of historic importance that a few years ago the launch of sputnik challenged america to build a better scientific community today skyrocketing gas prices and the threat of global warming challenge us to build green communities green communities offer relief from high gasoline prices and reduce greenhouse gas emissions they employ renewable energy rely on energy efficient buildings and adopt smart growth principles to reduce the distances between destinations and foster a diverse local economy through these actions green communities reduce vehicle emissions lower energy demand and reduce the need for costly road and energy infrastructure the result is reduced global warming emissions and lower taxes the growing demand for green communities overwhelms supply with gasoline price over four dollars per gallon and a housing crisis hurting many areas of the country young professionals smaller families and aging populations seek the smart growth lifestyle in increasing numbers despite this shift local and federal law can make it simpler to build on whatever open land is available scattering people workplaces and resources far apart this hearing will examine whether the government can help communities return to a lifestyle that does not depend on long drives to work and hassle filled drives to schools grocery stores and shopping smart growth communities were once the norm across the country like many of you i have lived for years in a green community without even realizing when i grew up in malden massachusetts i walked to school we took the bus around town my parents did not buy a car until i was nine years old it is hard to think that malden was green when we would take field trips to find a park but the truth is that close in experience was typical of many towns and cities in the th century america how communities achieve smart growth principles varies widely the select committee is fortunate to have two very different examples of attempts to build successful green communities the rural community of greensburg kansas was destroyed by a tornado last may now it is rebuilding using the highest green building standards developing a wind power economy and retaining the businesses and neighbors integral to a close knit community rural sma phrase heard often but it should be the small town principles of walking to school ten minute driving commute and shopping at local stores are identical to those of urban smart communities like portland oregon ma city in abu dhabi represents the future of green communities they are working with the private sector engineers from mit and american architects to build a city that will be a net exporter of energy masdar will incorporate basic services like schools and libraries with power streets photovoltaic awnings and an academic and commercial center focusing on the latest energy technology despite having a century's supply of oil abu dhabi has chosen to invest in a new clean energy climate conscious economy by building a smart growth zero net energy city make no mistake masdar is our new sputnik it should be a wake up call to america and a challenge to each of us the city of tomorrow creating the technology of the future is now underway in another country we must rise to the challenge of building smart growth energy efficient communities we have the scientific ability to do so and as the story of greensburg will demonstrate we also have the heart and the american spirit to make it happen my communities how they want to grow i am sure nearly all would say they want to grow smartly after all it is only common sense for community leaders to use the most up to date planning methods and ideas today's hearing will highlight many smart ideas that can help communities grow bigger and more prosperous without subjecting themselves to some of the problems that are often associated with large urban areas such as traffic air pollution and congestion however while some of the concepts to be presented today could simply be described as common sense others might be described as a waste of money while reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a good policy it is a policy that should be properly balanced with economic realities the testimony of gregory cohen the president and ceo of the american highway users alliance shows us that many smart growth policies don't have to be expensive at all for example improved signal timing and intelligent transportation are among the most cost effective ways to reduce greenhouse gases i welcome mister cohen here today where feasible and practical i would encourage communities to enact some of these smart growth principles based on their unique needs one global warming principle that i consistently advocate is that policies need to produce tangible environmental benefits local elected leaders will be pressured to adopt many smart growth policies but they should diligently research exactly how these changes might affect these communities in many cases there might not be very much bang for the buck if any at all also i do not think the federal government should dictate to local government how they should managing growth is a local decision and the local elected leaders should be free to take local conditions under consideration without taking burdensome one size fits all regulations from the federal government i do believe in local home rule in my state the wisconsin constitution gives local home rule to incorporated municipalities one argument that will be forwarded today is that smart growth will help reduce reliance on oil presumably leading to lower gas prices in the future i don't dispute that reducing demand for gas will help lower the price however people should not confuse smart growth planning for policy that will help future the american people want solutions to today's high gas prices they need relief now while this hearing will help lay out a vision for the future americans want us working today on policies that will help reduce gas prices in the near term by dropping restrictions on domestic oil exploration congress could take the first big step towards making gasoline more affordable in the u s and reducing our reliance on foreign oil this of course is not the only thing that congress can do but it should be the first thing that we do yet common sense principles like this don't seem to be anywhere on the democratic majority's radar of course there are many long term steps that congress can take to reduce our reliance on foreign oil and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions one of these is to encourage smart growth where feasible but today's first priority should be to increase domestic supplies of oil and gas i would hope that the speaker and the majority start focusing the house on this important priority i thank the gentleman and yield back the balance of my time actually is traveling in europe exchanging views but i think we will be able to deal with some of these elements i commend you and your staff for the excellent memorandum that i think lays these issues out we got into the smart growth movement in oregon first to deal with legislation to help protect our farmland from there we found that there were a wide variety of other benefits  strengthening communities the things that you talked about in the smart growth community that you grew up in we got away from unfortunately dumb growth is alive and well across the united states today our congressional delegation just had to fight the federal government that was going to take the ins office and move it out of the heart of the central city twelve miles out into the suburbs where it wasn't even accessed by bus hopefully there is an opportunity for the federal government to learn from this as well but it does make a difference today our local residents are ten times more likely to bicycle to work than the national average they drive twenty percent less than residents of other major metropolitan areas saving by some estimates up to two thousand five hundred dollars a year in transportation costs it hasn't resulted in our not growing indeed our metropolitan area grew by eighty five percent between one thousand nine hundred and eighty six and two thousand and six we just didn't expand the carbon footprint and ironically the homes have actually maintained value as is represented in your memo they actually were increasing in value rather than decreasing in this last year this is important business while i agree with my good friend that we don't want a one size fits all federal prescription the fact is that the federal government through its tax policies transportation policies and its stupid  infrastructure decisions with some of its own facilities has a profound effect on this for us