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65–735 PDF 2011

IMPROVING AND REFORMING OUR NATION’S 

SURFACE TRANSPORTATION PROGRAMS: 

BECKLEY, WEST VIRGINIA, FIELD HEARING 

WITH SUBMISSIONS FROM THE CHARLESTON, 

WEST VIRGINIA, LISTENING SESSION 

(112–5) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

FEBRUARY 14, 2011 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

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

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 .................................................................................... v 

TESTIMONY 

Browning, State Senator Richard, Executive Director, Coalfields Expressway 

Authority ............................................................................................................... 5 

Clowser, Mike, Executive Director, Contractors Association of West Virginia .. 5 

Mattox, Paul A., Jr., P.E., Secretary, West Virginia Department of Transportation ..................................................................................................................... 5 

Mitchem, Mike, Executive Director, King Coal Highway I–73/74 Authority ..... 5 

Nichols, Andrew P., Ph.D., P.E., Program Director, Intelligent Transportation 

Systems, Rahall Appalachian Transportation Institute ................................... 5 

Whitt, Mike, Executive Director, Mingo County Redevelopment Authority ....... 5 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Duncan, Hon. John J., Jr., of Tennessee ............................................................... 62 

Mica, Hon. John L., of Florida ................................................................................ 68 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Browning, State Senator Richard ........................................................................... 69 

Clowser, Mike .......................................................................................................... 74 

Mattox, Paul A., Jr., P.E. ........................................................................................ 80 

Mitchem, Mike ......................................................................................................... 82 

Nichols, Andrew P., Ph.D., P.E. ............................................................................. 84 

Whitt, Mike .............................................................................................................. 90 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Bayes, Barbara, Director, Good News Mountaineer Garage, written comments, and Rural Transportation Policy Group Position Paper from the 

National Rural Assembly .................................................................................... 14 

Blackwell, Angela Glover, Founder and CEO, PolicyLink; Carter, Philip W., 

Professor, Marshall University College of Health Professions; Davis, Coston, 

Jr., State President, NAACP West Virginia; Davis, Dee, President, Center 

for Rural Strategies; Derry, Jan, Executive Director, Northern West Virginia Center for Independent Living; Derry, Mark, President/CEO, Eastlake, Derry & Associates; Henderson, Wade, President and CEO, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; Mayolo, Regina A., Executive Director, Community Living Initiatives Corporation (CLIC); Nawaz, 

Ann, President, Juante Gebape, Inc.; Rutherford, George, President, Jefferson County West Virginia Branch of the NAACP, and Secretary, Star 

Lodge #1 Free and Accepted Masons—Prince Hall Affiliated; Stewart, Harold E., Secretary, Jefferson County West Virginia Branch of the NAACP; 

Tolbert, James, Chair, Board of Directors, Jefferson County African-American Community Association; Tolbert, James A., Secretary, Jefferson County Black History Preservation Society; Tolbert, James A., Sr., President 

Emeritus, NAACP West Virginia; written statement ....................................... 23 

Carter, J. Douglas, General Manager, Potomac Valley Transit Authority, written statement ....................................................................................................... 30 

Davis, Paul E., Executive Director, West Virginia Public Transit Association, 

written statement ................................................................................................. 32 

Helmondollar, Travis, Development Coordinator, West Virginia Students 

Against Destructive Decisions (SADD), written comments .............................. 34 

Lusk, Jeffrey, Executive Director, Hatfield-McCoy Regional Recreational Authority, testimony on behalf of Hatfield-McCoy Trails ..................................... 37 

Page

IV 

McKinney, Patrick, CCTM, Manager, Bluefield Area Transit, written comments on the reauthorization of the highway and transit bill ......................... 40 

Poe, Rebecca, Director, County Roads Transit, written comments on the reauthorization of SAFETEA–LU .............................................................................. 42 

Smith, Paula S., Executive Director, Tri River Transit Authority, written 

statement .............................................................................................................. 44 

Charleston, West Virginia, Listening Session, February 14, 2011, Testimony for the Record: 

During February and March 2011, the Committee on Transportation and 

Infrastructure held a national series of field hearings and listening sessions 

to gather information from State and local officials and stakeholders on 

pending major surface transportation legislation. Testimony from the 

Charleston, West Virginia, listening session is included in this hearing. 

Carper, W. Kent, President, Kanawha County Commission, on behalf of 

Kanawha County Commission and Yeager Airport, written support of AIP 

funding and Essential Air Service (EAS) program ............................................ 94 

Dawson, Dennis E., General Manager, Kanawha Valley Regional Transportation Authority (KVRTA), written statement .................................................. 95 

Deneault, Joe, Co-Founder and Treasurer, West Virginians for Better Transportation, presentation before the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure ............................................................................................................... 99 

Robinson, E.L., P.E., President, E.L. Robinson, letter to Hon. John L. Mica, 

a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida .................................. 104 

Spadaro, Laura E., community organizer on behalf of West Virginia Citizen 

Action Group, written comments ........................................................................ 106 

The Friends of the Cardinal, written statement ................................................... 108 

Tipton, Judy L., President, New Pro Consulting, Inc.: 

Cover letter to Hon. John L. Mica, a Representative in Congress from 

the State of Florida .......................................................................................... 110 

Multi-Year Highway Bill Funding Solution ....................................................... 111 

Motor Fuel Inspections—Journal articles and ‘‘Retail Fuel Inspection Activities of the Georgia Department of Agriculture,’’ Performance Audit Operations Division, Georgia Department of Audits and Accounts, November 

2005, Report 05–05 ........................................................................................... 142 

Motor Fuel Meters—Journal articles and ‘‘The Silent Thief: Case Study 

for Statistical Inventory Reconciliation,’’ Simmons Corporation .................. 184 

Motor Fuel Resellers—Journal articles and ‘‘NACS Gas Price Kit,’’ NACS: 

The Association for Convenience and Fuel Retailing .................................... 198 

v 


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(1) 

IMPROVING AND REFORMING OUR 

NATION’S SURFACE TRANSPORTATION 

PROGRAMS: BECKLEY, WEST VIRGINIA, 

FIELD HEARING WITH SUBMISSIONS 

FROM THE CHARLESTON, WEST VIRGINIA, 

LISTENING SESSION 

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2011 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, WASHINGTON, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 8 a.m., at the Governor 

Hulett C. Smith Theater at Tamarack, One Tamarack Park, Beckley, West Virginia, Hon. John L. Mica (chairman of the committee) 

presiding. 

Mr. MICA. Good morning. I would like to call this hearing of the 

United States House of Representatives Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure to order. In just a moment I’ll have an 

opening statement. We are absolutely delighted to be in Beckley 

and in West Virginia, a beautiful part of the country, and hosted 

today by the chief Democrat and Ranking Member of this full committee, the gentleman from West Virginia, and I would like to recognize him and yield to him at this time. 

Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And we are indeed honored to have Chairman John Mica, Representative Mae Hirono 

from the State of Hawaii, and Representative Jimmy Duncan from 

the State of Tennessee with us in Beckley this morning. 

This is the kickoff of a nationwide series of hearings the committee will be conducting, a listening tour to learn about our Nation’s infrastructure needs and to hear the people’s views. And, Mr. 

Chairman, if I might before we go further, I would like to recognize 

the mayor of our fine city for a welcome. 

Mr. MICA. Welcome, and you are recognized, sir. 

Mr. PUGH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. On behalf of 

the City of Beckley and southern West Virginia, we certainly want 

to take this chance and opportunity to welcome you all to our neck 

of the woods. You can actually see the ground now, and the snow 

has disappeared for the time being. 

But when you look at the different areas of the country that you 

all are going to be holding these hearings, we are certainly honored 

that you are here today in Congressman Rahall’s hometown of 

Beckley. 

We realize that different areas of the country have different 

transportation needs. In looking here at the panel that you have, 

2 

that you are going to hear testimony from today, these gentlemen 

certainly are going to tell you about the needs of West Virginia, 

and the needs are great. There is no doubt that the roads and the 

infrastructure is a valuable economic development tool, and it’s 

proven its worth many times over right here in the Beckley area 

with the interstate system, the Appalachian corridor system, and 

we know that that’s something that you are going to see firsthand. 

So on behalf of the City, again, I want to welcome you all here. We 

appreciate your time and your efforts on behalf of West Virginia 

and the United States of America, and wish you all well as you do 

this fact-finding mission. Thank you very much. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you so much, Mayor, and thanks also to members of the community and this beautiful facility. My wife—I was 

informed on the way down here from Charleston last night as we 

drove in that she had been here before and didn’t realize it, but it 

is an absolutely gorgeous center, and we’re pleased to hold the first 

hearing. And this hearing is of somewhat historic proportions, because it is the first in a series of hearings that will be held across 

the United States for the next month, and I thought it was important in working in a bipartisan basis that we begin right here in 

the hometown of the chief Democratic leader on the Transportation 

and Infrastructure Committee, Mr. Rahall. 

We have had an opportunity to work together the last 18 years 

he’s been there before me, and he is probably one of the most respected Members of the Congress and, without question, the leader 

of our Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. So he and I 

have an important responsibility. 

In September of 2009, the last six-year transportation bill expired. They were unable, in the last Congress, to develop and pass 

legislation for a long-term transportation bill, and unfortunately 

the country is suffering right now. 

States do not have a reliable partner, nor do they know Federal 

policy, Federal funding formulas, or the commitment that we have 

always pledged to make to assist in building the Nation’s infrastructure. So we have had the opportunity to meet already, plan 

the agenda of the committee, and this week we helped to pass the 

FAA authorization. We are on our 17th extension. We hope not to 

make the 18th. And working parallel, we are determined—and we 

dropped last week a measure to extend the expiring March 4th extension of the transportation bill to the end of September of this 

year, and our goal is to have that on the President’s desk by that 

time, if not sooner. 

So that’s why we’re here. We start on Thursday again, and 

Thursday is going to be kind of neat. We start here today with my 

colleagues in West Virginia, and I found out that we’re actually 

going to the Valley Forge Center in Pennsylvania on Thursday. 

