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65–736 PDF 2011

IMPROVING AND REFORMING OUR NATION’S 

SURFACE TRANSPORTATION PROGRAMS: 

COLUMBUS, OHIO, FIELD HEARING 

(112–8) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

FEBRUARY 19, 2011 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

Available online at: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/ 

committee.action?chamber=house&committee=transportation 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida, Chairman 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

TOM REED, New York 

ANDY HARRIS, Maryland 

ERIC A. ‘‘RICK’’ CRAWFORD, Arkansas 

JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington 

FRANK C. GUINTA, New Hampshire 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania 

CHIP CRAVAACK, Minnesota 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

BILLY LONG, Missouri 

BOB GIBBS, Ohio 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

RICHARD L. HANNA, New York 

STEPHEN LEE FINCHER, Tennessee 

JEFFREY M. LANDRY, Louisiana 

STEVE SOUTHERLAND II, Florida 

JEFF DENHAM, California 

JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma 

NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

BOB FILNER, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa 

TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii 

JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

HEATH SHULER, North Carolina 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

LAURA RICHARDSON, California 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

(II) 

(III) 

CONTENTS Page 

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... iv 

TESTIMONY 

Burgett, Brian, President and CEO, Kokosing Construction Company .............. 8 

Fromm, Barry, Chairman, US Railcar Company .................................................. 8 

Gattozzi, Nick, Vice President of Government Advocacy, Greater Cleveland 

Partnership ........................................................................................................... 8 

Lozier, Bill, Deputy County Engineer, Licking County, Ohio .............................. 8 

Policinski, Mark, Executive Director, Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments ............................................................................................... 8 

Schmenk, Hon. Christiane W., Mayor, city of Marysville, Ohio .......................... 8 

Tuttle, Keith, President, Motor Carrier Service, Inc. ........................................... 8 

Wray, Hon. Jerry, Director, Ohio Department of Transportation ....................... 8 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Burgett, Brian .......................................................................................................... 32 

Fromm, Barry .......................................................................................................... 35 

Gattozzi, Nick ........................................................................................................... 37 

Lozier, Bill ................................................................................................................ 40

Policinski, Mark ....................................................................................................... 53 

Schmenk, Hon. Christiane W. ................................................................................ 59 

Tuttle, Keith ............................................................................................................. 63 

Wray, Hon. Jerry ..................................................................................................... 74 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Greyhound Lines, Inc., Theodore Knappen, Government Affairs Representative, statement on the role of intercity buses in providing cost-effective 

improvements to our national transportation system ....................................... 77 

Mark S. Miller, letter expressing opinions about necessary changes to the 

Federal processes for prioritizing and funding transportation and infrastructure improvements ...................................................................................... 82 

Michigan Department of Transportation, Kirk T. Steudle, P.E., Director, written testimony ........................................................................................................ 84 

Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, the Columbus Partnership, the Columbus Chamber, the Columbus Regional Airport Authority, and the Central Ohio Transit Authority, written comments ................................................ 89 

Ohio Environmental Council, David R. Celebrezze, Director of Air and Water 

Special Projects, comments regarding the transportation reauthorization 

bill listening tour .................................................................................................. 99 

Statement for the record from: The Ability Center of Greater Toledo; The 

AMOS Project; The Arc of Greater Cleveland; Autism Society of Ohio; 

AXIS Center for Public Awareness; The Kirwan Institute for Race and 

Ethnicity, The Ohio State University; The Leadership Conference on Civil 

and Human Rights; Mid Ohio Board for an Independent Living Environment (MOBILE); The Ohio Higher Education Rail Network (OHERN); The 

Ohio Olmstead Taskforce; Ohio Statewide Independent Living Council; Policy Matters Ohio; PolicyLink; SEIU Local 1; Southeastern Ohio Center 

for Independent Living; Transport Workers Union of America, AFL–CIO; 

Tri-County Independent Living Center, Inc.; and Western Reserve Independent Living Center ......................................................................................... 102 

Terry Asphalt Materials, Inc., Dan Koeninger, President, testimony on behalf 

of FP2, Inc. ........................................................................................................... 110 

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(1) 

IMPROVING AND REFORMING OUR 

NATION’S SURFACE TRANSPORATION 

PROGRAMS: COLUMBUS, OHIO, 

FIELD HEARING 

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2011 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE

WASHINGTON, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:30 a.m., in the Senate 

Finance Hearing Room, Ohio State House at 1 Capitol Square, Columbus, Ohio, Hon. John L. Mica (Chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Mica, Shuster, Schmidt and Gibbs. 

Also Present: Representative Stivers. 

Mr. MICA. Good morning. I’m Congressman John Mica, chairman 

of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of the 

United States House of Representatives, and I would like to call 

this hearing of the Committee to order. 

We are very pleased to be in the State capital of Ohio today. 

Today is a hearing of the Committee, the second in a series of a 

number of hearings, and also Committee listening sessions, that we 

we will be conducting across the United States of America. 

We started out in West Virginia at the beginning of this week, 

which was the home of the ranking member, Mr. Rahall. He is unable to be with us, but we started in his district, and I thought that 

was a good bipartisan effort to launch hearings on formulating our 

Nation’s transportation policy and major legislation. 

We will meet across the country. This afternoon we’re in Indianapolis, and from there Chicago. We’re going out to Washington, the 

State of Washington. We have several sessions in California, including an unusual joint session with the United States Senate 

Public Works and Environment Committee, chaired by Ms. Boxer 

from California. And that will be a joint Senate/House Committee 

hearing on the same topic we’re here today, again drafting our Nation’s legislative policy. 

And we have a number of other stops, including Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, back to Florida, and then going back, because 

of the extended session this week, we are going back to New York 

and Pennsylvania, several other locations before we finish. 

The purpose of these hearings and these listening sessions is to 

solicit ideas, recommendations, how we can change Federal laws or 

procedures relating to anything the Federal Government is doing 

in regard to our transportation projects. And this will be a transVerDate Aug 31 2005 08:53 Aug 26, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULLCO~1\2-19-1~1\65736.TXT JEAN
2 

portation bill, as opposed to just a highway bill, and we hope to 

cover, to have multi-modes in the bill. 

And I think that these hearings, again, are helpful to bring the 

best ideas from some of you who have had to deal with the Federal 

Government. And it’s fitting that we have this hearing today in the 

Ohio Statehouse. I can’t come here without remembering my good 

friend Paul Gillmor and his services here. I think about him, and 

his wife and family. 

But we’re here on a wonderful occasion today, again, soliciting 

your ideas. If we seem a little bit groggy, every Member of Congress here today—and most of the staff—we were on the floor of 

the House voting at 4:30 this morning, and through the grace of 

American transportation, here we are at Columbus. 

We’re only an hour late, but it is a second miracle that we are 

here, given that we probably had all the amendments—the number 

of amendments in the past three days, we had in the last session 

of Congress. And Members, I thank you for being here. 

And let me just say also that this week has been a busy week 

for the Committee. We passed a historic Federal Aviation Administration legislation. I happened to chair the Aviation Subcommittee 

from 2001 to 2007, and we passed the last FAA reauthorization in 

2003, which expired—it was a four year bill. It expired in 2007. 

We’ve done 17 extensions, and the current extension runs out the 

31st of March. The second miracle—well, maybe the third miracle, 

other than our being here this morning—is that the Senate, the 

United States Senate, actually passed the FAA bill. 

Now, it took them about four weeks. It’s been on the floor of the 

Senate. But they passed it this week, so hopefully as soon as we 

get back we’ll be doing two things. The other piece of legislation 

you may be interested in that relates to this hearing is, we have 

had six extensions since the expiration of our current authorization 

of Federal transportation policy. Its acronym is TLU. 

That expired in September of 2009. Unfortunately, we will do— 

and we passed out of committee—the next extension, at the request 

of many of the States, to go to September 30th. And we anticipate 

that that will be on the floor immediately upon return, the week 

we return, because the current extension expires with the CR on 

March 4th. 

So those are just some informational points for those who may 

be interested in seeing our progress in transportation. So we again 

have, unfortunately, a formal process. Not all of our sessions are 

this formal. This is a hearing, and we will take testimony. We want 

to also express to those that are not at the witness table, that you 

are just as welcome as any of the witnesses to submit to the committee your recommendations. 

And usually I find when we go out in the field, we get recommendations handed to us on the way out, or in the time shortly 

after our hearing. And many folks come up with great ideas. In our 

West Virginia hearing, actually I think some of the best ideas 

didn’t come from the panel, it came from folks who chose to attend. 

And actually, several of them will get possible inclusion into the 

legislation if I have any say. So with your permission, we’ll leave 

the record open for two weeks. 

3 

Without objection, I move that we leave the record open for a period of two weeks for your submitting to the Committee your recommendations. 

So those are a couple of the points that I thought we’d make. 

What I’d like to do is, first—ordinarily we only recognize members 

of our panel, but we are pleased, actually, the be in the home district of one of the members. Steve Stivers, I’d like to recognize you 

first. 

And we’ll go through the panel of Members of Congress for any 

opening statements or comments. We are delighted to be here at 

your request, and also Mr. Gibbs’ request. Two of the new members 

are actually responsible for our being here today. 

So with that, if you wanted to comment, we will recognize. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to welcome 

the Committee to Ohio’s 15th Congressional District that we’re sitting in now. And on behalf of Congressman Tiberi and Congressman Austria, I’d like to welcome the Committee to central Ohio. 

Obviously, transportation and infrastructure are very important 

to central Ohio. I’d like to thank the Chairman for bringing the 

Committee here. I’d like to thank all of the Committee members for 

coming, and I’d also like to thank them for allowing me to sit in. 

This is not my committee of jurisdiction, but I’m honored to be able 

to be here, and be sitting in on the hearing. 

I would like to make a few introductions, if that’s all right, Mr. 

Chairman. I know that Mr. Gibbs and I drew straws, so he gets 

to introduce a few witnesses and I get to introduce a few folks. But 

I know he’s going to introduce Mr. Wray, Mr. Burgett, and Mr. 

Lozier. And I believe that Congresswoman Schmidt is going to introduce Mr. Policinski. But I would like to introduce a few witnesses. 

Chris Schmenk, the mayor of Marysville is here to talk about a 

very important project for economic development for not only her 

county, and her town of Marysville, but for the whole region. And 

she’ll talk a little bit about that. And it’s great to have her here. 

I know that Mr. Gattozzi’s here from the Greater Cleveland Partnership. It’s good to have him here. And Barry Fromm, a good 

friend from here in central Ohio, is here to talk about US Railcar. 

It’s good to have him here, and it’s good to be talking about intermodal and lots of different types of transportation. 