to get it right with transportation with energy with tax it can help set a framework that will make a huge difference and last but not least the federal government itself should lead by example as the largest manager of infrastructure in the world the largest consumer of energy and the largest landlord and property owner i appreciate having this hearing and i do apologize i think oregon has been a real leader both in terms of laying out a plan for best uses of its great resources and certainly in the urban areas for dealing with growth in a thoughtful way although not altogether without controversy from time to time as my colleague from portland can tell us but clearly in those areas having mass transit that works being on the innovative side of the transportation equation made a lot of sense  in the legislature and elsewhere supported a lot of those transportation initiatives because you have to be able to move people in a congested area in an efficient way that makes sense now i represent a district that is seventy thousand square miles i have counties where there is one person for every nine miles of power line we have a problem making sure that wal mart moms and diesel driving truck dads can get access to fuel they can afford while we need to do these things that help in the urban areas and need to foster renewable energy resources and my district is home to a lot of wind energy enormous geothermal energy potential great solar potential we are working  project there i haven't seen too many diesel trucks being powered by windmills at least not yet maybe we will get to a plug in hybrid version that will work down the road and i hope we do but right now we need to access our own natural resources like every other industrialized country in the world that is why i have supported lifting the ban on outer continental shelf drilling i think it is a real hardship being foisted on top of americans that we don't access our own oil and gas reserves long overdue we are paying an enormous price for it now and that needs to change i just look forward to the day where at least we could have a vote on the floor on that issue then we could actually fund the services that we need in this country and perhaps be not a debtor nation if you will but rather maybe create our own sort of sovereign wealth fund that wouldn't be a bad thing pay down our debt a little bit so mister chairman i look forward to the topic today i think it is going to be real good to hear about we have other issues we need to attend to as well thank you the chairman thank you the gentleman's largest city i and other mayors have bragged over the years about the fact that kansas city missouri is a city of three hundred and twenty two square miles we brag that you could place the entire city of saint louis inside our city limits three times or san francisco thirty times we have more circumferential highway miles per capita than any city in the nation we bragged about it the truth of the matter is  that is one of the worst things that is going on in our community is continuing to expand the city it hurts the taxpayers because when we provide tax increment financing for a project in the suburbs and when we sad thing is that we have track running all through the city we at one time had a very good rail system up until the s when the bus companies came in and convinced city leaders that the bus was the vehicle of the future people in the past had it right there was a time when if you lived in the central city which was also surrounded by walls you were of course a big time resident if you lived in the suburbs outside the much interested in getting your take on some of the major issues facing cities even as we sit here today decisions are being made in metropolitan areas all over the country that could distinguished members on the other side of the aisle seem to have read the same memo that all republicans are reading from lately which is to blame democrats for high gas prices it is interesting when our president george w bush said back when oil was fifty dollars a barrel that from now on no more need for an incentive for oil companies to drill yet they have nine thousand seven hundred plus leases that they have already leased in the lower forty eight and adjacent offshore leases in excess of twenty six million acres of land that has been environmentally cleared ready for metal to meet earth and for some reason they are not drilling on land they already own the right to drill on   cases in particular offshore that have been well publicized where republican governors jeb bush in florida and arnold schwarzenegger in california have been fighting offshore don't get mentioned nearly as often as the fact that somehow we or our speaker are standing in the way of the oil companies doing that which they already have leased the right to do on our national lands today's hearing however on smart growth speaks to what i would believe is one of the fundamental keys in our ability  to confront climate change i know for a fact that most of the commuters that i know in the th district of new york would love to be doing things other than watching their life go by three car lengths at a time in good luck traffic they way we live takes a toll on our environment degrades our public health and the quality of life the good news is that contrary to widely held perceptions we can usher in a smarter more sustainable future without forcing people to make radical  laughter i want to thank the chairman for having this meeting and for inviting our panelists here today you know in california and the san gabriel valley where i live and reside there are some innovative smart growth projects going on in some cases the federal government has been helpful in some cases they have not i wish they would be more helpful especially when it comes to transportation and when we are looking at other modes for communities that are transit dependent more so than in other communities i am talking particularly about low income african american and hispanic residents in my district one project that we are looking to hopefully seek funding from the federal government is a metro line that would go right through my district it would help take students to classes it would help eventually even take people possibly from l a pasadena downtown all the way to lax but we are looking at some support from the federal government and our local authorities to do that that is something that i think is smart and wise we have invested in our communities they have already developed transit centers that are ready to go to accept this project but now it is just the federal government that has to say yes we are going to get behind it lord knows the pollution in our communities is very very bad and gotten worse in los angeles county and the san bernardino area so we know that there have to be better modes for us particularly with the cost of gasoline now in my district about four dollars sixty nine cents a gallon i filled up a quarter of my tank twenty five dollars for four gallons i thought it doesn't hurt me but it does hurt a lot of the residents that i represent who only make minimum wage in the eastern san gabriel valley so i would just say that we need to have new remedies new ideas and we have to get people to use other modes of transportation whether it is bikes committee members has been completed now we are going to turn to our very distinguished panel our first witness david goldberg is the director of communications of smart growth america prior to joining smart growth america great thank you mister chairman mister sensenbrenner and members of the committee thank you all for holding such an important hearing on such a critical set of interrelated issues and for inviting us to testify on the opportunity to harness the profound changes we see happening in the marketplace right now  to the benefit of energy independence climate stability and america's prosperity with your indulgence i will summarize my written testimony which i respectfully submit for the record the chairman it will be included in the record  today faces a number of very difficult challenges the committee has taken on two of the greatest challenges over dependence on high priced oil and climate change smart growth america comes today with encouraging news we can significantly reduce our nation's dependence on oil and shrink our carbon footprint while helping americans avoid high gas prices and the time they spend in traffic merely by meeting the growing demand for conveniently located homes in walkable neighborhoods and by serving those neighborhoods with good public transit even better news we don't have to wait for someone to invent green neighborhoods we have