or twenty years it has grown you know between one and two percent a year like clockwork and the federal government has been able to make very accurate estimates of what the revenue is going to come in which allows us to do these long term reauthorization and the principal thing that's happened is that revenue collections for the first time in a very very long time have become very unpredictable due to the tax or so the come into the trust fund that's from gasoline and diesel taxes but it's also have the purchase of over the road trucks and other things that have taxes on the going to the fund and so the net result is we now have a fairly large structural mismatch between revenues and expected expenditure levels that could reach as much as twenty percent but that's really the sort of the long term picture  i think the shorter term picture for you so with the way we estimate that it has been mentioned by some of the members we think it's probably in the five to seven billion dollars range in the current fiscal year to get us to september thirtieth these numbers are all a little bit approximate because as collections come in and we get reports from the treasury department you know the numbers are just up or down a little bit right now as was said by the chairman we're projecting september fourth as the date on which we would have to start taking actions either slow down the payment of bills presented to us by the states or otherwise engage in sort of cash management actions to avoid a shortfall on an anti deficiency act violation as we get each of our weekly updates of receipts and expenditures that date can move around a little bit it was sort of mid august in late august now it's early september we expect it may move back a little bit into august so if as the summer goes on you hear different dates that's why because we're  provide real time updates of where we think we stand and that's why our number for the for consciously five to seven billion has a little bit of a range in it because we're not you know it's all projections still at this point or not i'm sure for the fiscal year thereafter though there's no magic in getting to september thirtieth we're going to face the exact same situation we believe it'll be larger next year probably in the ten billion range so the the proposal that's been made by the administration in recent days has been to try to establish a period of at least eighteen months from the otherwise when the program would expire on september thirtieth that would get us through march two thousand and eleven that would require transfers to cover the shortfall for the remainder of oh nine all of fiscal two thousand and ten and half of fiscal two thousand  eleven up until now this has been a problem for the highway account of the highway trust fund but if we stand out eighteen months the transit account of the highway trust fund will also we project go negative so our proposal is eighteen billion dollars for the highway account to get through that eighteen month period and two billion dollars for the transit account i think the transit account of the basically in a similar situation it's just about a year or a little bit more than a year behind in terms of its downward trend and it's about that the purpose of that proposal is transportation routes are zation and to address the very difficult revenue or spending questions that arise when trying to do that and so i think it was the collective wisdom with an administration that period of extension to  move the ball down the road a ways and give us all time to see if we can come up with a set of solutions that probably would be the right way to go i think i'll just two points about that the first of which is that the method by which this transfer to the trust  achieved it is it is the view of the ministration that this should be paid for within the overall context of the budget is the method by which that gets done where the offsets might come from how the transfer is made versus the source of the i think is that is something that should be open to discussion obviously with this committee and with your counterparts in the senate on the members and the members i know folks on the economic side of our team are going to be reaching out to this committee and to the finance committee in the senate to try to identify what are not a logical way to do that might be but the overriding principle would be yes a transfer needs to be made but as part of the sort of general fiscal management there there should be an offset of some kind of pay for that  the but i think it's also argued that if we're going to stay on the program for eighteen months it's an opportunity to maybe engage in a modest but important short list of a couple of reforms that can set us up so that the silo going to kurz eighteen months from now could occur on the basis of some progress from where we are today i think in principle the to do the chief thing on the our list would be a message for the federal government state and m p s to work together to better improve  data reporting measurement of results accountability in the design and selection of projects so that confidence is building that new expenditures in this program are yielding are being put towards the highest priority projects that generate the best results for the public and you know unfortunate there has been perhaps somewhat of a lack of confidence in that process recently and so we really see it as a high priority and that's a lot of very hard technical work that the feds would have to do and states in m p s to improve the systems and so we want to start that now so eighteen months from now it's somewhat advanced that the two other ideas we proposed are in particular to focus that kind of work on the difficult problems of metropolitan areas where we see the i think the breakdowns are most obvious and the other is one that's obviously part of the secretary that he's spoken many times about which is to begin a sort of a a real level of federal attention and investment in a livable communities program which is a matter i know certainly near and dear to part of the gentleman from oregon  so that's the proposal we have come in with we're obviously open to other ideas the long term fate of the trust fund is obviously something that this committee and others are going to have to wrestle with and those questions are difficult and we look forward to working with the members here on that over the next eighteen months thank you sir thank you now i'd like to call upon the to governor tim murray massachusetts chairman to all the members of the committee thank you for inviting me to testify for to testify before you today  honored to come to discuss the significant transportation needs that we are facing in the commonwealth of massachusetts a safe sufficient and cost effective transportation system is critical to our way of life and vital to our economy in the decades to come in massachusetts we are working to address almost two decades of deferred maintenance of our transportation infrastructure leaving us with billions of dollars worth of upkeep and badly needed expansions i'm here to talk about the extent of this need and offer a few examples of how this need is impacting our way