I’d also like to acknowledge a few folks in the audience, most notably our host in the back, President of the Senate, Tom Neihaus. 

I had the honor to serve with Tom here in the State Senate for six 

years. Spent a lot of long nights in this hearing room. 

So I’ve moved my long nights to another hearing room in another 

place, but thank you, Mr. President, for allowing us to use the people’s house here, and the Senate hearing room, the finance hearing 

room, for this very important hearing. And it’s great to see you 

again, and great to have you as President of the Senate. You’re 

doing a great job. 

Chester Jordan from the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, very important for transportation projects. They do a lot of 

great planning work. He’s here in the back. 

Jeff Stauts with the Union County Engineers here, and our 

friends from Consider Biking in the bike shirts over here. My good 

4 

friend Doug Morgan, whom I consider the ambassador of biking, is 

not here today. But a lot of folks are, and I’ve had a chance to bike 

with him on Bike To Work Days, and other things. So it’s good to 

have them in the room as part of the conversation. 

Now, obviously, transportation and infrastructure equal jobs, Mr. 

Chairman. That’s why it’s important to have you here, and we really appreciate having you here. I’ve talked with Director Wray about 

several ideas that I know he’s working on to really leverage what 

goes on more, including working to cut the red tape between the 

work and coordination between the Federal Government and the 

State government. 

And I think there’s a great example in my district of that. The 

665/71 interchange was done where they actually shortened the 

time periods measurably, and made things happen. And I hope 

you’ll talk about that as an example, and hold it out. 

I’ve also talked with the director a little bit about how we need 

to leverage funds by reducing the local match. And I assume he 

may talk about that. That’s a project I’m working with him on as 

well, and I think it’s something that will allow us to leverage funds 

and complete projects that are important to the community, not 

just projects where the local match is there and easy to find. 

So I’m happy to be here. I appreciate the opportunity. And I really appreciate you bringing the Committee to central Ohio, Mr. 

Chairman. Thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you so much. Again, we are very grateful for 

the accommodation. As I said, we’re also here at the request of one 

of the members of our Committee, which is Mr. Gibbs. Now, Mr. 

Gibbs and Mr. Stivers, they both have great experience in the legislative body here, and distinguished records of service. 

And I had to choose two new Members of Congress who are serving on our Committee to chair subcommittees. And I interviewed 

a number of them and looked at their backgrounds, and I could tell 

you how pleased I am with the decision to select Mr. Gibbs as the 

subcommittee chair, one of the few entering Members of Congress, 

probably in the history of Congress, to come in and chair a subcommittee. 

The Water Resources Subcommittee is one of the most important 

in Congress and has broad jurisdiction. But we are pleased to be 

close to your district, and I’m even more pleased to have your leadership on the Committee. And I recognize you at this time. 

Ms. GIBBS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for coming 

to Ohio. And thank you, Congressman Stivers and Congresswoman—I forgot her name for a second—Jean Schmidt, for being 

with us today. 

Ms. SCHMIDT. How quickly you forget, Bob. 

Mr. MICA. It could be your sister. 

Ms. SCHMIDT. We were up all night, I guess. But it was mentioned that Congressman Stiver was serving recently in the Senate, 

and I was too. Not quite two months. And by the way, gentlemen, 

my office was right on the other side of that wall. Right underneath the mezzanine there. 

But anyway, it’s great to be here as we work on the challenges 

facing our infrastructure and transportation in the United States 

and Ohio. Just a couple of key points I just wanted to mention. 

5 

Iowa’s transportation system supports an about $472 billion 

economy. Its 5 million jobs Interstate system ranks fourth in the 

Nation, with over 6,700 miles, and we’re committed to improve and 

build on that. 

One of the major problems—and that’s one reason I’m so excited 

that the chairman’s holding these hearings—is recent studies have 

determined that sometimes the Federal project delivery process can 

take up to 15 years to complete a project of simple construction 

And you know, when you take that long to do things, it adds to 

the costs and delays. And one thing we’re trying to find is ways to 

change the policy and the process so that we can streamline and 

get those projects done faster and improve the infrastructure for 

our citizens. 

I think it’s exciting, the panel we’ve got here today, because they 

deal with these issues on a daily basis, Mr. Chairman. And I look 

forward to hearing from them, and hearing how we can make 

things more efficient and help them do their job better. 

So I hope it cuts through that red tape and streamlines the 

project process, with—as I always like to say—a common sense approach. And I think if we can do that, we’ll do a lot to improve the 

costs and help move commerce and people in the most efficient way 

possible. 

I do want to introduce some of the panelists. On the far end here 

is the Honorable Jerry Wray, the new Director of the Ohio Department of Transportation. I think he’s the first and only in the history of the State of Ohio to have come back, Mr. Chairman. He was 

the director under Governor Voinovich. And Governor Kasich asked 

him to come back, so we’re really looking forward to working with 

him. 

Next to him is Mr. Brian Burgett, up in Knox County. He’s the 

CEO of Kokosing Company. They are a large highway contractor, 

and they do a lot of commercial work too. But I think what’s also 

interesting, they do a lot of work in the maritime infrastructure, 

with locks. 

And that’s a keen interest for me, especially being the chairman 

of that subcommittee that has the jurisdiction over the Army Corps 

of Engineers, and also the Clean Water Act with the EPA. 

To his left is Mr. Lozier, who is the Deputy Engineer at Licking 

County. I share that county—it’s just east of here—with Congressman Pat Tiberi. And I think he’s going to soon be the engineer. But 

we’ve talked, and I think he’s got a good perspective on what 

things we could do to help streamline those Federal dollars to help 

the county at the county level. 

So anyway, I’m looking forward to getting the testimony and the 

discussion, and I also do want to thank everybody for coming out 

today. This is how our system’s supposed to work. We represent 

you, and get a chance to hear from you and try to make the best 

policy for the people of Ohio and the United States, and use your 

tax dollars wisely. 

Because resources are limited, and we all know that. And we’ve 

got to make things more efficient, and prioritize, and get the job 

done. So I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you again for also hosting and requesting us 

to come to this part of Ohio. 

6 

Now, the next member of the panel—and she is on our panel— 

there’s no question, when Jean Schmidt serves on any panel, that 

she’s on the panel and makes herself heard. She’s an Energizer 

bunny. 

And it’s just hard to believe she’s already becoming a senior 

member of the Committee, but we have so many new members in 

Congress—we have 19 on the Committee, new members. And almost 90 in the House of Representative. And she chairs an important subcommittee on the Agriculture Committee, and we are 

pleased to have her on our panel. 

She also asked me to come to her district again. I’ve already been 

there, and she dragged me there almost immediately. And I’m very 

familiar with some of her projects, because she reminds me every 

day. But again, let me recognize the gentlelady—and the very aggressive lady—from Ohio, Jean Schmidt. 

Ms. SCHMIDT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and it is just two little 

projects, and then I’ll be happy. But before I go into them, I would 

like to introduce the final two panelists. 

One is Mr. Keith Tuttle, who owns Motor Carrier Services Incorporated. And Mr. Tuttle is from Northwood Ohio, which is in the 

northeast section of the State. And he might know a little bit about 

the infrastructure needed for improvements, since his company has 

90 tractors and 220 trailers. And we do look forward to hearing 

your testimony, sir. 

And the final one is Mr. Mark Policinski. And Mark is from my 

district, and he serves as the Director of the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments, or OKI, since November of 

2003. 

So I knew Mark in my past life as a State representative, and 

my current life in the Congress. He has held senior level positions 

in the private sector, and in government service on Capitol Hill and 

in the Reagan administration. And I have known him for a very 

long time. 

And before I turn it back, Mr. Chairman, I just want to mention 

that I really am grateful for you for bringing this committee to 

Ohio. Because as my good friend Mr. Gibbs mentioned, we have the 

sixth-most used roads in the country, and more importantly—or 

the fifth-most used highway system in the country. 

But more importantly, we have a little bridge in Cincinnati, Mr. 

Chairman, which I pointed out to you, called the Brent Spence 

Bridge, which is the sixth-most used bridge in the country. And 

while structurally it has about a B rating, capacity-wise it has an 

F –. And we really need to have a new bridge. 

And when my good friend Mr. Gibbs talked about delay in transportation, each and every month that we wait for this bridge to get 

built adds about another $1 million in costs for the bridge. 

So it’s really important that we look at structural needs like this, 

and have a way to cut through the red tape so that we can save 

the taxpayers money. And along with that, I’ve been working with 

Mark on the eastern corridor project. And so Mr. Chairman, if you 

could just let me have those two projects, I’d be really nice. I’ll turn 

it back to you. 

Mr. MICA. I told you she never misses an opportunity. We are delighted to have her leadership also on the committee. Now, this is 

7 

sort of a star-studded cast. We also have, from the State of Pennsylvania—and you’ve probably heard the name before—Shuster. 

His dad was the chairman of the committee, and probably one of 

the most successful chairs that we’ve ever had of the full committee 

in Congress. But Bill Shuster has chaired one of our subcommittees, a different subcommittee: Economic Development, Public 

Buildings, and Emergency Managment. And he now chairs the Rail 

Subcommittee, covering rail, hazardous pipelines, I think a whole 

bunch of things like that. 

But we are delighted that he would join us today, and let me recognize him for an opening statement. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And for me, this is a 

return to Ohio. I worked for a company and covered southern Ohio 

for three years back in the late 1980s, so it’s been 20 years since 

I’ve been in Columbus. It’s good to be back. I obviously have fond 

memories of Ohio, and I’m glad to be here today, and in many 

places across the country. 

As the Chairman said, we’ll be taking the John Mica road show 

across the country, or the Mica Magical Mystery Tour. And as 

we’re going to find out, some of these places we’re going to—we 

hope everything is going to work out well, and we’re sure that it 

will, but when we get there we’ll really find out. 

It’s great to do this. This is extremely important, for us to be out 

across the country, talking to people that live in places that have 

needs, so that we can hear them firsthand. I would like to take the 

opportunity to introduce somebody that’s not on the panel, but is 

hear today: Rich Martinko. 

Rich, why don’t you raise your hand over there? See, Mr. Chairman, that’s Steve’s father. Rich is now the Director of the University of Toledo’s Inter-Modal Transportation Institute, and the university’s transportation center, which is one of 60 designated by the 

Federal Department of Transportation. 

He served 22 years at ODOT. His career culminated as the assistant director of highway operations for ODOT. So we’re pleased 

that he’s here today, and most importantly he’s the father of my 

deputy chief of staff, and my principal transportation advisor. 