the know how right now to build them and we have since the dawn of civilization it is a low cost or  cost solution to oil dependence and climate change that comes with multiple benefits for our pocketbooks for our environment and for our quality of life communities and private sector developers across the country have rediscovered this approach to building in recent years is to help people find homes and communities where they can accomplish more while driving less meaning they can spend less and they can emit less greenhouse gas creating walkable green neighborhoods requires building a mix of housing types stand alone houses apartments or townhouses within a short distance of shopping and job opportunities it means re using existing buildings in developed areas whether those be former industrial sites declining shopping centers or blighted neighborhoods it also means using green building techniques when we build new things it means providing multiple ways to get around public transit in addition to complete streets that serve cars walking and biking above all it means involving people the people who live and will live  these places in planning ahead for their community's development the demand for homes in places that meet these principles the neighborhoods where daily life requires significantly less gas consumption has been growing for several years now but it is exploding literally as we speak just yesterday cnn the wall street journal and the los angeles times all reported on this phenomenon cnn reported and you can find it on their web site that while the foreclosure epidemic has left communities across the united states overrun with unoccupied houses and overgrown grass underneath the chaos another trend is quietly emerging that over the next several decades could change the face of suburban american life as we know it the story notes that forty percent of home seekers say they want to live in walkable urban neighborhoods a consumer survey that we at smart  america did with the national association of realtors a couple of years ago found that six in ten prospective buyers are looking for close knit neighborhoods close to work the wall street journal yesterday also had an interesting story headlined demographic changes high gasoline prices hasten demand for urban living that story noted that transportation is the second biggest household expense after housing distant suburbs where housing growth was predicated on cheap gas have experienced the greatest decline in home values the la times story a pasadena real estate agent who noted that compared to two years ago home seekers are staying in closer proximity to their jobs they are more focused on the neighborhood they want and lest one conclude that this is only a big city phenomenon maine's leading newspaper a couple of days ago had a front page story headlined mainers begin making life changes that could slow urban sprawl to a crawl this is in maine which is not exactly a heavily urbanized state families in areas with good transit and walkable neighborhoods pay less than ten percent of their income for on average while families living in areas with fewer transportation options pay upwards of twenty five percent of their income and often much more than that access to transit can reduce the need to have a car which would save a family six thousand dollars a year just on that and a thirty percent reduction in transportation related carbon emissions whether or not they own the car simply by driving less the measures i have talked about here and in my written testimony apply in towns large and small in cities in metro areas and even rural areas for smaller cities this can mean reclaiming existing main streets and ending the tendency to hollow out our towns our business districts and spread the development across the countryside in larger cities it can mean providing millions more americans with more transportation and living options people do the upshot here is that we need to build more homes within reach of existing transit and we need to expand public transportation to more areas i hope during the questions i will have an opportunity to expand on some of these thoughts thank you the chairman thank you mister goldberg very much our second witness is steve winkelman who is the transportation director of the center for clean air policy mister winkelman along with mister goldberg is an author of the book growing cooler a recent and comprehensive report ccap helps governments at all levels design and implement energy and climate solutions that balance economic and environmental considerations ccap conducts technical and economic analyses and facilitates dialogue among stakeholders from government industry and environmental groups to craft practical and effective solutions for example ccap's vmt and climate policy dialogue brings together four secretaries of transportation from four different states two directors of metropolitan planning organizations members of local government federal agencies industry and environmental groups to advance smart growth policies within climate policy and to integrate climate considerations into transportation policy if we could go to the next slide please transportation sector  co emissions account for almost one third of u s co emissions and are growing rapidly ccap characterizes transportation emissions as a three legged stool as you can see in the graphic here the first leg is vehicle efficiency the second is fuel characteristics and th vehicle miles traveled or vmt which is a measure of how much we drive each year and the wacky acronym of the day energy and climate policy discussions to date have focused exclusively on the first two legs of the stool vehicles and fuels with my standards for vehicle efficiency and fuel requirements would reduce transportation co emissions to twenty percent below one thousand nine hundred and ninety levels in two thousand and thirty you see the blue line is now on top of the orange line right on path to climate protection however if you go to the next slide and watch the red line the u s department of energy forecasts a fifty percent increase in driving bringing co emissions back up to current levels and wiping out the benefits from the energy bill climate protection  require reductions in all three legs of the stool we cannot afford to ignore v of the book growing cooler the evidence on urban development and climate change in which we review the empirical evidence on the relationships between land use development patterns and travel activity we find that people drive fewer miles in places where things are closer together and where they have more travel options such as walking and transit in my written testimony i provide some examples from places with successful and promising policies for slowing vmt growth the sacramento region is especially compelling because they have calculated that smar policies can reduce infrastructure costs by nine dollars billion by two thousand and fifty and reduce consumer fuel expenditures by more than six hundred dollars million per year with high gas prices and a robust federal climate policy debate the timing has never been better to increase travel choices thereby lowering consumer fuel expenditures and reducing transportation emissions ccap has therefore developed a policy proposal for a federal incentive program that requires state and local governments to develop goals to slow vmt growth and greenhouse gas emissions allowance values from a cap and trade system would be used to fund goal development and implementation importantly ccap believes that there is no one size fits all approach and that solutions must be developed locally not dictated by the federal government we anticipate that a diversity of measures applicable to urban suburban and rural areas ranging from in fill development transit improvements signal timing improvements and intermodal freight will be required  ccap recommends a bottom up discovery process in which states and local governments conduct scenario analyses and engage stakeholders to determine goals appropriate to local conditions finally ccap sees federal climate policy as setting the stage for climate friendly we spend on transportation infrastructure actually builds upon the savings in the energy bill instead of wiping them out the new federal efforts that ccap recommends to improve travel choices for all americans can reduce greenhouse gas emissions lower consumer fuel expenditures and strengthen alliance of businesses and nonprofit corporations dedicated to highway funding and maintenance prior to joining the alliance he served on the staff of the house transportation and infrastructure committee we welcome you sir whenever you