getting the appointed time having slightly gotten past us the hearing will be in order but we have as our guest today cabinet secretary with the department of transportation welcome mr secretary welcome to the subcommittee you know the committee was workings before we're very happy to have you back again i want to thank you for coming before us to explain the president's two thousand and eleven budget submission request for the department of transportation you've been on the job now just over a year and nearly your entire leadership is is in place during this time the department has taken a number of successful steps  forward to transform and modernize is transportation system particular in particular the recovery act provided you with an opportunity to rebuild faltering infrastructure lay the foundation for transfer trance formative new initiatives and create tens of thousands of new jobs however this transformation has been hindered by some complications that we face last year namely lack of progress on the long term service  and the continued insolvency the highway trust fund my understanding the department embarked on a surface transportation reauthorization outreach tour as a first step in developing the administration's reauthorization proposals given the national long term impacts of changes to the authorization and financing structural have believe the information the administration must exert great leadership in this area and will and i'll look forward to seeing the product of your tour the president's budget as so important and complex goals namely reducing our national debt and sustaining an environment for continued economic growth that produces good paying jobs for the american people subcommittees challenge will be to produce a bill that is fiscally responsible and yet doesn't stifle the momentum that was created from the critically important infrastructure investments that were made last year and will be continued to be made this year the twenty eleven budget proposal before us requests a total of seventy eight billion roughly i think that's our so i hope that's the largest difference we have i think your testimony suggested seventy nine billion dollars but we won't quibble about the one for the agencies and programs within the department of transportation and includes a modest increase of roughly two billion dollars  or cent increase for from the school year two thousand and ten the department of transportation's budget requests propose some significant new initiatives in particular i'm very pleased to see the inclusion of five hundred twenty seven million for the livable communities initiatives as you and secretary donovan testified before the subcommittee last year transportation and housing are inextricably linked the forward to a long have been treaties treated as separate spheres i look forward to hearing more about the department's plans to improve coordination with e p a and hud and as importantly with india ots own agencies namely that a highway and federal transit additionally i'm interested to hear more details about the four billion national infrastructure innovation and finance fund which appears to be a private hybrid between the infrastructure infrastructure bank proposal from last year and the tiger grant application program which was a savage in the recovery act the demand for tire grants is emphasized the eminence need for transportation investments that improve the movement of passengers and freight among multiple transportation modes within aviation i'm pleased that the budget request continues even trajan's commitment to the f a s next generation air transportation system better simply known as next general this program is accommodate growth in air traffic and reduce delays by increasing efficiency management of our air space finally the department must remain vigilant when it comes to agencies course safety mission the last time highway fatalities drop below forty thousand was in nineteen ninety two which coincides with the last on this country faced a serious economic crisis however as the countries and economies started to recover in the mid to late ninety's americans returned to their vehicles and we saw significant growth in vehicle miles traveled and unfortunately we also saw a study revered by year increase in the number of highway fatalities today the latest figures from nets a show that tallit is in two thousand and eight were slightly above thirty seven thousand which is the lowest level since one thousand nine hundred sixty one americans are driving less during our current economic downturn as the economy recovers and people travel more d o t will need to remain focused on continued safety improvements across our transportation network network and in particular the recent tranche of tragedies here in washington area and other parts of the country certainly underscore the need for federal oversight minimum safety standards mr secretary who we all know that we are entering a tough budget year the fact remains are and infrastructure needs are great many roads bridges and airports require basic maintenance data good repair maintenance many communities are stifled by congestion in need of additional highway and transit capacity and we must continue to support alternative solutions such as high speed rail that are the potential to transform him from transportation networks last year i express my sincere that under your leadership we could break out of the practice of transportation silos focus on comprehensive approaches that reduce congestion improve the hearings this year and we've got a lot of a lot of work to do obviously mr secretary welcome on this very snowy day it's always a pleasure to see you here at the subcommittee and i'm going to keep my remarks to a minimum because we have a mere two hours to cover the seventy nine billion dollars you've requested for the year two thousand and eleven inquire about plans for the almost seventy six billion dollars you received just a few few weeks ago  n the year two thousand and ten that provides some oversight on the sixty seven billion dollars that the department received in f y two thousand and nine plus about forty eight billion received on the stimulus bill that's about  two hundred seventy billion dollars or two point two five billion dollars per minute so i guess we better talk fast and get underway as far as to doing some oversight so last year we were facing bankruptcy in the highway trust fund a lack of authorizations for the surface and aviation programs and a bleak economic and employment situation across the country we seem to have a bit of deja vu as we have all the same obstacles and now we have a disturbing level of national debt which we're all concerned about i think we're all hoping some of the issues were going to be resolved last year our states don't need another short repaving quote stimulus bill and these short term extensions don't allow states to do the planning and executing the need for a real highway construction and maintenance program i think we need a real bill i think would be helpful and get the ball rolling if the administration would put forth the bill on paper to bring forth the congress i don't think we really need more listening sessions we've all heard from our constituents at home and in the states so as we embark on a new budget cycle we look forward to working with you and the department i've had the pleasure of meeting with a number of your administration ers and assistant secretaries which i appreciate very very much and i'm sure we'll be able to have a good dialogue and resolve many of these issues because we have such a short time with you today and a lot of ground to cover i know the chairman is working on the schedule on a number of different topics this year and i'd like to make sure that may be a commitment from you that we have the appropriate person from the department as witnesses as we look at these different proposals that are out there so that we can do our assistant secretary for budget and chief financial officer chris bertram chris has worked very hard with the be in putting our budget together and i'm delighted to be here and thank you for the opportunity to discuss y twenty eleven budget request i've traveled to more than thirty states sixty five cities last year and i've seen firsthand how much our citizens depend on a safe modern and reliable transportation system to access access jobs healthcare and other essential services the president's request for this year total seventy nine billion dollars the two billion dollars increase over f y twenty ten levels these resources will support the president's  top transportation priorities for safety on the roads and in the air making communities livable and sustainable and modernizing our infrastructure safety is our number one priority at d o t our leadership campaigns against the perils of distracted driving which kills thousands of americans every year has been very effective it's critical we continue to lead the charge that's why we're seeking fifty million dollars for the national highway traffic safety administration to develop an incentive based grant