That’s where the next one is held. We hope we don’t have to wrap 

our feet in rags and trudge through the cold weather up there, but 

we’re going to go across the country. And the purpose of this is not 

so much to have long speeches by Members of Congress, but to 

come and listen, and that’s what we intend to do today. 

So with those comments, again, I cannot thank you enough for 

your willingness to work together, with hands across both sides of 

the aisle, and also for your hospitality. We got to add to the econVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:11 Aug 18, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00010 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULLCO~1\2-14-1~1\65735.TXT JEAN
3 

omy last night, and we’re looking forward—we wish we had more 

time to stay and that also maybe the shops would be open by the 

time we leave, but we do have a commitment to be in Charleston 

this morning, and then back tonight we have votes in Washington. 

Thank you again, Mr. Rahall, for your hospitality, and I’ll be glad 

to yield to you at this time. 

Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I express my 

deep appreciation to you and Congresswoman Hirono and Congressman Jim Duncan for taking time from truly busy schedules to 

be with us here in Beckley, West Virginia. 

Besides the Mayor of Bluefield, in the audience—I mean besides 

the Mayor of Beckley, in the audience is also the Mayor of Bluefield, West Virginia, Linda Whalen, if she would stand up and be 

recognized, and her city manager, Andy Merriman is here, as well. 

They have a deep interest in this transportation bill. 

I believe I see our Director of West Virginia Homeland Security 

right behind you, Jim Gianato. Jim, thank you for being here. I 

know we had the Sheriff of Lincoln County here and the county 

commissioner from Lincoln County, Tom Ramey. 

I see Phil Lewis here representing Senator Rockefeller’s office. 

And are there other public officials here I’m missing? I’m sure 

there is. Yes, sir? 

Mr. O’NEAL. John O’Neal, House of Delegates. 

Mr. RAHALL. Yes, John O’Neal, our new member here in Raleigh 

County. Sorry. I didn’t see you in the light there, John. And, of 

course, a lot of members that you’ve met of our West Virginia Contractors Association. Who’s in the back? Raise your hand. 

Mr. MEADOR. Larry Meador, Hinton City Council President. 

Mr. RAHALL. Oh, OK. I didn’t see you, Larry. My eyes are really 

going bad. Larry Meador, Hinton City Council or in our neighboring county. 

So all of you, we really appreciate your being here. 

Our witnesses, of course, will introduce themselves. They will 

really raise some unique perspective and valuable professional information to us this morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MICA. And thank you. And, again, thank you for your hospitality and willingness to work. And we are pleased to have members from both sides of the aisle join us and several leaders of the 

committee. The gentleman who I recognize now is the chairman 

and the long-serving leader in the T&I Committee, the gentleman 

from Tennessee, Mr. Duncan. 

Mr. Duncan, you are recognized. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you. I give a very brief thank you, Mr. 

Chairman, for calling this hearing, and this is my second visit to 

Congressman Rahall’s district. Several years ago when I chaired 

the Aviation Subcommittee, we held a hearing of that subcommittee in Huntington, so it’s an honor to be back here with 

Chairman Rahall and West Virginia. It reminds me so much of my 

home of east Tennessee. In fact, I was telling the group last night 

that the movie ‘‘October Sky,’’ which is a West Virginia story, was 

filmed in my district of east Tennessee. So there is a lot of similarities between the people of West Virginia and east Tennessee, and 

I look forward to hearing the testimony of this distinguished panel 

of witnesses. And thank you very much for letting me be here. 

4 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Duncan. And we have actually traveling a long way and probably the longest of any of the members 

to come to Washington—I remember her going out some years ago 

for a field hearing in July—Mazie Hirono. 

Mr. RAHALL. We regret there’s no snow for you. Not really. 

Mr. MICA. She is on four of our subcommittees, so she has a lot 

of say in legislation, and we’re delighted to recognize her at this 

time. 

Ms. HIRONO. Good morning, everyone. It is a pleasure for me to 

be here to join Chairman Mica and my colleagues on this field 

hearing, and I’m really glad that everyone has mentioned how important these field hearings are. There is nothing like going to see 

as many places in this great and beautiful country of ours and having a field hearing to listen to the people who are literally on the 

ground. And as long as we’re talking about field hearings, I would 

love for this committee to come to Hawaii. Those of you who have 

been to Hawaii, you know that we totally rely on transportation to 

get from island to island. And, indeed, to get to Hawaii, you pretty 

much have to fly or take a cruise ship, so these issues are critically 

important to us. We all have transportation needs in our states, 

and this is a committee that is very bipartisan, and I look forward 

to hearing your testimony. 

Mr. MICA. Well, thank you so much. And, again, we welcome all 

of our committee members and thank Mr. Rahall. 

What we’re going to do now, we’ll turn to the next order of business. We have some witnesses selected this morning by Mr. Rahall 

and the committee, and we’re going to hear from each of them. 

Normally, what we do if you have a long, lengthy statement, you 

can submit it today, and it will be made a part of the official 

record. And we try to keep this as conversational as possible, so 

you can have the opportunity to have an exchange with Members 

of the Committee. 

Our witnesses today include Paul Mattox. He is the Secretary of 

Transportation for West Virginia; Mr. Mike Clowser, Executive Director of the Contractors Association of West Virginia; State Senator Richard Browning, and he is the Executive Director of the 

Coalfields Expressway Authority; Mike Mitchem, and he is the Executive Director of the King Coal Highway I–73/74 Authority, accompanied by Mike Whitt, who is the Executive Director of the 

Mingo County Redevelopment Authority; and then the final witness in this panel is Andrew Nichols, and Doctor Nichols is the 

Program Director of the Intelligent Transportation Systems of the 

Rahall Appalachian Transportation Institute. Welcome, each of 

you, and we’re pleased to have you participate this morning, and 

we’ll start by recognizing Secretary Mattox. Welcome, and you are 

recognized. 

5 

TESTIMONY OF PAUL A. MATTOX, JR., P.E., SECRETARY, WEST 

VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION; MIKE 

CLOWSER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CONTRACTORS ASSOCIATION OF WEST VIRGINIA; STATE SENATOR RICHARD BROWNING, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, COALFIELDS EXPRESSWAY AUTHORITY; MIKE MITCHEM, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, KING 

COAL HIGHWAY I–73/74 AUTHORITY, ACCOMPANIED BY MIKE 

WHITT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MINGO COUNTY REDEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY; AND ANDREW P. NICHOLS, Ph.D., P.E., 

PROGRAM DIRECTOR, INTELLIGENT TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS, RAHALL APPALACHIAN TRANSPORTATION INSTITUTE 

Mr. MATTOX. Good morning. Welcome Chairman Mica, Congressman Rahall, and House Committee members and other representatives here this morning. Thank you for coordinating this important 

event and for the opportunity to participate and present before you. 

West Virginia has the sixth largest state-maintained highway 

network in the country. The Division of Highways has statutory responsibility for maintaining more than 36,000 miles, 92 percent of 

all the roadways in the state. In 2008, total revenue was 30 percent 

less than it was ten years ago. 

This translates into fewer and fewer dollars becoming applicable 

to West Virginia’s roadway network. 

In the process of developing our Long Range Transportation 

Plan, it was discovered the total estimated cost to maintain West 

Virginia’s existing system at current levels of pavement and operational performance totals $21 billion over the next 25 years. We 

are fortunate that because we enjoy an excellent working relationship with our local Federal Highway Administration, our projects 

are delivered as quickly as possible for the motorists of West Virginia. That is evidenced by our collective response to the highway 

ARRA program. 

A testament to that statement, working with the Federal Highway Administration, the Division of Highways has increased its improvement program delivery by 19 percent in 2005, 78 percent last 

year, relatively working within the same budget. My agency is fully 

supportive of expediting project delivery by any method possible, 

but particularly by the design/build method of construction that 

has saved West Virginia taxpayers more than $20 million on the 

upgrade of U.S. Route 35 alone. 

I am grateful for what the ARRA program did for West Virginia, 

and I’m thankful for the TIGER II program that will allow us to 

build a new roadway facility and remove traffic from one of the 

most dangerous roadways in the state, West Virginia Route 10 in 

Logan County. From the ARRA and TIGER programs, my agency 

has become accustomed to the practices of performance and accountability measurements, and we are prepared if these measures 

should also be a part of the new highway reauthorization legislation. 

In 2010, 5.9 million riders rode on West Virginia’s 18 public transit systems; one million on the state’s rural transit systems. These 

systems travel 11.2 million miles and employ 680 full- and parttime employees. Public transit service is provided in 33 of our 

state’s 55 counties. Many West Virginians, particularly in rural 

areas, are transit dependent and utilize these services to get to 

6 

work, the doctor, shopping, and to take care of the necessities of 

life. 

The need for continued transportation investment in West Virginia is greater now than ever, particularly for needed new roads 

in southern West Virginia, such as the Coalfields Expressway, the 

King Coal Highway, and the New River Parkway. 

A robust multi-year transportation authorization is critical as we 

continue to maintain an aged highway infrastructure. 

Addressing the highway and transit needs here in West Virginia 

will allow the state to become a bigger player in the global marketplace by creating and sustaining jobs and ensuring the future prosperity of the Mountain State. Thank you again for being here. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony, and what we’re going 

to do is we’ll withhold questions until we’ve heard from all of the 

witnesses, and then everyone will have a chance to ask some questions. 

Let’s hear now from and recognize Mike Clowser, Executive Director of the Contractors Association of West Virginia. Welcome, 

sir, and you are recognized. 

Mr. CLOWSER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am Mike Clowser 

with the Contractors Association of West Virginia. 

We represent about 450 members who employ 20,000 West Virginians building our highways, water/sewer systems, buildings. We 

welcome you to West Virginia. We appreciate you being here. The 

roads you came down, the airport you flew in, and this beautiful 

building today were all built by members of our association. 

