good morning the committee on transportation and infrastructure will come to order after a very long delay on the george washington parkway this morning one of those moments when sitting in traffic and hearing the radio area traffic reports and i was in the middle of the mess they were talking about usually or talking about something somewhere else and doesn't do any good didn't do me any good either this made me feel it's the state revolving own funds of the airport authorities all have shown that they can deliver our funding and the projects that we created in our portion of the stimulus people to work and do it within the tight time frames that we set forth in the recovery act although i must say that the time frames in the act are looser than the ones that were reported from this committee and that passed the house we had ninety day provision and the photos you're seeing especially this one here is one i took with my blackberry on a project in the mid g minnesota where they're  they are digging up hundred year old water lines and fifty year old shorelines and in another side you'll see the pipe that was dug up rusted in the new pipe to go in and all of that shows the jobs that have been created both on site and in the supply chain providing materials for the projects sixty four percent at the end of august vailable formula funds for highway and transit projects have been put up to bed half of those were under contract forty two percent were projects underway i committed at the outset of this legislation fact going back to january of this year that we would monitor we would follow the progress report on those successes and those that aren't and lay it all out so the public has a clear understanding and this is the fifth in the series of our hearings some critics of contrast of the old rusted pipe and the new pipe that will go in that will because of its design and its coatings both in and out will last seventy five to one hundred years well that pipe in the foreground said  the stadio ts have known from the very outset that this program would entail projects that have been designed engineers on which right away is acquired the completed down to final design and engineering that all was needed by the state was to get the funds to put the project out to bed and there was no additional paperwork to be done no permits to be undertaken  all of that had already to have been completed there was one issue raised by an engineer in indiana back in july he said i have an engineer full time and all he's about all he's doing is red tape every day filling out forms none of those forms none of those reforms required by federal highway administration none of those reforms are required by  transit agency or any other federal government entity those are problems they county engineer had with his state d o t and he will be on the witness panel later  this morning to discuss his particular situation the timeline has moved very smoothly when a state has select recovery act projects federal highway administration has approved the project within the day or two once that's done the federal role is complete then up to the states and their local partners to put the funds to work states in most cases have moved aggressively to advertize sign contracts begin construction we'll hear today from one state wyoming this but nearly all of its recovery act highway funds to work on the job site just ten days after the recovery act was signed our committee requested and insisted on transparency and accountability information directly from states from the m p s from public transit agencies and they've been reporting regularly to our committee and we've been putting this information on the web and making it publicly available and in our various hearings says another recovery act project actually this one happens to be in my district all in all by the end of august eight thousand plus highway and transit projects and all fifty states territories district of columbia put out to bed twenty two billion dollars that's sixty four percent of the total of ailill formula funds for highway and transit sixty four hundred plus projects have actually been put under contract and that total sixteen point eight billion dollars work is underway on nearly fifty three hundred projects in the states and territories in the district of columbia totaling over fourteen billion dollars our most current report shows one hundred twenty two thousand direct on project jobs that's what we intended this program to do i've heard some complaints and there was a report in a major newspaper last week saying well these aren't best projects these are the big time projects but that's not what we intended the surface transportation authorization bill is going to do the big futuristic projects these are the backlog projects that state have had on their books for years and have every state the o t has told me and other members of this committee and said publicly if only we had the money we'd we do these paving projects like the one in this photo here and that's all that this is intended to do put people to work create jobs take people off unemployment rolls put them on payrolls off unemployment checks giving them paychecks that's what this is all about the rest of my statement i was submit for the record i just want to sum this whole thing up an experience i had last of august on one of these construction projects the foreman called a truck over to the side when those you've all seen those big bottom dump haul trucks during a mill and overly and the driver shut off the engine jumped down and said oh mr over star thanks to you in the congress i'm working two months ago my husband and i just finished dinner we sitting there looking at each other across the table asking where do we go now our employment compensation is gone our health insurance  ended we're drawing down with little we have in savings to pay the mortgage are we going to put the two boys into summer camp this year where do we go from here and then the next week our employer river construction called and said we won the bid for repaving of i thirty five report to work next week and now we're off  we were off for unemployment we're now getting a paycheck and we're now paying our mortgage and we pay taxes our federal and state taxes and yes the boys are going to summer thank you for yielding and also one associate myself with your remarks and most important thing we can do is get people working and what a difference it does make in their lives so pleased to see secretary or former colleague hood with us today he's certainly done a great job in trying to join us with our intent of getting funds out and i know he's done everything possible to possible and then some to try to make certain that transportation infrastructure money gets gets out there and people are employed and we hear more of the stories like mr oberstar just relayed to us unfortunately we still have problems in getting the money out  this isn't something that as should be a surprise in fact i had some see below language actually this this particular article out certain percentages unfortunately they were right and have been right because it is difficult difficult i think when we passed the at least our portion of the stimulus bill and you got to remember out of seven hundred  eighty seven day in dollars less than seven percent was transportation and infrastructure related and of that the secretary has about forty eight billion dollars that is responsible for and we've tracked each of the agencies and we tried to put in place protections to make certain the money was properly accounted for and these hearings are something we also pledge to do to monitor how the those funds cited that all the problem in the delays is not the federal government although i would like to do a lot more in expediting the red tape and hoops and all the delays like the bridge in  minneapolis that normally that would have taken seven to eight years to replace that was done and four hundred thirty seven days so we can target projects and we can get people working in significant infrastructure investment projects but we do have a ways to go and interesting lee enough when we started looking at the airing today where's the chart here can you hold that chart up here we've got the unemployment for they can the ten states and the amount of infrastructure d o t spending and i looked at this this is the latest information remember i do these charts i did the chart the first one i think the with the end of may statistics and i thought well let's see how our proven is and now some of the states have changed a bit as far as who's who has the highest unemployment most of mercy still with high unemployment figures if you can see michigan up here with fifty now as fifteen point two percent the end of may the beginning of june  unemployment was fourteen point one percent so it's actually risen with this amount of spending actually and every one of these with the exception of south carolina unemployment has either risen even with the money the stimulus  money unemployment's risen or remain the same in all of them except for south carolina south carolina we spent the least amount of money six point nine million dollars and that's the only one where unemployment actually dropped so i don't think this chart shows that what we've invested has paid at least as transportation infrastructure spending has made a difference in employment figures that does raise concerns and maybe we should work together in targeting some of these high unemployment states it is ironic that one that got the least amount of money had half a percentage decrease  unemployment it doesn't quite make sense so i think what we should do is look at targeting some of the high unemployment areas and see how we can work them to do some minneapolis bridge type projects major infrastructure projects that we know are pending now my state has come up with a way and some of the assessment to you that that has been critical of the way money has been spent  hearing two ago my state was targeted for being fifty first out of fifty one states in the district of columbia getting the money out but when we looked at how they were approaching it it wasn't just short term small projects it was longer term investment which is also important in that analysis but i do think we have an obligation to try to get as the chairman pointed out and as illustration of that that one family more of those families working so that not losing their homes they're not on unemployment they're not losing their health insurance they're not they are able to send their kids to school and do the other things that they want to do so i look forward to working with the administration i think maybe we might want to look at targeting see how we can get those bucks out there to the high unemployment areas and do an even better job we do have that obligation look forward to while they raise a point your advocacy for more investment in areas of greatest need is provided for and required in the act it was something that i particularly insisted on even though in the conference clean house and senate there was pushback from the other body our language in the house bill to choire states to give prizes highest priority consideration for allocation of highway water resource funding transit funding to areas of highest unemployment as measured by the federal economic the areas of highest unemployment thirty four percent of those are actually under way in florida thirty five percent of the state's two hundred one million allocated went to areas of highest unemployment and that is that in fact requirement is being carried out and in our surface transportation authorization bill we are taking  the federal highway administration is going to take the lessons learned from the minneapolis bridge and apply them nationally but we have to move that bill forward your continued participation going to get there a kind of a sad day today today's the first day i can remember in eighteen years that we have not had in place an extension of our highway we authorization i know we did thirteen extensions but we never missed mark and i guess the other body had a bad night last night the last e mail i got was seven twenty five and i had reached an impasse but hopefully we can get that we authorization zation extension  but this is the first time i ever remember my legislative career short seventeen years eighteen years of not having done that it's at that bill for a week they were i'm happy that i pointed that out objected i don't know who it was but all it takes is one subject and that body and you're right the first time a long time we haven't been able to get an extension although it's covered in the c r the other members wish to be heard mr chairman i just ask and as i meant it means statement be made part of the record so that we can proceed to the secretary i will not objection transportation certainly has reach across party lines continue to reach across party lines as he did while in this body and certainly want to welcome thank him for the tremendous job he's doing for our country this miller thank you for recognizing mr chairman i'll just be one quick minute but since michigan was raised if i could we do have the highest unemployment in the nation and in fact in the four counties that i represent the average unemployment rate is one thousand percent we do have a shovel ready project immediately and that and that in southeast michigan i've talked to secretary about it in the chairman and ranking member as well and that is the blue water bridge which is the shovel ready it is and it's not like it's some local project it is second busiest commercial artery on the northern tier of our nation i raise this issue with prime minister harper as well as the chairman did a week ago when we look at canada our biggest trading partner and their principal priority really is making sure that we continue to expedite the flow of goods between our two nations this is the genesis of i ninety four and i think steve nine is right at the foot of that bridge it is a major project for for as i say for all of the right reasons and in a particular city the unemployment is twenty six percent right now so i just have to put a plug in for that because i think it is not trying to hawk some local project this is a huge project of national significance shovel ready i know you do have some discretionary funds in the stimulus funds and  using cell phones and texting while driving in the european union such activity is outlawed by the department of transportation and portugal was in another meeting just wanted to add to the comments that congresswoman miller made first of all i want to compliment you mr secretary i have heard you on the radio i don't have time to watch t v but i heard you on the radio more than any other secretary and i'm not saying that in a derogatory fashion it just means you're getting out there to the public and i think that's a very important role for any secretary to have to explain to the public what's going on and why it's going on and i appreciate your active role in communicating to to the people of this country the other comment i want to make is we  have people on our side of the aisle who are keeping a list of all the stupid things money is being spent for in the stimulus package and i don't get into that game but i do want to say and  what congressman miller said i really expected when this all started that a lot of the money would be going to shovel ready projects and i've seen the list of shovel ready projects not much money seems to be going there department but i think your department doesn't seem to be getting the amount of money it needs to deal with all the shovel ready projects that are sitting out there and you just heard one example this morning so i would hope that you can carry the message back to the other folks that you've got a lot of work ready to go and employment is huge in this country especially in michigan where about fifteen point three percent now and we can put that money to work right away keep keep up the good job and carry the message back please thank you mr taylor's for the record and mr miller according to the reports that we've received the most up to date report on projects in economically distressed areas ninety percent of michigan's population is recorded as being in an economically distressed area as measured by a cording to our according to the law that we passed and eighty seven percent of the projects reported from the state of michigan the o t have been designated to areas of high unemployment there are if you have take issue with that and then we'll have to have michigan d o t come in here and explain to us what they mean by those numbers and we'll do that yeah and we've met just a week or two ago with the director of the transportation department in michigan and they are really getting the money out there and doing their best to do a big problem of course for the state the whole state is so economically distressed that they don't have the matching money that is needed number of these projects another  another problem we'll expect to hear from