morning the subcommittee will come to order pursuant to notice the subcommittee on technology and innovation meets today to considering that you consider the following measure h r twenty five sixty nine to reauthorize surface transportation  research development technology transfer activities and for other purposes we will now proceed with the march and the chair recognizes himself for an opening statement this is a very busy day for everyone and i will attempt to be brief  underlying bill was introduced in late may i'm not going to review it in detail but the bill before us today is the result of house subcommittee hearings in the hundred tenth and one hundred eleventh congress has i believe we've had four hearings on this topic the focus of these hearings was to establish the r and d priorities appropriate for the twenty first century rather than a continuation of programs that were created decades ago in addition the subcommittee asked that  stakeholder community what r and d needs must be prioritized rather than developing an r and d authorization without stakeholder community input also in developing this legislation we have worked closely with the transportation secretary  la hood and the reid administration ministre to mr pal and the transportation and infrastructure committee and relevant subcommittee this bill is consistent with the general principles outlined by secretary la hood and with a draft bill that the committee on transportation and infrastructure is developing the bill creates a formal mechanism for stakeholder input in valuation into surface transportation r and d into its surface transportation r and d strategic plan it increases the accountability of the research programs at the department of transportation as well as the university transportation centers it improves the transparency of d o t r and d activities allowing for improved oversight and the bill also sets priorities in areas such as climate green transportation infrastructure congestion mitigation and pavement research the focus of these programs is to ensure that research programs are firmly anchored in the needs of the user community the bill does not yet include authorization levels as the build moves forward and funding levels are established for the overall surface transportation authorization it is my intention to set funding levels and we hope to do this before this legislation reaches the full committee mark i urge my colleagues support this bill to ensure that the science and technology committee continues committee action i hope through this markup in a markup at full committee we can arrive at a product we can all supporting eventually incorporate into the highway bill as it moves forward however as it stands right now i have significant concerns with the bill which i hope we can address subcommittee or later at  full committee generally these concerns fall into three categories first spending with record deficits and a mountain of debt looming in the background threatening both short and long term economic stability it is clear we need to practice some fiscal restraint unfortunately on most issues in congress and with the highway bill in particular spend taxpayer money trumps any concerns over balancing the nation's checkbook i hope this bill doesn't become a smaller reflection of this problem but as drafted i am concerned we continue to create and expand government spending without regard to how we will pay for it another concern is legislations emphasis on climate change while i'm not necessarily opposed to climate change i question it as a priority relative to other well established areas of study such as research on safety advanced materials congestion reduction and more further i want to ensure any research on emissions reduction strategies quote unquote which clearly has significant policy and regular regulatory implications fully considers not only the potential reductions in c o two emissions but also the trade offs associated with the so called strategies to reduce such emissions such as the economic burdens on businesses and consumers for example how  particular emissions reduction strategies impact rural areas where agriculture or the trucking industry last time concerned the bill mandates the term community livability as a focus area for d o t r and d programs the term is extremely vague and not defined in the legislation to the extent we do have a definition though it is troubling we've heard the administration say that livability involves coercing people out of their cars i think we can safely assume most americans wouldn't consider the government forcing them out of their vehicles as something which improves their livability accordingly i want to ensure the d o t are in the portfolio is aimed at positively impacting americans lifestyles not limiting basic freedoms to live work and commute as they please and growing our economy again i thank you mr chairman for holding this mark up and i look forward to working with you today and that full committee to improve the bill also mr chairman i would like to engage the subcommittee counsel in a discussion regarding references to community live little below the in the bill unanimous consent that the bill is considered as read and open to it management at any point and that the members proceed with amendments in the order of the roster without objection so ordered ordered i recognize myself for five minutes to explain the amendment and mr smith you may wish to proceed both on the amendment and on the livability discussion at that point this amendment makes one technical change and adds a section reauthorize intelligent transportation systems i t s activities at the department of transportation the technical change a man's the definition of the administrator to become the secretary acting through the administrator the activities in this bill are to be carried out but the administrator of the research and innovative technology and ministration are read up however this