You have asked us to provide you input today on how to streamline the process, eliminate programs, improve flexibility, and improve the efficacy of private investment in transportation infrastructure. I will tell you that I do not feel qualified to do that, and 

I do know that, as the Secretary mentioned, we have a great relationship with Tom Smith, our Federal highway administrator, and 

we work with Tom every day on how to solve some of these issues. 

And our national association, AGC of America and ARTBA, will be 

presenting information to you on this. 

What is important to West Virginia and the men and women who 

build West Virginia’s transportation system is the passage of a 

Federal-aid highway reauthorization bill. The uncertainty that has 

existed since September 2009 has created instability in the design 

and award of construction projects, it has resulted in the unemployment of skilled construction workers, it has curtailed contractors investing in new equipment, and it has resulted in a deterioration of West Virginia’s roads and bridges. 

You’ve heard from Secretary Mattox on the breadth of our program. I won’t go into it today. But everyone is here today because 

we understand the value of capital investment. 

We understand infrastructure improvements are critical to support commerce and to improve economic competitiveness. 

An issue that we have in West Virginia is that we do not have 

the ability to look at a lot of alternative methodologies for financing 

our highways. We, as other rural states, depend on stable and a 

predictable Federal funding program to fund our highway program. 

The turnpike that you drove down this morning has been a toll 

road since its inception in 1955. We are trying to build about 14 

7 

miles of road in Mason County and Putnam County utilizing tolls. 

As the secretary will tell you, that’s been a very difficult proposition with the bond market and with our number of people driving. So to look at trying to get tolls in West Virginia and trying 

to do public/private partnership programs, obviously it’s very difficult to get that investment to come into a rural state, especially 

a state that takes a lot of dollars to build roads. 

As Congressman Rahall will tell you, to build a model road in 

West Virginia through our mountains is a little bit different than 

building it in flat terrain. And, as such, we depend upon the national Federal highway program, the Federal mechanism, the Federal gas tax, or the state gas tax. And since the Federal gas tax 

was last increased in 1993, we have seen half of that buying power 

decreased in the last 17 years. We have also, as the secretary mentioned, had a 30-percent drop in the buying power in our state 

funds. 

So we have found that the Federal highway program not only 

has created the great highway system that we have; it certainly 

creates jobs for our industry. And when you look at the number of 

people that are working in the construction industry today, we 

have about—within the West Virginia Department of Highways, we 

have about 23,000 full-time jobs in West Virginia that are dependent upon that, with an annual payroll of $1 billion. When you look 

at spreading that out over to the jobs that are indirectly created 

through highways, that adds for many more thousands of jobs 

within our state. So when you look at the amount of people working because of the transportation system in West Virginia, it is 

very impressive, although our industry, as many throughout the 

Nation, are seeing very much of a decline basically because of the 

instability in our highway programs. 

So, in closing, what I would say to you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, our association appreciates you being in 

West Virginia today. We appreciate the opportunity to share our 

concerns. Streamlining and eliminating red tape is great. We applaud that. But if Congress does not act and act swiftly to reauthorize the highway bill, we’re going to see much more people laid 

off within our industry. We thank you for reauthorizing the bill 

through September. That will be very helpful. We look forward to 

working with you to create the next highway bill moving forward. 

So we appreciate the opportunity today, and we appreciate you 

being in West Virginia. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Clowser. 

And we are delighted now to recognize one the state’s leaders, 

and we’ve got two of them today. John O’Neal, a state representative, is here, and we have the opportunity to hear from a state senator, and I want to tell you how much we appreciate, again, your 

work as part of the important state legislative body. 

With that, let me recognize State Senator Richard Browning. 

Welcome, and you are recognized. 

Mr. BROWNING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and other Members of 

Congress. Welcome to West Virginia. We are pleased to welcome 

our favorite son home today, also to his home county, Raleigh. 

I am very pleased to be able to talk to you today about a subject 

that I am very passionate about, the Coalfields Expressway. You 

8 

have introduced me, but I want to take another moment to let you 

know that I serve as Executive Director of the Coalfields Expressway Authority, and I’m going to talk about that for just a second. 

Also, I serve as the majority whip in the West Virginia Senate, and 

I chair the Committee on Economic Development, which ties right 

into my local job here. 

The Coalfields Expressway Authority is an organization formed 

in 1996 to push the construction of the highway and, thus far, we 

have constructed seven miles. The whole length of the road is 112 

miles, and in West Virginia—62 miles in West Virginia. 

One of the things that my job allows me to do is dabble in economic development along the highway. One of the things that I 

take dear to heart is bringing our people home. 

Southern West Virginia—in the last census, six out of the top ten 

counties in the whole country for population loss were in southern 

West Virginia, and we have to do something to reverse that. I don’t 

know what the next census is going to show. I don’t think it will 

be that much better, but what we’re trying to do with construction 

of the highway is to create jobs that will help bring our people 

home. 

You all know that anywhere roads go, economic diversification 

follows. That’s one of the things that I’ve worked on in my job here 

on the local level, plus my job in the Senate as Chairman of the 

Economic Development Committee. 

The spending on the highways, thus far we have spent in constructing seven miles—and we have another 21 miles under design 

and another 40 miles left to go—we have spent a total of $146 million in Federal funds. We’ve spent $39 million in state funds as 

they’re matched, for a total of $185 million. All of this money, ladies and gentlemen, has been in the form of earmarks. We have 

never, ever used one penny of Federal discretionary dollars that 

come through the regular highway funding bills that we get. 

Switching over now to my other hats, I’d like to take a moment 

to address some of the questions that Congressmen Mica posed in 

your invitation letter to me. Reducing the number of programs, I 

applaud you for looking at the programs that our Federal highway 

dollars are used to fund. I know as a member of our State Senate, 

as a member of the Legislature for many years, good programs 

come and go. You always have to evaluate the ones that are out 

there and use the money for the ones that aren’t doing so well and 

for the new ones that are coming along. So I applaud you for doing 

that. 

I would caution you, however, against cutting any money for any 

form of transportation. We all know that our global partners, trading partners in the world, are changing. We know through ARC 

studies that our trading partners are going to shift more toward 

the eastern ports. So we stand ready in this part of the country for 

the inner mobile hubs that must happen because our ports aren’t 

large enough to handle the increased volume of trade that’s going 

to come about as a result of the widening of the Panama Canal. 

So I would caution you against reducing any funding for that. 

Streamlines of the project delivery process, Mr. Clowser has already mentioned the design/build construction. We need more of 

that. We need to decrease the regulatory hurdles that we all must 

9 

do to get highways done. We know that the faster we can get a 

highway finished, the more the public appreciates it and can use 

it. 

Increased private sector investments, I’ve noticed in the last 

three highway bills that there’s more emphasis placed on state 

funding. At the same time, the State has put more emphasis on 

county funding. We have voted on many tax increases, gasoline tax 

increases, in our state to keep up with the Federal dollars. I’m asking you today to increase the Federal gasoline tax. 

And I think I have to stop there. I’ll be glad to answer questions. 

Mr. MICA. That might be a good place to stop. Mr. Rahall and 

I have our work cut out, and we see with the new leadership of the 

House, that they have their work cut out for them. With that, let 

me just thank you. 

And let’s turn now to Mike Mitchem; he’s the Executive Director 

of the King Coal Highway Authority. And you have Mr. Whitt with 

you, so let me recognize both of you. And he is the Executive Director of the Mingo County Redevelopment Authority. So we take you 

in sequence. 

Mr. Mitchem? 

Mr. MITCHEM. Thank you, Chairman Mica and Ranking Member 

Rahall and distinguished committee members for inviting me to 

speak today. It is my pleasure to join you today at this important 

hearing. To give you a little background on the King Coal Highway 

Authority, we cover both the King Coal and Tolsia Highways, 

which will travel from Bluefield, West Virginia, to Huntington, 

West Virginia, when completed and cover five counties. These two 

highways are West Virginia Corridors of I–73/74, which will travel 

from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, to Myrtle Beach on the I–73 section and will travel to Chicago, Illinois, and Davenport, Iowa, on 

the I–74 section and intersect with these important highways: I– 

95, I–64, I–77, I–75, just to name a few. 

I–73/74 is the Number 5 High Priority Corridor in the U.S. This 

corridor contained over 61 million people along its route, or 21 percent of the U.S. population. The corridor, as it runs through West 

Virginia, will make it an important transportation hub and will 

help impact economic development, tourism, and safety. 

According to an Economics Impact Study that was completed for 

the Authority by Chmura Economics and Analytics, the annual economic impact for the highway is $220 million that will sustain 

2,020 jobs. This report does not include employment from the proposed Trans Gas Plant in Mingo County, West Virginia, or the proposed Intermodal Park at Pritchard, West Virginia. These projects 

should increase these figures even more. 

Currently, we have 18 miles of highway that have been designed 

on the Tolsia Highway and 19 more miles of combined King Coal 

and Tolsia Highway either constructed or under construction with 

the help of Federal funding and public/private partnerships with 

coal companies. We also have six more miles that are proposed to 

be built in a public/private partnership with Consol Coal Company. 

Mr. Whitt will tell you a little bit more about it. 

The Federal funding we have received has mostly came from the 

2005 SAFETEA–LU Transportation Bill, as well as earmarks from 

Congressman Rahall and the late Senator Robert C. Byrd. The only 

10 

way our highway can be finished is by the support of Federal funding, especially funding from the new transportation bill, which we 

fully support. 

One of the main reasons we are building the King Coal and 

Tolsia Highways is because of the dangerous, narrow, two-lane 

U.S. Route 52 and to move our housing to higher ground, away 

from flooding streams that run beside of Route 52. The King Coal 

and Tolsia Highways will be the replacement for U.S. Route 52 and 

will be built mostly along higher ground. 

Since 2001, according to records from the National Climatic Data 

Center, McDowell and Wyoming Counties, two of the counties that 

the highway will travel through, have had a combined total of damages from flooding of $237 million that could have been alleviated 

if these highways had been constructed on higher ground with new 

housing built out of the flood plain. 