So Steve, coming from a father who has transportation in his 

blood, myself—so Shuster/Martinko would make a pretty good 

team, I think. Steve is definitely the smarter of the two of us, so 

I’m pleased that he calls his father occasionally, or his father calls 

him occasionally and tells him what Shuster’s doing wrong, or 

what the Committee’s doing wrong. I get the same from my father, 

so that’s OK. We like that. 

But again, it’s a pleasure to be here with my colleagues, and I’m 

looking forward to hearing the testimony today. So thank you very 

much, and I yield back. 

Mr. MICA. I wasn’t going to tease Mr. Shuster at all, but he gave 

you that commentary on my road show, so I have to say it’s good 

to see him today with his coat off but his shirt on. 

You have to keep a sense of humor with this job. But we are delighted to be here. And I want to also thank Jim Kolb, who is the 

staff director on the Democrats’ side of the aisle, for being here. 

And I think he has some family in the area, so we’re pleased to 

8 

have his leadership. And my co-partner, who isn’t with us today, 

Mr. Rahall, the gentleman from West Virginia. 

So with those introductions, we’re pleased to go ahead, and now 

we’ll recognize those on our panel. They’ve already been introduced. What I’d like you to do now—I know you’re not going to like 

this. But if you have a written statement and you start reading it, 

I have a staffer and I see the Ohio—is it the highway patrol over 

there? And I would like the staffers and the patrol to come over 

and just take away your written statement. 

Now, what I want you to do is summarize your key points that 

are in there that you want this committee to take back. What we 

need to do in changing the law. What we need to do in changing 

the procedures that can make us do a better job for you. 

Without objection, all of your written testimony will be made 

part—this is an official hearing, and it will be made part of our 

hearing. It will be submitted. 

So what I want you to do is, again, have an exchange. That will 

be much more productive than you just sitting there reading a 

written statement. And I see poor Mr. Wray is shuffling through 

his papers. 

Really, the purpose of this is to elicit from you your top ideas and 

suggestions, recommendations to this committee. And don’t tell me 

how bad things are. We know how bad things are as far as infrastructure. If you’ve got some,what we want are your specific suggestions on how we can do better. 

Poor Mr. Wray. But listen, this guy has been in the service of 

Ohio, and he’s come back for another round. And I know he can 

tell us. 

The other thing too is, we brought on board an immediate past 

Secretary of Transportation from Florida, who I’ve worked with, 

and who’s helped us craft some other legislation, Stephanie 

Kopelousos. And she’s going to be working with a different, progressive secretary to have innovative ideas that can help us go 

through the law, go through the rules and regulations that don’t 

make sense, and come up with innovative ideas. 

Mr. Wray, you are recognized. And just tell us, again, what you 

would change. And you can submit the rest of that for the record. 

You are recognized, sir. 

TESTIMONY OF HON. JERRY WRAY, DIRECTOR, OHIO DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION; BRIAN BURGETT, PRESIDENT 

AND CEO, KOKOSING CONSTRUCTION CO.; BILL LOZIER, 

DEPUTY COUNTY ENGINEER, LICKING COUNTY, OHIO; HON. 

CHRISTIANE W. SCHMENK, MAYOR, CITY OF MARYSVILLE, 

OHIO; MARK POLICINSKI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OHIO-KENTUCKY-INDIANA REGIONAL COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENTS; 

NICK GATTOZZI, VICE PRESIDENT OF GOVERNMENT ADVOCACY, GREATER CLEVELAND PARTNERSHIP; KEITH TUTTLE, 

PRESIDENT, MOTOR CARRIER SERVICE, INC.; AND BARRY 

FROMM, CHAIRMAN, US RAILCAR COMPANY 

Mr. WRAY. Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Members, thank you 

and welcome to the great State of Ohio. My testimony just got a 

lot shorter. What would you like to see? First of all, we have problems in Ohio—and I’m sure that’s true of lots of the Nation—in 

9 

that we are fast approaching a time when we will not have enough 

State funds to match our allotted Federal funds. 

And the first thing that you can do to help us with that is change 

the Federal match from an 80/20 match, 80 percent Federal and 20 

percent local, to 90 percent Federal and 10 percent local. That 

would be our number one suggestion, number one recommendation. 

And that would not only help us, but it would help our local partners a great deal. In Ohio, we have home rule. We have elected 

county engineers. We’re the only State in the Nation that has that. 

We have a lot of rural counties, and they have small staff. It is 

very difficult for them to use Federal money, even with the help 

of the Department of Transportation. There are counties in Ohio 

who have never replaced a bridge using Federal money, simply because of the onerous and complicated and bureaucratic process that 

it takes. This would go a long way to helping them match, number 

one, and I’m—— 

Mr. MICA. Can you—I’m going to interrupt a little bit here. Can 

you outline for the committee, or do you have in your testimony, 

some of the onerous provisions that are at the Federal level that 

we could change? Any percentage. And if you don’t want to do it 

publicly, could you provide it to the committee? 

Mr. WRAY. The answer is I don’t have it in my testimony, but 

yes we can provide it to the committee. And I suspect that others 

on this panel, including Mr. Lozier—— 

Mr. MICA. You have two weeks to submit that. Any examples you 

can give us of what you can do. Because again, I don’t know if we 

can get you the 90 percent. But what else can we do to get some 

of the unnecessary regulations, rules and things that you just 

talked about, particularly the small communities that don’t have 

the institutional capability of dealing with the Federal bureaucracy? 

Mr. WRAY. And I hope you can get us the 90 percent. I understand if you can’t, and 89 percent would be fine. I don’t have the 

details of the process outlined in my testimony, but we can certainly get that to you easily within two weeks. 

Mr. MICA. Just give us a few examples of this, or something. 

Mr. WRAY. And basically, and in very understandable terms, this 

is why it’s difficult for Morrow County, Ohio to take advantage of 

any Federal funds. 

And I should note, Mr. Chairman, that this Department of 

Transportation is committed to helping them. We have made it one 

of the centerpieces of our administration that we are going to try 

to help local governments make better use of the available dollars 

that are there. And we’re committed that ODOT is not going to be 

a barrier, and we want you to help us make sure that these the 

Federal Government and USDOT is not a barrier. 

Another thing that would help us a lot and that we’re interested 

in is innovative financing, and the ability, for example, for us to 

use our longitudinal right of way, and perhaps use that with private partners to create revenue for the State. 

As it is now, there are restrictions that are long and deep that 

prevent us from using our own right of way for revenue enhancement. And if there was a way that we could find to free us up to 

10 

do that, we’d love to be able to do that. Another aspect of that 

is—— 

Mr. SHUSTER. I’m going to interject, Mr. Wray. What would you 

do? What kinds of things would you do? 

Mr. WRAY. Fibers, cell towers, advertising, whatever. Again, 

we’re not going to compromise our transportation system in terms 

of safety, efficiency, and effectiveness. But to agree that we own 

property that can be leveraged, we’d like the freedom to do that. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you. 

Mr. MICA. That’s the kind of stuff we’re looking for. Keep going, 

you’re getting there. Anything else? 

Mr. WRAY. Or rest areas, in Ohio and all over the country, were 

originally built through the interstate system, and we built the rest 

areas. We believe that those are properties that we could leverage 

also for revenue, for advertising. Or lease them out, allow them to 

become a private/public partnership. 

We don’t have the freedom to do that now. We’d like to be given 

the freedom to deal with our rest areas and the property that we 

own, and to be able to try to leverage that property. 

A bigger picture concern is that, essentially across the country, 

in Ohio and nationally, we have funded our transportation system 

through the gas tax. And that has been a remarkable success story. 

It helped build the wealth that exists in this Nation, without a 

doubt. 

But that system is now out of date, and we need to be looking 

at innovative or new ways to fund transportation. In Ohio, consumption is leveling off. We are anticipating a little increase this 

year, but with the sluggish economy, essentially, consumption has 

provided us with level revenue. Construction inflation, on the other 

hand, is growing. So the cost of steel and concrete and asphalt is 

going up each year. 

We estimate in 2011 it will go up by 5.7 percent. You can see 

as those two lines converge that there’s coming a time—and in our 

case, that time is very near, probably 2018 or sooner—that we not 

only will not be able to match Federal funds, we will have a difficult time maintaining and preserving our existing system. 

And that is a must. It’s a tremendous, enormous investment that 

we have made in Ohio—and that States have made across the 

country—in this system. It would be a crime to let it fall into disrepair even more than it already is. 

Mr. MICA. Mr. Wray, we’re going to get back to you. Let’s pick 

on Mr. Burgett next. And he has a big construction company. We’ll 

save all the questions until we get through, or if somebody has 

something they have to pop in, they’ll do that. But Mr. Burgett, 

you’re next. 

Mr. BURGETT. Thank you Chairman Mica, Honorable Members of 

the Congress. As Congressman Gibbs mentioned, our company is 

involved in all modes of transportation, from maritime through 

rail, bike paths and highways. But this morning I want to narrow 

my comments to highway-type construction. 

And I’m going to propose a couple of things that just kind of turn 

the whole apple cart upside-down. The first of those, it becomes apparent to most of us that there’s not an appetite in Washington to 

provide the funding necessary to take care of our whole highway 

11 

system out here, from what we’ve looked at in the past. And I 

think the approach needs to be changed. 

And I’m proposing that we narrow the Federal Government’s role 

to the national highway system, and that their funding be limited 

to that, and that we turn the funding of the State highways and 

stuff back to the States. And the importance of this, even though 

the States right now say ‘‘We don’t have the funding,’’ if they understand the division of responsibility—which is unclear at this 

point, because we don’t know how much funding will be able to 

come out of Washington from any one time—then they can take 

that, and focus on it, and move forward. 

The second apple cart that I would like to upset is the Federal 

Highway Administration. And I would propose that we change the 

role of the Federal Highway Administration to not be involved in 

the day-to-day business of the highway projects, but to give us the 

safety requirements, the overall concept of what they want in our 

national highway system. Stay out of the State, the county jurisdictions. 

And that we eliminate the offices in each State, and that we 

move to a regional national highway organization, similar to EPA. 

And that their role be of auditing the States on a periodic basis, 

such as maybe every three years. I think that we could eliminate 

a lot of overhead, and I think we can also shorten the process for 

construction projects. 

The third area that I’d like to touch on is that of 3Ps. I believe 

that 3Ps have a place, but it’s a very limited role. And I believe 

it’s the most expensive way of funding our infrastructure, our 

transportation system, and that if there’s any other way of doing 

it, we should take that approach. 

The example I’d like to throw out is the Ohio Turnpike. In the 

Ohio Turnpike, you pay 6.2 cents a mile to travel on the Turnpike, 

plus you pay 2 and a half cents a mile in gas tax. 