of life in the commonwealth our infrastructure was built well and it was built to last the longfellow bridge which connects cambridge to downtown boston is a testament to the visionary leadership workmanship and dedication that marked the previous era in the history of america's infrastructure more than one hundred ten years ago the massachusetts legislature passed a bill commissioning the bridge the bill stipulated that despite the added cost the bridge had to be designed and built with space reserved in the center for a future transit line today that transit line  line serves one hundred thousand riders a day and connects downtown boston and the entire m b t a network with one of the most important life science and innovation clusters in the world in kendall square and two of the world's leading universities harvard and mit that bridge is a critical asset to our local and regional economy one thousand nine hundred centuries leaders could never have imagined the work that is going on in the labs at the biotech and computer science research labs in cambridge but they knew that we needed to invest in plans for the future if we wanted a strong economy so that we could compete on an international stage investments of the past contrasts sharply with today's sad reality the longfellow bridge is just one of hundreds of bridges across the commonwealth that has suffered from decades of neglect for years because of a lack of funding in the commonwealth deferred maintenance then the states substituted maintenance for larger repairs and then substituted repairs for replacement all this neglect has a price more than five hundred bridges across massachusetts have been determined to be structurally deficient replacing the longfellow bridge alone will cost the commonwealth at least one hundred fifty million dollars in march of two thousand and seven an independent bipartisan transportation finance commission found that the commonwealth faces a transportation funding gap between fifteen and nineteen billion dollars over the next twenty years a figure that does not include the cost of any new projects which are vital to growing our economy just four months later the tragic collapse of the i thirty five w bridge in minnesota was a jarring lesson to the need for us to be careful stewards of our transportation infrastructure the events in minneapolis or a sad reminder that to the people of massachusetts where the bolts holding up a tunnel ceiling tile took the life of an innocent woman in the summer of two thousand and six previous gubernatorial administrate saddled the massachusetts turnpike authority and the to the state's major transit agency which serves three fourths of the state with fox four point five billion dollars in big debt diverted capital payments to pay for salaries and benefits rather than infrastructure and left no viable plan to pay for the capital replacement commitments or to expand service over many years decision makers have taken the easy way out opting for quick fixes like property sales and risky swap ati deals to buy more time instead of tackling the fundamentals even so the massachusetts turnpike authority has no capital plan to speak of on the metropolitan highway system and no ability to access markets to raise cash t looking at a two point seven billion dollars worth of deferred maintenance and commits nearly thirty cents of every dollar operating dollar to debt service instead of real service the massachusetts highway department pays a significant portion of staff salaries on the capital budget we cut grass today and twenty years later children are still paying for them to patrick and i have worked hard to change some of these irresponsible practices but we still have a long way to go lack of investment also contributes to increased congestion and one thousand nine hundred eighty commuting times averaged about twenty one minutes in massachusetts by two thousand and six commute times increased to twenty six minutes now perhaps five minutes doesn't seem like much of an increase but when you take that trip twice a day two hundred fifty times a year you're talking about forfeiting two full days per year in additional commuting time that you did not have to in one nine hundred eighty while congestion was once largely limited to eastern massachusetts increasingly we see congestion in the fringes of greater boston and in the central and western part of the state the chairman neal referred to including i two ninety in wister i won ninety one in springfield and route seven in pittsfield springfield metropolitan area experienced over four million hours of delay in two thousand and five wasting about two point five million gallons of fuel each day massachusetts drivers drive forty million vehicle miles just on our freeway system alone all those miles on freeway system on our freeway system totals which totals just twenty five hundred lane miles the congestion caused by that stunning arithmetic of supply and demand adds to sixty two million gallons of fuel wasted on an annual basis that wasted fuel contributes to global warming worsens our local and regional air quality  and with gasoline to two hundred fifty a gallon plus it takes tens of millions of dollars out of the massachusetts economy conservative estimates by the texas transportation institute put the combined cost of extra fuel and lost productivity at nine hundred dollars a year for each boston area rush hour driver twenty years ago that cost is only one third as much and by no way our problems are limited to our roads and highways r service whether on subway or commuter freight rail is unreliable on many lines and inadequate on others this makes it difficult for some to access job opportunities in certain communities and has a negative impact on shipping goods from our local communities we are currently working diligently with other new england states to strengthen and expand our regional rail options but we know that we need strong support from the federal government to make these plans a reality logan airport boston's major international airport serves more than twenty eight million passengers and has crowded runways just like many other airports throughout the country these delays impose a real and very expensive cost in our society as this committee reviews the highway and transit needs that may be funded from the highway trust fund please consider including significant funding for maintenance of our existing system bridges like the longfellow provide critical links for our economy and their importance is magnified if we hope to fully recover from the recession states like massachusetts and states and every corner of the country need financial help to get these important jobs done i want to thank the hundred eleventh congress for its support today and i'm confident that its continued leadership will help us make the necessary investments to keep us safe but also looking ahead for a brighter economy thank you thank you very much chairman the ailing members of the subcommittee thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you in my capacity as chair of the american public transportation association apt and general manager of the metropolitan area rapid transit authority marta in atlanta