sector a lot about that yes right so thank you for raising that issue and i'm not economically distressed but i'm certainly mentally distressed at what i see in my state in terms of the problems of the people and said mr chairman thank you for inviting me to participate in this hearing it is good to be back with you and and your colleagues and good to be back at the transportation committee where i started my congressional service and i want to talk about the progress in implementing the american recovery and reinvestment act last april i appeared before this committee to share our initial efforts to get recovery act funds out the door to support transportation projects across the country and i'm pleased to report we've come a very long way since then i want to recognize two career people at the department of transportation that are with me today lana hurdle and jules a bot they from the very beginning put together what we called the tiger team which is made up of all the different modes when we realized that we would be receiving these funds forty eight billion dollars and that you all put very strict guidelines and getting money out the door they organized a committee within the department and they have done a wonderful job in really every week holding people's feet to the fire to make sure the money is being spent correctly so to both of them i want to say thanks for doing what they've done to really do it the right way thank you today w we all know that good member work is backed up by good staff work that's correct today we are nearly at the halfway point of this is story gafford the d o t is obligated twenty nine point four billion dollars over sixty percent of our total recovery act funds on over nine thousand projects nationwide to date almost three point four billion dollars has been disbursed from the u s treasury and let me give you the top line numbers the f a a has obligated ninety nine percent of its recovery money the federal highway administration has obligated seventy two percent the federal transit administration eighty eight percent and the maritime administration one hundred percent this represents substantial progress both the d o t and our state and local partners share in this success the other good news is that we have met or exceeded all the rico every act deadlines and have done so without any boondoggle sweetheart deals or earmarks and we're very proud of that since the passage of the recovery act i have personally visited thirty states fifty four cities and i've seen the positive impact as you have mr chairman these resources are making in our communities throughout all of these visits one thing stays the same i've yet to hear a complaint from anyone the largest portion of the recovery act dollars are working improving our highways and bridges nineteen point four billion dollars have been authorized to support work on the early eight thousand projects in all fifty states and u s territories of that amount more than half fifty nine percent are obligated on projects loaded located in economically distressed areas where communities have been hardest hit by the recession for example the widening of interstate two fifteen in san bernardino california will help  the america's most economically distressed areas by creating jobs for two thousand workers in the first year and i will also it will also improve access to one of the largest and fastest growing trading hubs in the san bernardino international airport on the transit side the federal transit administration has worked with nearly six hundred transit agencies nationwide to ensure that half of their share recovery funds would be awarded by september first f d a exceeded this deadline and today it has awarded six hundred eighty three grants these funds have been a lifeline to the industry enabling transit agencies to replace aging equipment improve safety and reliability and reduce emissions more broadly recovery act funds have been instrumental in restoring transit service hurt by budget cuts for example with the aid of the budget stabilization funds the state of missouri was able to provide twelve million dollars in emergency relief to the st louis metro which in turn rehired over two hundred fifty employees and restored a significant portion of transit service we have also broken new ground in helping public transportation become more environment environmentally sustainable last week we awarded one hundred million dollars in grants to forty three transit agencies focused on reducing greenhouse gases and fuel consumption and we've received many more innovative proposals the recipient of the largest award at lanas metropolitan atlanta atlanta rapid transit authority is using the funds to provide to provide bus canopies with solar panel roofs in a bus maintenance facility these green roofs will produce power that feeds into atlanta's power grid and mark to can generate new revenue by selling surplus electricity back to the utility in aviation the federal aviation administration has awarded one point one billion dollars for over three hundred airport improvement grants to upgrade improve runways and airport facilities most of these high priority projects are under construction or completed airports are also benefiting from the recovery act provision encouraging the use of private activity by ons to finance debt and save money over two dozen airports have taken advantage of this program selling more than four billion dollars worth of bonds and saving hundreds of millions of dollars they can redirect toward long term development cause in the maritime sector the maritime administration small shipyard program has awarded ninety eight million dollars to seventy small projects and twenty six states and guam these funds make significant in some cases long overdue repairs and upgrades to dry dock facilities steel working machinery in other infrastructure as you know one of the signature initiatives of the recovery act is eight billion dollars to help jump start high speed and inner city rail the federal railroad administration is reviewing over two hundred applications it has received so far with an additional applications due this week there's a tremendous amount of interest in this program across the country and we're grateful to congress for their support f r a did a great job reaching out to stakeholders one other signature initiative the one point five billion dollars discretionary award program known as the tiger grant program we're seeking innovative multi modal projects of regional and national significance the response has been tremendous with about fourteen hundred applications submitted from all fifty states in the district of columbia and three territories we will announce these awards in advance of the february two thousand and ten deadline we think that taken together these innovative cross cutting programs will over time produce a provide own strategic shift in our transportation capabilities with far greater emphasis on efficiency sustainable mobility than the country in the country has seen in more than half a century finally i want to note the tremendous positive impact of the car allowance rebate system known as cash for clunkers like the recovery act this program has really helped to move the dial during the recession a total of six hundred ninety four thousand eight hundred seventy seven cars were sold from twenty one thousand two hundred two hundred eight automobile dealers across america so far we've paid out more than two point eight billion dollars in rebates with an additional seven thousand applications worth twenty eight million dollars in final review thanks in part to this innovative program consumer spending posted a solid gain in the third quarter ford g m toyota honda announced quarterly production increases which are putting more people back to work and through trade ins we've achieved a sixty percent improvement in fuel economy i think the cars program which was wildly successful and the recovery act clearly demonstrate that when the federal government state and local leaders in the private sector team up to take bold actions the american public wins together we're putting america back to work i look forward to your questions mr chairman that's a splendid report i read it last night and again this morning very very encouraged  what i saw some of these additional details that you have supplied in your testimony to those that we've been tracking with our committee the documentation on the  will create our state of minnesota about the effect of cars and found that the state has registered at one point five percent increase in tax receipts because of car sales that had disappeared and now come back not only tax benefits but car registration fees are up and license fees are up and a whole host of such fees that are derived from the automobile sales sector benefited dramatically in the month of august and september in the state of minnesota in february after we passed the stimulus bill i was asked by minnesota news media and other national news media when will we see the effects well you know there will be effects  by may and june as contracts are awarded the work starts and the states begin paying contractors and the federal government reimburse the states but we in northern minnesota won't feel the effect until november even december because there's still a huge amount of steel inventory that is  but as those inventories are drawn down the industry will have new orders and will have to melt the steel and that will mean new iron ore what's actually happened earlier two weeks ago three weeks ago actually  iron ore miners in minnesota and it called back another fifteen hundred in the upper peninsula of michigan which which has two iron ore mines where they've been combined into one the empire until then min that additionally means that the lakers are operating the ships that haul the iron ore thousand footers carry sixty thousand tons of or call back their cruise we're now mining again that had not been mined all summer and all spring all since last december the mines are shutting down and laying off it's happening faster than i anticipated because this recovery act money is getting out fast as it has fast as we expected there is one you mentioned you've been to thirty states and fifty four  cities curd to me hearing you tell that story how much traveling you can do if you don't have to report for votes on the house floor  big big relief for you i found that the airport authorities were able to get their projects out faster than the state d o t i asked the airport authority the brainerd airport authority chisholm hitting airport authority why were they able to get their funds out so quickly they have a different contracting capability and for even a year and as soon as the money's available they can get right out into the field are you aware of those contracts you will i think one of the reasons that the airports have done so well as  because they have had these projects that were ready to go and they haven't had to really interface with that level of bureaucracy at the state level i mean our people work directly with the airports they submit their their applications we reported having a very substantial effect of selling for five billion dollars in bonds four billion of which benefited from the a m t provisions is there a lesson to be learned in this experience for us as we go forward with the surface transportation program well i hope that i think this has been a lifeline for airports it really has financially and i hope that you'll consider the use broadly we can spread this and what budgetary consequences there there may be in the future of expanding that provision might have to have offsets and and pay goes and so forth but because of this very significant experience like to have your staff give this further thought and share with us on both the democrat and republican side to to perhaps  are some further improvements in our metropolitan mobility centers and in the future financing of the surface transportation program will do it  concern that has come up is that states and said he's because of drop off in revenue have not been able  to provide matching funds for the transit projects and on the highway side some states it is reported have cut back on their regular but not on stimulus that's hundred percent federal funding there's no state match required but there have been some reductions in in state to regular program highway and bridge projects but also on the transit side are you following those well as you know mr chairman and you just stated there is no match for economic recovery the transit money the eight billion dollars almost all of it's out the door there was no match required on on that and the other thing that has been a big assist to the transit districts is a provision that was put into the the omnibus that allows them to take up to ten percent and use it for operating and that that that that has been very helpful every transit district that i have talked to that's been a lifeline for them to be able to use that money to operate it's one thing to say we're going to sell buses and they're going to buy buses but if you don't have the people or drive the buses it's kind of silly and that's been a good provision and i know that you all are considering that in the future yes we are what i'm getting at is that there is a distinction in the  reporting it is not being made there's a distinction that is not being made in the news reporting a better way to say which is that the cutbacks by for example city of chicago and a few others have been in their regular program not in stimulus program bus acquisitions because they have not had the revenue coming in that's anticipate from their sales tax or other source for  capital asset acquisition they have cut back on the not the stimulus program well going ahead with stimulus funding purchases which means some case now that is true i was just in chicago i met with mr rodriguez  and he told me and the mayor was also there that they're they're having some great difficulty and it's true in other places in the country also because right or ship is down there's a great reluctance to raise the fees during these hard economic times and they are facing some financial difficulties one last point for for the moment any rate is that when when we were shaping the and asked them to to follow up with federal highway administration and clearing out any obstacles or any questions that they might have about implementation because i said this  program is going to pass it has support of the president elect and we intend to move it early and late in december and early january federal highway administration and federal transit we're in touch with state d s and m p o and state transit agencies and after you were sworn in and i know you directed even further contact that should have cleared out any of this question about red tape and made clear to states what they what is expected of them and what they need to do and how to proceed with respect to equitable distribution of projects throughout the state priority given to areas of highest unemployment and clearing out the reports that   victor mendez has been all over the country and he's in touch with these folks on a daily basis and i think we think we do have a finger on the pulse on this  thank you and again welcome back mr secretary good to have you here tomorrow i'm told that the unemployment figures for the nation my reach nine point eight percent i actually presented earlier in my opening statement chart that showed that the ten highest unemployment states right now where we put money and i actually went back and got the first charts we did when we did the first review hearing and found that nearly all of them had either stayed the same or increased except for south carolina where we had the smallest amount of money and actually that had a half a percent decrease in this the stimulus bill two was to go back and look at the arguments to sell it was sold as an infrastructure bill of course  only a small amount in there as it ended up but they targeted at eight percent keeping unemployment at eight percent i think mr oberstar you cited one hundred twenty two thousand keep the unemployment below the eight percent level and we we still have had difficulty getting that money out in targeted there where we have high unemployment even though that's a requirement in the bill and you've done your best to that out six times to thirty thousand jobs per million dollars in infrastructure investment we would have one point eight million people we've working so far we have  actually spent out three and a half billion which is right on target three and a half billion is about one hundred twenty two thousand jobs along a long entry into my question is but how can we work with you do we need to go back and change the law do we need to do something administrate of lee different late to get the money out to get people working what would you have a recommendation well what i would say is that we've followed every guideline that congress established in the law you have the money is out the door we we have to make sure