And on any other highway in the State, we’re paying 2 and a half 

cents for the gas tax. So consequently, it’s more than 300 percent, 

the cost per mile to travel on the Turnpike versus an Interstate 

highway. And I think we need to find other approaches, other than 

3Ps, where we can. 

Mr. MICA. Excellent comments. Thank you for those comments. 

Mr. Lozier? 

Mr. LOZIER. Thank you, Chairman Mica. I do have sample 

projects, that you asked—— 

Mr. MICA. Just a clarification on public/private partnerships for 

members of the audience who may not be familiar with it so much. 

Public/private are what he’s referring to, just for clarification. Mr. 

Lozier? 

Mr. LOZIER. Thank you, Chairman Mica. I’m going to start by 

tagging onto Director Wray’s testimony. And you did ask the question if we had specific examples. I assume that you have my testimony and the attachments to it, because I want to draw your attention to the photo that’s shown in exhibit 1. 

I spared everybody the drama from actually bringing the paper 

in here, but I have a photo of this. We see two projects on my drafting board, back in my office. The project on the left side of the 

12 

straight edge there represents the paper we generated for a Federal project. 

We’ve been after this project since ’03. We’ve spent design costs of $1.4 million so far. We expect to spend another $1 million, and 

the construction costs estimate of this project is $12.2 million. 

The project that is similar, on the right side of the straight edge 

there, is funded through a program called the Ohio Public Works 

Commission. We’re freed up from a lot of the regulation and a lot 

of the design standards. We conceptualized, designed, and constructed this project in a year, and we did it for under $600,000. 

Now, the argument that I hear when I bring this example up is 

I’m trying to compare apples to oranges. 

Ms. SCHMIDT. Excuse me. We don’t have the attachments. 

Mr. LOZIER. You don’t. There was a packet of attachments. I can 

present them to you, if you’d like. It’s on page two of that packet. 

I can continue before you see the photo. I think you get the idea 

that what has driven this, in my opinion, are the AASHTO design 

standards, which are utilized by the FHWA and the DOTs. This 

project is requiring 120 foot roadway width, and we think all we 

need is a 60 to 80 foot roadway width. 

This is creating the usual suspect cost drivers, like environmental, excessive right of way due to technical requirements, utility relocations. And that’s ironically all the things that we’re instructed to avoid by the FHWA. 

Again, there’s another argument that I hear all the time: ‘‘If 

we’re going to do a project, let’s do it the right way.’’ 

Unfortunately, that’s a recipe for immobility. We have a little 

local road widening project that we’ve been after for eight years 

here. We can’t—our roads have evolved from wagon paths, and now 

we’re trying to improve them all at one time with these successive 

design standards. 

How’d it get this way? I believe that FHWA and ODOT oversight 

has led to those two agencies managing risk the same for local 

projects as they do for their own projects. I don’t think that local 

governments have the same exposure to risk. 

And what can we do about it? We have several suggestions. I’m 

representing today the National Association of County Engineers 

and County Officials, as well as the County Engineers’ Association 

of Ohio. 

In the testimony that I’ve provided, they have specific language. 

They are in agreement with what my testimony is today. But basically, the big two things are that we need to make an allowance 

for local public agencies, governing authorities like the County Engineers’ Association, to have their own design standards. 

They need to be turned over to us. These projects need to be 

turned over to us, and let us take responsibility for the risk. We 

aren’t scared of the risk. We can manage the risk. 

I think that if this happens, it could lead to an infusion of construction projects like never before imagined. And this would be 

good for contractors, consultants, and suppliers of all sizes. And it 

could happen very quickly. 

I guess that’s the end of my testimony. 

Mr. MICA. Do you have the specific language you’re recommending? 

13 

Mr. LOZIER. I do. In my testimony there, there are five specific 

things. The first two, essentially, are handing down oversight authority to local governments, or to their managing authorities like 

the County Engineers’ Association. 

I also think, as you go through the Federal bill—we know there’s 

inconsistencies in other States, and that we should identify them. 

And during the course of the bill, there should be continual improvement measures taken, and the DOTs and local agencies 

should be a part of that. 

I happen to know that there are design standards that are different than the way that Ohio’s FHWA offices interpret the design 

standards for projects. I also think we need to strengthen technology transfer and other training programs. 

In the long term, we need regulatory reform. A lot of what we 

have presented to you is assistance in getting through the process. 

I don’t think that’s good enough. I think that’s a temporary fix. I 

think, in the end, we need regulatory reform. 

And that concludes my testimony. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. We’ll turn next to Ms. Schmenk. 

Ms. SCHMENK. Thank you, and thank you for allowing me to be 

here today. I would first beg indulgence. I promise I will not read, 

but I would like to kind of set the stage for my testimony, because 

I’m talking from a different capacity than others on the panel. 

I’m talking as a small town mayor. A small town of about 20,000 

located northwest of here, about 30 miles. And I want to lay the 

groundwork for really how everything that our panel is talking 

about today affects us as users of the system. 

Marysville is in Union County, and that has been the third-fastest growing county in Ohio since 1990. For a small town, 

Marysville has a very rich employment base. We’re very lucky to 

have great employers, like the Scotts Miracle-Gro company. 

I’m a part time mayor, but I have also worked for Scotts MiracleGro for 17 years. And Scotts is there in Marysville because of good 

transportation and good infrastructure. We’re also home to many 

other good industries, like Nestle R&D, and other great companies. 

But the big one that we all hear about, just beyond our borders, 

is Honda, Honda R&D, Honda of America Manufacturing. 

And Honda is key to Ohio’s future. I think Honda is key to our 

Nation’s future, because it has done such great things in our country. Honda alone employs about 13,000 employees near Marysville. 

And when you factor in all of its suppliers, it’s responsible for probably 130,000 employees in Ohio. 

The history of Marysville and the history of Honda. One of the 

main reasons Honda has been successful has been the good infrastructure that was built. 30 years ago, our State invested close to 

about $75 million to widen US Route 33, which leads from Columbus out to Honda. 

The payback has been tremendous. Honda has conservatively put back over $7 billion into Ohio since 1979, and that doesn’t count 

the millions of dollars that have helped communities like mine in 

payroll taxes and other taxes returned to our local economy. 

So when we think of the impact of good infrastructure, it’s key 

to my town’s success. It’s key to our county’s success. I think it’s 

key to Ohio’s success. Honda, Scotts, and other manufacturers rely 

14 

on a lot of logistics systems. One is called Just In Time delivery. 

If infrastructure is not working well, it delays everything for them, 

costs them millions of dollars, costs our economy millions of dollars. 

We have a little project right now, which my Congressman, Senator Stivers, referred to. And that is the intersection of US Route 

33 and I–270, which circles Columbus. It is a highly congested 

interchange, and it is failing right now. 

And every day when there is backup, it causes problems for 

Scotts, for Honda, for all of those thousands of employees. Right 

now, we’ve requested both Federal and State funding. Conservatively, it looks like if we’re lucky—and it’s in jeopardy. But if 

we’re lucky, we won’t be able to even start that project until 2017. 

That will cost jobs. That will cost our economy, I think, in the millions of dollars. 

So I will jump to what I think, as a user of a small town, and 

as a person who sees the direct connection between good infrastructure and jobs, are some practical suggestions. First—I’ll probably 

get some boos on this—I’m a firm believer that not all earmarks 

are bad. I think if you can show a direct connection between jobs 

and the project, it can really be a good use of our tax dollars. 

What I would love to see, though, is a streamlining of the request 

forms, the appropriations request forms. Director Wray mentioned 

that small communities don’t have the bureaucracies to do those 

kinds of applications. We don’t have a grant writer in our small 

town, so when our different Members of Congress request different 

forms, different attachments, it really is a detriment to us. 

I would love to see a direct nexus between any kind of funding 

and jobs. We need to see that economic difference that it can make. 

Timing needs to be addressed. Somehow, we need to shorten the 

project. Because my little project, if it doesn’t start until 2017, 

we’re going to lose jobs in the State of Ohio. 

Someone has already mentioned the 3Ps. I’d like to see collaboration rewarded. My work in the private sector over the years—I 

know how public/private partnerships can get things done, and I’d 

like to see rewards given for those. 

And I think Director Wray also mentioned more creative funding 

techniques. We definitely need to see something creative, like 

transportation tax credit bonds, or other ways to get funding. 

Thank you very much for listening. Again, just to summarize, I 

think good infrastructure needs jobs. And it’s critical to our State 

and our Nation. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. Mr. Policinski? 

Mr. POLICINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you Congresswoman Schmidt for your kind remarks. I want to thank the 

people who preceded me in the panel for bringing up so many good 

ideas on streamlining. 

I agree with them, particularly on the idea of letting States and 

locals have more authority over their projects that don’t fall on 

Interstates, and also the idea that FHA should be in an oversight 

role in that regard. 

I’m also very happy to hear, Mr. Chairman, that you state that 

the idea of streamlining is so ingrained as you put together the 

new bill. To me, streamlining is probably the most important thing 

we can do, even as important as funding. 

15 

I think a couple of things that I’d just like to mention when it 

comes to streamlining is, in the planning process, we go through 

environmental review. We identify the environmental problems 

that could exist and impacts. Once that’s done, I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to revisit them. And that would reduce, I think, 

I lot of the delay that takes place. 

As far as my testimony goes, having gone down to a place taken 

by others, when it comes to getting money into the system, OKI 

has been pushing for four years an idea called regional infrastructure improvement zones. This is a change in the tax law, which 

would allow private corporations and individuals who make contributions to build public goods a tax deduction. 

Under current law, such a tax deduction is allowed, but only if 

there is no benefit to the individual or the corporation. The establishment of a RIIZ would take away that distinction, which we find 

totally arbitrary. What RIIZes would do is, they woud unlock private dollars to put into local match. 

It’s already been mentioned, rural communities, many communities even in metropolitan areas like Cincinnati, good projects, already approved by the jurisdictions, already in these steps, cannot 

go forward because there is not a local match. 

Here we would have an opportunity where the private sector 

could step forward and say ‘‘Listen, this project, which has already 

been approved by you, which is already part of the community’s effort to develop economically, is also important to us as business 

votes. And we’re willing to put money into it.’’ 

That would give them the local match, and that would allow the 

project to go forward. I think that it’s amazing, as we’ve been pushing this idea for four years and we hope to have it introduced on 

the House side in the spring, that a number of businesspeople have 

come up and said ‘‘I’m very interested in doing this.’’ 

When we talked to government and elected officials, they had a 

number of examples where they think that this would be beneficial. 

So when we look at this problem, where you don’t have enough 

money and you have too much need, we have to find new sources 

of funding. And I think RIIZes provide one of those sources. It’s a 

way to tap into the private sector dollars. 