program encouraging more states to pass laws prohibiting the unsafe use of phones and texting while driving the president is also asking for sixty six additional personnel assigned to the highway and vehicle safety issues at nitsa in the area of transit safety we're seeking thirty million dollars to establish a new transit safety oversight program within the federal transit administration this program will carry out a comprehensive safety oversight strategy by establishing common safety standards nationwide as envisioned in the administration's transit safety bill this is an important step forward for rail transit an industry which has suffered recent accidents in washington d c boston and san francisco this is unacceptable and we must put strong room he's in place as soon as possible and i'm urging congress to pass this legislation this year transportation must not only be saved but also contribute to livability and sustainable communities chairman over and mr latham and committee members thanks for your leadership in this committee's focus on livable community over the years the president's plan provides record level investments to make our communities more livable specifically we're seeking five hundred twenty seven million dollars for livable communities which will help us build on the tremendous successes we've achieved through our sustainable partnerships with put an e p a together we're helping states and local governments make smarter investments in their transportation energy and housing infrastructure with better outcomes for our citizens our groundbreaking infrastructure in high speed passenger rail which have generated tremendous excitement around the country will go a long way to enhance livability in many communities our budget seeks one billion dollars to can continue the five billion five year pledge congress made in this year's budget and i want to thank you mr  and mr latham and the committee for your commitment leadership on high speed rail so far two point five billion dollars your committee provided the department for high speed rail grants last year combined with a billion which we announced last week brings us closer to usher in in a new era for passenger rail service in this country going forward we must find new ways to finance infrastructure we requested four billion dollars to establish a new infrastructure innovation finance fund these first year funds would be used to invest in multilingual transportation projects a regional and national significance are cross cutting outcomes based approach to funding will enable us to move away from the silo mentality that has long hindered our ability to respond to local and regional needs on reauthorization the president proposes to continue current spending levels with forty two point one billion for highways and bridges and ten point eight billion for transit this request includes one hundred fifty million dollars to enable the washington metropolitan area transit authority to address much needed safety related infrastructure improvements turning to aviation the president's plan includes one billion dollars for next gen the program to modernize our air traffic control system that's a two hundred seventy five million dollars or thirty two percent increase over fiscal two thousand and ten levels these funds are essential for transitioning from a ground base radar surveillance system to a more accurate satellite based system the system is already in use in the gulf of mexico and we look forward to building on our success in this area finally we're seeking thirty million dollars to make more long term long overdue investments improvements in the u s merchant marine academy this is been a goal of mine from the very beginning i want to make the merchant marine academy the jewel that the other academies are we have wonderful wonderful students there overnight hundred they work very hard and we want to make sure the facilities are there for them to accomplish their academic goals and we just completed a blue ribbon report which we will be happy to give the committee which outlines in great detail the infrastructure needs that are need that are needed at the merchant marine academy and i eat the reason for the thirty million dollars i look forward to your questions hundred twenty seven million for the livable communities program to support an issue does it increase transportation choice integrate housing and land use into transportation decisions i'm pleased to see that you're working closely with and with the p a and and others i understand at least maybe you can say more about that in this effort but i am curious how how actually  what's your concept of how the five hundred twenty seven million that you're asking for here which is a new new item important item how that is to be deployed over the period of the of the fiscal year for which we are well since last year we've had a working group within the three agencies of staff that have worked together together to develop plans for the use of this money and and we also have traveled around the country and looked at places in the country where governors and mayors have put together plans for not only livable communities but livable neighborhoods when i was in allert area and saw that the kind of transportation system that goes through neighborhoods from downtown los angeles and connect people to grocery stores and drug stores and good housing i mean that that's the kind of approach that we're really looking at in terms of where people want to live some people may want to bike to work when i was in portland oregon and i drove to the streetcar then i saw over one hundred people biking to work that day so there are all forms of transportation that americans are looking for in order to get out of their car we know people are always going to have cars we know they're always going to want to they're automobiles but we also know that people want to get out of congestion they want different forms of transportation whether it's bus light rail walking biking paths and in other opportunities and so we're working with hud to make sure that there are the kind of housing stock and housing availability i would say that when we were in dubuque iowa and saw what they're doing in the in the middle works area where they had an area of downtown where i b m decided to come in with fifteen hundred new employees take over an old downtown department store and relocate these fifteen hundred employees and so what the mayor and the community leaders decided to do is take this old mill work area and completely redevelop  it they're going to need some transit they're going to need some forms of transportation some people will be able to walk to work these are the kinds of innovative approaches combining our resources with us with the e p a to really create the kind of neighborhoods and communities where here from the three departments who have a role in this initiative i mean i think what we're what we'll get to is looking at things that have worked around the country and then making very recently mine's a little longer ago i very carefully checked into how they were dealing with their complex transportation system in that roughly two million metropolitan area and about half a million come in bicycles about a half a million come in by cars in their daily use and about a half a million come in by as by bus and subway types of light rail and rail stakeholders and they they want to they want to get into this idea of creating more options with transit and bus and so forth and we're going to work with they just elected a new mayor there and thanks to mr kilpatrick's leadership of our investigation that toyota now has determined a fix for the pedal problem that has caused the acceleration but we've also had complaints about the electronics we will be invest getting  electronic components that are in in these cars to make sure that they are safe and if they aren't to have a toyota begin to take a look at that  and so i mean we were in discussions with toyota every day about these safety issues with their automobiles the reason they're where they're at today is because of our investigations our meetings with them the fact that  then are acting and it's administrator went to japan and met with the toyota officials and told them in no uncertain terms you need to get on this you've got a problem you need to fix it find the fix and as a result of that meeting they begin to take seriously the fact that they have some serious problems they believe they found the fix it's not up to nit suited to tell them that they have found it it's up to us to tell them if we think that their solution is not correct and and our will be doing investigations and studying the electronic part of it and let me tell you why we do this every year and it's a gets thirty thousand complaints and what we do we categorize them we look at them carefully and we've had some complaints about the electronics in these automobiles and that's a reason that we're going to look into it are you getting full cooperation from toyota absolutely is there any recommendation from the department or something i we're both from