new language is consistent with the current statutory language and reflects comments report received from the department of transportation secondly this amendment authorizes i t s activities at the d o t these activities are currently overseen by rita  metrics this amendment will bring more accountability to a program that has received billions of dollars over the past two decades but according to the g a o and others has not led to clearly quantifiable results department transportation so it's a priority what can you do describe and i guess how constituents whether it's rural or urban might perceive this transportation terms an offering of choice under many circumstances but that choice does not always exist in intensely urban environments versus very rural  carry that much cargo on a bicycle and rural distances are not practical for some forms of transportation and urban densities are amenable to other forms of transportation bipartisan concern among the agriculture committee for example of what it's happening and if we move forward with an intentional and intentionally ambiguous term  to intentionally give an agency the latitude i'm very concerned and especially when comments from the administration such as coercing people out of their vehicles is apparently a ok we have a one vote that is on the floor and there appeared to be about eleven a half minutes before that before the fifteen minutes expires  called committee back to order and proceed with the second amendment the second amendment on the roster is an amendment offered by the gentleman from nebraska mr smith are you ready to proceed thank you mr chairman section five of the so ordered and i recognize a gentleman for five minutes to explain his amendment thank you mr chairman section five of the legislation prescribes specific climate related impact reduction research activities for the d o t office of climate change and the environment was created in the energy independence and security act of two thousand and seven these include activities focused on reducing vehicle miles traveled reducing congestion reducing construction and maintenance related emissions and energy consumption and other strategies to reduce greenhouse emissions and conserve energy arising from surface transportation infrastructure operation while the section state office shall assess the cost effectiveness of various emissions reduction strategies it does not require the office to pursue strategies to minimize economic and other burdens on consumers or that it explicitly consider the economic and social tradeoffs associated with policies such as land use restrictions and transportation pricing schemes further the required cost effectiveness assessments simply calculate the cost of a desired outcome rather than assess the tradeoffs and or net benefits associated with a particular policy and this amendment attempts to eliminate any policy presumptuousness associated with the opposite activities as described in the bill by requiring balance consideration of policy tradeoffs associated with the strategies being pursued by the office's research for example research supported by the office on reducing vehicle miles traveled would not simply focus on how to reduce but rather my view that this research would be done by other researchers as well as the researchers that we want to empowered to do this work under this particular bill and always requiring a cost benefit analysis  does not make sense in many research contacts it made me and others and i would prefer to leave it to the researchers to make that determination is there any other discussion of this amendment consent to dispense with the reading without objection so ordered and i recognize a gentleman from nebraska for five minutes to explain his amendment or less thank you mr chairman this amendment attempts to address concerns i discussed in my opening statement regarding spending in the office of climate change and the environment the legislation prescribes in detail the types of activities the climate office should support but it is silent on what level the office should be funded out and how it should be funded this amendment simply provides clarity on this question by doing two things first it states the office shall be funded by existing d o t research through a pass the hat mechanism has described by the secretary as existing practice second amendment sets the office funding level at no more than two million dollars per year the d o t has provided us the office's funding levels for the last three years which have averaged about five hundred thousand dollars and never been greater than one point one million cap in the office a two million dollars allows for a significant increase while still limiting growth in the size of the office this does not necessarily limit d o t wide climate research but it is intended to provide a check on it and protect against a shift away from important and established areas of study such as research on safety  advanced materials thank you and i yield back i thank the gentleman i'm going to oppose the amendment the two million dollars number is an arbitrary number historically the office has had a reasonable level of expenditure we do not know what expenditure level we will have overall for either the research budget or the bill overall and we would like to work with the gentlemen to set  reasonable numbers going forward but i oppose an arbitrary two million dollar cap i'd be happy to yield are you saying that you would support a limit at some level  the goal would be to reclaim my time the goal would be to set numbers as we go to full committee markup and those budgetary numbers will be will be inserted as part of the process at this point in time i fully expect that number to be under two million dollars but that number may be higher or lower but at this point in time i fully expect that number to be lower once the once the  spent about half a million dollars on average and i'm proposing to cap