Again, Mr. Chairman, much of what I have to say on streamlining has been covered by others. It’s also in the written testimony, and so I will yield the rest of my time to my distinguished 

colleague from Cleveland. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. I will recognize Mr. Gattozzi. 

Mr. GATTOZZI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name’s Nick 

Gattozzi. I represent the Greater Cleveland Partnership, a regional 

chamber of commerce in Cleveland. I’ve been asked to talk about 

a little variation on the public/private partnership. 

We work with a group called BUGC, Build Up Greater Cleveland. It’s an organization founded back in 1983. The idea was to 

prioritize transportation infrastructure projects in northeast Ohio. 

Obviously, back then we had challenges in the Cleveland area, and 

as the community came together with various projects, the idea 

was how do you prioritize those in a way that’s—weigh those 

projects against economic development. 

16 

So that we weren’t just repaving roads, but those roads were 

going to places where jobs were being created, economic development. I think you’ve heard very similar comments, especially from 

the mayor, how important transportation infrastructure is. 

It creates jobs. It’s the key driver to economic group. With Build 

Up Greater Cleveland, the city of Cleveland is involved. The county 

engineer, the port authority, our regional sewer district, the regional transit authority. So all the stakeholders are there. ODOT 

is a stakeholder as well. 

And so we make the case of why projects are important, because 

of the development that connects to the rest of the community and 

the region. And we actually rate and prioritize those projects. 

So our folks come in, they make presentations on their individual 

projects, and then we as a group take off our individual hats and 

say ‘‘How does this impact the region? Where are we going to get 

the best economic bang for our buck?’’ 

We’ve extended that model to a twelve-state coalition, the Great 

Lakes Metro Chambers Coalition. It includes the States of New 

York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. 

When you combine those twelve States plus Ontario and Quebec, 

you’re looking at the third-largest economy in the world in terms 

of GDP. It’s significant. Our friends in Cincinnati are involved, and 

when you see how things like the Brent Spence Bridge impact our 

manufacturers—the mayor talked about Just In Time in 

Marysville. 

We have those same things. We need to get our goods through 

the system internally, so that we can get them exported out. When 

you look at this region, we are 33 percent of the Nation’s population, 32 percent of the Nation’s GDP, 30 percent of our merchandise exports, and 28 percent of those patents. 

And in order to make the things that we do so well in the midwest, we need to move those little parts to make bigger parts, and 

then be able to get them outside the region. Not only to the rest 

of the country, but to the world. 

And so the Metro Chambers is focused on those trade corridors, 

as we call them. Because the Brent Spence Bridge matters. Because the Crossings at Detroit and Buffalo matter. And those road 

miles in between, so that the trucks can carry that equipment, 

those supplies, those purchases, efficiently, safely, through the system. Because that makes us more competitive as a region. 

From a recommendation, I think all we have to do is look at your 

report, when you talk about your national strategic transportation 

plan, Mr. Chairman, and getting that regional input. Looking at regional zones. How can the regions impact to make the case that 

we’re not just paving roads, but there are jobs associated with 

those investments of Federal dollars, when combined with the local 

and with the State dollars? 

Because that’s what creates jobs. That’s what drives the economy. If we can’t get the goods and services in and out, we’re going 

to strangle the economy. I yield back my time. 

Mr. MICA. I’d like to thank the gentleman. And let me recognize 

Mr. Tuttle now. 

17 

Mr. TUTTLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I come to you as the 

owner of a small business in Northwood, just on the east side of 

Toledo. We’re just north of the Ohio Turnpike, and at the intersection of 80 and 90, around 75. We have about 125 proud employees, 

and we run 90 over-the-road trucks, and a couple hundred trailers. 

We’ve had a somewhat brutal economy in the last three to four 

years, and yes I did have a prepared talk. I’m here representing 

my drivers, my employees, and also the American Trucking Association. 

Let’s talk about congestion. And I deeply respect what the mayor 

of Marysville said. We have an operation that’s not big, but our 

trucks run a lot between northwest Ohio and Chicago, going west. 

And our trucks operate a lot into eastern Pennsylvania and New 

Jersey. 

And specifically congestion—I will tell you that when I got into 

this business and I started with just a couple trucks after getting 

out of college, and when I got started in this business 25 or 30 

years ago, every one of our customers, from General Motors to 

American National Cans, to Campbell’s Soup, they’d always carry 

weeks of inventory. 

And that has gone from weeks, to days, to in most cases hours. 

The mayor eloquently pointed that out at Honda, and at these 

plants, it’s not only down to hours’ worth of inventory. If you deliver late, you as a carrier are penalized, in some cases severely, 

for not getting there. 

Our trucks, if you realize, Mr. Chairman, right now we can operate 11 hours in a 24 hour cycle, then they have to take a break, 

and so forth. When we go to Chicago, we are limited to the south 

side of Chicago, the eastern suburbs of Chicago, and northwest 

Ohio. 

Because of congestion, we cannot deliver towards the airport and 

get back to northwest Ohio in the same day. With congestion, we 

cannot deliver any farther than the eastern part of Philadelphia or 

just into New Jersey under the current hours of service regulations. 

I’m asking that—and most of you in this room might think this 

is a crazy idea—but as an industry we support a diesel fuel tax increase, if it is directed to efficient projects that help eliminate congestion. 

And 80 percent of all goods in this country are moved by truck. 

Yes, there is a need for a good inter-modal system. Almost all 

freight is eventually by truck. And in most cases—80 percent of the 

communities in this country are exclusively served by truck. 

We are willing to pay more for a diesel fuel tax increase. And I 

realize, I absolutely realize that that’s something that we’re probably not going to get to happen in this environment right now. But 

I’m not sure that we can afford luxuries like museums and other 

extravagant items that take away from the efficient movement of 

goods and services in this country. 

So I’m not going to talk about much else. You have my testimony. But we do support that. We do support anything that eliminates congestion, as the economic recovery—and these are just a 

couple notes that I’ve taken this morning—it moves on trucks. 

18 

And as I said about the inventory levels, increased congestion 

means less productivity, less efficiency, and higher costs that are 

basically forwarded on to consumers. Thank you very much for allowing me to speak. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. And I’ll recognize Mr. Fromm next. 

Mr. FROMM. Good morning, Chairman Mica and Members of the 

Committee. I also want to recognize Congressman Stivers, who I’m 

proud to have as our district representative. 

I run a company called US Railcar Company that’s based right 

here in Columbus, Ohio. And I have several messages I want to 

make, after several years of working very hard to try to accomplish 

the American dream, starting a business in an area that is highly 

dominated by foreign manufacturers. 

That’s why this next transportation authorization bill is so important to us, and is so important to the citizens of this country. 

I am an entrepeneur. I’m a risk taker. I put many millions into this 

enterprise. 

And I’m a concerned American citizen who pays a lot of attention 

to the advancements in transportation, and all the benefits that 

can come from passenger rail, insisting on doing the right sizing, 

the right type of equipment. Not necessarily high-speed for every 

corridor, but low-speed and medium-speed, different types of vehicles on different types of corridors. 

I think it’s critical that we have opportunities to increase American manufacturing jobs, so that we get a return on the investment, and we see mobility provided to the greatest extent to our 

workforce. And then we’ll see economic development. It’s all possible with the growth of a passenger rail system in this country. 

Did you know that Ohio has the third-largest concentration of 

rail tracks in America? Illinois has the largest concentration. Did 

you know that you could connect every college and every university 

in this State, somehow, to a passenger rail system that already exists? 

First, the key to the success of the program, as with any other 

public/private partnership program, is that you have to draw 

entrepeneurs to take these kinds of risks and enter into these types 

of partnerships, and to drive transportation investment. It represents anywhere between 24 and 28 percent of our total spending. 

That’s how critical transportation is. 

In 2009, I led a group of investors, friends and family, who put 

up capital and acquired the only American manufacturer of passenger railcars known as Diesel Multiple Units. It’s a special type 

of car that runs back and forth. It’s a self-propelled vehicle that 

has coaches and power cars. 

And it was invented by a gentleman in Colorado, who created all 

that technology, and kept it alive, and who has proven to the Federal Railroad Administration so as to be operating on three railroads, so it’s safe and sound. 

And to bring this back into service in North America, there are 

presently three districts where these DMUs are in service in the 

United States today. We invested this money because we feel that 

passenger rail is a critical part of America’s transportation system. 

But Americans and American know-how must be a part of this. 

You can’t have this all dominated by foreign manufacturers. And 

19 

they’re huge. The barriers to entry in this are incredibly high. And 

we need to compete against—and we are competing against these 

well funded organizations. 

The bill must find a way to support our ability, all Amercian 

companies that are suppliers and manufacturers in this industry, 

to re-enter and build opportunities in America, for Americans. Our 

company is ready to contribute to the growth of that, and we recognize that there’s an opportunity, if this is addressed properly. 

The second issue is having the necessary resources and incentives at the Federal, State, and local levels to change the way the 

deals get done. I’m thinking of concepts like value capture here, 

where you can obtain value from development and incremental values from real estate appreciation, and tax those things in transportation districts. 

It can’t be all done in a fare box. It has to be done through other 

means. And we all know studies show on transportation-oriented 

development districts that use value capture are incredible. We 

should capture that. 

We need to determine the goals and find ways to erase, rather 

than create, obstacles in the path. Because time is money. The private sector’s good at getting things done, and the public sector’s 

good at protecting the public sector and the taxpayer dollars. Together, we can get this accomplished. 

That’s why we work together. We have an efficient, a timely, and 

a legal way to get this all accomplished. We need to reduce the 

risk, but we need to be market-driven. This economy has to be, not 

just in transportation but in all aspects of our economy. 

We have to seize upon economic development opportunities, and 

to allow them not to grow stale because of strong regulations that 

clamp things down, being preoccupied with the process rather than 

the goal. 

The third concept I have is that investment in passenger rail, 

and U.S.-based and U.S.-owned railcar producers will provide multiple benefits to this country. We have a mobile workforce. We have 

job growth. Those are accepted goals for all of us. 

Our vehicle, that Diesel Multiple Unit, has been designed to go 

on freight tracks today. And they are on freight tracks today. It 

doesn’t have to be on a high-speed rail system that costs substantially more money. We can efficiently move people from spot to spot 

throughout the United States. Our next generation of cars will be 

going beyond 70 miles per hour, to the 110 category. 

For those of us that invest and risk our own money in America, 

I’m asking you to please recognize how important this is for America’s future. We could foster the rebirth of this once-proud U.S. industry. We dominated the world in this field, and we don’t today. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. Let’s go right into questions. And I’m 

going to ask Ms. Schmidt if she would like to do the first round 

of questions. 