One suggestion we have for a possible source of funding for the 

new transportation bill would be a check-off space on the Federal 

income tax forms. I have been asked by numerous individuals if 

there was any way that they could help give money toward our 

highway project. I think this would be one. 

This could possibly be one way for individuals to assist with Federal highway trust funding and future highway projects. 

As a close, I would ask for a quick passage of the next transportation bill, which we hope will include funding for the King Coal 

and Tolsia Highway projects. And I hope all of you will someday 

be able to tour our project area to see the progress being made, as 

well as the problems that exist on our current highways. Thank 

you. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

Mr. Whitt? 

Mr. WHITT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am like the rest of 

them. I really appreciate you and your committee coming to West 

Virginia to hold this hearing on a very important, very dear to our 

heart project, the transportation bill. 

I would like to share with you what we have tried to do down 

in the southern part of the state, knowing how difficult it is to obtain Federal and state dollars to construct roads, because there is 

so much competition. We embarked upon a public/private partnership down there utilizing our Land Use Master Plan, our county 

development plan back in 2000, and we sort of laid the blueprint 

out on what we would like to see 20 years from now, and this was 

a grass roots effort. 

We had a company doing some mining in a section of where the 

King Coal Highway was going to go. We approached him, asked 

him about doing a section. He had three miles there that could be 

a post mine land use. There’s no public money into that until we 

grade it and pave it at the end of the project. So we got with the 

mining company, the Federal and state highways, the land companies, and we agreed to do this three-mile section. 

While we were looking at that, we looked at 12 miles to the west 

of that, and it had been mined before. There was just little pockets 

of coal here and there, so we really got down and put some—put 

our heads together and really worked hard; it was an open mind. 

Presently, we have 15 miles under contstruction. The projected cost 

11 

of this road was about $400 million. The end cost on this is going 

to be somewhere around $120 or $130 million. It’s creating a number of acres for economic diversification outside the flood plain. 

And, for an example, where some of these areas are completed, 

we’ve got a new consolidated high school that’s going to open in August of this year. That’s consolidating four high schools into one. 

It’s a 90-acre site that was developed by this construction company 

and donated to the local board of education. We were able to get 

some funding from our congressional folks to put utility lines along 

this, and we do have a utility corridor that we worked with Secretary Mattox and the Federal Highway Administration to put a 

utility corridor. To my knowledge, that’s the first time that we’ve 

had one beside a four-lane. Now, you tell me why you build a fourlane and you don’t put a utility corridor. That doesn’t make much 

sense to me. You can’t develop anything. But this will be the first 

time ever in the history of Mingo County that we’re going to have 

a four-lane highway with development sites that are out of the 

flood plain, with utilities beside it. It’s the first time ever in the 

history of our county, and we’re very rural, and if we can’t find 

unique ways and creative ways to do things down there, we’re 

never going to survive, because you folks and state folks can’t provide enough funding for us to do what we need to do to survive. 

With that, I appreciate you folks coming down and listening to 

it. We will be having a ribbon-cutting ceremony probably the first 

of July. I would like to invite you or any of your members that can 

come down to this, along with our Federal and state highway folks, 

so you can actually see what we’re doing and what terrain we’re 

having to build these roads in. The projected cost is $28 million a 

mile if we do it with fully public money, and we think if we can 

do it public/private, we can build these roads for somewhere between 30 and 40 cents on the dollar. Thank you very much. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you for your testimony, and we’ll recognize Dr. 

Nichols now. Welcome, and you are recognized. 

Mr. NICHOLS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman Mica, Ranking Member 

Rahall, and Members of the Committee. I am here today representing the Nick J. Rahall II, Appalachian Transportation Institute at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, where I 

serve as the program director of Intelligent Transportation Systems 

and an assistant professor of engineering. I would like to welcome 

you to our beautiful state and thank you for the opportunity to 

share our perspective on improving our Nation’s surface transportation program and how institutions like RTI are part of the solution. 

RTI is a national University Transportation Center (UTC), which 

was established twelve years ago by the Transportation Equity Act 

for the 21st Century. Some of you may be unfamiliar with UTC 

programs, but you’re likely to hear from many of us over the next 

two weeks. 

The UTC program is administered by the Research and Innovative Technology Administration of the USDOT. 

Under SAFETEA–LU, there are currently 60 UTCs that directly 

involve approximately 120 universities across the Nation. 

The mission of the UTC program is to advance technology and 

expertise in all facets of transportation through education, reVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:11 Aug 18, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00019 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULLCO~1\2-14-1~1\65735.TXT JEAN
12 

search, and research implementation. Each UTC has a unique 

theme that guides their research and educational initiatives. 

RTI’s theme is ‘‘Transportation and Economic Development in 

Mountain Regions,’’ and many of our initiatives have focused in the 

Appalachian region. 

The American Society of Civil Engineers periodically produces a 

report card that grades different aspects of our Nation’s infrastructure, including six transportation components. In 2009, the most 

recent report, all six transportation components rated in the C to 

D– range. 

Bridges were rated at C because more than 26 percent of the Nation’s bridges are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, and an annual investment of approximately $17 billion is 

needed to substantially improve the current conditions. Roads are 

rated D– based on an estimate that Americans spend 4.2 billion 

hours per year stuck in traffic, at a cost of $78.2 billion, and 45 

percent of major urban highways are congested. 

Since funding for capital improvements to alleviate congestion 

will continue to be scarce, innovation is essential to improve these 

poor conditions. UTCs are constantly developing and evaluating 

technologies and strategies that will help design, build, and operate 

systems more cost effectively and improve safety of those systems. 

RTI has been involved in many projects of regional significance, 

including the analysis of innovative financing methods on the King 

Coal Highway, as Mr. Whitt mentioned, as well as transportation 

technology evaluation and deployment and many others. RTI completed a project for the Appalachian Regional Commission to develop a tool that could be used to facilitate the efficient estimation 

of construction costs needed to complete the 13-State Appalachian 

Development Highway System, which was the first highway system 

authorized by Congress for the purpose of stimulating economic development. This tool developed by the UTC helped the ARC reduce 

the cost to generate these construction estimates by 42 percent and 

facilitated the analysis of the economic impact of completing ADH 

System. That analysis estimated the total economic benefit-cost 

ratio to be 3.6 to 1 for the Appalachian Region and 3.1 to 1 for the 

entire United States through improved connectivity and accessibility. 

RTI is the lead on an active research and development project in 

Morgantown, West Virginia, in collaboration with four other universities that are affiliated with UTCs. This project funded by the 

West Virginia Department of Transportation is focused on improving traffic signal timing along an extremely congested corridor 

using adaptive traffic signal control, because constructing additional lanes or alterative routes is not financially feasible. 

Traffic system optimization has been shown to provide a benefit 

to cost ratios up to 55 to 1. This project is unique because we’re 

quantifying those benefits to justify the investment prior to deployment using innovative techniques and deploying technologies and 

sensors along the corridor to continually monitor the operations 

over time. This project is an example of how UTCs, DOTs, and 

technology manufacturers can work together to deploy real solutions to real problems. This project also highlights the need for increased investment in the deployment of ITS technologies, which 

13 

provide for more effective system management, oversight, and performance measurement. 

Another critical aspect in improving the transportation system is 

education, ranging from science, technology, engineering, and math 

recruitment in K through 12, to undergraduate education and 

workforce training. The presence of UTCs across the Nation ensures the students and professional have access to advanced educational and training opportunities, and that widespread recruitment efforts focused on the transportation profession will be carried out. 

There are numerous success stories from other RTI projects that 

have positively impacted transportation in the region and the Nation. You will likely hear many more success stories from other 

UTCs, all which are documented by RITA through its performance 

measuring system. 

Without RTI and other institutions in the UTC program, there 

would be large voids in all aspects of the current transportation 

system, and future innovation will be severely inhibited. Congress 

had a vision to create the UTC program approximately 23 years 

ago, which has been integral in achieving the transportation system that we have today. I ask that your vision include UTC program funding at current or increased levels, so that we can continue to innovate and serve the transportation in the United 

States. 

Mr. MICA. Well, thank you for your testimony, Dr. Nichols and 

each of the witnesses. First of all, as to the unanimous consent that 

all of our witnesses’ full statement be included in the record without objection, it’s so ordered. 

It’s impossible in these official hearings to have dozens of witnesses, and we have six individuals who have provided testimony 

this morning. 

But what we want to do, Mr. Rahall and I want to make certain 

that anyone who has any ideas or recommendations for the committee, that their ideas and their proposals be made part of the 

record. And I’d like to recognize Mr. Rahall for a motion. 

Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Chairman, I would ask that the committee 

record remain open for two weeks, so that all members of the audience and anyone else that would like to submit written testimony 

for the record be made part of the record of today’s hearing. 

Mr. MICA. Without objection, so ordered. So you will have an opportunity to participate in that regard. 

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Mr. MICA. Now, let’s turn to a round of questioning, and what 

I’m going to do is yield first to our host this morning and again the 

leader on the Democratic side of the aisle. Mr. Rahall, you are recognized, sir, for questions. 

Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate that, and 

I certainly want to thank the panel for their expert testimony this 

morning. As the committee has so well heard, these individuals 

have devoted their lives to building a better infrastructure for our 

state of West Virginia, providing good-paying jobs for our people, 

jobs through transportation. Indeed, that’s the motto of the Rahall 

Transportation Institute, as Dr. Nichols knows. 

It’s been demonstrated certainly by Mike Whitt in his testimony 

that we in West Virginia, as in many rural parts of our Nation, 

have to these days look at unique ways of leveraging scarce Federal 

dollars in order to attract more dollars, whether it’s from the private sector, other Federal agencies, or other levels of government. 

Our state of West Virginia under Secretary Mattox’s leadership has 

been an excellent partner in building transportation networks. 