that at two million dollars i think that's reasonable perhaps unreasonable for some of the other end of the equation but i think that this is reasonable and that's why i offer and i effort of good faith and i know that you're responding in good faith as well so i hope that we can do something but i think this is a good start well  reclaim my time the goal of the committee will be to set budgetary numbers as we go forward i understand the gentleman's concern and it is one that i share one of the challenges with offering numbers and so well in advance of knowing what the projections might be is that what one intends as a ceiling one certainly hopes will not become a floor and we've all seen strange things happen around this institution and this and this city and i would recommend to the gentleman that once we have the information better in hand about what we are going to actually allocate to the research section that we will come to a set of firm numbers which with every expectation based on based on history maybe it will be under two million dollars but again that's not a firm commitment from the chair at this point in time but it is an expectation be happy to yield to the gentleman but you do have an expectation of setting up for number yes within reason of what  maybe even more than two million i might be hearing you but that's not my point but if you're willing to establish a hard number i think that that is a step in the right direction and i would withdraw my  premise i think the gentleman hearing no objection the amendment is withdrawn it is next in order to consider amendments judgements third amendment consent to dispense with the reading without objection so ordered the gentleman is recognized to discuss his amendment five minutes or less yes i think one minute and six seconds last time thank you mr chairman that section eight of the legislation establishes a pavement research deployment and education program within d o t however such a program already exists in the us code created in safety to the existing program heavily overlaps with the proposed activities in section eight for example existing programs supports research on the reduction of initial costs and lifecycle costs of payments including the cost of new construction similarly section eight of this bill would support research on methods to reduce the overall cycle cost of paving materials and practices other aspects of the program match forbade them with the program created in safety for example the program created in safety would fund the deployment of accelerated construction techniques to increase safety and reduce construction time and traffic disruption and congestion this is amendment addresses the clear duplicate given us of these programs by simply striking the existing program from the code ensuring that cars and activities will not be redundant i plan to withdraw this amendment with assurances from you to work with us at the full committee level to clarify and resolve the duplicative of these programs in the bill mr chairman that will you work with us for committee markup to resolve the issues raised in this amendment and can you assure that we will be given a is that there is a deployment section of the research activities which is not a duplications between our new section and the existing section and we want to make sure that the deployment activities are preserved as we go forward and i do and i do offer the gentleman my commitment to work with him to eliminate unnecessary duplication between these two similar research efforts and you know back to the gentleman maybe some some mischief funding both parts of the statute so i think and i hope that we can resolve this because i think it's just a step in the right direction i want to eliminate ambiguity duplications whenever possible and especially in light of the profile of these issues the profile of these issues is becoming greater and greater by the hour here in washington and i hope that we can resolve these issues because i think the american people want it they need it and there's this thing called economic livability too that certainly i think we're all striving for and i hope that we can achieve that if the gentleman w yield it is certainly my intend i believe the intent of the entire committee to avoid the kind of duplication that i understand the gentleman be concerned about the goal here is to work with the gentleman to eliminate that duplication to preserve any and duplicated deployment activities which exist in the current program and probably to work out given the location of these research efforts in both the reader and the federal highways ministration to work out a the best location for this kind of research going forward and to have only one location for to mitigate environmental impact throughout the life cycle of the transportation infrastructure this action was was passed by the science and technology committee as a standalone legislation in two transportation centers which already carry out a significant amount of green infrastructure research the language in this bill allows for establishment of centers anywhere the result of this could mean the creation of up to ten new centers or more program specifying that the existing u t c s cannot receive these grants this will allow universities with the expertise in transportation that are not currently receiving the federal research dollars as a used d c to take advantage of grants without  stablish the new centers that will be difficult to eliminate in other words that we would have the authorisation component and with that i would conclude my remarks in the back that the general intention to withdraw the amendment it is my intention to withdraw the amendment but i would like to have some discussion about it when we  parallel of that decision was too primitive existing research centers or any other worthwhile academic programs to participate in the new green research there is a substantial research and knowledge base in