the midwest right you know that you get on slick roads what your car starts pulling through on ice whatever you slip it in neutral i mean is there any kind of discussion about putting out some as someone gets into a situation where the pedals just putting in neutral maybe the flying the brakes would you know why can't we publicly tell people how to respond if they get in fix the problem so people don't have to worry about disengaging the engine or slamming their brakes on putting it in neutral and that that's really our goal no i agree but i mean there's my and my and my it's my advice is if anybody owns one of these vehicles stop driving it take it to a toyota dealer because they believe they have the fix for it appreciate and we will follow up with you on that right as obviously a tremendous safety issue for a lot of folks  getting back to the reauthorization the current service program expires and on february twenty eighth seventeen business days in about ten legislative days from now is there a plan for the administration for an extension what are you we continue to ask congress to pass an eighteen month extension which would and we're prepared to you know find find the money for that and and we we believe that that gives us the time to work with congress we think the economic the forty eight billion dollars that we had starting a year ago has been well spent has put a lot of people to work it's put thousands of people to work resurface roads and bridges we're we're encouraging the president obviously encouraging the state of the union to for the congress to pass a jobs bill it's not that the president doesn't want to robust comprehensive transportation bill it's trying to find the four to five hundred billion dollars to pay for it and that's the dilemma and i talked to chairman oberstar about this at least once a week it's not that the president doesn't want to comprehensive robust bill it's trying to find the money to pay for it in the eighteen months really give the time to do that and as we finish out this portion of our economic recovery and if the congress passes another jobs bill we have an opportunity to continue to make progress on these projects around the country  this is on the people's agenda there was a real urgency obviously we're not there yet but is are going to be a proposal from the well we're working on some principles and we will continue to work with the t n i committee on these high speed rail development robust requests in these two areas represent sound investments i think appreciate your leadership in prioritizing these items particularly given the constrained fiscal environment in which we're operating as you well know the high speed rail request builds upon the funding that the president requested and congress provided in the recovery act believe me i was pleased to welcome our e p a administrator lisa jackson to durham north carolina last week to announce  major recovery act towards north carolina for a further work on the ralitsa charlotte leg of the southeast hospital rate corridor we've been laying the groundwork for this for about twenty years ever since the corridor was designated  our own investments are our efforts in building up this route have been rewarded we're well positioned now to make use of the federal funds to finish the job basically to get that rally to charlotte corridor where it needs to be ninety mile an hour speeds something just over two hours of travel time between those two points so we look forward to making this a reality let me in the time i have here turn to another item and that is the new starts program this is another area where you've brought vision and perspective to the department and i was happy to see the announcement last week that the department would  would alter the criteria the previous administration had applied to this program alter the criteria broaden the criteria that are used to evaluate new starts and small starts to transit projects rather than emphasizing only those projects that meet a limited cost effectiveness or meet a minimum requirement for decreased vehicle miles traveled or increased ridership the department will instead put greater emphasis on other criteria such as land use environmental benefits and economic development more broadly as one who argued that the prior policy was penny wise and pound foolish i applaud you for taking this step however i think we're all aware that this new flexibility is still going to apply to a finite  finite resource and the competition is going to be quite intense maybe even more intense so it's still very important for states and cities to understand these criteria and how they can address them i know there's an effort with an o e m b to measure and quantify project benefits such as economic development and environmental benefits i think we need to make sure that these measurements or any others that we apply are as straightforward as possible and are related in the real world to the kind of development we want to incentivize and reward and that we can undertake so i wonder if you could provide any further clarification this morning regarding these new criteria the new measurements any other insight about the features you're going to be looking for the projects that would fare best under these new criteria and what is the timeline for rule making on the new criteria twelve thank you for  for that i mean you said it about as well as i could say i mean the common complaint i heard during the time that i was being considered by the senate every senator said to me why does it take twelve years to get a new start because you know we go back and forth on the economic aspect of it without looking at other criteria and so we made a decision that we need to look at a whole comprehensive set of issues and there will be good competition for this but that's good because what will get us a lot of good creative opportunities and it will allow communities all over the country to compete for dollars for good projects whether it be light rail or or bus or inner city passenger rail or whatever in and do it in a way that reflects the values of the community you know in terms of livability in terms of environmental opportunities we believe th to be looking at and we're looking at a lot of different criteria and we think this enhanced lots of people's opportunities around the country and in a much shorter period of time that it will take twelve years can on that well what we're we're getting started with it right now we want to implement this very quickly so that when our budget is approved by congress we can we can begin as quickly as as we possibly can i mean we have outlined what the criteria are the changes we've made and it's all very accurate and it's just a matter now of of implementing it as quickly as possible thank you thank you  secretary great to see you thank you and you're doing a great job just a couple one housekeeping matter the last word we had on the tiger grants announcements was february seventeenth anything change in the i mean the statutory requirement project out to december the thirty first two thousand and fifteen the empire a has announced its final rule making and on january the fifteenth and despite being cognizant of that they're using the two thousand and eight map and my friends in the rail industry tell me that that may lead to over eight thousand miles on which there are traffic passenger traffic section and ten billion dollars for transit the highway trust fund doesn't generate fifty two billion dollars and so i believe that the budget proposal calls for borrowing against borrowing is the right word but taking twenty billion dollars from the general fund to fill the shortfall further it's my understanding that by taking that money are also going to reduce the contract authority from fifty four billion dollars to nine and a half billion dollars which i know has to be disconcerting to mr  oberstar and just just by editorial comment the problem with the stimulus bill was that it had some great stuff but oberstar would tell you that over half the jobs which the administration has taken credit for creating came from eight percent of the funding was the stuff under your control the other ninety two percent of the funding created the other half of the jobs the jobs bill that's currently  passed the house and being considered by the senate in my opinion repeats the same mistake it's got twenty five percent funding for things that will actually create jobs and you know that in that in the construction trades thirty percent of the people are out of work it's not ten percent it's thirty percent but with no disrespect to the leadership from california but some folks from california get in there and they have all kinds of things that have nothing to do with job creation and that gets to the six year reauthorization when mr over starr was working last year to figure out a way to get this done and despite a horrendous whipping effort by my leadership against a three month extension we got eighty five republicans to vote for the extension eighty four gets on the belief that we need a six year plan i have to tell you that