This state has been able, with no problem whatsoever and again 

with Senator Browning’s leadership in the Legislature, to come up 

with the 20 percent match on every earmarked project that myself 

or any other member of the congressional delegation has been able 

to secure for the state. These earmarks that have been referenced 

by the testimony are important. I happen to strongly believe that 

an elected representative knows his or her district better than an 

unelected bureaucrat in Washington or even the President of the 

United States. And if we were to eliminate such a process known 

as earmarking, we would only empower those unelected bureaucrats in Washington and/or the President of the United States to 

have more leverage over Members of Congress. So I’m a defender 

of that process when it is open and transparent. And as chairman 

and my good Members of this Committee know, we have made the 

process very open and transparent. And as each of you know when 

applying for earmarks, there is an application process. You have to 

certify a level of support. It’s not Washington dictating what comes 

down; it’s what comes up from the local level. 

That local support has to be there. It’s certification that no one 

is benefitting personally from an earmark, and also the Member of 

Congress requesting such an earmark has to reveal that on his or 

her website. So as long as it’s an open process, I strongly—and a 

transparent process, I strongly defend it. 

I would like to ask Secretary Mattox. You mentioned design/build 

in your testimony. Mike Whitt and a couple others referenced 

smart construction. I believe Mike asked the question, ‘‘Why would 

you build a highway without putting in place the ability to have 

utilities?’’ Included in smart construction—design/build and smart 

construction, are we talking about the same thing? Mr. Whitt. 

Mr. WHITT. [Nonverbal response.] 

Mr. RAHALL. I didn’t think so. Paul, would you elaborate a little 

bit more on design/build? 

Mr. MATTOX. Yes, Congressman. Thank you. Design/build, which 

has been employed in West Virginia for the past few years, is a 

process where you combine the engineering work with the construction work concurrently, and it results in a tremendous savings of 

47 

time, and time is money. An thus far our success has been very 

good using the design/build procurement method in West Virginia. 

We are currently looking to the design/build/finance on a new 

project. Hopefully, we will do it later this year. 

It’s a large construction project, part of our Corridor H Highway 

System and part of the Appalachian Development Highway System 

here in West Virginia. And we are looking to meet the employee 

deferred payment to contractors on that project, to allow us to 

spend future Federal dollars now and pay the contractors those future Federal dollars that come to the state of West Virginia. 

We like the design/build process. We continue to work with the 

Contractors Association and the Legislature to continue that legislation that is now currently set to sunset. We are looking to extend 

that program possibly till 2013. Hopefully, at some point in time, 

we would have no sunset and that would be a permanent tool in 

our toolbox. 

Mr. RAHALL. And, Mike, the public/private partnership, can you 

relate to the committee any problems you’ve had in that particular 

area, since you’ve implemented it so well in Mingo County? 

Mr. WHITT. Early on, when they agreed to do this public/private, 

that’s something I was not part of. But there’s a couple things we 

felt like if we would do differently, it would make the process a lot 

easier. Number one, on the front end, include the prevailing wage 

and, also, you know, put it out to open bid. There was so much 

public saying in this first project here that—you know, the determination was made there was so much public benefit, we need to 

go forward with the project, and that’s what we done. 

But we are working on two other potential ones. One is the post 

mine land use that Mr. Mitchem mentioned, Consol. I mean, we’ve 

got an MOU signed by everybody involved; the Federal highways, 

the state highways, the congressional folks, the land company, the 

coal company. They’re going to build six miles of this road, and to 

meet the standards of the Federal and state highway administrations, they’re going to build it to rough grade, and then they’re 

going to donate it all to the West Virginia. So we don’t owe them 

one public penny. It’s held up, though. It’s a mining permit. EPA 

has got it held up, and it’s been held up for a couple years. So they 

are working on that as we speak. 

But if we can’t leverage and take advantage of opportunities like 

that—they just come along once in a lifetime. You know, most people just get an opportunity once. We’ve been blessed. The Lord has 

had his hand on us, because we got a second chance to do something constructive for our people down home and for the state of 

West Virginia, and that’s what we’re trying to do. Thank you. 

Mr. RAHALL. Thank you. 

Yes, sir. Richard? 

Mr. BROWNING. Congressman, if I can add to that, we have had 

two successful public/private projects in the state thus far, and 

we’re working on a third now, I guess, with U.S. 35. 

The problem with both the first two, we did it without legislation 

authorizing public/private projects. We did it within existing law. 

Now, we began working on a public/private project bill in 2002. 

Paul, I think we passed it in what, 2008? So we have laws in place 

now to further enhance the building of those types of projects, and 

48 

I didn’t get to it in my testimony awhile ago, but that’s one of the 

key issues of things that we have to come up with, more and better 

innovative ways of highway financing, and that’s just one of the 

tools in the toolbox to do that. 

Mr. RAHALL. And you found particular interest—your reference 

to the state gas tax, we did raise it twice in West Virginia, I believe, under Governor Caperton’s administration. 

Mr. BROWNING. If I can elaborate, we raised our gas tax in 1993 

a nickel in anticipation of Federal dollars coming into the state. We 

renewed that two years ago. So, additionally, in that space of time 

we implemented a RAT tax, which brought in more state dollars 

for road funding in West Virginia. As you know, Congressman, our 

state is different than most states. All of you who flew in here, you 

flew across our mountains. You see how terrain-challenged we are. I think Mr. Mitchem mentioned that it cost $28 million per mile 

to build roads in this state on the average. That’s higher than I 

thought it was, and evidently inflationary costs have gone up. 

You know, a small state like West Virginia, we can’t tax our people enough to build the roads that we need, so we have to have 

more Federal help. And one thing that I hope that we do in this 

next Federal highway bill is something that Senator Byrd always 

worked on very hard, was to keep the donor/donee ratio where it 

is so that we do get the additional dollars that we need to maintain 

our highway system. You know, we’re looking now with legislation 

in our state and our state senate today of taking excess rainy day 

fund money and putting it toward transportation. We’re looking at 

bringing more coal severance tax back to coal-producing counties to 

help out with road construction. So we are turning over every rock 

we can in our state to find additional highway dollars to meet the 

need, because as you look around, it’s not happening. 

You know, in the ten years of the 1990s, the number of tractortrailer rigs doubled on our highways because the economy was racing. If we had that kind of economy today, I don’t know how we 

could do it. I think our transportation system would bottleneck in 

such a way that we couldn’t. 

Mr. RAHALL. And I think a small state like West Virginia should 

be recognized or receive a benefit, as well, when the state steps up 

to the plate, so to speak, and raises the gas tax. There should be 

that recognition among the Federal level, that you should receive 

credit for it in attracting more Federal dollars. 

And I might say, also, that people—in my experience, when you 

convince them that that money that you raise through a gas tax 

is going back into transportation, not some black hole called deficit 

reduction—when it goes back into transportation and they are assured it’s going to come back in transportation, they can stomach 

it a little better—not very well, but—— 

Mr. BROWNING. I never hear a complaint about building roads. 

Mr. RAHALL. Beg your pardon? 

Mr. BROWNING. I never hear a complaint from a constituent 

about building roads or paying additional gas tax. Now, we have 

had some toll issues with some of the residents of the state. But, 

you know, the reason that I suggest that it has to be raised federally is because our gas tax right now is higher than all but one 

other neighboring states, so to keep our borders competitive with 

49 

our neighboring states, everyone has to go up to maintain that stability. So, again, we stepped up in West Virginia. We have raised 

the tax when it’s been necessary. Again, we’re looking at alternative ways now to fund roads. 

Mr. RAHALL. Mike, do you have a comment? 

Mr. CLOWSER. Thank you, Congressman. Just as a follow-up on 

my comment earlier about West Virginia and whether we can use 

alternative financing mechanisms. When we talk about public/private partnerships like the one that Mike has done on the Coalfield—or in the Coalfields, that has been a marvelous project, because you have a private landowner that’s doing the work anyway, 

and we’re incorporating that as part of the roadway once we get to 

the paving process. 

There is a difference between a public/private partnership that 

we’re doing in West Virginia than, say, what Florida is doing in 

their public/private. And Florida, as the Chairman knows, is doing 

a lot of public/private partnerships to build their new highways in 

their state. A true public/private, as we understand it—and we’ve 

seen it work in other states—is when you get a private developer 

that’s going to come in and basically build that road for the state 

and then be repaid over the next ten, fifteen, twenty years from 

user fees. And what we have looked at in West Virginia, given our 

rural status and the cost of money for a private developer coming 

in and funding a road, who cannot obviously fund it or cannot borrow at the same rate as the Federal Government in the state, utilizing a public/private partnership in the state of West Virginia or 

other rural roads, we think we’re going to be very limited. It does 

have its applications and is working well under this scenario, but 

for us to go out and say we’re going to complete Corridor H, given 

the traffic count on that, or other roads in the state, we see the 

public—as the senator said, public/private is a tool in the toolbox, 

but it is not going to be a saving grace going forward to build and 

maintain our highways in West Virginia. And that’s where we 

think the Federal funding needs to be predominant and needs to 

be a presence. 

Obviously, we agree with our learned senator here on raising the 

gasoline tax, but those are the type of things that as you go across 

the state and go across the Nation, you’re going to have different 

applicability from area to area. And while public/private is a tool 

that we passed a couple years ago to allow us to do that, we feel 

it’s going to be very difficult to build roads going forward if we’re 

using only that money. 

Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. Let me yield now to the gentleman from 

Tennessee, Mr. Duncan. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, first of all, 

I want to say, you know, that I’m a very conservative Republican, 

but I agree with Ranking Member Rahall on the earmarks. That 

was sort of a false issue. Earmarks were less than half of one percent of the total Federal budget, and I heard Senator Inhofe a couple weeks ago speak to a group that I was in, and he is a Republican who favors earmarks, and he said of Sean Hannity’s 102 

worst earmarks, his staff went over them, and every one of those 

50 

102 was a bureaucrat’s earmark and not one of them came from 

a Member of Congress. 