those centers and i'd be happy to have a general way it's my understanding that those that have been created have the ability to do that and a lot of this is been established by earmarks and i think that's what's troubling to me is that there really we don't have the you know the oversight that we should and i haven't found you know what they do you know what's been accomplished since we don't require any reports  and related research in this field is a concern which the chair shares and the long term goal is to rework the relationship between  establish peer reviewed merit based research in addition to any legacy earmark research which may continue i think that's why we're print out the money and a amendment would do also i think that the ones that we have already created would wouldn't want to apply for another one since they already have the research capability reclaiming my time i think that what we want to do is to permit the u t c s to apply for whatever research projects they feel they have expertise in whether it is the program that they have  really increasing the research dollars and where would that money come from we will be working with the transportation committee to reach a more adequate research budget which  yes and last year we included language to put this into in the u t c s and that was rejected this time i'm sorry because it generated clarif d ok ok last year we put in the fact that the green transportation research would be in the u t c is and that was rejected less this time i believe the green transportation is in the ten new u t c s right but not in the other but not in those that have already been created and the existing one but it's my understanding that that the bill language is as introduced last year not as passed and also with this came up in and staff discussion council would you can you address this question place is the question of  is consistent with my recollection what degenerated has just said that there was action in the committee last time to put the green research in the existing u s in discussion then with this that was rejected this time and and that's why we went to have the green green centers to be allowed for that the grant program rather than just the ten  council is is the bill as as as it is as modified by the manager's amendment consistent with the bill as introduced in committee or consistent with the joe ladies recollection is correct then we will work to change this bill tax between between now and the full committee mark i thank the chairman and with that i would with travis i thank the general a d and a gentle lady has my commitment to agree on might be a blockage the bill as a whole ok with the amendment withdrawn the sixth amendment on the roster is an chairman to the amendment i'm offering takes three com some steps to improve technology transfer the commercialization activity research in innovative technology administration or rita first it puts someone in charge of text france for a second it makes funds available to support these activities and third make the information available to people who value a new tools and technologies before i say a little more about exactly how this amendment compters these goals i want to make clear th money bill already does making proven tech transfer and as someone who sits on the t n i committee i think that this research titles focus on long term plan fits nicely it chairman jim oberstar overarching vision for the future of transportation in america chairman who's bill make sure that readers research programs align with our transportation needs and that really has a plan for getting new tools and technology out to people who might actually use them this is amendment offered today builds on this we owe it to taxpayers to make sure they get the most out of federal transportation dollars this means spending money wisely and infrastructure projects but also means making sure that the best technologies are available to people who design in build it infrastructure to do this we need to make sure that we actually get new technologies out of the lab and into practice because with the centralized research enterprise this last item has been a particular concern for rita the first thing that my amendment does is put someone in charge it requires read as administrator to appoint a technology transfer coordinator someone solely responsible the coordinator is also required to say i was at tech transfer working group composed of representatives from the various rida research programs this working group as similar objects used to take knology innovate and committee or tick that used to exist within t until about two thousand and six tick work to unified departmental tech transfer activities and also ran a pair of web sites a detailed d o t r and d in tech transfer activities but early two thousand and seven the web site went dark and there's no longer a single centralized source for information about tech transfer programs at rida my memory addresses this problem but it's asking a central clearinghouse for information about all of read of research in text transfer programs this clearinghouse we collect industry with the results of transportation research and also gather information about new technologies where the main purposes of the clearing house is to make sure that decision makers at a cost benefit information they need to evaluate new technologies and tools highly my men will say i was a technology deployment commercialization fun also mile after similar program as a department of energy this fund uses one half of one percent of readers research dollars as matching funds protect transfer programs run through u t c s regional green transportation research centers in state department the transportation altogether this amendment helps to make sure that readers tech transfer plan gets carried out in transportation innovation is reached the people who can use them in a guarantee that congress in the public know what result the