planning and greenhouse gas emissions a recent national survey of one thousand likely voters found the following eighty eight percent feel that congestion relief is needed seventy six percent see cars roads and bridges as a benefit to society and sixty nine percent say congestion relief is a better environmental policy than policies aimed at reducing driving we urge this committee to promote greenhouse gas solutions that are cost effective and provide benefits to the overwhelming majority of people whose transportation mode of choice is the personal automobile the ipcc recommends finding solutions that reduce emissions at a cost of fifty dollars or less per ton by minimizing the cost of carbon removed we believe you will find solutions that are effective and fair rather than based on ideology the latest planning fad or special interest lobbying among surface transportation modes highway investments have a dominant role to play both in reducing wasted emissions and fuel traffic congestion results in nearly three billion gallons of wasted fuel each year with each passing year that it is not addressed that waste grows yet over twenty years a strategic congestion relief program could reduce on site carbon emissions by an average of seventy seven percent save forty billion gallons of fuel and reduce carbon emissions by three hundred and ninety million tons although vmt would increase carbon emissions would be reduced this demonstrates that vmt is not a valid measure of greenhouse gas nor pollutant emissions instead of attempting to reduce travel a national policy to reduce the time wasted in traffic congestion would be an effective win win both for people and the environment some have proposed that the united states should make smart growth a national land use policy some even believe that the federal government should try to direct people where to live and how to travel and particularly how to commute to work yet emissions from commutes and cars and light trucks represent only one sixth of transportation emissions and only about five percent of the total u s carbon emissions even a tripling of commuter transit and i don't mean to speak against transit but even a tripling of commuter transit would only reduce those emissions by a fraction of a percent some have suggested that take over dot's role in approving transportation plans to ensure that they promote smart growth concepts and reduce vmt but such a plan would stop federally funded highway projects that already have been delayed in many cases by a decade or more and create serious problems to freight mobility deficient bridges aging pavements snarl and congestion and most importantly safety improvements in fact some travel reduction ideas actually increase road congestion and waste emissions for example smart growth advocates have found that doubling an area's density would reduce per capita vmt by twenty percent thus twice as many people would drive eighty percent as much clearly the result is more traffic more congestion increased travel time and even some serious unintended consequences as response times would slow trucking logistics would be more unreliable and road rage would increase but there are solutions that are more promising along with congestion relief the great opportunity for mobile source  reductions lies in fuel and vehicles technology even if vmt could be reduced dramatically would it still be necessary in a future of lower zero emission vehicles with the new national cafe standards and new congressionally authorized tax incentives these technological solutions would allow for increased mobility and all of the economic and quality of life benefits that travel brings recent research suggests that hybrid vehicles will soon yield lower greenhouse gas emissions per passenger than transit these new technologies are another win win for people and the environment when the house pursues greenhouse gas legislation we ask that highway programs are treated fairly after all it will be highway users paying the increased fuel costs associated with the carbon the cap and trade program or a fuel tax one idea is that the carbon or fuel tax paid by highway users at the pump be deposited in the highway trust fund and used for projects regardless of mode that reduce carbon emissions cost effectively like a tax or cap and trade proposal it would also increase fuel costs paid by highway users and some have suggested that cap and trade credits only be used for transit bike paths and vmt reduction projects we are not aware of any data analysis that justifies this massive diversion of motorists money it appears to be simply a give away to special interests reality rather than rhetoric should be the basis for policy in conclusion we are ready to help reduce carbon emissions we look forward to supporting congressional action to reduce traffic congestion and invest in fuel and vehicle technology but we implore this committee to fully consider and reject the unintended negative consequences of a nationally mandated land use or vmt reduction scheme instead of trying to socially engineer behaviors let's provide the win win solutions that allow people the freedom to live work and travel as they wish embracing this freedom rather than restricting it preserves the american dream of opportunity and prosperity thank you th long distance to testify before the select committee today welcome given the subject of the hearing i want to focus on masdar city which is really the centerpiece of the entire program imagine a city built in the desert that will house fifty thousand people technology companies a research institute r and d facilities the city will be part of a community that includes global leaders in business academia and finance who can collaborate on a common goal when i travel the most frequent question i get asked is why why would a major oil producing energy requirements could grow by as much as fifty percent or more by two thousand and thirty we want to help meet those needs that is why we are taking these proactive steps finally i want to inform the committee about the significant contribution of american innovators administrator of greensburg kansas when this rural town in southwest kansas was destroyed by a tornado last may they chose to rebuild not in the cheapest way but the smartest way mister hewitt help lead the charge to rebuild using energy efficient building technology and green community principles greensburg intends to transform the wind that destroyed it into the power that will rebuild it they recently received a sustainable cities award from the financial times and the urban land institute edging out all of the other communities in america so that is quite a tribute to you whenever you are ready mister hewitt p again thank you for the opportunity to speak today i first want to start off with a small video about our community five tornado that was nearly two miles wide ripped though a community that was approximately one five hundred residents and destroyed nearly everything from the schools to downtown to government buildings to infrastructure before the storm this community was a  community trying to get by a rural community in western kansas basically struggling to make sure that it can live and survive every day what has happened since may four of two thousand and seven is an opportunity t detailed planning we now have an opportunity to plan a new community though planning we are blessed with an opportunity to create a strong community devoted to family fostering business and working together for future generations future generations and future decisions will come directly from our planning we are focused on goals such as community family prosperity environment affordability growth renewal water health energy wind and our environment we see this as an economic development tool as well i cannot compete as a small town with much larger cities around our area however though we see sustainability in  direction to build a community green as an opportunity to foster new businesses and green collar jobs something that we feel is smart building back a community fiscally responsibly and being smart with your tax dollars is building green sometimes it is a struggle but it is the smart thing to do in good decisions on infrastructure buildings and energy plan we want to be one hundred percent renewable one hundred percent of the time we have a wind ener plan that will feed our energy in our community and then we will buy energy from the grid when wind is not blowing that is renewable one hundred percent of the time we think that is innovative to prove our point our city council passed a resolution that was devoted to making sure all our community buildings are built at