the that the states are providing the correct information and that there's the this is the other part of it too is that this is this is a multi month this is an eighteen month program a year from now many of these projects will still be going on at least half of them will and the people that will be suspended from working because of the winner will be back at it next year finishing up these projects and that's another problem we haven't even gotten in to and being from florida we don't think much about that but in michigan which are in the frost freeze belt will probably be even harder hit but again if you come up with anything or we could sit down i know mr oberstar would welcome the opportunity to see how we could target getting  more money out obligated we have what is it twenty twenty nine billion of the fifty eight forty eight billion that you have control over obligated when do you think the balance that would all be done by the eighteen months or do you think that will have residual and that committee would or congress would have to come back and do a stimulus two or so i think will spend all the money that we have to do yes i do what about a stimulus to you think that's necessary i'll leave that to all of you to decide very very good answers on that one that's the six year deal so nice to be on that side of the  if it was factored if it was factored right i mean mr oberstar and i came back the speaker asked us to go back you called me and said we have to go back and do some hearings this is just before the election or after the election  october to do a larger bill we wanted to do one hundred twenty to one hundred fifty billion dollars and we could have done it then we got the kickback from c b o t which said you can't spend it and again i said  they're their words unfortunately and their their counsel to us was that there would be difficulty in getting the money out and that's proven correct not all by what we put in the legislation we wanted good reporting and be good stewards of the the taxpayers money but just the practicality of fifty states plus the district and others trying to get the money out under their requirements and things like the weather now us probably another setback but our my interest in your interest i think is getting the money out and getting people working so we're we do want to work with  you and then sometimes we get the money out with good intentions i've got a report here when when vice president biden went to minnesota to factory the new flyer bus factory we gave  eight point four we gave we gave eight point four billion dollars in the stimulus bill which you've got money out they were recipient of money stimulus money i understand and last month the company and it was in fact the vice president said this is this is the a an example of the future and last month that company that was a recipient of some of our money laid off three hundred twenty people thirteen percent of its workforce after getting the stimulus money i know that there are factors state  cutbacks and other things that that influence that but what i'm trying to say is we have we have a challenge not only of getting the money out faster we have a challenge of also trying to target the money to where we can secure jobs and i hope that is not an example of the future where again additional people were laid off that we made a federal investment in that that particular operation is there anything you can that we should be doing to further examine where we're putting those monies well i've been all over the country and everywhere i go where i see orange cones and orange barrels i see people working and when i talk to those people those people are on unemployment in january february and march and they're now working in good paying jobs look at if you if you if you're going to try and lay off all of the unemployment on the fact that we didn't have enough money or we're not spending it fast enough i think that is just not accurate it was a seven hundred billion dollar bill i think when you look at our portion of the economic recovery a lot of people are working around america travel around your communities look at the orange cones look at the orange barrels go fly into any airport that i've flown into they're all resurfacing the runways one hundred a lot of money out the door and i question actually was to the quality of the vast money and our intent here was to create more jobs for this bus this bus company that was producing green buses and we made a federal commitment but they've reduced their employment i mean i could take my own district you got money out to central  florida and there my transit companies building bus shelters the bus shelters are twenty five to twenty six thousand dollars apiece i mean i have a question about that much money for bus shelter that's another question but my point is spending money and some people are working obviously we haven't made an impact in the highest unemployment states but the quality of the investment and getting jobs in the future with that investment and sound investments do we need to do more as far as oversight adjustment of the legislation or if we're going to do a future bill how do we protect that money going out i think in the construction industry mr mica we have made a huge impact and if you look at the unemployment in the construction industry there are a lot of people working that without the recovery plan would not be working with respect to you know whether you're transit district got to be building bus shelters or bus buildings that's up to them to decide it met our guidelines and it met the guidelines set up by congress where you know if we got in the business of telling every transit district whether then by buses or build shelters or whatever you do all  screaming at us they follow their guidelines and whoever built that bus shelter was probably a building trades worker or two or three or four or five that were on unemployment earlier this year as a result of a lousy economy and they were working doing that so that part of it works i think if you look at statistics having to do with our portion of economic recovery we are driving down unemployment and a lot of people are working in good paying jobs and that will continue through the through the life of the program but we look forward to working with you both and getting the money out getting people were working and then making certain certain that the money that we spend goes on good projects that are  spent with the best interest of the taxpayer in mind thank you raised an interesting point that i discussed somewhat with you earlier the issue of new flyer and the city of chicago was called my attention by the officials that new flyer who were about three or four weeks ago who were very concerned that their order of one hundred fifty buses from the chicago transit authority was being at that time reduced and then put on hold and they were anxious this was not stimulus money the buses ordered from new flyer under stimulus was a firm order and they were proceeding with that order but at the very same time and and and i raised this earlier it was the same chicago transit authority was cutting back why so i called frank crusie who is t o the mayor and directed the chicago transit authority for some years and asked and he came back with a report that their revenues had fallen their sales tax revenues are down as a source of funding for bus acquisition capital acquisition was down the city could not carry out the their intention to order one hundred forty four buses and put those bus orders on hold as a result new flyer had to cut back its employment because they had ramped up in anticipation order from the chicago transit authority chicago too is a victim of recession their tourism dollars are down travel figures are down o'hare's numbers are down  the train traffic is not as congested in the center of chicago as it once was and i think the railroad companies would like to have that congestion back because that means that their shipments are down everything is dow the only thing that's up is the stimulus money and all of the funds are going out according to plan but we did not in the stimulus program say the correct states as to the type of project to be done or the quality of the project or what its long term benefit would be but rather whether whether it would create employment and the second direct direct we had was that the states allocate those funds on a priority basis to the areas of highest unemployment that too is being done now i would say to my good friends to make  first of all compressing the hundred eight categories of federal highway funding into four formula programs eliminating seventy five of them and requiring the states to develop six years to teach you can vestment plan something you and i talked a great deal about and we're in agreement on and initially the state the o t said oh that's a great idea and then they said well we don't like so much accountability and they're nervous about it but that this says how we're going to achieve quality projects long term planning coordination within the state between stadio teasin federal highway administration and us d o t and get better projects in the long run and concentrate the state's efforts that is where and we can do further refinements to make those stronger we're going to and we have learned some lessons through the recovery act so we're we're proceeding things are going and also  was flat out wrong they said this program would spend out only two point four percent they were dead wrong it spent out of sixty four percent this trail mr chairman before m just i thank you for the clarification i was with the vice president we went to new flyer and i want to make sure everybody knows loof new flyer is a very good company it's a very well run company and through no fault of their own chicago decided to cancel their contract for one hundred fifty buses now they can't do anything about that i want but i want to make sure the record is correct on this this is a very fine american company and what we're asking these transit districts to do is look to american companies to buy their buses and so we're happy that companies like new flyer are in existence and run well there are a lot of it has increased forty percent because of recovery that of course brings up the tagger grant that you mentioned in your opening testimony and i know you have your evaluation team with you that you have introduced to the committee already when the grants finding nasmyth was made back in june in the federal register nasa mentioned the d o t quote must take measures to ensure an equitable geographic distribution of funds and an appropriate balance in addressing the needs of urban and rural communities and quote and i believe you referenced some fourteen hundred applications in your only testimony across the fifty states some close to sixty billion dollars plaid four of which you have just one point four billion available for these grants appreciate the situation in which you find yourself and your valuation team question i guess is and you're certainly keenly aware the urban rural split that creeps into any spending debates in the congress can you please touch upon what your evaluation team and you have done or will do to ensure this equitable distribution of tagore grants in fact i'm sure they do get into rural communities well look at rural america is very important we say that everywhere that we go we believe that i think if you look at the way that some of our other money has been spent out it hasn't been just strictly in the in the urban areas i've travelled to a lot of rural parts of america and i know the importance of rural america there are people that have grown up in rural communities want to stay there want to retire there they want to make sure there's affordable housing and good transportation for those rural areas so that people can get to a doctor's appointment or a hospital or a grocery store i want you to know that from my point of view rural america is very important we will look at the tiger program and the kind of applications we've received and we will not we will not overlook rural america you said you're going to make those announcements i believe a month ahead of the statutory they have a vice evaluation criteria and then they review the applications and then you know the process continues from there we think we have a very good evaluation process going on and we have a lot of people in the department  eventually i mean the first guys that are on i'm now the first the ten teams that are looking at these now are making sure that they meet the guidance that we put out and meet the criteria that we put out and  and then they move to the next phase if they meet that criteria they move to the next phase and you know eventually we're going to have to try and determine if you know the kind of requests that people have made if they could come down from that a little bit or if there could be some adjustments in what they're trying to accomplish and so that we can really do the best that we can for america with these tiger grants so these fourteen hundred some applications would you anticipate that coming down to you would be a shorten list of how many well at this point i don't know it because there are there are ten teams looking at those applications but there won't be fourteen hundred recommendations sure those ten teams are they divided up geographically are they examine certain geographic result their teams that have been trained all identically they are all using the same evaluations so there can be real consistency in the evaluation of the applications and they were just a signed they were assigned a stack of applications and asked to review based on the evaluation criteria thank you thank you transportation is submitted a request to funds to replace the bridge rail infrastructure roads associated with the project by the tiger discretionary grant program the bridge itself the secretary is functionally idea five corridor it is the only project endorsed by the state of north carolina for the tiger discretionary grant program and has unanimous consent from the members of our state's delegate congressional delegation i understand that your department has been the beneficiary of over thirty one hundred applications and the timetable for funding announced january to twenty eight could you provide any further insight to applicants guarding the status and what to expect from this process when you're the final member of your delegation to talk to me about this mr coble i appreciate i've heard from everyone else i know this is a very important project that will get very regarding the e p a s efforts to regulate coal combustion products such as fly as a hazardous waste i also understand that e p a may consider a hybrid approach to regulating of the materials so that the term authorization of service transportation transit and highway projects yesterday the senate failed to get unanimous consent to do a ninety day extension of the existing program  we're operating now under a continuing resolution which means roughly a twenty percent reduction in vestment we're going the wrong way here as we all know we need actually to increase our investment to not only  build out a twenty first century system but to maintain the legacy we have the legacy systems in top shape i'm wondering if the department or the administration beyond the department has a rethought its position regarding an eighteen month delay which of course would mean a two to four year delay actually which would mean status quo for probably the entire first term of the  and if not why not you know we feel a tremendous sense of urgency the chairman has been leading this committee we have stood down both the administration and the senate now on this issue because we feel so strongly that we have to go forward with new policies and more robust investment we talk every day about this mr de fazio in the department and with the white house and particularly as  the administration evaluates the economy value weights the impact of our portion of economic recovery which we believe is working and putting people to work and has really made a difference in in rebuilding infrastructure in america  for the moment i will tell you that we stand by our position of an eighteen month extension and then to work with congress to get to a comprehensive robust bill i will tell you that the president is committed to a very comprehensive robust bill and trying to find a way to pay for it and we we have had many discussions with mr oberstar staff on his ideas on our ideas and they're very compatible when it comes to the way forward and what we should be doing and so we we continue to have many discussions about this and but for now we continue to to believe that a longer term extension to get to a very good bill with all of you and also to find the money to pay for is the best way forward well we agree on the last point a long term and i mean a six year bill is what i would say that would be a long term as opposed to an extension of the existing policies because again your department to be saddled