But let me say this. I’ve served on this committee now for 22 

years, and I can tell you that over and over again we hear testimony—for instance, when I chaired the Aviation Subcommittee, we 

heard that the main runway at the Atlanta airport, the newest 

runway which is several years old, took 14 years from conception 

to completion, but it took only 99 construction days, and they did 

those in 33 twenty-four-hour days because they were so relieved to 

get all the final approvals in. They were almost all environmental 

delays. 

And then three or four years ago we heard that a southern California road project that was either nine or twelve miles—I can’t remember which, but it took 17 years from conception to completion, 

once again, all because of the environmental delays. 

We have given far too much power in this country to environmental radical, and we all are going to have to work to greatly 

streamline those environmental rules and regulations and red tape, 

because that’s what throws the cost of everything out of whack and 

all these delays no matter what it is. 

We have a six-year limit on chairmanship on the Republican 

side. So I chaired the Aviation Subcommittee, and then I chaired 

the Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee, and now I 

chair the Highways and Transit Subcommittee. And all these 

things that come out of our committee—all these things we are told 

take about three times as long on the average and about three 

times the cost because of all these environmental rules and regulations. And I know all of these environmental radicals come from 

very wealthy and very upper income families, but they are really 

hurting the poor and the lower income and the working people in 

this country. 

And then you talk about losing population. I read two years ago 

that two-thirds of the counties in the U.S. are losing population, 

and the small towns and rural areas are having real difficulty holding on already. And then they say that gas is going to go to five 

dollars or something a gallon. We have a Secretary of Energy, and 

I know nothing about him other than I read that a few months before he became Secretary of Energy, that he said we should be paying the same price for gas as they do in Europe. At that time, the 

average price for gas in Europe was eight dollars a gallon. I’m one 

of the few Republicans, I guess, who would vote for a gas tax increase if we could lower the price of gas, and I honestly believe that 

we could do it if we’d just start producing a little more gas and a 

little more oil in this country, because I don’t believe that we’d 

have to produce anywhere near all of it, but if we started producing 

a little bit more, these Middle Eastern countries, I think, would get 

shook up and they couldn’t keep raising their prices like they do. 

And I’m going to get a bunch of other stuff off my mind, I guess, 

while I’m here. But what we need to do is stop—we need to stop 

spending hundreds of billions on these unnecessary foreign wars 

and start spending money on doing some things here in this country. 

But east Tennessee—now, when Lee Greenwood sings about the 

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51 

tainous, some of it’s hilly, and some of it’s flat in the valleys. And 

what I’m getting at, you say $28 million a mile, but there is wide 

variations, is there not, Mr. Secretary? I mean, if you’re blasting 

a new road through a mountain, boy, it’s going to cost a lot of 

money. 

But if the road is already there and you’re just trying to improve 

the road, it’s not as much. And then you do have some valley places 

where maybe while it’s not totally flat, we have hardly any totally 

flat places in east Tennessee, but some of them are a little bit flat. 

I was amazed, Mr. Whitt, to hear your testimony about a road that 

was estimated to cost $400 million, and it cost $130 million. Of all 

the hearings I’ve been in, I’ve never heard such a lower figure come 

in on any major project, and I’m fascinated with that, and I’d like 

to know more about it. 

Were you building in a semi-flat place or was there already a 

road? Did you have to blast through a mountain or what? 

Mr. WHITT. This is right on top of a ridge, of a mountain. The 

difference in that, in a lot of areas you won’t have the same opportunities that we have down in my part, because we’ve got some 

pockets of coal that was left there years ago, and that reduces the 

public input. Every time, the coal we find there, they sell that, and 

then that reduces the public input of funds. Three miles of this was 

100 percent post mine land use for the mine operation that they 

left to rough grade, which I think the Secretary—and probably four 

or five years ago, he and the Governor came up with that price tag 

down in our area. We’re building this road on top of a mountain, 

so you’re taking the whole mountain off to build the road, rather 

than putting it down in a valley and wiping everybody out, because 

that’s where we live is right now in a real narrow valley that’s 

flood prone. And, Mr. Secretary, the numbers are still approximately $28 million a mile without any kind of help and about—if 

we do it as post mine land use, it’s about somewhere between 4 

and 5 to finish it out with the finished grading, drainage, and paving. Am I correct? 

Mr. MATTOX. It’s 5 or 6 to finish it out. 

Mr. WHITT. That’s the kind of prices we are—and if we can’t— 

if we don’t do it that way down there, we just can’t get it done. We 

don’t have that many funds. 

Mr. DUNCAN. I met with the head of the Federal Highway Administration a few days ago, and I’ll tell you we need to send our 

staff and he needs to send his people, and we need to find out every 

little detail of how you did that, because I can tell you in all the 

hearings I have been in, 99.9 percent of the time we hear about 

projects costing way more than what they were originally estimated. Of course, we need to build it more to incentivize companies 

that complete projects cheaper, but, at any rate, I commend you for 

that. 

Mr. WHITT. Our Federal highway administrator, who is in attendance here, and Secretary Mattox—I’m sure they can provide a 

lot of information to them about this project, because they are the 

ones that negotiated it all out, and May 7, 2004, is when we started it. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, if we’re going to send these gas prices over 

five dollars or so a gallon, we can’t raise the gas tax if it’s going 

52 

to go way up. But I’d really hate to see that happen, because people 

in small towns and rural areas generally have to drive further distances to go to work in the first place, and it would make them 

tougher on them. 

But thank you very much. This was a real good panel. 

Mr. BROWNING. If I could weigh in on that just a second. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Sure. 

Mr. BROWNING. If you asked about the cost savings, the cost lies 

in the fact that there’s coal in the ground, and the coal seam has 

generally stayed at the same elevation, just like bands around a 

baseball. And if we can locate our new road construction at the 

proper elevation to take advantage and maximize the coal that’s in 

the ground and also to route the road where, you know, we can do 

that, then that’s where the savings comes in that he’s talking 

about. 

That’s one of the innovative ways of building roads that we’re 

doing in West Virginia. 

And one more thing, he mentioned our Federal Highways Administrator. There is none better than Tom Smith. Tom is very open 

to new ideas, and he makes sure that his whole staff listens when 

we come to him with ideas about this or that. He never says, ‘‘No.’’ 

He says, ‘‘Let’s see how we can get it done.’’ 

Mr. WHITT. He thinks outside the box. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, that’s a real compliment. That’s great. Thank 

you. 

Mr. MICA. Just for the record, did you want Mr. Rahall to name 

Mr. Smith and his position? Just for the record, do you want to recognize him? 

Mr. RAHALL. Tom Smith, our Federal Department of Highways 

Administrator. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

Let’s now recognize the gentlelady from Hawaii, the one that’s 

come the furthest, Ms. Hirono. Thank you so much. You are recognized. 

Ms. HIRONO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. There’s no 

question that our entire country is far behind in support for our infrastructure. I think that—well, having sat on this committee for 

going on my fifth year now, we’re probably a trillion dollars behind 

in our various transportation infrastructure needs in this country. 

And it’s clear from your testimony and from all the discussions I’ve 

had in Hawaii, across the board, I think, all states are far behind 

in meeting their transportation needs. 

So one of the things we talked about in this committee is the 

need to promote intermodal collaboration. We currently have these 

SILO trust funds at the Federal level. 

We have the highway trust fund, we have the airport trust fund, 

we have the harborage trust fund, and these folks generally do not 

work together. And so one of the ideas was to create a process 

whereby everybody has to work much more collaboratively because, 

after all, these modes of transportation—the purpose, I think, 

would be to move goods and people in the most efficient, effective 

way possible. And so just because you’re in Hawaii and people 

come by plane, then they have to get on our buses or whatever our 

modes are, and it should be of a piece. Would you agree with that, 

53 

that you would like to see some reflection of this need to collaborate in the new FAA Reauthorization Bill that our Chairman just 

submitted this Friday? 

Mr. BROWNING. If you want my comment—— 

Ms. HIRONO. Yes. 

Mr. BROWNING [continuing]. It’s in my testimony. I asked you directly not to cut any form or mode of transportation. It’s all important. 

Ms. HIRONO. But what about the need for people to collaborate? 

Mr. BROWNING. That’s what I’m saying. 

Ms. HIRONO. OK. 

Mr. BROWNING. We can look at programs, and, you know, they 

come and go. But the forms, the modes of transportation, please, 

please do not cut those. 

Ms. HIRONO. I think that is definitely coming down the pike and 

that the cuts are definitely coming down the pike, and we’re going 

to—I hope that we’ll hear from all of you. 

And I would also suggest if you haven’t seen the FAA Reauthorization Bill, that, yes, relates to airports, and we in aviation 

haven’t heard particularly about that. But those of you who deal 

with all of your transportation needs, not just one mode, I’d ask 

you to take a look at that bill. And if there are specific areas that 

we ought to be looking at and changing, reflecting the needs that 

we have, I’d appreciate that. 

I know that one of the other problems that you all mentioned are 

delays in projects. And, yes, a lot of them are approvals that we 

need to obtain from the EPA, and I have to—I think I have a 

slightly different perspective on these so-called environmental radicals. I’m not a fan of environmental radicals, but I am a fan of people who care about our air quality and water quality. So I’m not 

for unnecessary regulations and requirements, and that’s an ongoing issue that we have to look at. So my friend, Mr. Duncan, and 

I may possibly disagree, but maybe not. 

So regarding unnecessary delays, another idea that was incorporated in the FAA reauthorization bill, as it emerged from the 

House last time, was to establish some procedures to make sure 

that the Federal highways people and all other authorities are 

moving as expeditiously as possible. And so there was language in 

there to make sure that they are reporting that things are moving 

along, that we’re not just doing sequential requirements and approvals, but that these things could operate on a parallel track to 

decrease some of the time it takes. Fifteen years is a long time for, 

you know, a project to gain various approvals and for construction 

to start. So would you also support that kind of language in the 

transportation authorization bill? 

Mr. BROWNING. I think one of the things that has been mentioned here today is design/build. You know, we know that if you 

do a project design/build, it happens faster. You’re taking a whole 

step out of the evolution of it. The other thing is the public/private 

funding. When you get private industry involved, that seems to 

speed up things also. 