the highest level of sustainability we feel like our opportunity is to show the world that building a community smart with walkability connecting our community and sustainability is the right decision with our tax dollars it is smart for future generations productivity energy and health it is the right thing to do we hope our decision to go green and to build a sustainable community will help future communities hopefully do the same thing in conclusion we are trying to be a model sustainable community that creates opportunities that didn't happen before that do happen now we accept this opportunity we are blessed with it and we hope to build a community that is better in the future thank you very much the chairman thank you mister hewitt very much we thank all of our witnesses  are going to turn to questions from the select committee members the chair will recognize himself mister hewitt you have brought us one of the most inspirational stories that i think congress has ever heard rather than leaving the community has decided to stay and to rebuild and create a model for the united states and for the rest of the world in using green technologies what is the role that the the up front costs are obviously a percentage higher but the long term savings are evident and you can see those we have been told by some agencies that they will not fund our rebuilding efforts at the highest level of sustainability it doesn't make sense to them and to be a little bit more moderate unfortunately that is not our direction so we have gaps we are still going to fill those gaps we would like to partner up with  government so that as communities rebuild or try to grow that any tax dollars they use it is the smart decision to build it sustainable the chairman so what you are saying is that there are some federal agencies that don't  want to help you to reach the platinum level the best level of energy efficiency in the buildings that you are constructing is that correct mister hewitt that is correct let me be very clear the government has been very helpful and they will continue to be helpful in the future in our rebuilding efforts however our decision to build platinum the leed platinum the highest level you can build in sustainability has come with resistance from certain agencies the chairman what i would recommend to the members of the select committee is that we write a letter to those federal agencies and we urge them to help greensburg reach the highest levels of efficiency so that it can be a model to the rest of the country i would urge the members i going to circulate a letter so that we tell the federal agencies that if we have a community willing to pay this huge price in terms of their personal commitment after the community is destroyed the least that we can do as a federal government is to help them to reach the best standards that our country can provide if they are willing to be the leader i think that we should have a federal government willing to follow so i am going to write that letter and circulate it to the members so that we send it off t federal agencies what has been the most extraordinary result mister hewitt of this decision that you have made to rebuild greensburg as the greenest community in the united states hewitt i think the fact that a community that was struggling and was unsure it would be very easy to pick up your insurance check and move to a community that was a community there is no community as you can see it was completely destroyed but we have all ages and all levels of different people that want to come back they are vested in their community they want to see it rebuilt one example is a few different senior couples and they are retired it would be very easy for them to leave town and go to a community where their kids or grandkids were at it is exciting to know that they have committed to come back to the community and build a home that is energy efficient and green there are also young students that are now talking about with the new opportunities and economic development and green jobs they want to go to school and come back and work in their community it really is changing the face of rural america rural america has struggled because of being away from supplies and the cost of fuel but we still believe it is the right thing and the right direction because the long term savings are our main goal the chairman and what lessons do you think other rural communities in america can learn from greensburg's experience i believe the biggest thing is that as a community you decide the direction through community planning and i believe smart growth is evidence of that you decide the direction and you decide how you want to see your community rebuil by taking the decisions we have done you can have community wind you can have new energy to help power your community you can use sustainable designs in your government buildings as well as your schools your hospitals so that you are not reliant on so many outside sources you can shop local you can spend your tax dollars locally i think that can help revitalize rural america which is struggling so much the chairman well i thank you mister hewitt for your leadership and for everyone's leadership in greensburg i think because of the leadership of the citizens of your community greensburg is going to become the most appropriately named community in the united states and an example to every other community that in many cases having been in small business twenty one years to make an up front investment that may be more expensive in the short term but pay off real dividends in the long term can you tell me as you approach rebuilding greensburg  the differential in construction costs from traditional rebuilding to the platinum level that you are trying to achieve what is that up front differential and then what is the payback period what we are seeing at this point in time is that the up front costs range from well typically it runs from three percent to five percent additional for green building up front and that payback is anywhere from eight to fifteen years depending on the level what we are seeing in but i want to make something clear that we are not building twenty year buildings when we talk about government infrastructure we are talking infrastructure that will last one hundred years or one hundred year decisions so we still see it as an excellent payback but yes there is a long term payback and an up front is significantly higher in some cases in rural america mister walden and then let me ask you about the energy costs if i heard you correctly you said that you are going to put in wind energy generation sell that into the grid as a surplus but then energy back for all our citizens mister walden and how have you been able to negotiate the sale into the grid of the power at what rate and then what is your expected costs coming off the grid for green energy only will that be all wind system that we have and it is upwards of i think sixty percent of our power is hydro and then we have been very aggressive in our wind energy development they work well together the hydro almost works as a battery because you can store some of the water and then when the wind isn't blowing you can release a little more and rely on the hydro but we still have to back that up with peak generation power from natural gas and obviously a lot from coal so your system is that oil prices are going to continue to go up there will be costs associated with carbon no matter who is elected president there is an effort to control or have a carbon constrained economy and we are looking at utility rates for gas and electricity that are going up dramatically i am wondering what your calculations are going to look like i would be willing to bet you a lunch that the payback period is actually going to get shorter not  longer as technology is enhanced and we are looking at models like abu dhabi what we are looking at in our community with the green buildings the premium that is attached to it the payback periods appear to be getting shorter so i am rooting for you to continue  deeply appreciate the chairman's suggestion that we encourage the federal partners to get real about these opportunities particularly because you have been sort of a show piece but i think that it is a profound policy adjustment that we ought to explore because natural disasters are escalating we are seeing more of them here the evidence from climate change is that the horror that was visited on your community is something that we are going to be seeing more not less even if we start turning this carbon ship around so mister chairman i think this is a policy adjustment that bears serious analysis i appreciate your bringing