with the policies of the past and there will be no increase investment essentially when will all of the funds under the recovery act be obligated probably about a year from now or a little longer this was an eighteen month bill a lot of the money is is obligated but we know in certain parts of the country many of these projects will be suspended because of the weather and have to start up next year but all of the all of the airport money is out the door so the runway resurfacing that are going on some of those will have to be suspended because of weather you know more than seventy percent almost seventy percent of the highway money has been obligated but a lot of those projects will either be suspended or get started next year during the construction season but i would say in direct answer probably you know about year from now is when or a little bit later but not much later and the transit money is pretty much the transit money is pretty much out the door for new buses and facilities and things like that but on the highway side of it we know these things will have to be suspended because of the weather something weird going on the system low light blinking on and off very quickly since you raised the issue of aviation mr costello is here  certain he'd like to know does the administration i've heard some talk that the ministration is rethinking the strategy for funding the f a a reauthorization do you support us going forward at this point in time with the authorization absolutely we hope the senate will will will pass a bill and then we will be very involved in the conference ok all right thank you thank you mr chairman we look forward to  the the highway bill or the surface transportation bill i do wish that some people would think about the fact that since we're running into problems on some of the other big legislation if we could if we could get out  a highway bill in this congress that could be the greatest accomplishment of this congress and certainly i think almost all of us on both sides would like to see that but let me let me just say i apologize that i was i had meetings in can get here before so maybe you've covered this aldous asked one very brief question but there seems to be a pretty wide this parents disparity between the states on the stimulus money the top five let's say compared  what what are the states doing that are getting more of the money what are they doing right and what are the others doing wrong can you give us well i'm it's not this is not that complicated the states have to submit their proposals to our departments whether it's for you know on in the case of highways to our federal highway people and if they you know we can check off the boxes we'll obligate the funds and they need to you know then get the contracts going and you know some states are far away ahead of others because they knew what they wanted to get funded they sent us the proposals we checked the boxes we obligated the money mean as i said in my testimony i've been to thirty states every state i go to i try and meet with mayors and governors and legislators and people that are working on these roads and i can tell you i've never met a worker that's complaining because they were all on unemployment in january february march and now they're working in good paying jobs almost all the governors i've talked to have tried to do it the right way by the book so they can get get this money going and get these roads built or bridges and getting resurfaced the ones that have done the best job are the ones that have gotten the information too is the paperwork we checked the boxes and you know i know you're getting around and i think that's a great thing i want to come to tennessee i'll be there thank you very much thank you i would just like to mention that we like lee to have of voided vul civil rights act problems and frankly embarrassment considering where the greatest unemployment is i congratulate you m secretary that you moved ahead on on twenty million dollars for an apprenticeship program so the minorities and women could get a foothold for the first time in the construction industry this is a largely white male workforce because the federal government is not there and on the training wow in fact putting billions of dollars into roads and construction now for years we are in some danger but we've set a very important precedent in the last bill the the chairman and the ranking member saw that there was language that encouraged states  to use some of these billions of dollars for training for a workforce of people of color and women there's another reason to do this the construction industry baby boomer is aging out so during the during the times before the collapse of the economy there were actual shortages for journal men in the skilled trade so there is both an internal need and i need on on the part of  of the government seventeen states took this encourage them and language in the most spotting fashion little bit of it here and there they preferred sometimes spend all their money on roads with the same people who've been doing it for decades without any training for the new workforces they gonna need only two state did anything that could approach the approach to be called a a program because why didn't have to so the federal government's gone so  billions of dollars and say spend it the way you want to might be in violation of title seven and other parts of the civil rights act but if nobody says anything then we're going to spend our money on roads we're not talking about a lot of money was point five of one percent or some such number i don't recall this congress said twenty million dollars and the highway bill will go for such training i am also in a part i have jurisdiction over and construction three million dollars is going for poultry amounts but important precedent i i want to know whether you would support a requirement that some reasonable portion an opportunity in this industry before because the federal government has given out money without requiring any training to be done absolutely be happy to work with you on it we were very proud of our d v d program i'm very proud of brando who runs the program he is doing a great job traveling the country and making sure that this money is getting out i'm also very proud that he allocated some of his money to spelman college to rip to allow for a program for one hundred fifty women from that school to become interned to get into transportation opportunities whether it be engineering or or whatever so we can get those opportunities created at that level also and we just announce that program and it's the way for us to really encourage women and certainly women of color to to get interested in transportation but i will work with you on this thank you mr chairman we are talking about a requirement in the statute not making it permissive but a requirement in the statute that some portion of the money would have to decide how much the spent on training because we've seen unless you require it states will not do it and i very much appreciate your answer sir gentleman from kansas mr moran as chairman thank you secretary thank you for the opportunity of having a dialogue with you this morning  focused my questions in regard to tiger grants you indicated earlier about decisions made by the end of the year any ability to narrow that timeframe probably december for a good  tiger has a wide array of options for those funds to be used there are those who have expressed some concerns about freight and passenger rail being left out  or receiving a lower priority any opportunity to reassure those interested in that i think if you look at the guidance on our website for the tiger grants what you will see is that we're looking for a mole time modal opportunities and certainly  freight fits into that and i think as we have talked to people around the country prior to receiving their applications we know that there were going to be port opportunities that would involve freight that would involve taking trucks off the road that would involve using the marine highway  i don't think that freight will be disadvantaged if it's a part of a mole time own kind of opportunity and in regard to a couple of other criteria is there benefits to a  local cost share do they receive additional consideration if they put money into the project at a local or state level of course ok and is that significant well now you're going to ask me put a weight on it and look at any time that people are willing to put some of their own money in the game that's a that's a good thing i've never known you to answer a question you didn't want to answer mr i'm not fearful of causing you to say something you don't want to say and finally economically depressed areas particular criteria or benefit for a project being located in one of those areas well look at we all realize a d o t that this money is is really to help communities recover from a lousy economy and so that is the main criteria though is mall time modalism really trying to create opportunities that didn't really exist in other parts of the stimulus program and economically disadvantaged communities have been a consistent part of what we've tried to do in all the different opportunities for economic recovery and therefore that i thought i knew what you're going to say until you said it is that a positive or a negative than if you're an economically depressed area when it comes to tiger and the reason i asked that question is you said that you were this was a net you were trying to fill that niche in your opinion already been filled well if you look at our economic recovery plan which i know you have twenty eight billion dollars went to roads and highways eight billion went to transit one point five is our tiger opportunities eight billion for high speed rail a billion for air reports so if you look at that and then you think about intermodal ism the one that really has not been addressed in that portion of any of those have been ports that direct enough always mr thank you mr secretary thank you very much mr chairman things i think the answer should be with prejudic ing the department's decision making process or at least instructive factor is that we required in the law that priority be given to highway and transit project and water wastewater treatment projects to areas of highest unemployment that's that's and that's not a lot that's not directly covered the discretionary grant program t but in the application of and administering of the program sixty three percent of the funds have gone to areas of highest unemployment so if the department is following that track with regard to getting these high speed projects moving and if not is there anything congress can do to help we are on track this is eight billion dollars more than the department of transportation in is ever had in the history of the department and this is the vision of president obama and vice president biden to get america into the high speed passenger rail business and we will continue to work through the applications evaluate them but we are on   in the stimulus for bonding assistance for disadvantaged businesses with a lengthy hearing thanks to the chairman in this committee where people basically point out their arts saying that they were looking into the window of opportunity but begging to get in the door and the bonding was the thing that was blocking them and the twenty million dollars is wonderful and i understand that you have now taken that and then moved on to do some combine it with some advantage of some provisions in the tax code to use this very well and but maybe what i should do is really get the some very specific figures for you to address  question i will look forward to that ok that's a very very big issue because we can have all the opportunity but if people cannot get the binding to do the programs they might as well not have the opportunity to meet right with  know yes it was mr cummings the secretary was the inspiration for the bonding idea based on prior experience with the state of maryland so we took this coming suggestion and he spelled out in more detail the maryland law and we crafted it into the stimulus program providing that twenty million dollars as you also included and expanded it into our excuse me into our new authorization program for surface transportation so we will want in our next recovery hearing we want to have a full accounting but meanwhile i think it would be good for you  under the recovery act and the number of minority employees as well will do it just one last question mr chairman and thank you talking about rand and me on the job he's doing over there and you see and i agree to an outstanding job this spelman college initiative plan to expand it in college because you know there's a great effort to get more minorities into the pipeline a lot of times these folks don't even know about the opportunities and as i've often said it's hard to dream of you don't see something and dream about it so i just want to make sure that we go spelman i mean i think that's wonderful but i wondered so plus  other h b c use it i think would benefit tremendously from same program i just wondered what your plans were for god to then what i would do is suggest is that maybe brandon meet with your staff and we can we can outline for you what the plans are we involved in transportation opportunities which they don't as you said they don't know about but we'll have someone meet with your staff will have branded me with your staff and and sort of give the outline of what our plans are thank you very much thank you mr chairman and we didn't  apology in that meeting designated to coordinate the work of minority business enterprises in order and already workers absolutely mr bozeman thank you mr chairman and we really do appreciate your hard work mr secretary one of the things this this committee you know will have differences and things but all of us agree that spending on the infrastructure is good spending for a variety of different reasons the study that came out that we were that we authorized  in safety lou or whatever i think the average time that it took to build a road was like thirteen years and i would encourage you know anything you can do from an agency standpoint even an executive order standpoint  and this is a great experiment that we're going through now you know in the sense of having all these things out if we really could we studied this thing to death through the experience that the agency is going through now anything that we could the to reduce that time you know from thirteen years or whatever it is down you know it's a reasonable amount of town truly would give us some much more bang for the buck and like i say we've studied this but i really would appreciate and certainly myself i think the committee i think speak for all of us that's something that would be so beneficial and i think we really have a window of opportunity that we could actually get something done in that regard well look at we we put together a team of people called our tiger team to get this economic recovery money out the door that met all or our beat all the deadline set by congress and we should be able to do the other with do that with our other programs i agree with the most ahman complaint i've heard is it takes too long to get these these projects funded and we've proven with the economic recovery can be done and it's done right and the money is spent correctly i take your point on that i would point out and appreciate the ge raising that in our surface transportation authorization bill we restructure the federal highway administration and the federal transit administration to include within them an office of project expediting to designate one person or staff that will ride herd on projects of certain size to ensure that they go through the permitting process and there are permits of a whole range of issues and entities at the federal state county township level to get those all coordinated we attempted to do this in the safety bill with section six thousand one of title twenty three us code but states have not implemented that language so we've taken their experiences why and why these prior projects have delayed for a mill an overlay on average it takes three years for a transit project fourteen years from idea to riders meanwhile the cost doubles and people lose hope in the ridership on opening day falls off from the original expectations but we're going to fix that in this next legislation and that's why we need to get it done in the next three months and not eighteen months yeah of course thank you yes thanks appreciate it  correct employment data i think a lot of that data is usually so far behind in reporting the unemployment and the current employment so that i don't think it's a true picture at least not where i come from so i want to let you know that i agree with that i don't want to use unemployment the fact that it's the the lagging indicators an excuse but i agree with you the picture is better than has been portrayed thank you sir and i just want to make that clear because i think we do ourselves and the country