as the chair of an app and a public transit veteran of over thirty years who worked at one model please allow me to express on behalf of our industry our heartfelt sympathy and prayers for everyone here in the model transit system customers employees and the loved one of those who tragically lost their lives in this week's accident all of those affected truly remain on all of our minds and in our prayers since our inception as a nation for over two hundred years our transportation infrastructure and national transportation investment have played a central role in our success on fortune really in these extremely economically challenging and uncertain time as we approach the next  federal service transportation authorization that primacy international leadership role and best in class position of our surface transportation infrastructure and public transport services is no longer the case by all accounts pick any of almost a dozen similar reports over the last three to four years and the extent of overall agreement on the critic of the transportation vision funding structure and governance challenges the challenges facing us is more than well and convincingly documented the availability reliability and security of our national transportation network is that great risk including a serious lack of quality public transport options and choices which comes at a time when despite lower gas prices and economic recession and record unemployment levels increasing numbers of americans took ten point seven billion dollar billion trip on public transportation which is the highest record level that we pay it and fifty two years at this critical moment in time it is very encouraging to see the evidence renewed commitment at the federal level to public transportation and passenger rail invest this commitment is important for a variety of reasons that the members of this committee more than no projections in terms of increase growth in the united states over the next thirty to forty year period will be another hundred fifty million people i know i happen to be in one of the six states that will wind up spending the majority of that growth if all of the projections of the american planning association brookings institution are correct these population projections are among the most basic of arguments for our future infrastructure investment chairman the alan members of the committee we believe that the bipartisan framework presented by the house transportation infrastructure committee presents us with an opportunity to meet the many state regional and local needs across this country but to also address numerous public policy challenges facing the nation as a whole public transportation provides mobility that contributes to national goals and policies to increase global economic competitiveness energy independence environmental sustainability congestion mitigation and emergency preparedness for an individual user public transportation money reduces carbon emissions and provides people with choice freedom and opportunity what i say at home is that if one were going to wind up making an investment that was going to wind up having a documented multiple multiplier effect and if i had i'm not a betting woman but if i had one bit that i was going to wind up making in terms of where i would wind up putting that public investment certainly making that investment in our public transportation infrastructure and services is a sure way to realize public transportation as many contributions at the national local level we are looking to have a man among the dilatation of doubling a public transportation ladder ship over the next twenty years and to address before aforementioned national goals and policies app that is recommending a federal public transportation program at a minimum of one hundred twenty three billion over the next six year authorization period we also extremely strongly support the development of a viable inner city passenger rail program which will require its own dedicated and reliable source of funding the funding that our proposal calls for aims to address both system expansion and the critical maintenance of transit capital asset to ensure a state of good repair we've had both of the two national reports that have documented the significant lack that we have between what we have as need as well as what we have in terms of what we're currently funding and then of course most recently we have the report that came out from that took the focus on the seven major systems and documenting gaps today of all fifty billion dollars in terms of annually in terms of a need for additional funding the state of good repair mr chairman when it comes down to it the real issue before all of us is one of national goals and priorities increased investment and performance performance and the estimate of the total annual resources needed to maintain and improve our public transportation systems from all sources is roughly fifty nine point two billion dollars the asto bottom line report basically agrees with that number and it's based on looking at ridership growth of approximately three and a half percent annually over the next twenty year period of time so to sum up after the proposal recommends an investment of one hundred twenty three billion dollars over the next six years that is a substantial down payment that does not fix the problem this proposed increase in the program is offered with a goal of meeting at least fifty percent of the estimated sixty billion dollars in current annual capital  by the end of the authorization period and support a projected doubling of transit ridership over the next twenty years and for most of funding must be sufficient to address the capital investment needs called for by the nation's population growth but i continue to say that there are three legs to this too there is a need for day to day operations and rehabilitation state of good repair and capital investment for expansion and those are the lay of the stool and all of us do have to read sufficient funding certainly all of that by no stretch of the imagination should be the role of the federal government and it is imperative that the funding for transportation investment be equitable on a level playing field stable and reliable whether they be from federal state or local forces or from public transportation generated revenue or public private partnership definitely in the current economic maelstrom a fresh look at the very real need for some public transport operating assistance is extremely real and finally it  critical that the transportation finance legislation developed by this committee recognize that all funding mechanisms don't work at the same level of the sufficiency and effectiveness for all modes we do believe  that the predictability of the dedicated funding within the mass transit account of the highway trust fund has been extremely important and critical to thousands of our members and transit systems across the country we hope that surface transportation find financing has been on jazz high risk for several years and we view it as a topic of considerable importance focus on three topics today first collection and distribution of highway accounts and second mechanisms to help