even though i have the greatest respect for you in the present stage kicking this can down the road to march two thousand and eleven is irresponsible this has to be worked out this isn't a problem that you're going to all of a sudden some light bulbs going to go on after listening for eighteen months we knew it when we passed safety lou we were going to have this problem a d i'm telling you as i told mr oberstar we will bring republicans to the table i get that the democrats are scared because of some of the election results they don't want to have a tax increase on top of the other things that are going on around here but the fact of the matter is it's time for leadership on this issue and it is irresponsible in my opinion to not deal with this and you know i mean i saw you you early in your tenure made some observation about vehicle way the administration is for an eighteen month extension we're going to work with congress on that and we believe that's the best path forward i can you know i can show you many places around the country were our economic recovery money put a lot of people to work and a year ago a lot of those people were on unemployment didn't have jobs throughout the summer and fall and even into the  ater they're continuing working on these projects and and will continue for the next six months despite my fondness for you i respectfully disagree and when you look at the jobs that were created even in the construction sector they were make work  repaving projects that were program for three years people worked for a few weeks and then they were out of work again the unemployment rate in the construction trades is thirty percent we need a six year build we don't need an eighteen month welcome mr secretary you mentioned earlier visit to los angeles i want once again to thank you for being there for touring the metro goldline light rail which began revenue operations one month earlier than scheduled which adds to the very positive record that it has of being completed on time and on on budget without the loss of any time appropriations bill it includes one point three seven billion in funding for the human intervention and motivation study which is a comprehensive education and training program for alcohol and drug abuse prevention in the airline industry as you know it was originally a substance abuse prevention program only for a pilot however in twenty ten i was very pleased that at my request congress increased the funding for this very critical health and safety program to include a program director for flight attendants and can you give us an update on the status of implementing of these two programs i hopefully this last week the national transportation safety board held a hearing on the september two thousand and eight metrolink collision near los angeles and which twenty five people were killed and at that hearing the board adopted recommendations that asked the federal railroad administration to require the installation of cameras inside all controlling locomotive cabs in order to verify that train crews are operating in compliance of safety rules and operating procedures in response to the n t s b recommendation what are the department of plans to promise new regulations to require cameras inside locomotives what resources do you expect the d o t or the f r a will need in carrying out these recommendations and how will you ensure the safety and also protect employees privacy we looking at the n t s b recommendations and this goes to our number one goal at the department that safety is uppermost in our minds and in all forms of transportation we will take very seriously the recommendations i hope congress will take very seriously the idea that we're pushing pushing a transit safety bill that we think is critical for our agency the law prohibits us from from getting involved in these kinds of safety activities with transit programs we think we need that kind of involvement the way that the f r a has it over a rail and that you know so we're going to review the recommendations that's the answer to the question this will be a priority and we will look for ways to make these these systems safe and as you are well aware hundreds of transportation agencies around the nation are facing enormous deficits at this time specifically the shortfalls are often in operating funds which leads to layoffs that transit agencies at the exact time when we are trying to stem the loss of good paying jobs in america in los angeles county home to ten million residents the los angeles metropolitan transportation authority is facing a shortfall of at least two hundred fifty million in operating funds at the end of the fiscal year twenty eleven we can only imagine what a two hundred fifty million dollars operating shortfall could mean for metro its riders and its employees what are your views on giving some flexibility to the use of federal funds at least during this this time of crisis for operating costs for transit agencies and is there something that you and  you believe that it's incumbent upon us to try and be helpful to these transit systems and one of the ways we can be helpful is to allow some of the funds to be used for operations it's kind of silly to be providing funds to buy buses or whatever and then you don't have the people to drive to operate the system and so we think it's a good some of the money to be used for operations people coming on our projects that were supposed to be part of were part of the stimulus were supposed to be shovel ready and ready to go and they bump up against environmental  environmentalist take you to court and by the time you get through that process you've got to go have another environmental study about and it's a circular process seems to be delaying the construction of highways in our part of the world and way if you want to do that going to have to do it legislatively i mean one of the things that we have to abide by and certainly under the economic recovery which folks are complaining about not receiving enough for the funds  part of that legislation said we have to follow the regular guidelines for construction roads or resurfacing part of that or environmental impact statements which many of the state had completed your comment on binding arbitration to have resolved if we could get a binding arbitration statute written i'd like to comment on whether you think that's a good idea well it's not opposed i haven't thought enough about it but you know i think about it and i'll give you my opinion and i off the top of my head i just i would rather not say something that later on i might not know enough about but let me think about it and i'll get back to you well i'd like to hear from you about what one hundred ten mile an hour maximum is are still in the interest of the department to the hundred fifty plus speed trains yes sir and if you look at some of the regions we allocated money to thirteen regions around the country and in some of those regions and certainly in some parts of california and other regions the trains will go faster than one hundred ten it's a matter of using some of the resources to fix up  proposals that we received were a collaboration between the freight rail and amtrak some will build some new infrastructure but the lion's share of it will be will use existing existing tracks either through the freight or through m as there is any money available for studies to be has been studies to be done we will be announcing some some study money very soon we did that was not a part of the eight billion but we do have a chance of some money that we will be making available very soon for studies all reason i ask is that a recent study by a fridge rail company rated that is the cause the cost to revenue hadn't picked up on it but we've heard a lot lately about the commuter airlines and their safety records and lack of mine that's about life in the rules and regulations and that sort of thing could you just tell us i'd be surprised if you had paid attention to that i'm sure you had i look at airline safety is very very important priority for us and we pay a lot of attention to it every day after the colgan air crash randy ba our f a a administrator traveled the country and held twelve safety summits inviting people from the aviation industry to come in and talk about training of pilots on commuter airlines fatigue issues pay issues we make we've made some very strong recommendations to the airlines on this even before the n t s b report came out yesterday we also are in the right in the middle of a rule making which will require airlines to do certain things in terms of training terms of pay in terms of schedules and those kinds of things that that's that's our job to pay attention to these things and so we are on this we know that there is a great concern about after the colgan air i've met with the families on two different occasions so i know the heartache that they're going through a very tragic accident but since that time we've taken a number of steps voluntarily before anybody told us to get on top of this and we will have a rule making very soon on the thank you  house on the roll out of