a disservice when we use figures that are not current or updated or true figures for that matter we've been in my area you know the circumstances of alameda quarter and i was also just a dialogue with all my colleagues in regard to the need for california mass transit southern california specifically fact that they're wanting to put in the high speed rail which will impact some of my minority communities yet i still need mass transit we only have buses and they get clogged up in the arteries of the freeways and that everlov lot of the sky that we call it how about in how do we mitigate the noise of congestion safety impacts that the high speed rail will bring and as i was mentioning before it was brought to my attention with one of the mayors of my annexing my bordering city council is that some of the other countries are beginning to do away with the normal high speed rail and going to magna live type then the other question would be the railroad companies are opposed to utilizing the right of way to allow any high speed rail area mass transit when they have ownership of those areas so that kind of you know kind ties in because they feel  hinders or their goods movement which to a certain degree and agreement with but how do we address those things in the third question would be since many of the california groups were not well first of all maglev is very very expensive correct and the eight billion dollars that was in the economic recovery plan for high speed rail we have received some proposals we will receive additional proposals california as you know is been working on high speed rail for a decade or more they were even some folks were even able to convince the people to pass a ten billion dollar referendum so there is  money set aside to match with whatever federal dollars are allocated and but that's that doesn't interfere with other opportunities for transit i mean i think if you i  haven't really looked at the high speed rail proposal from california carefully enough to know but i will say this high speed rail in other countries is very quiet it's not noisy at it and it's very clean burning and in some instances can be very you know get up to pretty good speeds also so and that is not going to disadvantage a state or a community from from getting transit money the two are really separate and they are disconnected and so i would encourage you to continue to work on those transit needs with our department and but knowing full well that california is in the mix when it comes to high speed rail and watched b and has been working on it for a long period of time with respect to how do we get mass transit to be able to be co joined with high speed and i only know what is getting having the state get their act together so that their proposal is mole time modal and that's what some states have done i was just in denver they've taken union station in denver colorado transform the facility there will be six light rail lines running in there with an amtrak connection and so you get you get these intermodal facilities that have buses coming in light rail with a connection to passenger rail that goes at higher speeds the way to do it is really you folks are always well ahead of the curve on these things but we follow the law and congress has passed laws having to do with environmental impact statements and studies that have to be done before projects can be awarded and so i leave it up to all of you to decide if you know i mean we we go along with what what the laws are that we have to follow that are passed by congress we work with you then to be able to bring those together so that we may be able to pass some amendment to the highway act absolutely ok absolutely thank you mr speaker gentleman's time has expired but in our surface transportation authorization  carry further to build on the provision i included in the current safety where instead of the sequential process for permitting every agency has a crack sequentially and on their way to no one does anything to the first one is acted we turn it on  side and have them all provide authority for all of the permit the entities to act concurrently rather than consecutively and it hasn't been well carried out by state d o t so we're going to advance this process and cut from fourteen years to three years the time it takes to do a transit project and get it underway and with sector of the hood there at the helm we'll do that scott get six year bill passed this richardson thank you mr chairman thank you mr secretary for coming to testify today and asked i want to say for the record that you have been in california you're out and about everything that you said you're you're out there i want to say for the record i have found that to be x actually very true i think that we appreciate your involvement a couple questions that i had for you the overall objective of the recovery act the stimulus was to sustain and create jobs and probably each member has their own experience but what i would say is in my particular area i don't see new people getting hired so what statistics are you keeping that is actually keeping track of folks who are getting hired a new people who are getting hired well i will i will be happy to provide to you the statistics for your district in terms of projects that have been funded whether the road transit airports and the number of people i mean we're keeping track of the number of people in we have that documented according to congressional district and by state and i'll be happy to provide it to you by state or by congressional district but what we've found  is is that in certainly on the highway and bridge aspect of it twenty billion thousands of people have been hired all over the country to do these jobs and in some instances there are people that have worked for these jobs are provided by contractors who do road work and whether they're hiring new people or not that's something that you know we can work with you on to really trying to determine that i did pull up the list that you have on the web site that has by my district the various projects that are being done but i would like to see the statistical information of who's actually being hired and even if it's not impacted for this particular program as we spend the money it's lessons learned of what we need to do to write the legislation better in the future we will work with you on that the other question that i had i cannot have this conversation with us the secretary without joining with some of my colleagues  stressing our desire to have a authorisation much sooner than eighteen months and i realize that you work with the administration and you know you all have to sing from the same songbook but it should be no no confusion that this committee we are very concerned we are not in agreement with an eighteen month extension and we'd like to move forward and i would like that message to be delivered to the president and to the administration i think it's a mistake i think it's going to come back to bite us and i just think that it needs to be dealt with and so for the record i wanted to join with the chairman and others who have spoken that that is not the will of this committee and we're quite concerned i'll deliver the message thank you lastly i want to talk about on the back of your testimony you referenced the attack number one which talked about economically distressed areas in california do you also have a list of where those areas are as we can get that for you ok and then for that message and for all the members who have delivered that message and got a good messenger to bring that to the white house on the unemployment in the construction trades i just want to interject at this point in december of zero seven when i first proposed and democrats on the committee first proposed the stimulus unemployment of the building trades was nine hundred sixty eight thousand a year later it was one million four hundred thirty eight thousand and we had shaped our our bill actually it moved a bill through the house for a stimulus program thousand to one million five hundred forty two thousand it's down another thirty thousand jobs for construction workers since then since august so we've we've made about an eight or nine percent reduction in fact in the unemployment figures for the construction trades just a hair th mr chairman and welcome mr secretary it's good to see i just want to say also for the record how incredibly open you are to meet with members you know when i called you to sit down i thought well maybe in about a month and you  there in about three days and i appreciate your old man isn't your willingness to work with us i just have one question for you you know we have you know the high speed rail projects that are going on around the country the proposed things when you have states that  don't like the route or there's some some mit litigation pending or whatever it's just something that we can do from our in to make sure because i think high speed rail is a top priority for this country we absolutely have to have it whether it's and i'm very selfish coming from my home state of illinois but around this nation and i'm just wondering from your perspective is there anything that we can do or that your your agency can do to sort of you know kind of clear up the if there's a problem or two that we can work on to get these things move in and not have a delay well we've received a number of proposals for high speed rail and we will continue to receive proposals as of tomorrow for the second phase of of that illinois is a part of a regional program and the governor of illinois has played a very key role in that played a very key leadership role in calling a meeting of a number of the governors from around the midwest region and they have put together a very good proposal and we're looking at all of those and if there are specifics that we think you know one region or another needs to look at we've gotten back to those regions and talk to them about that for the next opportunity that will present itself our people have worked very closely with these regions around the country to make sure they know what were some of the key things that we're looking for as they present their next proposals and so this is been a very collaborative and i think the regions will be submitting some very strong proposals for evaluating and working on that but later this year ok well i just appreciate your coming here and and let me just echo what everybody is here today has said is in regard to the eighteen months and i hate to sound repetitive but you know we really need to move that up but you know every dollar we invest in infrastructure we get five dollars back and if we're really going to get this country moving from my perspective we've got to get people working again and you know i think the chairman said one hundred forty thousand people are working since we have done this and just whatever we can do to get that done so that we can get these projects rolling and get people back to work also just from a matter of public safety i think it's incredibly important but you know thank you for everything you've done and thanks for taking the time thank you appreciate the numbers one hundred twenty three thousand and direct jobs as of the end of september created on on highway and bridge and transit projects and another eighty thousand dollars in the supply chain for two hundred thousand and that that plus the additional jobs that have been stimulated we've had a reduction of five hundred thousand ploy in the construction trade meaning to and i ha billion dollars in payroll has been pumped into the national economy this titus thank you mr chairman and thank you for continuing this important work  examining the progress of that recovery act i was pleased to vote in favor of it because it has been hit very hard we have the highest foreclosure rate we've had has unemployment since we started keeping records so the money that we get for this act will go a long way to creating jobs one of the things that worries me though is how well we're doing at the state level and the last report that this committee put out nevada ranked forty six of fifty states  and washington d c and i was hopeful that in the most recent report we would have moved up instead we moved down to forty seven now when this happened i sent a letter to the governor asking what's happening in van why are we doing so poorly and their response that i got from him through the secretary and the indot of the director of and was that nevada had chosen to use the money on a lot of small projects rather than one big project so it took longer for the money to get out well i reviewed some of the other states and have found that those that are far ahead of us on the list have also span it on small projects so i wonder mr secretary if you can clear this up for ma does that really make a difference or does is something happening in the vadra that we need to improve well as as you know we have worked with governors in every state and the department of transportation in every state on the kind of priorities that they felt that they could and projects that they could fund and i don't know enough about nevada but why don't why do i do this why don't i look at nevada an analysis and come up and see you and we can talk about that well i would certainly appreciate it because we need that money to be moving out and i'm afraid it's at that and not at your end but i appreciate you know we before we lay blame it on anybody's feet let us really do a good analysis so we get it right well i appreciate that thank you very much i look forward to it thank you ms thank you let's you and i have a secretary i know you have a commitment to have responded various reporters saying oh that they didn't get the best projects in the recovery act they're doing state of good repair but they're not doing the best projects and some people just can't be happy with success it just drives me crazy i just want to make it clear i want to get your response the u s d o t does not make those decisions of which projects correct the federal highway administration does not select projects that's correct the state d o t select the projects that's great use the criteria we set forth in the stimulus act right and the stimulus act required states to select projects that could be under contract or obligated within one hundred twenty days right did not make a distinction of what type of project is this going to be a highway the last one hundred fifty years is it one that's going to be the best it's going to be the one that puts people to work correctly correct and it had to meet the other criteria that them through the what paperwork issue could there be mr chairman i responded to that article with a letter to the editor of the usa today which i think department and i'd encourage any member to do this and ask them has there been good communication have we been helpful has the money been spent correctly and the answer up and down the line is yes i've been to thirty states i've talked to a lot of these governors and the o t folks we're doing it the way you asked us to do it the way you required us to do it by the book and i haven't seen one story written about an  earmark boondoggle or sweetheart deal i can tell you that because we've done it by the book and there hasn't been a single earmark either from the house or the senate not not not a single member of the appropriations committee of either body has has continue this process the two to do one additional thing to direct federal highways to survey the states on the proportion of their funds how much of that portfolio state of good repair projects they will have diminished we'll do it i'll have victor work on that this will set the stage this information stage for the authorization of the six year authorization as you know we have a compressed hundred eight categories of the four formula programs the first of which is critical asset improvement and that is to read that that category is to respond to the state's need and the two national commission recommendations and ash those on recommendation that we attack and put funding the backlog of projects that need to be brought up to engineering standards of good repair so we want to help them do that good but i want them to lay out a six year strategic investment plan and annual benchmarks of achievement and reporting and other custom to reporting right and so we'll have transparency accountability and action on the greatest need in our federal highway program to get those roadways up to state or repair we'll do it and we found that given the funding they can do that through other members have any other questions thank you mr chairman thank you for your leadership in so many ways it's been a real treat to work with you and the committee because we have the same goals in mind we really do and we'll get there we are we're getting there day by day things are better and just keep joyce fiske in mind that truck driver from ny for construction his kids have gone to summer camp getting their health insurance back she puts in her twelve hundred dollars to have her health insurance back her