Ms. SCHMIDT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I have questions 

for Mr. Wray separately from Mr. Lozier, Mr. Policinski, Mr. 

Tuttle, and if I get time, Mr. Fromm. 

20 

Mr. Wray, when you talked about revenue enhancements and 

rest stops—and we all know that the rest stops throughout the 

country, but especially in Ohio are at or greater than capacity. 

Mr. Tuttle talked about drive time for drivers, they have to have 

so much time off the road. And as I drive down 71 or 75 I see the 

trucks bleeding off onto the highway. When you talk about leasing, 

would you then use that as an opportunity to build better road 

stops for the truckers? I mean, what was your vision of that? 

Mr. WRAY. As a revenue enhancement, sure. But obviously— 

when I was here before, this was an issue. And what they determined was that we couldn’t build them big enough, that no matter 

how large they were, they were full of trucks in the evening. 

And it’s a real problem, because people are pulling off the road 

to sleep. If they get on the side of the road and not in the rest area, 

the patrol comes along and says ‘‘You’ve got to move.’’ 

Well, you’re telling a guy who says ‘‘I need to sleep’’ that he’s got 

to drive. So it’s a very difficult issue. I would hope that we would 

be able to address that at the same time that we were providing 

the revenue enhancement. I understand the difficulty of the issue. 

Ms. SCHMIDT. Thank you. And Mr. Lozier, when you talked 

about, and when you showed us in your testimony, your graph, one 

of the things I wanted to point out to you was that a few years ago, 

when I first got this job, I inherited a project called Fog Road in 

Pike and Scioto Counties that my good predecessor, Rob Portman, 

got funding for. 

But the Federal Highway Administration was bogging it down to 

the point that we actually found a way to take money that was 

given and move it over to ODOT, and have the road built in a year. 

Because it needed less capacity than what the FHA wanted. 

And what I would like from you is if you could give this committee specifics of what that cost is in your case on these projects, 

that will really help us when we craft this bill. 

Mr. LOZIER. For this? 

Ms. SCHMIDT. This or any other project. Or anyone else. 

Mr. LOZIER. I have boiled this down to design standards. Because 

the roadway, the footprint of the project drives all these other effects. We’re instructed to avoid environmental impacts, but on the 

design side the shoulder widths, the lane widths, slopes—and we 

have a new environmental commitment to make our ditches, the 

bottoms of them five feet wide so as to slow the water down in accordance with NPDES, the Clean Water Act, basically. 

In every case, on these roadway widening projects, it’s the width. 

It’s the footprint. When we did all of our own projects with our own 

money, we used our common sense to avoid these things as best we 

can. If we see that we’re going to impact utilities, for example, 

which are very costly—they control timeline like nobody’s business, 

because we have to coordinate with private utility companies—it’s 

a very difficult thing. 

We avoid it. Our instincts tell us to avoid it. Again, I appreciate 

the fact that these design standards are tested by the AASHTO. 

There’s a lot of data telling us why we do this. 

But on the other hand, I had one particular project in Licking 

County where we were trying to use Federal money. It has 1500 

ADT. And the typical section, again, is 120 feet wide. Now, as electVerDate Aug 31 2005 08:53 Aug 26, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULLCO~1\2-19-1~1\65736.TXT JEAN
21 

ed officials, we have people saying ‘‘What? What are you doing? 

Why are you making this so wide? All we need is a little bit of recovery width on our shoulders.’’ 

Well, we wave the design standards in front of them. We can’t 

really do that. People don’t understand that it’s not a common 

sense approach. 

Ms. SCHMIDT. People like common sense. If you could send us 

any and all information on that, that would be really helpful. 

Mr. LOZIER. Can I make one point? I want to say that we are 

very optimistic with Jerry Wray. Since Jerry Wray’s arrived, I’m 

very confident that they’re going to help us through this. But there 

needs to be enabling language in the Federal bill, to free them up 

to free us up. 

Ms. SCHMIDT. And that’s what I’d like you to help us with, sir. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. Policinski, I love your idea about regional government improvement zones. You actually came to my office with that suggestion, and you said that you were working on it. Have you worked 

with any Member of Congress for some language, probably in Ways 

and Means, regarding this? And where are you now? 

Mr. POLICINSKI. First of all, Congresswoman, could I just say, 

Chairman Mica, will you please make sure that the Brent Spence 

Bridge moves forward? Because if you think that she’s tough on 

you, Mr. Chairman, how do you think she is when it comes to the 

little old director of little old OKI? Yes, we’re working with Geoff 

Davis. Very closely with Jeff. 

We’ve also had interest from Mr. Tiberi’s office. Actually, Mr. 

Blumenauer has expressed interest. So we’re working very closely. 

We look for introduction. We had a little hiccup at the end of last 

session. We were planning to introduce then, but we’re working 

very closely and we anticipate that there’ll be introduction in the 

spring. 

Ms. SCHMIDT. Thank you very much. And Mr. Tuttle, when you 

talked about the 11 hour road rule for trucks, one of the things 

that I wanted to ask you was, did you think that there should be 

some flexibility in those hours of service? 

I know sometimes when the person is sitting in the cab and 

they’re waiting and waiting and waiting to pick up a delivery, that 

that counts against them. And so if they’re two or three hours waiting for the delivery, that counts as road time. 

And should we find a way to make sure that they’re still safe on 

the road, but look at time on the road in a different way? Your 

thoughts, because you want to make sure they’re safe. 

Mr. TUTTLE. It’s very ironic that you bring that up, and I appreciate your bringing that up. In fact, there is rulemaking before the 

Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration right now that would 

actually reduce our allowable time to 10 hours per day. 

And we consider that—— 

Ms. SCHMIDT. More draconian. 

Mr. TUTTLE. Thank you very much. As an industry, our safety 

record in the last couple of years has been better—we are now as 

safe as it has been since it’s been recorded in the last 50 years. 

Clearly 80 percent of accidents involving cars and trucks are the 

fault of the car driver. 

22 

Without getting into all the statistics, it is very inflexible right 

now. We do not have a way to reach out to those shippers and say 

‘‘You’re going to have to wait for two or three hours.’’ We do not 

have flexible sleeper berth times. 

And that’s reducing it from 11 hours to 10 hours, which is rulemaking that’s in the process right now, and they’re also talking 

about—it’s also ironic we talked about the lack of parking spaces. 

In that rulemaking, there’s also a rule that instead of 34 hour 

reset, which our drivers have to take approximately once a week, 

without getting into too much detail, the new rulemaking says that 

you have to take consecutive breaks between midnight and 8:00 in 

the morning. 

If two of my trucks, one gets in at 11:00 on Friday night, the 

other one gets in at 2:00 on Saturday morning, three hours difference, the one driver can return to service on Sunday morning, 

as it is right now, with a very safe industry. The other driver, who 

gets in three hours later, if the rules that are in rulemaking right 

now go into effect, that driver cannot return to service until Monday morning. So we’re going from a system that appears to be 

working, that we have very flexibility, to an even worse system. 

But thank you very much for the question. 

Ms. SCHMIDT. Thank you very much, and I see that my time is 

out. 

Mr. MICA. We’ll get back to you. Mr. Shuster? 

Mr. SHUSTER. I’ll continue along this line of questioning. I was 

going to ask the same types of questions Ms. Schmidt was. 

I had a trucking company tell me that it’s about $5,000, $5,500 

per driver. That’s what this will cost if they change those hours of 

service. I was just wondering if you had any—if you could give that 

to us today, that would be great. 

Mr. TUTTLE. I try to run our own trucking company. This issue 

is so important to us that I was actually—I took a couple of days 

of my time two weeks ago, and when I was in Washington, DC, it 

is a huge issue that will hurt productivity, and will hurt my drivers 

in their pocketbooks. I appreciate both of you bringing this up. 

Mr. SHUSTER. If you could come up with a number, that would 

be helpful. 

Mr. TUTTLE. I can see about a 20 percent loss in productivity for 

our drivers. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, gentlemen. Let me yield to another member of our committee, the gentleman also from Ohio, Mr. Gibbs. 

Mr. GIBBS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’d like to start with Director Wray. I’m really intrigued by your terms about the innovative financing, and the first question that I think through that— 

with broadband or whatever, I think you mentioned something 

about that. 

My first thought is that mostly it might be State laws. I might 

be wrong about that, but it’s my first thought. Or is there Federal 

restrictions when you use Federal money to do improvements to 

highways and stuff? When it’s used to do that? Or is it State laws. 

Mr. WRAY. The start of the problem is that if you use Federal 

or if you have used Federal money, then it’s the Federal regulations that control it. 

23 

There may be some considerations with the State law, but I’m 

sure we can deal with those much easier than we can with the Federal regulations. As it is now, there’s a lot of restrictions, but the 

basic answer is no. 

Mr. GIBBS. So I guess I would look for specific examples of how 

you would want to change that. What would give you the optimal 

flexibility, especially when we’re trying to get some more 

broadband or fiber laid, I think that makes a lot of sense. 

Mr. Lozier, a question Congresswoman Schmidt touched on a little bit, but I know in our discussions we talked about the right of 

way issue, and this project in Licking County. I guess we’ve got a 

choice before the panel, where the restrictions that came to you, 

but they didn’t come from the State as much. 

Because if you look at State Road 37, it has very little shoulder. 

And the road you’re talking about, you have to put in a shoulder 

similar to what’s on your State highway system, I belive. And yet 

by the right of way, the Federal dollars really become diluted to 

such a point there—— 

Mr. LOZIER. Congressman Gibbs, I believe you’re talking an example where I put my friends at ODOT on the spot. And when we 

have these projects using Federal funds, where we’re trying to 

widen the local road, that we have to increase the local roads to 

10 foot shoulders and flat slopes, and all that sort of thing. 

And my question to them is, we have State routes in Licking 

County with traffic counts that well exceed that amount, and the 

crash rates are much higher. Why have they not been improved to 

these standards? 

And tongue in cheek, I know the answer to that is, I believe that 

when they do improvement and maintenance projects, they’re also 

using State money, I think, that avoids the triggers of the Federal 

money. 

And this is another issue, that Federal funds—and I’m going to 

speak in general terms—aren’t allowed for maintenance projects. 

And this is another issue that we’ve addressed in our written testimony, and perhaps ODOT would be bettter to address this. 

But if the Federal money was made more flexible for use by 

ODOT in maintenance activities, it might free up more of the State 

money for local governments. It would have a domino effect that 

we could possibly be the benefactor. Again, I’m way out there, 

speaking for them. But in general, I see that if—to answer your 

question, I believe the reason that that happens is because improvement projects on State routes have been done with State 

money, where—— 

Mr. GIBBS. I’m going to throw that back to the director and have 

him respond to that. 