those but let me just say that your leadership in detroit particularly at the meetings that we had and since then has been extraordinary and i want you to know we're going to continue to work with you your staff the stakeholders our transit people are in detroit in the next few days meeting with the mayor and others to figure out the kind of things that you all want to do there and so they'll be some some good activity and some good planning that will continue as a result of the meetings that we had when we were there last year thank you thank you very much but on or before the seventeenth you'll be probably closer to the really those kinds of activities are done more through homeland security i mean our our job at the f a a is to work with airports to work with airlines obviously t s a is under the jurisdiction of homeland security we work a lot with homeland security but i mean i'm going to say this flying is safe i can tell you right now there are thousands of people in the air all over this country and all over the world flying is safe are there things we need to do there are things we need to do we're going to look at the n t s b recommendations but we're also going to continue to stay on top of these things because we know safety is most important of people aboard airplanes every day their destination safely and that's something that i i want i want people to know thanks in part to the fact that there are people looking out after their to get that money out the door particularly for those communities who felt that they were disadvantaged because they didn't get as much as they wanted or states didn't get as much as they wanted and immediately very immediately we're going to be announcing some study money that some states need to do but we take seriously this passenger rail that america is getting into the high speed passenger rail business and we take seriously fact that this subcommittee added two point five billion dollars in the appropriation bill the president's requesting a billion dollars in his budget so we're on our way high speed rail is coming to america and i've had out throughout the country we understand how our situation is in terms of transportation in the lack of it and the fact that we look at look at other forms of transportation and i know you heard in san antonio trying to put these resources on on on transportation and infrastructure and i ask you to comment on that as possible but i also would want you to comment on the importance of safety on rail i have a lot of small communities where those trains are going through and i could where you used to have one train a week and now we have one or two and a date and how critical it is to put the resources there you know not only and rail safety improvements and i would also ask you to comment on that look at safety is our number one priority at d o t and all modes of transportation we've paid a lot of attention particularly as to what happened in california with the train wreck what's happened here in washington d c were some people were killed on the metro system and that's the reason that we've put forth this transit safety bill that we're asking all of you to pass so we can really get into the oversight opportunity on these transit systems around america which we've been prohibited from doing by law somebody needs to provide the oversight that's the reason we put forth this bill we really encourage you to that steps up and shows that safety is a priority on on on the rail and you know the positive train control rule that we have out i think is another example of how safety is a priority on certainly on the rails and and then the work that we've done with with our f a a administrator stepping up with the twelve safety summits with the recommendations that he made after the colgan air you know immediately after the helicopter hit the small plane over the hudson the two air traffic controllers were dismissed we took direct action against the pilots who overflew minneapolis by a hundred fifty miles look we're not going to sit around on our hands waiting for somebody else to do these things when we see violations we will step up and take action we need your help on this transit safety building and you'll   work that was started with the first stimulus money we're just about ready to obligate all of that money and we were obviously pleased that the president asked congress to pass another jobs bill which would provide us substantial dollars that we can continue the progress that we're making in putting people to work let me ask you a question is it deals with the border as we talk about ports on an tonio for air and rail we have a good number of eighteen wheelers come through there coming from mexico and i mean in going to the importance of making sure the safety requirements of being license and all that and the resources that are being put in that area can you elaborate on that well every every truck that comes across is subject to very very tough safety standards every you know our people are there checking these trucks and making sure that the drivers of the trucks have the proper licenses that the vehicles are safe even though the mexican truck program was suspended we still are doing our work in checking these trucks that come across the border and then becomes really born that we continue to do that we will get the resources or that that is mr thank you once again thank you thank you surpass or good morning the secretary of morning first of all i want to thank you for the excellent job you're doing and also personally thank you for the hospitality that you've always extended to me so thank you very thank you as you know the twenty miles of light rail that we constructed has been an operation has been operated for one year and probably the and i tell you today we are in preparation to extend the line east mesas asking for an extension from the downtown area in phoenix we're looking to extend it west and south and we think that the south expansion and the west extension will get to the people that probably will need the right will need the transportation because of their social economic levels and so we continue to to work the environmental impact statement people are working and with the additional grant that will add more employment what i wanted to talk to you a little bit about is first of all thank you for the livable communities that chairman i guess two years ago two and a half years ago maybe two years ago i started this initiative and at is one that we all support but every every you provide money for the planning and the studies there are areas that have been studied have been looked at but in order to make them livable we need to so i don't know right now i know you're going to create the office but hopefully as this is being created that even within one light rail line there are different economic large apartment complex privately owned that went belly up and working with hud we were able to have the city of phoenix pick it up through all the tax credits and all the rules  particular apartment unit is less than a half mile from the light rail and so that hopefully affordable housing and light rail will increase and it's projects like that that we have an interest and that we are looking for that flexibility so that we can maximize the investment especially we have a light rail existing that will create the jobs and when when that system started and i know that is exceeding the writer ship that anybody thought and it's because people really like these kind of systems they're comfortable they're affordable they deliver people where they want to go in and on the on the little community issue we will we will certainly work with your folks you know to try and fashion things that that makes sense for for the neighborhood or for the community  also eckel what congresswoman ball because of the economic status situation at the state of arizona and the metro areas in other cities the use of federal money to and it's hard to operate these transit systems thank you thank you kaptur thank you very much mr chairman and welcome mr secretary warning great to see you again and apologize i couldn't be here earlier i had a committee conflict i wanted to say that i thoroughly enjoyed the time that we spent together  last year messina new york at the st lawrence seaway fiftieth anniversary and for you to take that trouble in your first year to go up there was really commendable and you were at the time very supportive of the long term infrastructure improvements for the seaway and that the with ministration was going to be supportive of those programs you know that the st lawrence seaway is important not just to the region but to the maritime ports of the great lakes that depend on international water borne commerce including my home port of toledo ohio in reviewing your f y twenty eleven budget request however the ten year asset renewal program i note that it is not funded at a level necessary to ensure on time completion of the projects along the seaway in fact the f y twenty ten presidents budget included an out your estimate for f y twenty eleven of eighteen point four eight two