it forward your long term formulation and we look forward to having a chance to accept one of the invitations we have been receiving to look at it on the ground mister chairman i was somewhat perplexed by the  testimony from mister cohen who is suggesting something that nobody is suggesting that the united states government be some sort of mega zoning board but instead start changing the incentives and the priorities how we behave as a government i have legislation that i will circulate in draft form to each of the members of the committee that talks about a vmt land use strategy on the part of the federal  government to get your feedback before it is introduced because i think it is absolutely not anything you are talking about mister cohen i don't know people that are making that argument that the federal government it is not something that we have done in portland oregon as you are well aware we have given people choices in oregon but the most effective trip is the trip not taken if we can enhance urban environments if we can deal with the problems of small town america everybody is going to benefit but i will circulate that to you and each member of the committee and invite your feedback but i wondered if i could just invite comment from mister goldberg or mister winkelman about the federal policies locating something miles from the central city do you have other thoughts about policies and adjustments that would reinforce what you are saying winkelman as i mentioned i think one of the biggest opportunities is looking at the big pot of money that we will spend on transportation infrastructure the zeitgeist is really to look at system performance performance metrics there have been a couple of national commissions looking at this set of issues so having greenhouse gas emission considerations be part of that i think is key also if we are going to ask state and local governments to do something new they need the proper tools resources and data and models to plan implement and measure  that no one has called for a federal mandate or federal dictate to the local government we strongly believe in local home rule and in community empowerment and communities being able to make their own decisions about how they grow we strongly encourage them to think ahead about that was reading to you before demonstrate we have reached a point where that is not working anymore the federal government now can back away from promoting some of those policies and begin to support the communities that are exploring ways in fact the federal government already has done some of that through laughter it would appear to me that greensburg kansas may be the only city in the nation that is moving toward what you are doing i am just curious about the vision of that city something you said  in your statement which was i think intriguing also and that is that this will be a platform for long term innovation which means what is being done now is not the end of where you are going is there a commitment from the senior leadership they see a natural extension for our involvement in the global energy market they see a logical step for us to venture into this this is considered to be a nation building exercise that will continue back we get on everything related to the real need for us to change the way we live here in this country and change our policies and look toward the future so i appreciate very much your presence here today i apologize i am running back and forth between committees and i will return but i just have to have an opportunity to discuss with you what is going on and what i think is one of the most amazing projects in the world right now honorable steve hewitt for coming out and being so brave to tell us exactly what your community is doing i just wanted to mention that in the area that i represent it is very heavily low income and struggling all the time we almost feel like we don't have enough resources to do anything either but i give credit to you the political will the courage that the residents have there and you in terms of foresight to see something like that happen that  would really be a part of the community i run up against some of our local schools who are now passing bonds using that money to restructure and restore old school buildings but are somehow not able to utilize the highest quality renewable technology to make their schools green so we do have a problem with a lot of our agencies as well as some of our state and local agencies that are not also flexible in terms of allowing for people to hit that gold standard i know that that is going to be a challenge for us you have already been asked how the federal government might be able to help and i am more than happy to help do that as well i am very intrigued by your thought about creating green collar jobs you know last year the president signed into law in december a bill that would help provide for one hundred and twenty five dollars million it hasn't been appropriated yet but it would be helping to single out communities like yours  would be eligible for funding so that we could have a pathway to careers that allow people then to come back home and actually those that want to stay there can get into a job career that provides incentives in the solar energy area renewable energy in our community thank you very much ms solis right thank you and to mister cohen i didn't hear anything about some other models that have been used by the federal government one as of late that is trying to be imposed upon l a county and parts of san bernardino is this whole issue of congestion pricing i just want to get your thoughts if you have any idea if that is one of the ways that we should be going to try to change behavior and convert our hov lane pricing for new capacity if you have an under utilized hov lane then perhaps it might be a better use of space to make it a hot lane and allow hov riders to ride free and others to pay a toll as long as you keep the road moving but we strongly oppose the administration's efforts to toll the interstates cordon price areas of town i think it is particularly  painful on the poor those who don't have the luxury of choosing when they go to work frankly i think that the administration sometimes feels that many trips are not important but when you ask people who are taking those trips is your trip was important they feel it was so i would be opposed in general with some exceptions to congestion pricing of our existing  that that is something that other partners in the arab league would also look at and adopt and then one question i have is also the creation of opportunities for people to get into these kinds of technologies i a really looking more at your labor force because you have a very growing diverse population and in many cases i understand you have to import labor is that the case here where you had to import labor to help structure this facility or did you have a okay i don't know if i am over do i still have one minute i wanted to ask mister goldberg you know some of our smaller communities really are trying their hardest to focus on smart growth in fact the community i am thinking about right now negotiate zoning and things like that sometimes you get a whole lot of folks that say nimby i don't want this to happen i don't want more people coming into my community mister goldberg well it can be difficult many times fo e actively promulgated by the federal government back in the last century that mandate the separation of uses that says that the houses go over here apartments go over here or maybe they are not even allowed and shopping goes over here schools and businesses and all are completely separated so that we have to drive from one to the other actually it can take a series of variances and many many meetings and many opportunities for the community to speak out in order to get these changes done what has worked very well in many communities is to think ahead and to say all right the denser development the walkable neighborhoods they go here here is how we want them to look and over here if it is a single family neighborhood that we don't want to change it stays that way so then developers know where to go and you make it easier for them to do what you consider to be the right thing the icing on the cake is if you also happen to have the transit investment there that makes it really work for people ms solis right thank you fact the california state legislature is proposing giving out special funding for targeted communities who integrate transit villages and smart growth i just want to get your reaction to that what other states are doing that i  or oregon has and others that are innovative but what can we do to help incentivize