Mr. WRAY. Congressman Gibbs, he’s exactly right. And we are 

aware of it. We actually have to have a legislative change in Ohio 

to allow us to spend State-only dollars on the system. And there 

are a lot of complications going with that, but we are prepared to 

pursue that, and we will be dealing with that with our Ohio legislature. 

Mr. GIBBS. Mr. Burgett, I want to open up to you. You dropped 

some out of box ideas, and like the chairman said, that’s what 

24 

we’re looking for, on how to streamline the process and get things 

done. 

When I found out, 15 years ago, projects were going, and I know 

some projects were going on maybe a third of that 15 years before 

the first shovel of dirt got turned over, because of all the environmental impact studies, environmental studies. 

And the information sounded a little bit like what you actually 

go through when you start doing a real construction project, and 

the sound of that. So maybe we could figure out, see if we can paint 

a picture. 

Mr. BURGETT. Actually, the issues that you’re addressing there 

are taken care of before we typically get involved with the project. 

The biggest hang-ups that we end up facing ends up usually being 

utility relocations that aren’t done timely. 

And one of the points that I didn’t make that’s in my written testimony is, I think we need some laws that would give the State and 

municipalities a little more power over utility relocations. 

We quite often see delay claims and additional costs associated 

with utilities not being relocated. We actually asphalt paved 

around an electric pole here in Franklin County, because it took 

over a year to get that pole moved. And then we had to come back, 

of course, and fill the hole when they finally moved the pole. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, gentlemen. And let me recognize Mr. Shuster, also of the committee. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Fromm, if you 

could just—the three communities that you are operating your 

equipment in. Could you just tell us where they are? 

Mr. FROMM. Chairman Mica, Representative Shuster, we are— 

the vehicles that are in service are, I believe, five double decker 

DMUs in Miami, running between there and West Palm Beach, 

very active. Chairman Mica was very instrumental in supporting 

that, and I appreciate it. 

Portland, Oregon, a very highly progressive transportation city. 

We have four single level cars running on the west line. And Alaska, which takes passengers to Denali mountain, where the transportation by rail is so critical. 

Mr. SHUSTER. And are you able to provide us with information 

on the operation costs, and how that site’s going, so that we 

can—— 

Mr. FROMM. It’s interesting that you would bring that up. That’s 

the reason we were so interested in it. It’s one third more efficient 

from the standpoint of fuel, and about half as noisy, or not nearly 

as noisy as a traditional locomotive would be. So it’s our conclusion 

that this unit is far less pollutive than a traditional locomotive 

would be. 

Mr. SHUSTER. Anything you could provide us with hard data on, 

that would be helpful to me. And I’ve ridden on your route into 

western Pennsylvania, and we went from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg, 

I believe it was. Or vice versa. Very comfortable ride, also, so I appreciate that. 

And when it comes again to the data, Mr. Tuttle, any way you 

can—you say 20 percent, but if we could see hard numbers—because a couple of my trucking companies have come to me and said 

25 

‘‘A decrease in hours of service is,’’ and I got 5,000 from one, 5,500 

from another. 

And in Washington, those kinds of numbers are powerful, so that 

I can do the math for other Members of Congress and they can see 

what kind of dollars it’s going to cost a small trucking company 

with 50 or 100 drivers, or a significant chunk of—— 

Mr. TUTTLE. I can tell you that a typical week for one of our drivers is 2,200 to 2,400 miles a week. And they make between $50,000 

and $60,000 a year. It would be an $8,000 to $10,000 pay decrease. 

Mr. SHUSTER. How many drivers do you have, by the way? 

Mr. TUTTLE. I employ 92 drivers, presently. 

Mr. SHUSTER. All right. Thank you. And Mr. Wray and Mr. 

Burgett, two questions came up that both of you were talking 

about. 

One, Mr. Wray was talking about utilizing the right of way to 

raise an issue of funds. One of the very difficult debates that occurs 

in Congress is billboards and advertising on roadways, you’ve got 

a pretty significant and powerful coalition that has limited that 

over the years. So when you say ‘‘adverstising dollars,’’ what are 

you looking at? What ideas do you have? 

I know I’ve talked to a couple of firms that are—the idea of taking and beautifying landscaping along the highways with companies’ logos to raise dollars. And I don’t know if you know anything 

about that. 

Mr. WRAY. Congressman Shuster, it could be what you just mentioned. Some sort of a public/private partnership to beautify the 

area, or to increase capacity. I mean, we’re looking at all options. 

Mr. TUTTLE. And the other thing Mr. Burgett brought up, and 

this is something I hear a lot, about focusing the dollars to highways. The grand compromise, in probably the 1970s or the 1980s, 

was the transit/highway compromise in the urban/suburban areas. 

And I just wonder, what kind of debate would happen here in 

Ohio, with Cleveland and Cincinnati and Columbus saying ‘‘Hold 

it a second.’’ You could make the argument, and I think it’s a valid 

argument, that if you put money into transit, you take cars off the 

roadway. So what kind of debate would occur here in Ohio between 

the urban, suburban, and rural areas? 

Mr. BURGETT. Let me clarify. I’m talking about the portion of 

Federal dollars that presently go to highways, that those be focused 

only on the national highway system, which would bring clarity 

and let the rest of us know that we need, in our State or municipality, to find a budget for the others. 

As it is right now, we don’t know what kind of a trickle we are 

going to get from the Federal Government. So I’m not talking about 

taking transit dollars for the national highway system. I’m only 

talking about eliminating which roads those funds go to. And that 

would also take care of Director Wray’s 90/10 deal. 

Mr. WRAY. Congressman Shuster, if I may, and you probably 

know this, particularly with your background and your father’s 

background. I used to quote him in speeches, often. If you go back 

far enough, there was a time when the highway system and the 

transportation system was funded at the State level with supplement from the feds. 

26 

That has completely switched to the point now that the Federal 

Government is the driving factor and most of the money, and that’s 

why I mentioned what I said. If Secretary LaHood’s proposed budget that came out earlier this week becomes reality, Ohio will not 

have enough funds to match it at an 80/20 match. 

So what Brian is talking about is providing more clarity. ‘‘This 

road is going to be financed by this fund by the Federal Government, not the State government. And the other is going to be financed the other way.’’ So that we can get more clarity. 

And maybe it should be that some of our Interstate should be 

100 percent Federal, with the understanding that we are not going 

to do all US routes, that we are not going to use Federal money 

on all US routes. So just providing more clarity would be very desirable in the reauthorization bill. 

Relative to the modal aspect of what happens in Ohio, if you’re 

asking me would there be a debate, there would be a robust debate. 

And that would be a healthy thing. And the idea is for us to come 

up with a system that provides the most value for the investment 

of the people of Ohio. 

Mr. SHUSTER. I see my time is up. And I think it’s going to be 

imperative in this new bill that we have clarity, and I’m sure the 

chairman is going to take it in that direction. But thank you very 

much. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, gentlemen. I will recognize the Gentleman 

from Ohio, Mr. Stivers. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, thank you for including me even though I don’t sit on the committee of jurisdiction. 

I was really taken by something that Director Wray said, as well 

as something that Mr. Fromm said, about economic development. 

One of my favorite movies is Blazing Saddles, and in that one of 

the characters says—the character named Mongo says it’s all about 

‘‘where the choo-choo go.’’ And the point of that is, economic development is driven by where our roads and our rails go. 

And Director Wray and Mr. Fromm both talked about how you 

can leverage those destinations and the change in economic value 

of those destinations. And I would like both of you to maybe expound upon that, and how that could be used to help finance our 

roads and bridges. 

Mr. WRAY. Congressman Stivers, you are asking regarding public/private partnerships, or just the impact of transportation? 

Mr. STIVERS. You talked about your rest areas. Obviously there’s 

food at those rest areas. You can use those franchise things there 

like they do on the Turnpike, but I think you’re not allowed to 

today because of Federal rules. 

You hopefully will be able to use your right of way for—whether 

it’s fiber or cell towers or other things you could put on that land. 

Land has value. Except the Federal Government tells you you can’t 

use that land. 

Same thing with Mr. Fromm. Where the rails go, people go. And 

it changes the economic value of those destinations or those depots 

where the trains end up. And can we leverage that change of value 

through economic partnerships? 

I guess that’s what I’m trying to get at. And if you could expound 

on how the Federal Government is actually not allowing you to leVerDate Aug 31 2005 08:53 Aug 26, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULLCO~1\2-19-1~1\65736.TXT JEAN
27 

verage the value of both that land, your right of way, and the land 

of the rest stops—and frankly, where you take new interchanges 

and where you take new roads, there becomes a change in value, 

and you can leverage some of that. 

Mr. WRAY. Congressman Stivers, obviously there is a partnership 

between the Federal Government, USDOT, and the State DOTs. 

And in a couple weeks I’m going to be going to a national meeting 

that’s going to last two days, and that will be the topic of the full 

two days. 

So certainly we need a strong partner with the Federal Government in terms of what we provide in terms of transportation. 

Where we tend to part ways is that the State DOTs are typically 

looking for economic development and jobs, and looking for speed 

and value. 

FHWA tends to have a more—and I’m talking specifically here 

about highways, more of a national perspective. They talk a lot 

about the integrity of the main line, and the throughput of the traffic. 

And they will actually say to you, ‘‘We are not really interested 

in economic development. That’s your issue. Our job is to take care 

of the system.’’ So at that level, we need more flexibility. 

Mr. STIVERS. OK. There’s about a minute and a half left. 

Mr. WRAY. We need more flexibility. And at the same level, obviously, every project that comes to the DOT—and I mean every 

project that comes, whether it’s transit, rail, highway, bridge, whatever it is—the sponsors and the people who want that project say 

that it’s imperative for economic development. It is our job to decide. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you. Mr. Fromm? 

Mr. FROMM. I guess I can’t speak to this from transportation. I 

have never done this before in terms of economic development. But 

I have the largest land developments in Columbus and Cleveland, 

and they’re both public/private partnerships. They’re both on sites 

where the public could not solve these problems. They were inactive properties. Latent property. 

But with the private sector putting in their capital, and with us 

putting in our professional skills and labor—we’re not looking for 

handouts. We’re looking for public/private partnerships that are 

equal. 

And we were able to get Federal funds, and State funds, and 

county funds, and local funds, to where we had approximately 10 

different public and private parties investing in the Columbus 

project. It went from a negative asset that nobody would touch, a 

community that wouldn’t develop at all, into one where it’s now 

valued at over $20 million. 