Ms. HIRONO. I don’t think we want to do anything in this bills 

that would stymie or put roadblocks in for whatever innovative 

ways that the states and the counties want to and the local auVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:11 Aug 18, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULLCO~1\2-14-1~1\65735.TXT JEAN
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thorities want to use in their toolboxes, so if there are any of those 

kinds of language in the various transportation authorization bills, 

I’d welcome your comments on that. I was curious as to—Mr. Secretary, you mentioned how important ARRA was for meeting our 

transportation needs. 

How much of the ARRA infrastructure money came to West Virginia? 

Mr. MATTOX. The Division of Highways received about $211 million, and we were able to do some much needed paving of our interstate highway and even the corridor system, and we also did a 

number of bridge deck overlays with that funding. 

We were also able to start one project here in the Beckley area, 

the East Beckley Bypass, the first stage of it, with that funding. 

Ms. HIRONO. There was ARRA money, though, for also aviation 

and others. Do you know what the total was for the various infrastructure—— 

Mr. MATTOX. I believe transit was in the neighborhood of $19 

million and aviation in the neighborhood of $35 million. 

I believe that number is correct. 

Ms. HIRONO. So you got about almost, what, $250 million or $300 

million, and it worked well for you folks? 

Mr. MATTOX. It worked very well. We put a lot of people to work 

with those funds, and we now have projects that the people are utilizing. 

Ms. HIRONO. This may be a loaded question, but would you support further funding, ARRA type funding, for infrastructure for all 

the states? 

Mr. MATTOX. Here in West Virginia, we had over $1 billion worth 

of work that we could have put into construction in a very short 

time period, so we not only would support it, but we’re ready to go. 

Ms. HIRONO. What about the rest of the members of the panel? 

Mr. BROWNING. Absolutely. 

Mr. CLOWSER. Congresswoman, I would say from the Contractors 

Association’s standpoint, the ARRA was very beneficial, maybe not 

as much as creating new jobs, but saving what we had. 

Ms. HIRONO. That’s important, too. 

Mr. CLOWSER. With the decline in the Federal program and our 

dollars on the state level reducing, whether it’s our gas tax or sales 

tax on autos, we were seeing those two markets being depressed. 

And had it not been for the stimulus dollars, we would have seen 

many layoffs within the construction industry. 

Ms. HIRONO. Do any of the other panel members have a contrary 

or a different view? 

Mr. BROWNING. The only thing I would suggest, again wearing 

my state senate hat, I know that we made good use of the ARRA 

money. We got several different—funded in several different areas; 

education, home improvement, weatherization, those types of programs. If we do it again, I would like to see more bricks and mortar 

projects rather than those types of projects. I know our state, as 

well as several other states, used some of the education money to 

backfill budgetary problems that, you know, we were going to have. 

We just were lucky to get the money at the time to put into those 

programs to supplement the money that we didn’t have to put into 

those programs. So if we do it again, I would ask that we do more 

55 

in the highways and, you know, more bricks and mortar type 

projects like that. 

Ms. HIRONO. Does anyone else want to add? 

Mr. WHITT. I agree with bricks and mortar, water, sewer. 

I totally agree with Senator Browning. 

Ms. HIRONO. I agree with you, too, but those of us who sit on the 

Transportation and Infrastructure Committee understand how important infrastructure support is for job creation and job retention, 

so I’m totally with you all. 

I have a question for Dr. Nichols. You mentioned that there are 

entities at our universities whose jobs it is and whose goal is to 

come up with innovative ideas to support transportation needs. 

Can you give me an example of an idea that came out of these university programs? 

Mr. NICHOLS. The RITA, the Research and Innovative Technology Administration, they do a great job of monitoring all of 

these different ventures that these UTCs have to deliver, and one 

example here in West Virginia, we are working with the West Virginia DOT on a number of projects; a 511 system, which is a travel 

information system, which many states have those now, but we’re 

getting one here in West Virginia. And that’s coming out of a collaboration more technologically based. 

The project in Morgantown, the advanced traffic signal control, 

there are so many traffic signals—I mean, everyone is frustrated 

when they are sitting at a red light and there is no one around. 

And there are so many low- hanging fruit like that, that could be 

addressed, but it’s more of an infrastructure—a communications infrastructure need. You need to have communications to that traffic 

signal so that someone knows when there is a vehicle detected 

that’s not working and things like that. And so we are working 

with the DOT to put in some infrastructure so that we can monitor 

those traffic signal timings on a minute-by-minute basis and actually look at performance. 

I mean, I think performance measurement within our transportation system—I know in California there is a UTC out there who 

has done a lot with Caltrans to actually put in system monitoring 

capabilities. Knowing what’s going on with these infrastructures on 

a second-by-second basis really is key to being able to respond to 

inefficiencies as quick as possible and optimizing the system. And 

really it’s the university that has the—I guess the data management and the—we are able to leverage a lot of our resources to 

make a lot of these improvements in the operations. 

Ms. HIRONO. I think something as basic as when we’re talking 

about synchronizing traffic lights, too, that’s—you would think that 

we would have figured that out already, because time is money. Is 

there any kind of a big idea that is being—that’s percolating among 

the UTCs? 

Mr. NICHOLS. Well, the UTCs are very involved in the 

IntelliDrive initiatives. RITA is pushing IntelliDrive. It used to be 

called the Vehicle Infrastructure—I can’t remember what the other 

‘‘I’’ was—but an initiative that someday we’re going to have communication to every vehicle, and the vehicles are going to be communicating with the infrastructure. In California and Detroit, 

there are sample test beds set up where their vehicle was—the sysVerDate Aug 31 2005 11:11 Aug 18, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00063 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\112\FULLCO~1\2-14-1~1\65735.TXT JEAN
56 

tem is called a collision avoidance system, where the vehicle is 

traveling towards an intersection, and the intersection can detect 

how quickly the vehicle is moving when the light is going to 

change. And so the test vehicles that they have set up, the steering 

wheel will actually vibrate to alert the driver that they are getting 

ready to run a red light. And that whole system—also, the vehicle 

communications of each vehicle is communicating to the vehicle 

that it’s a half mile back as opposed to having infrastructure in the 

pavement that has to monitor an incident. That information flows 

back from vehicle to vehicle, so it usually gets real and valid information about what’s going on in the system. So the IntelliDrive 

program is being pushed by the USDOT, and it’s kind of a longterm plan, but it is kind of the next big idea that needs a lot of 

funding. 

Ms. HIRONO. Mr. Chairman, with your indulgence, I just have 

one more question. As we talk about financing our infrastructure 

needs, raising the gasoline of our highways, in particular raising 

the gasoline tax at the Federal level, I think, is a challenge at this 

stage, so we’re looking for other ways. One suggestion has been an 

infrastructure bank, and I don’t know if any of you have familiarized yourself with that concept, and, if so, if you have any comments about it? Or if you haven’t looked at the various bills in Congress to create a way for the Federal Government to support infrastructure throughout our country, the infrastructure bank is one 

idea. Any comments? 

Mr. BROWNING. I mentioned our state rainy day fund. We try to 

keep a 10 percent level of our gross state budget in that fund to 

maintain our bond rating with some of the New York firms. This 

year, as I’ve already said, it’s going to go over the 10 percent. Our 

Governor wants to put it at 15 percent. But that’s a good—what 

you just suggested, an infrastructure bank, would be an ideal place 

to start banking some of that money. 

Now, West Virginia, because of our energy here, we are one of 

the top four states in the Nation as far as having balanced budgets, 

and we haven’t had to dip into the fund for funding or anything 

like that, so we do have some excess. 

But you mentioned not willing to raise the gas tax, and I can understand that. I can appreciate that. It’s hard for me to vote for tax 

increases, also. At the same time, even in the literature that was 

sent out to prep us for this meeting, I noticed where the highway 

trust fund—the Federal highway trust fund keeps getting lower 

and lower and lower, and you’ve had to think about putting general 

revenue dollars in it. What are your ideas for propping that fund 

up? I mean, if you don’t do it in an across-the-board gas tax, what 

other revenue can you shift into that? 

Ms. HIRONO. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. BROWNING. I’m sorry to reverse the tables on you, but, you 

know, we’re here talking about our local needs, and we depend on 

you all to do what you’re doing there, and we depend on that highway trust fund. That’s where we get our funding, and to see it just 

go lower and lower and lower—and it didn’t just happen. We’ve 

known it for ten years that it’s going to run out, so what do we 

need to do? 

57 

Ms. HIRONO. That’s something we’re here to listen to you and 

discuss among ourselves. That’s why I think the infrastructure 

bank is one of these new ideas at the Federal level. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MICA. Thank you. 

Let me just ask a couple of questions here. First of all to the Secretary, Mr. Secretary, out of the funds that you—well, first of all, 

the American Recovery Act, the stimulus money, I was very supportive of. Working with Mr. Oberstar, we had hoped to have 50 

percent of any stimulus package would be infrastructure. Of course, 

that would have been about $380 billion, but the original bill was 

only going to be a total of about $250 or $300 million, and we 

planned for 50 percent. 

We ended up with $63 billion out of $787 billion, which is less 

than 7 percent, which is pretty pitiful. Of that, the State of Florida 

as of, I think, last week had only actually spent 50 percent—49 or 

50 percent of that money. Mr. Mattox, how much have you actually 

spent of your 211 for additional funds. Do you know? 

Mr. MATTOX. Off the top of my head, I know that we had it all 

obligated by all the deadlines. 

Mr. MICA. Well, obligation and spending are two different things. 

How much did you actually spend? 

Mr. MATTOX. I know in our state budget we’re down to only carrying $40 million as far as what we expect to expend, so we have 

spent at least $160 million about. 

Mr. MICA. OK. So you’ve spent about 70 percent? 

Mr. MATTOX. 70 or 80 percent. 