million to complete twenty five asset renewal program projects however the seaways f y two thousand and eleven submission we received earlier this week only includes fifteen point seven million for twenty projects so there appears to be a gap there and i have three questions why did the administration reduce the seaways asset renewal program budget by almost two point eight million or fifteen percent number two will this reduction require additional years to be added to the program and finally what assurances can you make that similar reductions in subsequent years will not be made to this program i'd be interested in you know general comments and then the specifics that you're after the night of my general comment is when you and i are together you know that we have a commitment to deal  their capital program and assess what they can actually spend in obligated to give you know their construction season is actually somewhat constrained up there because of the weather but we believe that the fifteen point six million is enough for their needs for twenty one now so you're saying that the president's budget the two thousand and ten budget included an out your estimate for two thousand and eleven of eighteen point four a two million for twenty five projects your budget is only covering twenty projects at fifteen point you said six because the number i had was fifteen point seven million we have fifteen point six ok and you're saying that the seaway authority has said that they don't need that addition those additional funds in twenty eleven they can't spend them right they told us it does the funding levels they need to do of the projects they can undertake and twenty one so when the department of transportation submitted its budget to o m b that is what that your office could provide on which projects were anticipated in the prior budget and what's happened in with your two thousand and eleven budget request ok and again speaking parochially i'm looking at mr la to read down the table there he and i anchor both ends of ohio and i'm sure you must've asked about i speed rail in your in your questioning of course the first projects that have been steven thank the secretary for the four hundred million bucks for the the triple c chord as i call it the dayton cincinnati cleveland columbus where we really need the administration's help if i could just take an extra minute is in the higher speed corridor or that will be pittsburgh cleveland toledo chicago which has to go through indiana for some reason and i just place this on the record the state of indiana was not able to provide a match for planning in the northern part of indiana and that has really put on hold our ability to move at high speed rail corridor or they claim they didn't have the match perhaps a secretary could get to the bottom of this and figure out you know as an as a buckeye i feel i want to work with the hoosiers but you know they've got to come to the table here and perhaps the secretary could play a role in that so that the higher speed court or could get the same attention as the court or that will go in ohio situation from cleveland to columbus to cincinnati but the more the more traveled chord or will be the pittsburgh cleveland toledo chicago corridor and we can do without indiana coming to the table but look at i would say that indiana is interested in this project we're going to be making some planning grant awards here very soon and we will be working with indiana on this part of the dilemma in some of these states is the legislature was not able to pass the match money that was true in about three or four states around the country i don't think it's for a lack of leadership on the part of governor daniels but maybe the timing wasn't right but  we're on top of this we know it's important i will also tell you that the reason the three cs was funded is because of the strong support from the governor and from the ohio initiatives is the national infrastructure innovation and finance fun i think we have started calling it a night i'm not sure whether that is the proper terminology or not but anyway  his appears as i mentioned to be combining the proposal for last year's infrastructure fund which was proposed at that time for five billion  opportunities and it certainly demonstrates a great need for investment in the infrastructure especially projects improve the movement of passengers and freight among multiple modes of of which is which include ports and and transit and air and highways now when last year that was we never got legislation for it infrastructure bank and it is not an authorized item it is a major item do you have a sense of when we will get a proposal a legislative proposal for the infrastructure bank and as you of proposed this i correct that it's sort of a hybrid between last year's infrastructure and the tiger program ok well i'm not going to refer to it as the knife because i don't particularly like that term i don't think it reflects the value of the program but i will refer to it as the infrastructure fund and we will be proposing authorization language very soon and i envision this and when you see the authorization language as an opportunity to fund multi modal projects that include highway transit rail ports and maritime doesn't particularly include components or incorporate lessons that do learn from the process of going through the the tiger grants process which is not quite complete all of us want to be able to call you to say thank you for for whatever it is that you have done at that time that certainly is true but it is as the lessons that you learned in that process already being what we receive look at we received a lot of very creative proposals from around the country almost all of multimodal and we've seen that there are lot of creative thinking a lot of creative juices flowing a lot of creative proposals and we think that what we would propose an authorization in an authorization bill is multi modal taken from some of creative things that we've seen come in from around the country under tiger  when and when people respond to a notice of funding availability it depends on the responses that you get depend very much on the capacity for the part of the  folks who are making those applications some have very great needs and not very great capacity and others have a great deal of capacity to put forth and maybe have even stronger needs if they have that capacity you have any thought about how one takes into account that there are places that have a great need but not so much in the way of capacity to  to accomplish that to help them well i mean we we've traveled around the country enough and we have relationships with enough of these stakeholders to know you know who these people are what their capacity is and what they can really you know how they can really utilize the money our people work with stakeholders day in and day out we develop lots of relationships as a result of tiger in the proposals we've received and our people are pretty good at making judgments about this i think but i'm not sort of asking are we also being good at at helping them with technical assistance absolutely is really strong absolutely need that is identified by one it's one of the ways that we've really broken down the silos to a million got transit people working with real people working with highway people because these multi modal proposals that we've received really have allowed us to get all of our if you hear everyone's questions or talking about a new initiative and the tremendous demand obviously there is four dollars to go towards infrastructure whether it be high speed rail or highways whatever but  i think one of the biggest problems we have in mr la tourette really focused in on it is a fact that there is no certainty out there because we do not have  are looking at your own solvency tables for the highway trust fund and june fourth of this year will go below four billion dollars you have to go on a cash management plan at that point by august much will we need to make up the difference in the trust fund and how do we what do we tell our states when they can't plan more than six months down the road i mean that's a problem there is no  dollars through the end of this fiscal year eight billion would be for highways and one would be for mass transit that's current estimate we provide the congress weekly updates of the status of the trust fund and as we get closer to the summer we'll probably have a more  you know so it's not as if we're not providing technical assistance and it's not as if they don't know at some point congress is going to pass an authorization bill a transportation bill  there's no secrets in these states about what they want to do and they're you know we're talking to them and they're working with them and some of this stimulus money has been used to fund things that they would have maybe ordinarily  the negative and eight billion dollars for highways another billion for mass transit coming out of the general funds which we're going to have to borrow to do that we have all the requests here from everybody for more and more of these projects i