Mr. STIVERS. That’s great. Thank you. And I only have about 30 

seconds left, and I want to get to—so that I think that really does 

illustrate that it works. 

Director Wray, you know, we talked about expedited timelines. 

And it’s my understanding that timelines can go from about 15 

years to about four years if you actually focus and the Federal Government gives you some flexibility. Just a yes or no, is that correct? 

Mr. WRAY. Correct. 

28 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you. Also on flexibility for Mr. Tuttle, because I’m really almost out of time, would it be helpful if you got 

more flexibility on defining what your drive time/road time was, 

that would allow your drivers—even if it was 11 hours, if they were 

sitting in the cab or not in the cab because of the delivery, that 

made the time more flexible. Would that be helpful? 

Mr. TUTTLE. Absolutely. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you. And I think I’m out of time. Thank you 

for all the panelists. I’m sorry I didn’t get to ask all the questions 

I wanted, but I appreciate you all being here today, and I’d like to 

thank the chairman for holding this hearing in Columbus, Ohio. 

Thank you. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. Let me yield, if I may now, to the counsel 

for the minority side of the committee, to see if he has any questions. 

And if any of the Members have additional questions, or the minority side, everyone, of course, is welcome to submit questions to 

the panel. And the responses, if you cooperate with us, will also be 

made part of the record. 

Let me just ask a couple of closing questions. Mr. Burgett had 

some interesting proposals in terms of narrowing some of the highway programs and just focusing on the Interstate. Of course, it 

would probably get a lot of push-back. Everybody wants us to do 

every program. I think we started out with four core programs, and 

we’re up to 100-plus. 

How do you think that’s achievable? And again, how would you 

put that together? What are you thinking? 

Mr. BURGETT. I appreciate the question. I think it has to be 

phased in over a multi-year timeframe. And one of my thoughts on 

that, with the recently proposed funding by Secretary LaHood, if 

that money could be spread out over a two to three year phase-in 

to allow us to give the States an opportunity to legislate how 

they’re going to come up with this funding gap in the future—I 

think the whole key to this is the importance of certainty. 

And we have not been able to get certainty out of the Federal 

Government. If we just let people know, ‘‘This is what we’re going 

to take care of, the rest is your responsibility,’’ then I have faith 

in our State governments that they will take that responsibility 

and come up with a method of funding. But we need to have that 

phase-in time. 

Mr. MICA. Let me say also that I like your idea about utilizing 

as much of the right of way, giving as much discretion as possible. 

Mr. Wray had suggestions—and let me just comment. You don’t 

have to respond. But I think the chances of going to 90 are slim 

to none. It’s actually been headed in the opposite direction, as I’m 

sure you know. 

But I think several of you raised the question of stability. One 

reason I acquiesced to have the next extension was since there was 

no way I could do, just having taken the committee over, have a 

completed bill by March 4th. So while I’d like a shorter term piece 

of legislation to put pressure on Congress to move with the reauthorization, I did acquiesce to go to the end of the fiscal year, which 

was the request for some stability. 

29 

Now, this will be our seventh extension, and each of those causes 

a period of uncertainty, inability to plan, and certainly inability to 

do any long-term commitment from the Federal Government, or 

initiation of significant projects. 

Mr. Lozier, great ideas. I’m going to take your language back. 

When we start crafting this, if you would also monitor the language that we’re doing about, again, this whole process. Sometimes 

the staff on both sides of the aisle think of the way things are done 

now, and think we have to do this and that. I want to try to get 

them outside the box. 

We had reached an agreement with Mr. Oberstar, moving forward with this on expediting projects and speeding up projects, but 

I think we only reached the tip of the iceberg. And I think there 

are innovative ways—we’ll look at your language and hopefully 

adopt some of that. 

Mayor, you cite a great example of a small community trying to 

dog it with the Federal Government, in just the last eight years 

since I got shafted in redistricting. My wife will be out here in a 

few minutes with soap and water. 

But I never had small, rural communities, and I got a whole new 

understanding of the institutional challenge that you all face. And 

it’s really ironic that the small communities, rural or disadvantaged communities, are the least likely to be able to participate. 

We’re going to try to improve that. And again, we want you to be 

with us in that process. 

Burgett wasn’t as hot to trot on the PPPs, and I think we had 

some disagreement there. Do you want to tell me again what your 

problem was, and then a couple of you might have a solution. 

Mr. BURGETT. We’ve looked at five different triple P projects over 

the last few years, none of which have been able to go forward because the dollars didn’t work. 

Mr. MICA. Is there anything that we could have done to sweeten 

the pot, like maybe backed—— 

Mr. BURGETT. Let me give you an example here of how far the 

numbers are. A current project that exists out there—I won’t name 

the State, but it’s not Ohio. And we were the low bidder on a $200 

million pricing. 

And the State had initially set that project up as 3P, couldn’t get 

the finance on it. Decided to take it back and handle it through 

their toll authority—— 

Mr. MICA. This is financing? 

Mr. BURGETT. Yes. They decided to make a toll road through 

their existing turnpike. They did the numbers on it, and when they 

would sell the bonds, what they would cost and all this, they could 

get $50 million out of the bonds that would be paid back from the 

tolls over a 30-year period of time. 

Mr. MICA. And that leaves $150 million? 

Mr. BURGETT. Right. They say they can start with bonds, but the 

numbers get worse. To put the tolling equipment in, the facilities 

to do the tolls, will cost $20 million. So now you get a net $30 million. 

And the numbers get worse. The tolls that would be charged to 

the traveling public across that amount to $10 million a year. So 

30 

over 30 years, we’re charging $300 million. We’re going to have $30 

million available to actually do construction with 

Mr. MICA. So the numbers don’t work. 

Mr. BURGETT. And that’s on the US Highway. 

Mr. MICA. Mr. Policinski. 

Mr. POLICINSKI. With this idea of RIIZes, regional infrastructure 

improvement zones, these are in fact public/private partnerships. 

And you put in, instead of the local money, you’re going to be putting private sector dollars. 

I think it’s important that we recognize, as I’m sure you do, that 

the private sector might be more attuned to economic development 

projects than the government. Consequently, those projects that 

would move most quickly would have the biggest bang for the buck. 

So as far as this idea of RIIZes, they are public/private partnership. 

And we think they’re a good one. 

Mr. MICA. Did you have something, Mr. Gattozzi? 

Mr. GATTOZZI. I think our definition of public/private partnership 

is slightly different, but I think it’s important. Our point is that 

there are projects of local significance, but that also have national 

or regional impact as well. 

And making those investments so that you get a return on investment model, to look at what are the jobs going to be created? 

What is the money going into the project? Does it make it worthwhile to make that transportation investment, put those dollars 

into it? 

So not only from the highway, so we can have the smoothest 

highway, but if you don’t have the feeder into the project, you’re 

not going to be able to move those goods and services through. 

And so I think getting that input from the local community on 

a regional basis is critically important to understand the 

prioritization, because we realize that those dollars are limited. So 

let’s prioritize those projects that are going to result in economic 

development and private investment in facilities and job creation. 

Mr. MICA. Mr. Tuttle, you represent an incredible part of our 

economy. And if anyone wants to see what makes the country grow 

and grow, it is the masterful private sector trucking industry that 

is the backbone of our economy. 

Sometimes I get criticized when I’m trying to get as many trucks 

off the road as possible, but I don’t mean that in a derogatory 

sense. I mean that I’m trying to save you fuel. 

And when it gets to four or five bucks, you’ll be supporting some 

of the proposals that I would champion, and try to get more on rail, 

even drive-on. Whatever we can do. I’m trying to get you to maximize that great service that you provide, and hopefully make even 

better profits. We’re looking at solutions, and we welcome your suggestions. We’ll look at the hour thing as we go along. 

Finally, Mr. Fromm is a businessman who has invested in and 

bought the assets of Colorado Railcar. And his predecessor, Mr. 

Rader, I think, was an incredible entrepeneur in developing a diesel motorized unit—those are self-propelled railcars—at his own expense. No Federal development money. 

Then he went further than anyone in the United States in getting the vehicle crash tested at his own expense, and put it all together. It is doing fairly well, and we actually acquired some for 

31 

Florida that run in the TRI–RAIL system. We’re on our way to 

Portland tomorrow, and I haven’t seen those, but we’ll look at 

those. 

On the fourth of March, what I highly recommend to those folks 

in Ohio coming down to Miami is that we’re going to have a display 

of his vehicles that have been running for years with great fuel efficiency, very low emissions, cost-competitive to other options. 

But unfortunately, Mr. Rader got involved in some other investments, and then got hit by the economy and went bankrupt, I believe it was. And Mr. Fromm made a very wise investment in securing all of that technology and the ability to produce those vehicles. 

I am sold on them. I think that the problem he’s had is that he’s 

had to deal with the Federal bureaucracy to put a self-propelled 

passenger vehicle on some existing or semi-abandoned routes that 

run through the hearts of cities, and that could provide an essential service at the lowest possible cost. 

And God help us, the process is just so cumbersome, it’s amazing 

that anything can be done. But we’re going to see if we can’t get 

something done to get that kind of technology that has been developed in the United States back here, and he’s looking, I think, at 

manufacturing and activities located here in this area. So we’re 

pleased to see you, and thank you for coming. 

I have spoken too long. And what I want to do is again thank 

our hosts. Mr. Gibbs, Mr. Stivers, this is your hometown. Ms. 

Schmidt, you’re close by. Ohio is well-represented. If I had more 

Members like this on the Committee and in Congress, we would do 

incredible things for the country. 

But the problem is, I have to deal with people like Mr. Shuster. 

Thanks again, Bill. But all kidding aside, we do have a great working team. We’re pleased to be here, in the Statehouse of all places. 

We are a little bit behind schedule, so we don’t mean to be rude, 

but Mr. Shuster and I are supposed to do a similar session in Indianapolis very shortly. We’ll leave the Ohio members to your pleasure, and thank you so much to our witnesses and those in the audience. If you’re in the audience and you heard something that you 

want to comment on, let us know. 

If you have suggestions, positive things that you want to see in 

the bill, we want you to get them to one of these Members that are 

on the Committee. We’ll even take some from Mr. Stivers, who is 

not on. But get them to us. We’re going to move forward with this 

so we can provide the stability over the long term. 

And I’ve threatened to take anyone else that says anything less 

than a six year bill, that sets forth the policy, the projects, the 

funding formula, lays out the whole landscape so we can be good 

Federal partners—I’ve promised to take anyone outside and beat 

him up that says that we’re going to do a shorter term bill, or not 

do a bill. So we’re going to be able to do that, with your help. 

There being no further business to come before the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of the United States House of 

Representatives, this field hearing in Columbus, Ohio, is adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 12:33 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

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