husband will have they're paying their mortgage and putting food on the table and they're paying taxes and they're happy about it thanks to your leadership thank you we will call our next panel which the honorable john cox of the wyoming transportation department charles gallagher president gallagher asphalt corporation for american road and transportation builders association and i president martin marietta materials representing the national stones and gravel association mr paul super e president and c e o of new flyer and mr t jeffrey taylor manager of transportation for elkhart county indiana while the bells rung for votes on the house floor will we will begin with the director cox take of the wyoming department transportation by the way governor freethought sends his greetings to the committee mr chairman thank you for this opportunity to quickly discuss wyoming success in implementing the highway provisions of the economic recovery legislation first chairman let me thank you for your leadership and this committee for its efforts to secure recovery act funds for transportation we were thrilled frankly when a recent report by this committee ranked wyoming first among the states for  investing recovery act highway funds i want to quickly discuss it today today one hundred percent of wyoming's recovery act highway funds have been obligated in over ninety nine percent of those are awarded to contract projects involving more than ninety five percent of these funds are underway and nearly a third of the funds have already been expended by the latest count in august one thousand seven hundred thirty nine jobs have been created or sustained in wyoming because of these funds and the r disbursement and that's nearly one half percent of the state's working age population these jobs are in addition to contractors full time workforces welding has also completely obligated the funds from our regular two thousand and federated highway program projects that we've supported with recovery act highway funds have advanced the national interests in a connected transportation system serving people and business from all over the country as one example we've invested over forty million dollars of our funds to improve interstate eighty which is a critical route for both freight commerce and tourism we're pleased to that we further both national home state interest and probably deploying our share of these funds let me quickly describe how we were able to the state he consulted early on with our legislators and as a result both the legislature and the governor supported our implementation efforts the bottom line being that we were able to use our existing process to approve projects in a word contracts in short order during the same timeframe we worked closely closely with our federal highways division office and identified the equivalent of nearly three years worth of projects that would proceed to contract quickly we also confirms of the contractor community was ready and had the capacity deliver what we said we had ready both federal highways and wyoming contractors association are tremendous partners with whom we have a daily relationship there were several other factors that kept us pushing hard to implement the law as quickly as we could we thought that good prices would be the most competitive in the early months following the passage of the stimulus that was accurate but they've also held strong throughout we also considered our construction season because of our climate and elevation we are very fortunate if we have six to seven months to work with in a given year it also helps with the money was subject to current law was only a few changes significant process or program changes may well have slowed our pace working from our list of ready to go projects we consider the priorities and requirements of the law we assemble the project list and then we aggressively scheduled extra lettings to award contracts so mr chairman basically what we did was we planned early and we pushed hard at all stages of the implementation and we had the advantage of support from the governor in the legislature both chairman before concluding i'd like to emphasize that we're eager for the opportunity to make additional transportation investments in case some may not be so similar with our part of the country let me suggest just a few reasons why federal transportation investment in a rural state like wyoming is in the nation's interest investment benefits a much larger population that lives in wyoming or even our region with several nearby metropolitan areas other rural states are very similarly situated our highways are a bridge for three traffic trucks moving between the west coast ports in chicago for example cross our state so the highway benefit citizens at both ends of the movement interstate eighty traffic in particular consists largely of through truck traffic either originating or terminating in our state our federal highways also benefit tourism providing visitors from all over the world access to scenic wonders like yellowstone the grand tetons parks in wyoming rocky mountain national park in colorado glacier in montana black hills in south dakota and many other regional destinations our roads help crops and forest products move to market they serve the energy industries including wind energy which is a big thing in wyoming right now with their many work and production sites in rural areas we know that many needs exist throughout the country but i want to know for the committed a strong transportation funding for rural states like wyoming is decidedly in the national interest and it will help connect the metropole and metropolitan areas and populations we look forward to continuing to work with congress in making further progress in transportation investments in wyoming and in the nation and we will keep putting funds to work promptly and effectively mr chairman that's concludes my statement i'll be happy to field any questions you might have thank you very much you answered number of questions that i already had tended to ask but i will pursue some of those further we would like to we would like to build on wyoming's experience moving projects further and will have some questions for you about about the rural transportation provisions in our surface transportation authorization bill like you did just sort of think about that  thank you chairman oberstar and members of the committee i'm charles gallagher of gallagher asphalt president owner of that company i'm also a past president of the illinois road and transportation builders association and here on behalf of the american road and transportation builders association gallagher asphalt was founded by my grandfather james f gallagher in june of one nine hundred twenty eight wow just seventeen months before the great depression gallagher is now owned by a third generation of gallagher's including myself from the perspective of our company the recovery act has been a real shot the arm during one of the most difficult periods in our in our industries history and for that we thank the members of this committee for their efforts and your efforts to secure as much transportation funding as possible with the stimulus bill the economic downturn has taken a severe toll throughout the nation including revenues on all levels of government for i way construction as well as our private sector construction as evidence of this reality are asked i'd like to share with you that our asphalt production at our joliet facility is down sixty five percent from the two thousand and eight levels fortunately gallagher was low bitter on  projects tolling just over fifteen million dollars between april and june of this year these projects directly employed two hundred fifty nine men and women of home thirty percent are minority and seven percent are women twenty nine new jobs were also filled from these projects my company is proof that the recovery act is achieving its goal of sustaining and sometimes creating jobs according to the federal highway administration data provided every state met the requirement that fifty percent of their formula funds be obligated within a hundred twenty days state and local transportation a agencies have obligated eighteen point four billion or sixty eight point nine percent of the highway stimulus funds in six months this is a much faster pace than under the core federal highway program there are now three thousand nine hundred sixty six recovery projects under construction in all states including more than six hundred that got underway in september these projects are valued at eleven billion dollars the impact of the is even more evident when looking at new highway contract awards which is the best indicator of future construction activity state and local deal te's awarded two point one billion fewer contracts for highway and bridge construction in the first four months of this year than in the same period and then in two thousand and eight reflecting recession driven cuts to state and local highway funding in the second four months of two thousand  however the value of new highway and bridge contracts exceeded the two thousand and eight levels by almost four billion as such as more than offset state and local budgetary difficulties and we are trending towards an increase in two thousand and nine was seven point six billion in highway recovery funs obligated for projects not yet underway and the remaining eight billion still to be obligated  will continue to boost the u s highway construction activity well and two thousand and ten furthermore recent easing in material prices has increased the purchasing power of recovery act funds to support more projects and deliver more economic benefits what that really means is that the contractors are really bidding low on projects and so your dollars going a lot further mr chairman the i what congress intended federal funds are being obligated to rapid pace projects are being started construction work is being performed and firms across the nation like mine are sustaining and sometimes adding to their workforce this year the value of construction work performed on transportation products projects will be above the two thousand eight levels largely because of a ira without the recovery funds transportation construction would be down way down with no recovery in sight that's the real story in american public and our elected leaders need to understand however that is only a temporary the long term growth potential of the united states and most important congress we we need congress to take on the six year surface transportation authorization bill at the five hundred billion dollars level and we thank the committee for their their activity in this regard thank you thank you very much of us together especially appreciate that support for the six year authorization i take that part of your testimony sent over to the secretary and over to the white house very good so they see that as well mr not have the gravel association indeed good afternoon chairman over starts good to see you again it's a pleasure to be here today my name is ward and i am the president of raleigh north carolina based martin marietta materials one of the nation's leading producers of construction aggregates i thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today and to present the industry's perspective on the recovery act which i may refer to energy change of the day as stimulus and discuss its impact on our industry as background martin marietta is a new york stock exchange company with two thousand and eight sales revenue in excess of two billion dollars we engage principally in the construction of aggregates meaning mining processing and selling crushed stone and sand and gravel were used in the construction of highways and other infrastructure projects as well as in the commercial and residential construction industries aggregates along with hot mix asphalt and ready mix concrete are sold and shipped from martin marietta distribution network to customers large and small in twenty nine states we've been in this business through our predecessors since one nine hundred thirty nine that said i'm testifying today on behalf of the national stone sand and gravel association which you know is an s s ga which represents the aggregates industry according to the u s geological survey s s g a is the largest minute association by product volume in the world there are more than ten thousand construction aggregate operations nationwide and seventy percent of our nation's counties have at least one a are used in critical forms from in most forms of heavy construction for example thirty eight thousand tons are used to construct one mile of highway the thirteen thousand tons are used in an average school four hundred tons are used in an average home and that's not counting what's going on in the subdivision all by itself yet due to the degree and severity of the current economic and protracted turndown the industry is facing another year of economic turmoil and difficulty for example june thirtieth two thousand and at the half year martin marietta reported its thirteenth straight thirteenth straight quarter on quarter decline in aggregate shipment volume similarly according to the u s g s aggregate production in the u s to crease twenty seven percent in the first six months of two thousand and nine over the same period in two thousand and eight this decrease usage in two thousand nine was on top of previous accurate declines in both of two thousand and seven and two thousand and eight in preparation for this hearing in s s g a disseminated a producer member survey specifically geared toward measuring stimulus and its related activity as preparatory comment to the surveys results it's important to note that on average at least historically roads and bridges constituted forty percent of the industry sales volume today that percentage is surely considerably higher of those in s s g a producer members responding to the survey we're seeing some specific positive regional impacts in the northeast and in the midwest while the majority responding had not yet seen a noticeable sales increase over the last three months we believe this is due in part to stimulus projects taking longer than expected to advance to the actual construction phase in some places but we also believe the stimulus has prevented significant erosion to the work force in the transportation construction market of our industry about one third of the respondents to our survey think two thousand and ten will bring a sales increase however when asked about their two thousand and ten state transportation budgets the majority surveyed responded that the state budgets are expected to be down if not level with two thousand and nine the balance were hopeful that state budgets would increase indications are that about twenty five percent of stimulus projects will commence  the second half of two thousand and nine with most of the remainder in two thousand and ten accordingly stimulus will have a significant positive impact on construction activity and employment however some beneficial aspects may be muted by state and local governmental budgetary difficulties as discussed here earlier further though challenging to quantify jobs have been saved due to save due to the investment of stimulus despite the efforts of this committee slow progress on reauthorization the highway bil retarding construction activity due to states inability to plan for multi year or major projects mr chairman our industry has experienced its most significant decline since the great depression for example our two thousand and nine midyear numbers that martin marietta reflected take to trough volume decline of thirty four percent in real terms this means a drop from two hundred five million tons in two thousand and six to around one hundred thirty million tons by the end of this year our workforce has been significantly reduced and remaining employees are working fewer hours with little or no opportunity for overtime our capital expenditures which last year were around two hundred  sixty million dollars will be reduced by nearly one hundred million dollars this year in conclusion let me be clear the aggregates industry has benefited from stimulus and we are indeed grateful importantly it serves to put something of a floor beneath our volume decline as well as save jobs obs however we believe any momentum generated by stimulus will be in peril if congress fails to act sooner rather than later on a well funded multi year surface transportation bill our transportation infrastructure is the very foundation of america's economic stability and growth and has fostered its global competitiveness for over half a century yet today thirty three percent of our major roads aren't poor or mediocre condition thirty six percent of major highways are congested over one hundred sixty thousand miles of federal aid highway pavement is rated unacceptable over one hundred fifty thousand bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete and the current backlog of needed road highway and bridge repairs totals four hundred sixty one billion