maintain highway account solvency and third options for improving long term sustainable of the highway trust fund i have several figures i'd like to refer to the first shows actual and projected highway account balance from fiscal years two thousand and five and two thousand federal excise taxes on motor fuels or about eighty eight percent of revenue while truck related taxes accounted for the remaining twelve percent is shown in the third figure highway account operations are somewhat complex treasury collects excise taxes from businesses allocates a portion to the highway account and adjust the estimated allocations after i r s after the i r s certifies the actual amount bird test was designed to ensure there are adequate funds to reimburse the other is intended to align outlays with revenues known as revenue aligned budget authority or rob these mechanisms in modified over time most recently  safety to the point where they are either no longer relevant or limited in effect and furthermore neither mechanism is designed to deal with your term shortfalls in the balance in february two thousand and nine we made several recommendations to  website on monthly changes in the balance and has been proactive in communicating in short turning to options in the long term ability of a highway trust fund well more money would help keep the highway accounts solvent such action would not insure long term sustainability nor address the need for improved performance on our nation's surface transportation program as reported on the need to restructure existing federal transportation programs including the need to improve long term financial  we've also reported on several options that could be used to better align highway account expenditures and revenues one option is to improve the efficiency of current infrastructure for better managing existing capacity another option would be to alter existing revenue sources to be better aligned ivate sector participation to help states and local governments project in closing revenues from motor fuels and truck related taxes are not keeping pace with authorized spending levels this was major magically apparent last summer despite an eight the last reauthorization bill price sixteen members and we released our final report paying our way a new framework for transportation finance earlier this year i want to talk about the findings of that report and bottom line is  that we as a nation have reaped the benefits of previous generations foresight and investments but over the last few decades we've grown complacent we're expecting to be served by high quality infrastructure even as we've devoted less and the actual amount that an average driver pays per mile driven has fallen fifty percent in real dollars since that period the average american is actually paying half of what they used to pay and g d p has gone up by almost over double li over that period of time as a result combined highway and transit spending as a share of g d p has fallen by about twenty five percent during that period in more recent years the highway to me the federal gas tax receipts have  experience acumen have lost purchasing power by thirty three percent since one thousand nine hundred three the last time the federal gas tax was raised so i guess i would argue that the shortfall while certainly one definition of the shortfall is is what we're talking about now which is current obligations versus current revenues we would argue the shortfall is really a thirty five year old shortfall and it's a shortfall between what we need as a nation to keep pace and make modest improvements versus what we're actually what we actually invested and that's really been going on for now i would argue since about the mid one nine hundred seventy since we really started to seriously under invest in our system one example of that since one nine hundred ninety  eighty to two thousand and six the total number of miles traveled by automobiles almost doubled up ninety seven percent largely because america because there are more americans there are more workers and we have more money so people are driving  more miles traveled by trucks one up one hundred sixty percent over that period of time the same period the highway miles grew four point four percent so chairman neal you alluded to the problem of kids complaining about getting there on their trips  this is the reason they complain more because it just takes a lot longer to get anywhere because we simply haven't expand the capacity on the highway side or the transit side we estimate that in current year the revenues raised by all of government for capital investment in highways and transit will total only about a third of what we need the roughly two hundred billion dollars estimated to maintain and improve the nation's highway and transit system at the federal level we estimate federal expenditures will be about thirty two billion compared with what we think the hundred billion that we need to raise the gap is actually quite significant there are different estimates we had our own estimates as a commission the other follow the policy commission and slightly higher estimates deity's conditions and performance reported two thousand and six has slightly lower estimates but all three have very large estimates going forward when we think about where the gap will be if we don't do anything to improve revenues we estimate is commission that there be a four hundred billion dollars gap at all levels of between two thousand and ten and two thousand and fifteen and a two point three trillion dollars gap to twenty thirty five so we think the problem is is quite significant in terms of in terms of how do we get to me in terms of purchasing power we  estimated at a conservative forecast in terms of where we're going to be we think it's certainly possible that over the next decade we're going to see a significant increase in low mileage cars including possibly all electric cars but certainly hybrid plug in hybrids and other types of vehicles that don't really pay very much into the highway trust fund so under our conservative forecast going forward we estimate that absent any is about a twenty five percent decline but we think that forty percent decline is certainly possible given the expected sleep changes i just one last point on all this is that i think it is important to recognize that there are potential improvements  and when we can get farther if we do things more efficiently one of the things we estimated as a commission was if we were to rely more aggressively on pricing strategies and tolling particularly congestion pricing in a large congested metropolitan areas we believe that we can reduce the level of capital needed by twenty six percent from just to maintain the system and fifteen percent from the baseline forecast of improvement however even though the core principle we believe commission that that going forward we believe the highway trust fund should be paid for out of out of user fees that's the most efficient way to raise the money and most efficient way in terms of sending the right signals to users and we hope that that principle can be can be adopted on forward thank you thank you dr bush mr chairman and members of the committee