some of our states mister winkelman thank you actually a couple of months ago i testified to the california resources board on this set of issues they come to the same set of conclusions as i lay out in my graphs that basically you can't get there from here without dealing with vehicle miles traveled one of the points going to your last question to david in terms of local zoning local governments need tools to change zoning they may have one person in their zonin office who needs model code needs some help to do things that people want and to engage the community to understand this if we really want to do this we need to provide the right tools and resources so there are a host of policy measures that can help ranging from local state and regional california has these blueprint planning grants starting from the sacramento region's planning efforts where a community does a visioning process that says how can our community grow and what will that means for things that people care about congestion air quality how much they spend on fuel one of the interesting things if we look at cost and how the federal government will spend money on climate change i calculate for the sacramento region a negative two hundred dollars per ton co from the smart growth policies negative cost means that it is a net savings for society with reduced infrastructure costs reduced costs if you look at carbon capture and storage thirty dollars a ton ethanol two hundred dollars a ton so if we ask the climate question for new things that we build or plan and say what does that do to emissions there if there are any models out there where you have seen this change this metamorphosis that has actually taken place because that is really i think something that a lot of members of congress are trying to grasp is how can we revitalize our low income communities that continue to around the country so much demand now for closer in housing that we are going to have to figure out some really creative ways to provide housing that is affordable not just to low income people but also to teachers and firefighters and people who are making working class  the problem is that those are the two options that are provided so i admire the smart growth community in using terms like sprawl for bad things but the reality is that communities also when they understand the densification and congestion that could come from their plans are not happy with those the other issues you mentioned was low income communities another reality is that  many are extremely unaffordable this is a very serious problem with smart growth development it might be cool to live in a community with mixed use housing and be able to buy your latte and bike to it but these communities typically are priced out of range for folks who you are wanting to serve ms solis i think that is going to be our challenge because we do want to integrate all our communities especially communities of color we want to create jobs we want to create incentives so that there is a clean environment for them and they should not be short changed on any of this so some of us feel very strongly about that and will work very hard to see that the models can be replicated everywhere especially in rural people want to stay closer to where they work and live so that is forcing behavior to change right now in my state of california that is all i can tell you mister blumenauer i appreciate what you are saying in that regard one of the things that you run into problems is that you have to link transportation and housing costs together in california you had people move further and further and further away they may save a little on housing but they end up paying more in total because they spend so much time and money in transportation so i think part of what the smart growth advocates are talking about is integrating those pieces together cohen's comment i have had the same experience where in these big planning meetings you find people are opposed to only two things sprawl and density but i also find that when you in the planning like you have in abu dhabi or you mister cohen's concerns in our community the most valuable real estate is those areas that have regained their historic population levels most communities yours and mine actually have far fewer people than they had a generation ago what we have is two or three times more cars so that people have the congestion on the roads they have the questions to the panel before we adjourn because i do think that it is important for us to think about this comprehensively in ways that will give people choices we haven't talked about the demographic shock wave that is about to hit our communities we quote in our survey here doctor chris nelson  who has some other fascinating research that talks about how our households and some of us great up in the leave it to beaver era where half the families had children we are going into an era and thirty when there will be more single person households than families with children and the impact that that is going to have is one that i think is worthy of our consideration i would like to invite our panelists to move away from the transportation side of the equation when we are dealing with smart growth i appreciated the experience in abu dhabi you are talking about being a net producer of energy and reduce or recycle the water we are finding in communities across the country just as much concern about the ris gas prices is the utility costs the line loss for electric power extension the costs for water and gas transmission are all going up i am curious if there are observations and we can just go down the row here or out witnesses about the impacts we are going to have with saving land because if we don't start having more compact development in this country we are going to take another sixty eight million acres that will give us a developed footprint in this country about the size of texas if we don't change things i wonder if we can start with our smart growth if we just go out on the orange line and look at arlington they were able with advanced planning to get the community together and support what would happen around those transit stations out there and leave the single family neighborhoods alone they got the development that they wanted where they wanted it and they were able to keep the other places the way they wanted them with the result that there is significantly less traffic than anybody thought there would be because they are managing the parking very well in just seven percent of the land area they are receiving about one third or more of their tax revenues so this can be a win on several different levels mister blumenauer thank you mister winkelman thank you i commend the organization of this panel because when you talk about smart growth what gets built are buildings if we look at the climate change issue we walk about mitigation reducing emissions and then adaptation  do you start to increase your resilience to the impacts when we look at green buildings those issues really come together you have the efficiency savings from transportation building energy use building water use savings and then when you integrate green roofs and building materials you can start to mitigate the impacts of urban heat islands so it is really looking at how these issues come together to make us more resilient to the impacts of climate change we are seeking urban leaders adaptation initiatives working with communities around the country to fin where are those overlaps between energy and greenhouse gas emissions reductions and measures that strengthen a community's resilience to the impacts of climate change whether it is the flooding we are seeing in the midwest now or the fires in california cohen all these things are nice things they all cost money the reality is we have to look at them on a cost per carbon reduced basis if that is the goal if the goal is to maximize the amount of carbon we can reduce  dollars we have then we can do a lot of these things so i think that is a really important thing to focus on not the things that are cool but the things that we are getting the most bang for our buck some of these ideas probably fit in within these ipccs recommended estimate of fifty dollars per cost or fifty dollars per ton removed so i think if we focus on those things we can do a lot i don't agree respectfully that we have a land shortage in the country or that we should ration land while i don't have my statistics with me i would be happy to provide for the record information on land available in this country but i think we might just disagree and  consequences for the utility lines for the pollution for the congestion for taking away other infrastructure