mean we're at a point that there's got to be some certainty out there and i think that you'd be able to it's not just the states for local communities would be able to plan if in fact we had certainty but i don't see any frustrating to the people that come into my office every day and want to know what's going on i don't see anything anything moving i remember last year when i started talking about that and mentioned that i didn't see any what do you see how can we move the ball i mean is there any i don't see the administration coming forward with a plan the president is asking congress for an eighteen month extension in order to as a starting when starting when we requested it i don't know maybe six months ago i mean it was probably i don't know i can get you the day but it was probably six months ago whenever we feel like whenever whenever we start we're not going to try and start the clock today we're going to start over from when we made the request and my concern is you're going to start a new congress two thousand arch of two thousand and eleven will be a new congress and lord knows just very frustrating to a lot of us who would like to see who has a great demand for these projects and to be able to plan long term and you simply can't do well having been in the seat that you're all  in if you can figure out for the five hundred billion dollars how to pay for it we'll work with you on that but how are we going to we're going to find four to five hundred billion dollars that's why we're looking for your importance of those you know reliever airports throughout the community including when for example we have a small one that provides hundred fifty thousand and in terms of the resources that are allocated in that area for you to add on that well we have a significant request in our budget that the president sent up for next generation technology we've just implemented a next gen system in the gulf of  mexico we will be happy to have someone come up and from the f a a and brief you on our plans for next generation technology we wanted implemented we're working with the airlines because it's going to be very costly for the airlines to you can put it on the you know in the airports but then the air the airplanes have to have it too so we're you know we're trying to really meshed the two of these together and so we've had lots of discussions with with airlines about this and how how they're going to pay for it and so forth but we think we have a an opportunity to really get the next generation technology sooner than maybe most people think i'll so wanted to follow up on i know there's been a great deal of dialogue and collaboration on the and i want to congratulate you on that on the involving regarding the livable and sustainable community initiatives elaborate on the mechanics of this initiative will work and how communities will be able to get access to these resources well if our budget is approved we have shared resources between hood and e p a and the department of transportation in a program called livable communities and we have a working group between the agencies that have been working over the last year to really begin what once the budget is approved to really begin to work with communities we know there are neighborhoods around the country communities around the country that want to do more with light rail with transit with street cars with walking paths with biking paths and all of these fit into the definition of livable communities and so once our budget is approved we would be off to the races with these communities  neighborhoods in trying to help them implement the kind of dreams that they have for other other ways to get around the community in neighborhoods other than automobiles i gather that will be notices out later on in the in the near future and yeah mean you know this is a part of our budget once our budgets approved relationships again with these folks around the country that we've been out visiting they've heard about this program we've talked about it for a year and commend you for the fund formerly known as nice and just come up with a cautionary i think that's a great idea and it really is the way of the future and we had proposed and i guess the warning is in safety lou there was originally a proposal i think was seventeen and a half billion dollars for projects of regional national significance and the footprint of the requirement was that each project had to be half a billion dollars or more and we knew that we might not get one but we knew that the thirty five thirty projects around the country they're going to be built and they were going to be real projects in ohio the energon cleveland browns spence bridge that connects ohio to kentucky all of those a billion dollar project but a funny thing happened  on the way to the regional project fund and went over to the other body and they pirated it they took two hundred billion here two hundred billion there fifty billion there are fifty million here and so just to take the one that i'm interested in the  cleveland a one point two billion dollars project senator voinovich got two hundred million well that's great but you're not building a billion dollar project with two hundred million so i would hope that and i know that given your integrity that you will protect the integrity of this fund and make sure that it really builds america and doesn't satisfy a bunch of procul needs i am interested in the budget submission and reasoning behind the proposed terminations of the surface transportation priorities fund one hundred sixty one million dollars and i'll tell you what concerns me that that has it's a dirty word around earmark but but that fund is congressionally directed spending and so i consider it to be a direct slap at the united states congress and the appropriations committee and that will leave one one bunch in town that's able to direct spending to specific areas and that's the administration and i wish you'd reconsider that but if you had a comment about that i'd be happy to and i got it i got it will deal with that during the appropriations process and i don't want to be one no johnny mr secretary but again the figures thirty percent unemployment among civil engineers the sand and gravel guys the asphalt people the concrete people the labor the operating engineer and according to g a o almost half of the stimulus funds that went through your department to did in fact create jobs went for repaving projects as i mentioned earlier in ohio the cleveland plain dealer reported that the stimulus bill created or saved thirteen thousand jobs of those thirteen thousand jobs eleven thousand were teachers like teachers i think it's great but that's not stimulating the economy how it's pretty and pretty well publicized that over a million dollars was spent on signs not saying slow down construction zone saying that this project was paid for by the recovery act so the sign makers are fully employed in ohio but the people to build the highways are not and it was further acquirement that the sign had to be up before you could begin to put a shovel in the ground which seems a little odd to me as well we have a problem with unemployment a job solves that the president talks a lot about health care a job can solve that for a family retirement security a job can solve the foreclosure problems people losing their houses job can say that i i just have to tell you that i heard what you said and  oberstar as a proposal i work with mr oberstar we can find in a bipartisan way the four to five hundred billion dollars to fully fund but it's going to take some tough choices and i'll be a bipartisan basher this started with president bush when he came up on safety lou and said we only had two hundred fifty six billion dollars over six years that was crazy and because he wouldn't recognize and his bean counters wouldn't recognize that we had to enhance the revenue to the highway trust fund who had taken a nickel now takes a dive i get people don't want to vote a tax increase i get people don't want to switch to vehicle miles traveled i get people who want to use the bonding authority of the united states but if this administration continues to pump out stimulus bills that fun things like treatment for sexually transmitted diseases rather than putting the operating engineers to work shame on you and if the united states congress can't work in a bipartisan way to come up with a six year bill that gets the job done then shame on us and so i really hope i went up to mr emanuel after the state of the union address and said i'm  ready and he's invited me to send their proposal that i'll work with anybody as well many republicans but to kick this can down the road until two thousand and eleven as a political decision it's not a an infrastructure decision that will rebuild well the simmons packie did save a lot of teachers jobs and and school boards and school districts are very thankful and cities have gotten some firemen and as we have made attempts to create employment and thank god that people have stayed in the job it will continue to do it i support infrastructure development and i will