on behalf of the american road and transportation builders association i want to thank you for this opportunity to testify we face to serious problems with the highway trust fund that only this committee can properly address first we have to deal with the short term solvency of the trust fund to keep projects going and protect jobs we have a five to seven billion dollars shortfall this year ten billion dollars shortfall next year if we don't deal with that five to seven billion dollars shortfall this year and states have to start shutting down projects because they don't have the money we have two hundred  forty thousand jobs throughout the country that would be in jeopardy if we don't do the ten billion dollars infusion next year to keep the program where it is now c b s says that the maximum funding that the trust fund could support next year would be about twenty five to twenty six billion dollars every state would have to take about a thirty five percent cut and that would wipe out more than four hundred thousand jobs or more than a quarter of the jobs that would be supported are created by the  recovery act for example we have a map showing what each state would lose and how many jobs would be in jeopardy that's in our prepared statement massachusetts for example would lose about two hundred million dollars and that would wipe out about seven thousand jobs in the state that are supported by that funds we are due to address the current fiscal year issue immediately and the two thousand and ten shortfall as part of a robust six year authorization which brings me to the most important issue i want to deal which is the immense gap between projected revenues into the highway trust fund in the nation's enormous unmet highway and mass transit investment that we need to address in the next service transportation authorization every two years the u s department of transportation reports to congress on conditions and performance of the highway and mass transit systems as part of its report the department uses sophisticated economic models to calculate the annual investment by all levels of government that would be needed just to maintain as well as to actually make economically beneficial improvements to both systems when you combine the u s the o t estimates with real world information on highway construction costs and assume a federal share of highway investment consistent with that of the past several decades it's clear that the federal highway program in the next reauthorization needs to be fun d just to maintain current conditions between sixty two and sixty nine billion dollars a year which is very close to what mr oberstar and the committee are proposing to contrast that to revenue is projecting annual revenue over the next authorization between thirty two and thirty five billion dollars that means we're looking at a revenue gap compared to what we need to just maintain conditions of about thirty one billion dollars a year over that six year period and in fact projected revenues has been pointed out not even support continued highway funding at the current level of forty point seven billion dollars  we have a chart in our testimony which you can look at which compares revenues and needs and current highway investment and the fact is revenues investment for decades have been falling short of what our needs are which is why congestion has been getting worse and the system has been deteriorating and the trances system needs the same kind of has the same kind of massive gap between needs and revenues congress has three options for dealing with us one is to increase highway trust fund revenues another is to let spending all the third is to increase the federal deficit by borrowing the difference virtually everyone who has objective leads salmon this issue will be affected by it the major general business organizations the highway user groups and most importantly the two blue ribbon panels that congress charted in safety lew to look at this issue  publicly urging congress to increase the federal motor fuel excise tax and index them to inflation to fund the next authorization bill and we urge you to take this action along with other revenue and hansie measures which we've suggested in our testimony are also firmly believe that in order to remain economically competitive our nation needs to begin a focused accelerated program to ensure that we have the infrastructure nev's necessary to facilitate the safe and efficient movement of fre we call it the critical commerce corridors program to finance this new initiative outside the gas tax we are proposing an act of a new federal freight related see a highway transportation services tax that analysis available to the to the committee we hope you'll give it serious consideration a chairman the next surface transportation authorization bill represents a critical opportunity for congress to restore the nation's transportation system to the status it once best in the world we look forward to working with you in any way we can to make that happen thank you want to thank the panel for their testimony and in the round of questioning secretary you testified about the need for an additional twenty billion dollars for the highway trust fund to keep it solvent to march of two thousand and eleven do you envision that some of the stimulus money for transportation progress projects might lessen the need for this infusion or we don't think it lessens it for two reasons first of which is the stimulus money is actually even though it goes for exactly the same type of projects which are found out of the highway trust fund it's actually not provided through the trust fund it's a direct appropriation of general funds so the presence of those dollars actually doesn't it has no effect on the balance on the highway trust fund and the second is that it does dollars are already committed to projects one hundred years ago the legislature required the bridge to be designed it extra cost to accommodate a train line that didn't even exist before side of those officials was extraordinary by any measure particularly given i want to go this bridge still is today to the local economy considering the testimony about urgent and immediate repairs needed around the country how are you and local leaders able to successfully press for the long range long lasting projects like the longfellow bridge a reminder  as part of our history in massachusetts that it was a son of a massachusetts who ran bill dodge who was later elected to congress from iowa who met a blank in an oval office convinced him to proceed with the transcontinental railroad so we're mindful of how important transportation projects are and you might speak a bit to that vision that included the longfellow bridge well certainly our immediate challenge is to address issues of ordinary maintenance and safety issues as relates to our road rail and bridge infrastructure but we also know as demonstrated by the foresight with the long tail of bridge that there are opportunities that exist in massachusetts and new england today in the same way they were present over a hundred years ago when they went flowed the longfellow bridge you're familiar mr chairman with the knowledge court or which what is