benefits are coming out of read as research program i believe that we can all agree that these goals are very important for the future she aftertaste in america if we're helping to ensure good stewardship of tax dollars m chairman i understand that there are some concerns about exactly how the amendment reaches these goals and i'm going to ask the chairman if he will work with me and agree to work with me on this amendment as we go forward and go towards the full committee markup if you agree to do this i will be happy to withdraw the amendment at this time the gentleman's amendment has commendable goals my understanding that if we can work out some mechanisms that are that folks are comfortable with that we can incorporate some version of the gentleman's amendment in the final checks the bill in general has my commitment to to work with him toward that goal as a chairman for his commitment i think this is something that we all want to want to see happen it's transparencies make sure there research actually gets out into the field and think certainly all of you know both side of the aisle here we get we can agree about that and using dollars tax dollars the best way we can so with that i will ask you man's consent to withdraw my amendment so ordered  d thank you just want to offer a comment that effective technology transfer is something that we aim for very strongly in this bill and i thank the gentleman for his efforts in that direction  and the overall goals are effective technology transfer and utility to users and adequate user input in the research efforts of the department and with that we move onto the seventh amendment and the seventh amendment on the roster amendment offered by the gentleman from georgia mr brown are you ready to proceed with your amendment mr chairman i have a minute this very good clerk will report the amendment twenty five sixty way that they are marking process is done in our chamber i was very happy to hear the chairman express his concern about the same thing that i'm concerned about oftentimes earmarks are more specifically over earmarking actually ends up crowding out higher priority research and projects the federal agencies the more necessary are vital than the remarks themselves give one example of higher marks impacting mission oriented research programs in the last highway bill done in two thousand and five the federal highway administration was allocated one hundred ninety six million dollars out of the how a trust fund for research however the number of earmark process projects within that same amount totaled two hundred twenty million dollars this chairman this r and d account was more than a hundred and twenty percent over year marked obviously this means that the f h a is funny research based on parochial and political interest not what the transportation researchers and practitioners have determined should be their priorities mom in aims to modestly begin to address this issue by require in that additionally asked for the strategic plan to include a description on whether and how increasing the proportion of competitive merit reviewed activities as opposed to earmarks might further the does of the plan this simple inclusion would allow us to better quantify the impact of earmarking on addressing transportations r and a needs as i said before i believe this is a small but necessary step for this body to make so that we might be able to better understand how air marks are usurping more meaningful research it is my understanding mr chairman that you're willing to accept this amendment for which i am very grateful and i look forward to working with you in the rest of our colleagues and hopefully reform in the process even more in the future mr chairman i really enjoy the way that you work with us and and i would hope that all chairman would do the same thing and i appreciate you're willing to do so thank you so much thank you mr chairman for working with me on the angles of this amendment and i thank the gentleman and i do intend to accept this or recommend that this amendment be  accepted i think that there are many instances where with local road projects those who know the locality best might have particularly valuable endpoint about specific road projects and there's probably a much stronger argument that research projects should have substantial regional and national import in addition there might be legitimate local input at times but i certainly agree with the gentleman that  knowing the extent to which the research in the department is earmarked or over earmarks is a valuable data point from which to proceed to adjust future research priorities and the methods that we choose to deal with these allocations and what that is there any further discussion of the amendment i just want to thank chairman again i appreciate it very much and appreciate you working with me on this  to are there any other amendments if not then the vote is on the bill h r twenty five sixty nine as amended all those in favor it will say i i all those of pelosi will say no in the opinion the chair the ayes ha and i recognize myself to offer a motion i move that the subcommittee favorably report h r twenty five sixty nine line as amended to the full committee furthermore i move that staff be instructed to prepare the subcommittee report and make necessary technical and conforming changes to the bill in accordance with the recommendations of the subcommittee the question is on the motion to report the bill favorably those in favor of the motion will signify by saying i those opposed say no the ayes have it in the bill as favorably reported without objection the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table members will have two subsequent calendar days in which to submit supplemental minority or additional views on this legislation and i want to thank all the members and the staff for their hard work and attendance and this concludes our subcommittee marked up thank you all very very much