dollars our nation's transportation infrastructure must be a top priority with all the stakeholders working together to build the transportation network of the twenty first century mr chairman these are serious short and long term issues we're grateful for the attention sensitivity and vision you have brought to this debate not just to not just today but indeed for many years again i thank you for the opportunity to testify here today and i look forward to any questions that you may have sir thank you very are the kind words thoughtful words about my work more importantly that of the committee especially the homework that you and all the members of the panel have done you've got the numbers right then the need is great and we appreciate again your support for the six year bill chairman members of the committee money was paul super and i'm president and chief executive officer of new flyer for america a company you know well we're the largest manufacturer of heavy duty heavy duty transit buses in the united states and canada and since one thousand thirty we've delivered over twenty three thousand buses in two thousand and eight a loan over forty scent of the bus is delivered in north america one floor from new flyer the flyer has manufacturing assembly facilities in minnesota and after park parts distribution centers in kentucky  california we employ over one thousand employees united states we have business relationships with over two hundred forty transit properties including twenty of the largest twenty five we've been the innovation leader and the heavy duty transit space the first in north america to offer low floored standard in articulating buses natural gas buses low emission hybrids and we're the only north american manufacturer all wheel electric rubber will troll these we've continued to pursue green technologies we're currently building is zero emission hydrogen fuel cell fleet of buses that would be showcased at the two thousand and ten winter olympic games and i'm proud to report that just two weeks ago we delivered our very first production bus off of that order as you know in january twenty second of this year my predecessor john cheeta former president c e o of our company and now a director of new flyer testified before this committee in support of transportation funding contained in the american recovery and risk reinvestment act he noted that funding of private transportation authority means he knows what it means to purchase desperately needed new buses for transit authorities in fact after or the american public a transportation association has data that shows that over twenty thousand buses are more than one quarter of the fleet in america are currently operating beyond their twelve year economic life as you know this life cycle is set by the f today is this rest threshold for eligibility for f t funding of replacement vehicles given the significant and pres  precedent pressure operating budgets on our transit authority customers new equipment substantially reduces or eliminates inefficient deployment of urgently needed state dollars and local dollars to keep aging and unproductive buses on the road new buses produce significantly fewer pollutants have much better fuel economy they're quieter and they're safer far safer than the vehicles that are being replaced all of this contributes to making a better public transit network throughout the united states with significantly reduction in reliance on foreign oil i'm here today to report that new florida has received over orders from over seventeen different transit authorities across united states totaling six hundred thirty eight equivalent units that can be tied directly to air or stimulus funding this funding was provided directly to our local transit authorities this quantity represents approximately thirty percent of our company's annual production these orders provide over eight hundred thousand hours or four hundred  forty seven person years of direct labor the spin off for our component suppliers whether it be spare parts material or services is six times that of the direct labor in our facility for two thousand six hundred eighty two person years directly tied to the era funding thus our u s based supplier partners who provide eighty two percent of all the material or content that goes on a bus are located in thirty states across this country all have benefited and multiple communities have benefited  what's important what the secretary la hood told us and vice president biden when they visit our facility earlier this year the stimulus money is as much about job creation as it is job retention and making sure we have sustainable businesses all of those buses that are being purchased as a direct result of stimulus are being built either in two thousand and nine or two thousand and time two thousand and ten and that is job retention we believe that the air funds have had a direct and material impact on new bus purchases and the significant domestic industry that designs supplies and build these vehicles for such critical an essential service to the american people the employees of new flyer and our partners suppliers from all across america are tremendously grateful for the stimulus support for our customers the reality is we have had a setback was talked about earlier today in terms of a local state government unable to fund a certain contract the reality of it is era funds has helped us sustain our business and our order book going forward every single dollar that comes out of stimulus has a tremendous impact on us and our customers and our suppliers orders and options exist as you know new flyer has over twenty five twenty five hundred firm options and six thousand six hundred firm orders and six thousand six hundred options every single dollar helps with significant job retention and job creation these are high value knowledge that knowledge base jobs in an industry that is in direct compliance with d v e safety and promotes diversity the infrastructure is aging as a method over twenty thousand buses are over twelve years old the productivity in operating cost of local state transit authorities is significant the pressure on reducing those costs is dramatic new buses help reduce that operating cost requirement the our environmental impact of these news buses cannot be understated over seventy five percent of our backlog our clean energy bus with clean emissions hybrids natural gas electric trawlers and now as i said we were now delivering hydrogen fuel cell buses there's a tremendously widespread benefit to americans  options are across thirty different states from sixteen states from thirty different customers in our american supply base provides eighty two percent of the parts the accountability for every dollar spent has huge resonance with this committee transit assets  investment can put people to work immediately the investment of one billion dollars creates forty four thousand five hundred perseverance in florida in addition the return on investment is immediate with more stimulus an additional stimulus and support from the states we can continue to put people to work you for some lessons learned recovery act funding and the floor is yours mr chairman members of the committee it's a pleasure to be here today and thank you for the invitation i'm here to testify on behalf of elkhart county government and our experience with the stimulus this far mr chairman in february of this year president barack obama traveled to elkhart county indiana to announce a bill before congress the american recovery and reinvestment act ok county was build a ground zero of the economic fallout there due to the recession at the time of our president's visit to elkhart county unemployment stood at fifteen percent with much of it attributed to the fall out from the r v industry you can imagine the excitement spurred in the community by the prospect of jobs to be created by the legislation and the potential impact to families in the all card area the announcement that twenty seven billion dollars of a r e funds to be dedicated to have for structure improvement really caught our attention ok county was and still is optimistic that the infusion of construction dollars into our local economy could and will result in economic relief many workers  their families in the community were and still are facing mortgage foreclosure and bankruptcy unemployment had blossomed from four point four percent in july of two thousand and seven to eighteen point nine percent in march of this year and today somewhere around fifteen to sixteen percent mr chairman any kind of relief is welcomed in elkhart county soon after the announcement was made that funds were available we in elkhart county rolled up our sleeves and went to work aggressively pursuing funds for road projects that were deemed shovel ready we saw this is enough opportunity to come pleats some long overdue road construction projects and more importantly but many of the thousands of an i'm unemployed region and are back to work we appoint people regionally and car county like many other local governments we found ourselves at a disadvantage for having a well planned transportation improvement program based on a pay as you go philosophy we  maintain a ten year capital improvement planned that is funded shovel ready projects meant having a road or bridge project design completed the right of way purchased and all environmental approvals and hand the system is structured that smaller counties that are at a disadvantage we will not go through a process of spending tax dollars for a project design acquiring right of way displacing our residents securing final approval from the state d o t and allowing federally funded projects to move forward without planning for their financial resources in advance our desire was to utilize the funds to construct another section of an important four lane road connecting t vital manufacturing and supply bases we learned the project did not qualify for shovel ready even though the design was complete the right of way was purchased affected residents were relocated the environmental cess meant was complete unfortunately the project did not have final approval from the state d o t and acquiring such could take months going far beyond the time frame for utilizing a r e funds we soon discovered there was an enormous amount of paperwork required for even a simple roadway paving project scuse me nevertheless we filled out all the documentation so measured the photos construction plans cost estimates and everything else leading the requirements to permit the project to be constructed elkhart county has completed all of the required submissions for the various roads to be resurfaced according to reports our projects are slated for a november bid letting consequently it'll be april and ten at the earliest before we see any new jobs created or retained locally some of the contractors i've talked to are looking at running a fifty percent capacity and about twenty percent unemployment and their construction sector more discouraging is the distribution of nearly eighteen million dollars and rural stimulus funds allocated to our region of northeast indiana elkhart county has been allocated zero dollars so far from this funding source awards of rural stimulus dollars were made available on a first come first serve basis elkhart county did not get ahead in the race with other cities and counties and we were told at this point that our requests cannot be funded because all of the money has been obligated to requests that came in ahead of ours are concerned that if a a r a is to be focused on job creation and retention and it seems appropriate to target rule stimulus funds to areas based on unemployment and prioritize those funds accordingly rather elkhart county which leads the state of indiana in unemployment has not received any allocation of real stimulus funds it was my understanding along with millions of other americans that a r e was a jobs creation and read and retention bill mr chairman i believe congress and president barack obama intended it to be a jobs creation and retention bill if it is true we are in an economic crisis we should expedite the paperwork process at all levels not just federal and target those areas hardest hit by that cannot that konami turned out mr chairman that can help our county will bounce back we have and will continue to aggressively pursue pursue investments in our local economy elkhart county has submitted a shovel ready shovel ready project requesting tiger this  set aside for distressed economic areas for transportation projects and we think we have a project that will significantly impact our region be assured elkhart county is not looking for government handouts we see stimulus as an investment to jumpstart our local regional and state economy our residents are working creative and are noted for success starting successful long term businesses that impact the nation and the world mr chairman i thank you again for the opportunity to speak to you today and i look forward to answering any questions you might have thank you very much for coming mr taylor and i will have some follow up questions i think there's some a particular note of your comments are our highways are a bridge for through traffic trucks and tourism you cited the cluster of national units of the national park system in  on the way to traffic that's on the way to other destinations they're still using your roads and you're having to to sustain that road system and improve it but how did how were you able to come out of the gate so fast get your recovery act application ready and  submitted what was it that you did that might be different from other states mr chairman i don't know how to comment about the experience of other states but i can tell you what worked in wyoming former governor sullivan had us coined a phrase that senator craig thomas uses back here in washington he said wyoming is a small town with really long streets and his commentary was it was aimed at the fact that in wyoming the culture is relationally based and which is to say that you don't get things done if you if you don't have relationships built from border to border but you can get a tremendous amount done in a short period of time with that kind of neighborly ethic that exists in the state  kind of taking command of the our possibility at that point very early on when there was when it was really conjecture what was going to happen and beginning to form up a template if you want to call it that and frankly his our behind the scenes work with members of our legislature to the to the point that when the recovery act became a reality we simply had not only  the approval but the the permission of the politicians in our state the elected officials in our state to stand back and allow they already established process to carry through the implementation of these funds  other groups i mentioned in my spoken testimony that i need to reiterate here to again that same relational approach applies with federal highways were on a first name basis with phil miller and his staff and so early on when this was a possibility or probability and not a reality we were working with phil and his staff and also with the wyoming contractors association jonathan downing and his people that they literally sat down at the table with us so we could examine every aspect of not only the the process projects that we had designed on the shelf which was three times what our our annual federal program would fund but we also examined whether or not the contractors could deliver the capacity that was a real concern for us because we knew we would hit the ground running and federal highways was a partner in that conversation as well so it was a combination of a number of elements but really boiled down to a bunch of committed people working together i think that's very  funds not all states have that requirement goes ahead but others so in some states the legislature had to be convened if they were not already in session and had to approve legislation to allow the state to were daily involved in those and it really did help to set the stage wyoming is one of those states where statutorily the carrying out a federal disbursement of federal highway funds is tasked to a commission and in this particular case those informal conversations led to the legislature simply trusting the commission with that same process so we were able to use a very familiar process to carry out this extraordinary  funds to stave off or to prolong the life of some of those that were in decline and all of those are projects in which that right away so acquired us in other permitting and been completed correct mr chairman it would be accurate to say that the  us has been complete in most of them at least to the extent that it could and right away acquisition may not have yet taken place but we know what we need and so we're ready to go with that if the funding were in place but on the on the one submitted for recovery that those aspects of the process were already in place mr chairman yes that is what i intended in two thousand and seven when we first