your district in congress and over we have well over a dozen colleges and universities and through and hopefully with the systems of the federal government that we have an opportunity and new england not just massachusetts but to link up that intellectual capital with workforce opportunities business and research  the same way that exist right now in kendall square so yes we have a responsibility to react and try to address those pressing immediate safety transportation needs but we're also trying to engage in this proactive regional planning which is important and we see in the western part of the state through connecticut to new york up to vermont some real opportunities we know right now just for example in maine the north the downeaster there are people commuting on a daily basis from portland maine to boston taking that train an hour and a half so if we can cross pollinate options where people can study live work lot of opportunities in economic development  dr scott you mentioned that approximately one quarter of all greenhouse gases generated in the u s come from transportation and that this is one area that you would like us to focus on in addition to recommending to congress on public transportation other other suggestions about how to make public transportation itself more energy efficient yet there is no question but that the focus in terms of being able to go back into the system and really wind up making the kind of additional investment state a good repair new technology looking in terms of what we can do from the sustainability standpoint clean fuels all of this comes together and so once again very much tied to the ability to be able to do significantly increased investment but at the same time i think the point another point that i want to make that i think is absolutely critical is that it is about more money but it is also about being able to synergistically be able to tie up all of these policies and connect the dots so that significantly increased investment but also needs to wind up having different kinds of growth and land use patterns and policies and we've done some tremendous work at our state level in terms of trying to connect those dots and actually showing that it is a combination of increased investment demand management strategy as well as different approaches in terms of how we  ll and build out that together winds up giving us a tremendous multiplier effect one that i could give you numbers in the range of if we just keep kind of doing it the way we do it and significantly increase investment yes we can recommendations was to allow states and localities to devise new approaches to raising the funding needed to partner with the federal government ways and means committee recently devised a new type of taxable governmental body called the build america bond in response to requests from local leaders for innovative what kind of alternative approaches to the commission consider thank you chairman who would we consider that a lot of different approaches in the report and what we ended up recommending with regard to state and local flexibility for other approaches principally were related to tolling pricing and then financing around that i do want to make an important distinction between financing and and funding there are lots of different proposals on the table for financing efforts financing entities including a national infrastructure bank but at the end of the day all of that has to have a revenue stream and that revenue streams got to be generated somewhere we think that in many cases that revenue stream and most appropriately is going to be user fees is going to be tolls of some kind then that the projects will generate unfortunately there are significant restrictions on tolling in federal law we as a commission unanimously supported proposition a recommendation to allow tolling on any existing interstate system in a metro area of a million or more principally to be used for congestion pricing to allow tolling for any new construction projects that would be there and then also to put in place a new tolling incentive from talking to a lot of states they would like to do this and some are moving forward but i think if the federal government were to provide some real incentives for them to move in this direction it would be easier politically for them to move in the direction of doing more tolling just close by saying we don't think tolling is the answer but we think it is best to play a key role in going forward along with the revenues dollars how helpful of the stimulus funds been to fill in these gaps in the state at least on a temporary basis i think that's the important word right there which is temporary that this one time injection may help of a little bit  certainly not solving the problem we have thirty billion dollars shortfall between needs and and revenues and a one time injection of twenty six billion dollars may help now certainly doesn't deal with the main issues which is that there are a lot of road projects transit improvements that are needed that you know once the money is finished that gap is still there the chair will not recognize mr teaberry for the purposes of inquiry thank you mr chairman i think you would agree with me that the easy part has been done and the other thing that everyone here i think has acknowledge the needs and the needs around america are great the difficult part is what we need to do and that is to find the money for those needs and embrace me too to you dr agatston your testimony was very good let me give you a perspective and how you answer that perspective with respect to the cost or the funding in ohio where i come from we pass a gas tax increase in two thousand and six the governor's task force just this year recommended another thirteen which will put ohio at forty one now my state is a donor state we are donating to the highway trust fund we give back about ninety cents for every dollar but yet our needs are great and ohio is a donor state at the same time that we're losing population four of our five largest cities of last population over the last nine years mostly to southern states which by the way have a lower gas tax a lower unemployment rate lower tax rates in general and yet we seem to be subsidizing them under this current highway formula and by the way ohio is losing two congressional seats mostly to those other states is it time for us to relook at this formula as we're really looking at the funding of infrastructure projects to make it more fair for states like ohio who are separately from what we're doing here today are making themselves less competitive by virtue of trying to do more on their own at the same time there being a downer  state we had a commission of a set of fifteen members and they were from all over the country and in part i think because of that we did not come to any consensus on that donor for the same reason i think it's hard for congress to co consensus on it having said that one of the reasons by the way i think that is moving more in the direction of tolling and pricing is important is because it gives states a lot more control over that money themselves they get to keep it and  as more of the system moves in that direction as states like