join mr la tourette as he knows he and i have a friend relationship that there's water treatment plants and bridges and all that and i agree with that and hopefully in a bipartisan manner he and i and others can work to get a jobs bill that creates more infrastructure but is greatly needed but that is a reality today and for the future we need to work together i guess both of us need to quit looking at the next reelection and look to the next generation as i  r it's very important but the issue i have is not an issue it's just a question with next gen i have to tell you that a few years ago i was great disappointed because i saw a lot of disarray and confusion of how to get it going and it seemed like things weren't happening because some agencies were involved and probably the priority was not there today you're telling me that there's a project over the gulf of mexico and it's becoming a reality i can wait for the administrator babbitt for more specific but overall is it under budget and on time i guess that's my  main main concern because we can't spread it out like we have other programs dealing with navigation in the sky and so this is very important but it's very expensive and so under budget and on time is a very big concern to me well we have a good plan we have some very good resources in the in the budget that's being proposed to all of you we have people that think about this every day as i said we've had lots of discussions with the airlines last year about how they can pay for what they need to implement in the planes were we're pretty far along on this and  we think we will have a tsunami rather than later and there's a commitment from congress there's a commitment from the industry and this is if not the top priority which is safety it's right up there for us to implement this and the white house is behind us on this also i'm glad to hear that the airlines are involved in this the other solution is your traffic controllers because i remember sitting here in hearings where i was trying to discuss the screen and the three partners or two partners it's always that you're not going to have that speed that you're looking for above even even to get to ninety it is quite a challenge and so i just ms kaptur thank you i'll try to get through this in five minutes mr chairman first of all mr secretary the largest transportation project in ohio history was a federal project crossing the mami river the largest river that flows into the great lakes  interstate to eighty in the region that i represent shortly we are going to be solar power eight the main pylon which looks like a large roman candle and i believe it will be the first such solar powered major have two quick questions one is the administration is about to make one point five billion in tiger grants funded through the recovery bill do you and there's an additional six hundred million that we provided in the regular budget do you anticipate re competing the tiger grants for the new funding the extra funding or are you in the next two weeks going to roll out an announcement that spends the entire two point one billion and the second part of my question on that is if a project scored high in the initial round of scoring but is not funded are you going to make those projects compete again we're going to we're statutorily required to make announcements on the one point five by feb seventeenth whether if programs where we didn't have enough money but their valuable programs or projects you know what i'll get back to you on whether they can compete for those funds i thank you i just want to state for the record i will provide more detail that the top project in our region which was the modernization of our shipyard was and was not able to be funded and i talked with the secretary and you've been great in trying to explain what happened it was the top priority of our city county myself our governor everybody else but here's what we ran into in the recovery act there's a section six zero one eight that defines project if located within the boundaries of a port terminal to include surface transportation infrastructure modifications as are necessary to facilitate direct intermodal interchange transfer in access into and out of the port so our state thought that a port project would be eligible our shipyard would be eligible what happened is once it got over to deal t it then guided minister by the highway a that is where we ran into difficulty we will explain that but we're hoping that in the new jobs bill assuming the senate passes it that if a project our state d o t director was in here yesterday and said that if a project is eligible for any t program it should be eligible for the recovery jobs program we are to find out a way to do that and not have any stovepipe inside of the o t tell us we can't do it so it seems there's a conflict in the law we will try to clarify it to the best of our ability but we wanted to make you aware of that the final question that i have is just a request for information and that is are there any programs that u o t authorities or funding to help urban communities urban counties consolidate all their public vehicle fleet maintenance and management to go green is there anything in the law is anything in what you're doing over there because i think this would save us a great deal of money because we have state fully city fully county fully and transit authority fleets everybody's got their own gra chs energy the vehicles are not bad green and so i'm looking for any type of incentive program or demonstration program that might exist through d o t that we might be able to look at if it does not exist you create authority to have it exist we'll get back to you on the i thank you very very much vermont committee never really got a chance to have a hearing or to really debated thing about that and there's a lot of interest from other states obviously for the same types of provisions i just wonder what your thoughts are on a country wide pilot program that would allow states to increase the allowable weight on the interstate and would you be in favor of considering such a pilot are our administrator for right commitment that we made with nafta right and to make sure that it has to be done in a very safe way right way but you're going to get back to me again no i'm going to just tell you we're working with the white house on a proposal once we  have that i'll be happy to come up and show it to you is there any timeline sooner looking at soon just very quick easy and then we will close should if when we get around to passing this bill some time later some months later in the process if it's in regular order  a limited number of months and the if the economy is still looks as if there is need would you have any what would your thought be about going above the ten percent that has been allowed for several people have express an interest in it of going above the ten percent allowance for i top it all the capital funds that are go out by formula going to a higher percentage i think  that if you if you all decide to get into that kind of debate we will we'll talk with you about it i think you know where we stand on the principle of doing it and so if you all decide to do something else we'll talk with you about it ok the other thing that i hear several people mentioned at one point or another is a streamlining of the process sees it is it clearly the process sees whereby one guy's planning and environmental work and design and finally at some point ten or twelve years later you get to construction on a project that people are concerned about the dizzy administration have any kind of  i mean we talk to the i talk to the chairman all the time and and also you know we're working with their staff and so we'll we'll continue to do that ok i thank you for that i just also want to thank you very much for the of the rail money out of the recent announcements a couple of week about go on that announcement that involves connecticut and massachusetts and vermont in the connecticut river valley that's a very very valuable program that i think much of it can be delivered within the within certainly to ten and eleven at least i'm a large portion of the work will be done during this  this calendar year that we are in so and a good deal of time will be saved in the trip for people who are using that amtrak corridor so i greatly in the mil works area and whenever i'm invited mr latham just i will be in your district ranking member whenever i'm invited mr over i'll be in your district i'll i'm hoping that  will finally i just want to thank you for your very strong leadership in this field and really if there is a little bit of testiness and coming from members who have great concerns is not with and not with you not in any kind of a personal way i am quite certain and i want to thank you also for the study communication with the committee look at a pretty one of the one of the values i bring to know that there's a great deal of frustration being expressed and we have our job to do and we will continue to work with all of us on the way forward here thank you very much thank you  and i said here ok