reported proposed the stimulus in two thousand and eight when we moved a bill through committee through the house we were very clear about and i had numerous conversations with actually with a our t b a with the had several revolving conversations state d o t directors i don't recall that you in any of those but i think this is what we're intending to do not be ready for it so i really don't have any sympathy for the states of the state to come in so we didn't know this is happening baloney you were all on notice everybody knew this was coming so well of us mr mike and i were actually on the floor together managing the conference report on the water resources development act had passed congress and six and a half years were finally getting this major bill passed and  third world country and i looked closer it was minnesota but in four hundred thirty seven days they rebuilt that bridge in forty eight hours we had a bill through committee through the house through the senate to provide the emergency funding for minnesota to rebuild that bridge across that that helped immensely it was hundred percent federal funding just like recovery act so now to my same floor on the other wing of that building and federal highway administration was also on the same floor of the south wing of that building they didn't send emails they walk down the hall with their engineering plants and looked out and said all right this is good this is not good we have change just change something else there was instant communication they didn't have to  go through hoops because they talked with each other that's the kind of thing that's the sort of spirit that i want to get into the transportation bill bridge tragedy we had a tragic incident on the wind river indian reservation in wyoming where a bridge was hit by a motor vehicle and there was some tallies involved in that and it destabilize that bridge and that's the bad news the terrible news but the good news was that in a very short period of time our d o t our state the o t and the reservation department of transportation were able to collaborate and get a  bridge in place using our equipment and then to rebuild that bridge in a very short period of time so those you know those kind of cross boundary and cross disciplines cooperations are i believe alive and well unfortunately our authorization bill that deal with transportation but i just received a notice from the floor are likely to have votes in about fifteen minutes so i'll let you  that number of contractors have been bidding low it's sad because materials costs have come down as the chinese and indian economy flag and their pressure slackened or is it just because of the the downturn in the economy and more contractors are bidding and willing to cut costs in order to win the project mr chairman i think it's bull i think that the material pricing has softened crude oil is come down and so liquid asphalt has become less expensive but i think by and large the number of contractors are into a panic mode that they don't know what's coming taxed and so they their bidding is though they will never see another job and that is a very dangerous environment for for everyone for that contractor and for the people who work for them so we see we see a number of jobs being bid very very aggressively  because they don't know what the next program of the recovery act is accounting for callbacks restoring jobs for contractors eventually that money will be committed funds will be paid out the program will come to an end and we need a sustained program sir and what is that sustained program the reauthorization sir  i mentioned the night forever construction company earlier in the truck driver who told the story of sitting at the kitchen table husband also a truck driver for that company knife river kept their employees on health health insurance program alive through december they had no jobs they had no contracts they had nothing  in prospect it cost them three hundred thousand dollars actually borrowed money to keep their employees health insurance at least through the end of zero eight but then that ran out th their workforce together and keeping that workforce together was one of the reasons he said retain or create new jobs in crafting the language for the recovery act  do you know of others who have that had a similar experience i think these are great human interest stories certainly sir we've we all we all really do look at our employees as or i know it  gallagher asphalt we do we look at our employees much differently than just a number just a person we have over twenty different family relationships in our company if it's husband and wife father and son brothers and sisters and so everybody is very connected and when we need to lay somebody off it's it's not a simple thing because they are connected to people who are being laid off or people who are able to stay we try very hard to to work with the most motivated employees to make sure that they have health care so that they can have health care through the winter that they have enough hours banked as you've talked about two to allow them to to sustain their health care coverage throughout the winter layoff but again it can't go on it can't go on forever but but we do take it very personally in our decisions of overhead reduction and employee layoffs it's not a simple it's not as simple as just looking at numbers on a page i and your members of your association same i've been to a number of sand gravel operations that were coast forty percent in the state of minnesota transportation program and i don't expect there will be another recovery act the real long term stimulus that will create six million  new jobs and sustain three million jobs that is the surface transportation authorization that we've moved through subcommittee and i think that that is what your members  have expressed support for it's very much what our members have said and we're back to the point that was made in the oral testimony and in the written work as well the vast majority of what this stone sand and gravel is going to find its way to will be infrastructure projects that will simply be the driver but every other component of the economy has also been heavily damaged what we've seen in commercial has been the greatest drop that we could ever have imagined people didn't just finish commercial jobs they walked away from commercial jobs there is simply nothing going on in housing and our view is exactly what you are says mr chairman and that is if we have a firm s that this industry and the construction industry knows it can count on it's going to spur growth it's going to spur opportunity not just in transportation not just in infrastructure but everything that will spin off of that is going to be a remarkable economic vehicle going forward so we see this is an incredible opportunity one that's much needed sooner rather than later not just to get the largest component of our business going but indeed every component of all of our business is going i'm going to see to it that the chairman of the president's council of economic advisers gets testimony from this panel and reads it i've said several times that what we need is not a council of several that i met with who said that fifty to eighty percent in their case it was eighty percent of their work was private sector shopping centers and parking lots of various other private sector projects before the collapse of the economy since recovery act ninety percent of their work is public sector that is recover or others in that business would have described would have been a very consistent migration for our membership as well we are certainly seeing that that same shift the previous three years our company had  roughly fifty percent of its work came from the private sector and fifty percent came from the public sector currently ninety eight and a half percent of our business is public sector work with only a point a half of private  work literally has just dried up and blown away mr chairman one forever does a considerable amount of work for white in wyoming they are really in our world they represent a conglomeration of companies that used to be separate smaller outfits that were assimilated by ny forever and they're one of our best contractors in the state well i think there's a lesson here is it's going to take much longer for the private sector to enjoy  recovery and that past to fifty or sixty percent of your work that was private sector stimulated generated been replaced by the public sector in other words we will need to sustain the public sector investment  revenues are back bill come back to those to those buses but i know that you know that's a great disappointment for you but marta has also purchased and i know that i'm seeing on the streets of the district of know chicago the c t a needs the bus is not a matter of need they have an aging fleet that had some issues over the last couple of years with with another style of bus they had problems with so it's not an easy issue including we understand it's a state funding issue and in fact  you know this is a c t a bought fifty eight bus is directly tied to the stimulus money that came out of this committee and that was greatly and in fact you know we have a number of properties that have benefited you know just to list philadelphia seattle washington u davis rochester milwaukee charleston detroit boston honolulu cincinnati miami new orleans fargo morehead california and then some from chicago so clearly the stimulus dollars has made its way across america and has benefited those that could take advantage of it in a shovel ready or purchase order ready format and that's been very successful and it's benefited new flyer but but it's also benefit those thirty suppliers that we have that are ripple throughout the united states or those thirty states  next question would you have suppliers who provide parts for the buses and they're scattered all around the states and those are jobs as well right absolutely sure and as you know our industry we're assembler so we design and assemble buses whether it's us or our competitors the ripple effect on the supplier community and then down to the raw material suppliers is absolutely tremendous and so as we've kind of stated it's it's almost a six to one ratio every job that's saved or cre ated in our specifics space for our company ripples back to the supply committed to a tremendous multiple you probably don't want me to mention your competitors but they're there they're out there as well and capability and there is room inside our facilities to do the work that we're contracted for and more and so we're going to see hunger on behalf of us and our competitors to try and retain our market shares and grow them everyone of them has in some way shape or benefited from the ability to deploy stimulus dollars very quickly thank you you know our authorization bill we listen to the various transit agencies across the country we're concerned about their operating expense about give us your thoughts about i think that's very very important sir and as you know there's an there's a real economy around the investments in new technologies and therefore the direct reduction in maintaining or operating older fuel inefficient buses a fuel efficient equipment that can be purchased at the right capital price so we love that opportunity there's a matter of principle involved the principle thrust of the federal legislation is to provide capital assistance to transit agencies to buy the equipment then it's up to them to operate and maintain it and more money that goes into if more money from the federal side goes into operation will be lost money for new capital are we have always seen the role of the federal government as being to us to increase the investment in the capital rolling stock rather than in the operation account similar to a similar principle for the federal highway program projects in elkhart county but ten projects and all that that may involve either state funds or regular federal aid highway funds so my understanding is there are funded state projects through what i'm here today to addresses the difficulties we're having as a county getting our portion of stimulus funding that flows through either our m p o or through state funding that will stimulus funding pot of money if you will that's not working as well as the projects that you're mentioning you're out there on the front line and  so you should know as the county engineer whether these are recovery act funds or whether they are state funds only or federal aid state projects under the eight hundred twenty program that three additional million dollars will be committed and they also approved airport project four million dollars on recovery act the airport project was for the city of  which is a place that president barack obama visited and that project the four million dollars project is complete so at that that was a successful project it was bid and it is but a runway do you know if it was a runway yes runway how much of that twenty six million dollars was recovery act funds and how much was eighty twenty funding or maybe some state funding altogether so the second question then is the allocation under the recovery act we directed states state the o t s to on a priority basis allocate funds to counties highest unemployment as measured by the us economic development of ministration they do it for the whole country county by county elkhart county obviously is one of one of the highest unemployment counties in the country according to the what happened what happened that indiana d o t that they did not give you first of all where does where does your own apply your county unemployment rate rank within the state of indiana number one  mr chairman why did they not that's a very good question that probably needs to be posed i asked that question and indiana d o t said it took el two months to submit their projects is that correct two months to submit our projects in april we began filling out paperwork for the projects to submit  photos were submitted as required and and i i i don't know the time allows me to go into all of the details i'll take all the time as it lies but all those details i don't want to set up a conflict between you and indiana t but this is your opportunity tell your story and i'm asking the questions because we're crafting this new bill yes and i want to see what we can do in the future for the regular program to cut out these these kinds of disconnects understood mr chairman we attended a meet meeting early on at the fort wayne district in fort wayne indiana where all of the local government entities were told what the plan was for rolling out this program  were told it was going to be a first come first served program in other words those entities that went home got busy got the paperwork in on time and correct we're going to be the first to receive i may be mistaken but i don't recall any language about distribution based on economic need or or unemployment in the law i wrote it into the law i assist and sistas on it in house senate conference and it's and it's in the law the president signed so i didn't tell you about that we took photos we filled out reports submitted them to and they were returned to us said you didn't take enough photos to show all  pavement distresses that are required in order to justify this segment of road is being resurfaced mr chairman we have design engineers on staff who have designed currently one thousand million dollar bridge the largest pre engineered arched structure in the united states was designed in house by our staff i think we can determine whether a road needs to be paved or not yet these forms were returned to us only to be revised and sent back again and again when you do that you fall at the end of the line and the money was had run out by that point you know i you know most respects county engineers  seventeen counties in my district i meet with each of them in the course of a year and one of the one of the county engineers in my district wayne blank was your county engineers association president a few allocation i suspect you'd like that idea and i suspect that thing could be a good thing rather than having to go hat in hand to the state d o t mr chairman i would welcome that opportunity our department works very closely and very well with mr bob talley who is the federal highway representative for the state of indiana who works out of indian apple us we work very well with him we've had some challenges in the past not with him but challenges and designs and so forth we work very closely together to get those resolved we would look forward to that opportunity to work through challenges of federal aid projects well i would suggest it's a topic with the national association county engineers and perhaps craft some suggestions for us to include as we as we refine the future surface transportation bill thank you thanks to all of you for your contributions for your a a the public building services the corps of engineers under our work under our committee jurisdiction where again there are people that work getting a payroll getting a paycheck