investments for the movement of freight so i welcome your assessment of land have no way of doing it except by us being able to be more energy efficient and conserve energy and develop cities that are more compact let's go back in time two hundred years ago when we had went through our comprehensive master plan which is very important planning in a comprehensive way is the right thing to do we talked about land use land use is very important our footprint as a community it would be very easy for people to begin are fragmented and that struggles with parks and schools we understood that the footprint of our current community can handle much more growth than we ever had before if we plan correctly so your smart growth methods are exactly the right decisions for greensburg because greensburg is not just looking at long term planning that deals with future decisions but the future of the present decisions and that is important to us thank you been working for years to try to get congress and america to move in the direction that your community has we as a country don't have the luxury of a tornado we don't have this sort of life altering event we just have this slow long term collapse of the climatic system of the earth to deal with i hate to think of a tornado as a cleansing thing because you had such a disaster but it apparently did give you a chance to change the direction of your community can you just give us any thoughts that we can share with our colleagues about what insights this whole experience gave you and your community that you might not have had but for that disaster mister hewitt it is sometimes hard to believe that  an opportunity can come from such a devastating event however though in our decisions we understand that the world is watching us the decisions we are making as a community hopefully can be replicated so that is one of the biggest issues we have battled is that what happens to communities that don't have devastation that are just surviving but want to thrive and revitalize their community one of the things we see is education in green building and sustainability you have to educate which is a struggle in rural america especially in rural kansas it is educating contractors suppliers engineers architects that you have to step outside the box of your normal routine  and think about educating and connecting people and collaborating together so that the growth and sustainability rebuild of our community can be replicated in a community that says okay we are going to build a new city hall and we have the tax dollars saved up from all these years how do we do it in our budget where can we find the information about it how can we do things from all infrastructure from schools to hospitals we are hoping that what we are doing in rural america in kansas right now be one step forward in the education process so that communities can revitalize themselves without a disaster happening mister inslee so i know a homebuilder in my community it is actually my oldest son if he wants to come and do volunteer work to learn how to do some green building in his community can he do that mister hewitt absolutely we would love to bring anybody out to learn from our mistakes from our successes from our growing experience that hopefully that builders contractors suppliers architects can hopefully take something back to their community and see that this is a good thing for them mister inslee are you receiving any sort of additional federal assistance because of this green commitment that you have made mister hewitt no we actually have larger gaps because we are going in this direction we have been told by some agencies that they will not fund the level of sustainability that we want to go towards  given your extraordinary commitment wouldn't it make some sense for the u s to look at this as a test case and have a little federal help for you along this way mister hewitt we think it would be a perfect test case we would have sort of made this test case city and we have this really impressive brochure that i have taken a look at it just seems to me that the united states ought to be able to make a much smaller commitment in the heart of kansas now some think that our answer to our energy woes is just drill more you just drill more holes you just drill more oil and gas wells and that will solve the problem we have this debate right now in congress about that why hasn't abu dhabi sitting where it is made that decision why have you decided to go a different route going to be able to play a very important role we are very much supporters of the world looking at it from a different angle now it is no longer one or the other it is a basket of solutions and it is a portfolio of energy sources history i think that happened in two thousand and seven they did it through a combination of good planning which includes some very nice density public transportation and just a very coordinated approach to try to reduce vehicle miles driven per person did they do anything wrong mister cohen i think respectfully that they did for a number of reasons one is that they created a growth boundary around the town that increased the price of land even though carbon per capita was reduced as i mentioned in my testimony congestion greatly increased because when you double density and you reduce per capita vmt by say twenty percent you are still increasing congestion so i think that is a concern and that also increases the cost of living secondly there is sort of a theory i think an idealistic theory that if we just went back eighty years and we lived in smaller communities with street cars and everyone lived close together that this would be a terrific way of life as billy joel said the good days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems the suburban development that we have had created the prosperity in this country the interstate system created the prosperity in this country that has given us the wealth able to make the air quality and water quality progress that we have made in the last thirty years so just going back to the way things were with a revisionist idea of how ideal it was i think is seriously problematic there are a lot of unintended consequences that we are not considering when we think in terms of pictures like that mister inslee i will just tell you that the view from up the i five corridor from portland has had the most extraordinary success creating a livable community attractive to all that people are dying to get into to live in if this congested area that you are talking about is seen as essentially an urban nirvana compared to most of the cities in the country i don't know when you have been to portland recently but you won't your assertion that our urban growth boundary has increased congestion when places that don't have urban growth boundaries have had worse congestion according to my information from the texas transportation institute i would like your evidence to back up your assertion the second point i would make for your observation is that land prices were maintained but housing prices have been more affordable than most other major cities in this recent collapse when people are worried about not being able to sell their homes for what they are worth for what their mortgages are that we have maintained housing values they haven't been as high elsewhere but they have been maintained they haven't been on the roller coaster like in las vegas which i would imagine you would think would be one of the best places so i would like your evidence to the contrary about the congestion i would like you to look at the texas transportation institute and then look at what has happened actually with home values because my evidence is slightly different than yours i would like your evidence to the contrary to be a part of the record thank you transportation choices and shorter trips you spend less time in that congestion i also want to make the point that the state departments of transportation across the country have an association called aashto the american association of state highway and transportation officials they conclude that we have to cut  t growth in half to deal with growing capacity needs we can't build our way out there is not enough money so they are actually supportive of smart growth principles as well as system efficiency improvements to make the best use of existing infrastructure and take into account existing financial goldberg i would just also like to briefly note as somebody who lives in atlanta and has for a long time and followed the growth and development there that there are absolutely no constraints to growth in atlanta the growth has gone absolutely everywhere they have built roads like