texas and florida have done for example that money doesn't go back to the federal government stage right in the states so that certainly one option i know doesn't address directly or your concern mr ha a recap of what the recovery act in the stimulus bill did for massachusetts on the transportation end but one hundred fifty three million off the top my head is going out the transportation infrastructure which is allowing for  practical purposes what we have is our transportation improvement programs we have i think over a dozen regional planning organizations which municipalities sometimes on their own or in tandem submit  approval and part of that approval process is both at the state and federal level but that one hundred fifty three million dollars is going to allow us to a clear a lot of the projects that we're waiting for funding to get moving and so a number of examples handled example you've already begun to kind of break ground on those across the state and certainly we've tried to take into account through that process the geographic  that chairman referred to making sure that all parts of the state of benefiting from that but it has been helpful and then in turn that will allow projects that municipalities on their own or in a regional basis that are on the waiting list trying to work in tandem with the stimulus money with some capital on bills that we passed on our own with the legislature last year on transportation and accelerated bridge program to begin to address a lot of these legislation this half a trillion dollar transportation bill something that is trying to offset something we didn't do right in the recovery bill in other words if the recovery bill had in fact of the stimulus bill had in fact been what it was supposed to be in my opinion and that was to stimulate the economy through infrastructure needs are we offsetting that in this transportation bill it what's called an on board unit which would be a device in a car it would receive a one way signal from a satellite with a g p s device on it to tell the car where it is and ice really stress it's a one way signal  no one knows where the car is except in the car and then what would what it would do would be to calculate how much money you have to pay given the road you're on and then when you would and what oregon to do that when you go to a gas station you would instead of paying the gas tax you would simply pay the money through that so there's no trip data that's ever transmitted outside the vehicle and in that sense we actually think it's more private than the current toll road system where toll road operators and potentially you mr chairman thank you for your time today in the interest of full disclosure i come from the state of illinois which is sad to say dysfunction over the past several years is an understatement but as it relates infrastructure it's put incredible pressure on the entire state and the scene is good there is very serious infrastructure needs but i was really sort of sobered by the lieutenant governor's comments and jotted a couple of things down and then i recaptured it in your testimony and you hit the nail on the head in my view lieutenant governor because the sort of challenge to leadership and that is insofar as decision making let me tell you what i mean you said and you were speaking of your predecessors i assume i'm not familiar with all the inside baseball of massachusetts politics but you said decision makers have taken the easy way out and then later on nearly thirty cents of every operating dollar is paid to debt service instead of real service gave this ironic but you really captured it we cut grass today and twenty years later kids are going to be paying for it that's a powerful message and that is a message that i think congress frankly needs to sort of where that mantle in a way and my concern is sort of the  easy way of spending on this that we've seen coming from this congress sort of has that that feeling of we're just going to kick the can down the line we it took forty three american presidents from george washington to george w bush for us to acquire five trillion dollars of debt yet this congress and this administration will double that number in five years and will triple that number in ten years and that is a sobering figure so as we're moving forward my sense is that the person you know i have a great deal of respect for each one of you and your background and experience but i think the guy that was focusing in on the remedy is mr her when that figure three of his presentation when he was basically saying look this is and i'm paraphrasing now this is dysfunctional the way the way this happens right now and i'm really admonition that comes from the lieutenant governor will rest on us again and we're going to be back in this position again so i'm interested in your perspective on things let's set the revenue question aside let's accept the premise that there's more revenue that are needed in the system  issues and there's several things for key principles that we put out that orient the work that we've done one well defined goals direct links to what the federal interest is and some of that some of that reflected in some of the discussions in this country and although it didn't do as much for transportation is one of those it was i believe an important shot in the arm and and i agree with those who think we need to get that money out as fast as one thing on the chart that we have that explains the highway program formula funding the federal share of investment needs for two thousand and ten and then the stimulus money that has gone out  twenty six billion stimulus has gone out that's what has been apportioned out to those and there's still another how much less well on the that was that that was the amount that was going to be apportioned out of the state the total for the highway program was twenty seven and a half so that's the total very interested in an issue that has come to my attention in the fairly recent future and and that's the improvements that we can make in regard to transportation safety as it applies opportunity available to us but you also mentioned federal incentives to make that more politically acceptable what types of incentives were you talking about there which we  toll projects ready to go and either with public funding or with going out to private markets getting all the work done ahead of time to make this is a feasible project getting the environmental review getting the financial analysis help doing that but the major part of the grant graham we propose a capital gap grant program in other words if you look just my area where i live washington d c virginia is doing an expansion of the beltway and they're financing it through  a private company they told revenue doesn't fill all of the revenue gap and so the state is coming in with adding from from there or from their own money to fill that gap we think there's an important role the federal government could play where they would  so we went in vision of the system is essentially the federal government on the roads they want our recommendation was on the national highway system doesn't have to be that could be something different states would then set a charge on so simple it just automatically calculates that so if you're driving on a segment a road you might be paying a half a cent a mile for the federal to the federal government a half a set of miles to the state and maybe a half a cent a mile to the locality that all gets we have a crush and we know exactly what to do we restore the integrity of the trust fund and in the short term that means dealing with the resources that are there and in the long term study it seems to me like that is sending a signal to the private sector and state and local government that rely on a dedicated trust fund to be able to make long term be doing the needs are so great an eighteen month extension just doesn't make sense given what we need to do i think the stars are aligned in part because the problem is just gotten worse and worse and worse and i think there's a much stronger consensus this time around that there's a real serious need here and just make one quick comment in reference to your comment on d m t congressman and that we think that we can move forward on the issue that we don't have to make a decision right now that we're going to do this but we can we do think congress can make a decision to move farther down with that and really look at it seriously get the pilot programs in place as you've done in oregon we need to do more of that so it's not a we're not at the decision now but if it's no right now we're never going to get there if there are other missions that we can get for the record i would appreciate mr chairman i appreciate your courtesy apologize for going a little over but let me just conclude with one thought and that is dwight david eisenhower and ronald reagan understood a user fee supported trust and they both supported user fees for that trust and i'm hopeful that this congress and the new administration can get back to where eisenhower and reagan  sooner rather than later thank you very much thank you gentlemen i like to point out that on federal highway ninety one if you start in vermont and make your way all the way down through connecticut it's known by signage as the eisenhower federal highway system was to record the gentleman from washington will inquire thank you you're chairman first of all i apologize for having to step out i was attending a congressional gold medal award ceremony for high school students in the other building and it kind of ties into what we're talking about today in my opinion but i was here for your testimony heard all your testimony and i took two pages of notes but i have a couple of prepared questions since we're running short on time you know for the sake of our youth our kids and our grandkids we need to get this right as well as a lot of other major issues of course that we're dealing with and these are some very impressive young people that we just met with and recognized for their contribution already to this society that we live in the greatest nation in the world and so we need to have a forward looking plan for all of the issues that you have all talked about within your testimony and my first question is for dr booker you mentioned in your written testimony one of the american road and transportation builders association is recommendations for a possible solution to our freight mobility problem is your critical commerce quarters proposal and this is very similar to a program  described in the bill that congressman adam smith and i have co sponsored called the national rate mobility infrastructure act and of course this is trying to lay out a plan for the the current highway program deals with issues with with out focusing on solving problems that need to be solved one of the problems that the country faces today is that freight is growing truckers find a lot of congestion bottlenecks there's a lot of costs involved from the inadequate capacity on the highway system so we proposed a program that would be coordinated with the federal highway program but funded separately from it called critical commerce corridors that would finance  projects and infrastructure that would be related directly to our free transportation needs like truck on the lanes connections to rail and ports and things like that that would be financed by user fee that would be paid by by freight related transportation a bill of lading tax we have proposed and we're going to give the committee a study on a transportation services tax where providers are purchasers of transportation services would pay in a sense kind of a sales tax on the value of the services and that would go directly into a fund that would be  you need to look like after you've applied all these  numbers because i know that's not what i asked this question i haven't done the state level i know how tough it is to balance any kind of numbers but recognizing we're going to have to move to do something continue to be on the short end of the big stick and this is a discussion with which i think here i will stick to what the secretary has said about this before when asked a fairly similar question which is think technically the source of the transfer would be the general fund that should be counterbalanced by an offset or revenue of some kind back to the general fund some ideas for sources of that i think are starting to be discussed by the asked to the gentleman in question and i'll just kind of paraphrase it yes i actually heard about the ohio situation with their gas yeah and it relates to what mr etheridge talked about as well from a different perspective but how do i tell my constituents back in ohio that they should have a a they increase the regular federal gas tax or they just increase the two thousand the gas tax in two thousand and six as a proposal to increase another thirteen cents in ohio because from an ohio perspective it would be better for them to vote for a while gas tax rate than the federal gas tax because all that money stays and while the user fee point rather than getting ninety cents of every dollar they spend on gas tax for a thorough rate while our state is losing population has a higher unemployment than most other states gets less money back and other states are doing better as the administration or mr secretary of hud our good friend talked about how to if we're going to make a bold move with respect to highway funding do it in a bigger bolder way rather than rely on a formula that's been around for longer than we've been alive i will i think my prior answer with regard to the fact that you all may be more competent to work out the question of between one state and another where the equity lies with the formula than we are what i will say though is i'm extremely sympathetic with position here and when i worked in state government in pennsylvania i think the second highest national infrastructure is a national problem and probably a national response is inappropriate i don't know of any government program which is perceived by all to be completely equitable on a state by state basis everyone has their that constant reminder for our purpose i want to thank the panelists today for the testimony on this very important subject you may receive some written follow up questions from members and i hope you will respond probably so that we may include your