Mr. MICA. OK. Which is pretty good considering as of last October, they only spent 39 percent across the Nation. So it wasn’t a 

good process of getting the money out, and part of the problem is 

part of what we heard today; it’s the impediments, all of the Federal red tape and regulations. I told Mr. Rahall that we have our 

immediate former Secretary of Transportation, Stephanie 

Kopelousos, who is starting today in Washington for about a month 

or two months. She left our administration in Florida, and she does 

have another position she’ll assume in Florida, but she has agreed 

to come up and work with the Secretary. So we invite you, Mr. Secretary, to work with her to redline any of those impediments. We 

want to be good stewards of our environment, but not all of the impediments are environmental. The gentlelady from Hawaii also 

said that we should look at doing things concurrently rather than 

consecutively. 

Mr. Whitt, do you think that would help? 

Mr. WHITT. I think it could. 

Mr. MICA. OK. Well, again, any impediments that you see— 

someone mentioned program consolidation. Any ideas for program 

consolidation, Mr. Mattox, Mr. Browning? Anything dealing with 

the Federal Government as far as numbers of programs or excess 

mandates that you could recommend them changing, Mr. Mattox? 

Mr. MATTOX. I would make a recommendation of flexibility in the 

various Federal funds to give us more flexibility to put the Federal 

dollars where our needs are. 

Mr. MICA. OK. Senator Browning? 

58 

Mr. BROWNING. I’m not as familiar with your programs as the 

secretary is, but—— 

Mr. MICA. So you are happy with the way the Federal Government treats West Virginia? 

Mr. BROWNING. I am. Just send more money. 

Mr. MICA. Well, that seems to be the problem. But I think we’re 

looking for innovative ways, and it’s good to hear from Dr. Nichols. 

I think one thing we haven’t focused enough on is technology. 

Sometimes if you can make traffic move faster, you use your dollars more wisely as far as technology. So we will take some of your 

recommendations back on the ITS, and also education is important. 

We also heard some about public/private partnerships. 

Either Mr. Mattox or anyone else who wants to comment, we 

really don’t have a good Federal definition, nor do we have the incentives that would help both from a financial standpoint, and 

maybe there are some bond-backing, again, carrots rather than 

sticks that we could provide for public/private partnerships. Any 

ideas? Mr. Mattox, could we start with you? 

Mr. MATTOX. Mr. Chairman, as Mike Clowser had alluded to, 

with public/private partnerships in West Virginia, you’re generally 

talking about user fees or a toll to pay back the private partner. 

Mr. MICA. Right. 

Mr. MATTOX. And in West Virginia our traffic counts are low, 

and our capital cost of our highway construction is so high that it 

makes it very challenging to utilize public/private partnerships in 

West Virginia. 

Mr. MICA. I donated four dollars coming down. 

Mr. MATTOX. And you will going back. That’s a toll road that’s 

been in place since back in the 1950s, and the toll has been in 

place for over 50 years now. We are currently working on a toll 

road project that is a public/public partnership—the Division of 

Highways, the Department of Transportation, with the West Virginia Parkway Authority—on U.S. 35, and we are having some financial difficulties putting together a financial plan on that project 

using a combination of Darby bonds, earmarks that were in 

SAFETEA–LU, as well as toll revenue bonds. And we are really 

struggling to come up with a financial plan to fund this. 

Mr. MICA. I heard you say, also, in your testimony that you are 

the sixth state as far as state-maintained roads. Is it that 92 percent are maintained by the State? 

Mr. MATTOX. Mr. Chairman, that’s correct. The sixth largest 

state-maintained highway system in the country. 

Mr. MICA. And maybe we could look at some reward for states 

that are handling and financing their own projects, which would 

also reward you. I think that might be something we could look at. 

And we heard a lot about design/build and the design/build financing. Do we have—did we have enough support for those programs, 

or do you feel you have enough leeway? 

Mr. MATTOX. We currently have some pilot projects that we have 

been working with Contractors Association in West Virginia. That 

was a new concept with them. Design/build has been around a long 

time; it has just not been utilized here in West Virginia except for 

the past few years as far as highway construction goes. As far as 

59 

the Division of Highways, so far we’ve had very good results utilizing the design/build process. 

Mr. MICA. Well, the issue of financing is key to this, and we have 

heard recommendations. And anyone who has been on this planet 

the last 90 days or more realizes that there’s a new atmosphere in 

Washington. As I joked earlier, the Republican leadership has already seen that it’s very difficult to get the votes to the floor that 

aren’t reducing some program and taking significant whacks at 

spending. 

I said, beginning last summer, that the gas tax is dead, and it 

was dead then. Now it’s absolutely impossible at this stage. It’s 

dead and buried and six feet under, so we have to be more creative 

in where we get the revenues. Any ideas without the gas tax increase, guys? Gentlemen? 

Mr. BROWNING. You know, if I could elaborate one more time on 

public/private, the projects that we did on the Coal Field Expressway we did as an economic development project. 

We didn’t do it as a road project, nor did we do it as a mining 

project. But, you know, had we done it as highway or had we done 

it as mining, the regulatory atmosphere would have been a lot 

heavier. So the fact that we did it as an economic development 

project in West Virginia lessened some of the regulatory oversight, 

so we could build it much faster. So public/private projects are all 

unique themselves, and as the Commissioner said, you know, West 

Virginia is not in tune with other states because of our heavy cost 

of building roads, so that’s kind of an option that’s out. The one 

way we can do it, though, is what we said earlier, is to maximize 

the use of the coal, which would be the private part of the equation. You know, I’m hearing that President Obama’s budget is 

going to have a 17 percent cut for transportation. You’re saying 

that the gasoline tax is dead. So I don’t know. How are we going 

to do it? 

Mr. MICA. Well, I think we’re going to have to look at streamlining. We have to maximize public/private partnerships, better incentive to the bucks that we have there, give flexibilities to states. 

Mr. Rahall and I will have to put our heads together and figure 

out a way this—we are very much aware that the trust fund is declining, so we’ve got to look at a way of stabilizing that and get the 

votes to pass that. And looking at innovation, Dr. Nichols? 

Mr. NICHOLS. Just one comment. I’m sure this will come up if 

you’re not already aware of it, but Oregon did a pilot study on a 

mileage-based tax, which was looking at a different way of putting 

money into highway trust funds since vehicles are getting more—— 

Mr. MICA. Driving further and paying less. 

Mr. NICHOLS. So just other ways of—there are other models out 

there. 

Mr. MICA. Well, we’re looking at all of those, but the problem is 

if I comment or Mr. Rahall comments today, it will telegraph 

across the country like a wildfire, and we would rather hold our 

comments. The purpose of our going across the country is to get 

ideas and innovations. We heard some good things today from the 

panel that we can hopefully incorporate. Sometimes, too, it’s difficult for some folks to speak publicly in a formal hearing, so we 

60 

welcome also any recommendations that you can get to anyone on 

the panel. We welcome that. 

Mr. CLOWSER. One recommendation, we might want to change 

the gas tax to a user fee. Then it becomes truly a—we pay for it 

as we use it, and we think it’s one of those fairer taxes there are. 

Mr. MICA. That being said, we are looking at alternatives. Yes, 

go right ahead, Mr. Rahall. 

Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Chairman. You know, the gentlelady 

from Hawaii was asking about ARRA. In my opinion, the best second stimulus we could ever do is to reauthorize a robust transportation bill. I mean, to me, that trumps any second ARRA bill that 

we may be considering. And, you know, I think it’s important that 

we keep all options on the table. 

The administration has come out against the gas tax during a recession, I might add, their words. So who knows when we can get 

out of a recession, if we ever do. But I think it is important that 

we do keep all options on the table. 

I mean, Richard, you turned the tables and asked us. 

That’s a very difficult question of how are we going to finance a 

new bill. Yes, the revenues coming into the highway trust fund are 

going down. They will continue to go down. If we become more conservative in our driving patterns, as we have the new vehicles that 

are coming online that we all promote, but with every new technology that comes online, that means less gas revenue that’s going 

into that highway trust fund. It is truly a user-generated concept. 

If you don’t want to pay the tax, you don’t drive your car. 

So it’s not mandated tax as such. 

And I might add, with all due respect to my Chairman on the 

Republican side, that we also took action earlier this year in a 

rules change. You kind of alluded that the firewall that had been 

set up in the past under Republican Chairman Bud Schuster, that 

we put up a firewall around that highway trust fund and said that 

everything coming into it has to go back out for transportation and 

nothing else. So we have to be careful with that, as well. If we do— 

if there were ever any gas tax increase, we can’t let it be diluted 

to any other purposes but transportation. 

Mr. BROWNING. Congressman, first of all, I don’t mean to put 

anyone on the spot—— 

Mr. RAHALL. No, we didn’t take it that way. 

Mr. BROWNING [continuing]. By asking questions. But you have 

to realize that this is our chance to talk to the Nation’s leaders in 

this area, and I want to get my digs in, you know. 

Mr. RAHALL. That’s correct. That’s why we’re here. 

Mr. BROWNING. The other thing you have to remember is somebody has to pay for the highways. Somebody has to pay for the railroads. Somebody has to pay for aviation. You either get the money 

from the public up front in the form of a fee, a tax, or you pay later 

in the form of an interest on a public/private venture, that someone 

has invested in a project and then they get their money back 

through tolls or whatever. So the money has to come from the public; it’s just when you get it and how you get it, because nobody is 

going to go out and build it just for the sake of building. 

That’s what we have to figure out. 

61 

Mr. MICA. Well, that’s one of the reasons we’re here, again. 

We’ve got the next 30 days of hearings around the country, and 

then we’ll probably do a couple in Washington, whatever Mr. Rahall would like to agree to. Then we’ll sit down and try to craft the 

best legislation possible. Again, I’ve always found that the best 

ideas come from around the country. 

Did you have anything else, Ms.—— 

Ms. HIRONO. No, I’m fine. 

Mr. MICA. Well, what we wanted to do was thank you for participating today. We want to leave a few minutes so members would 

have a chance to hear from some of those in the audience that have 

come out today. We are very grateful for those who have taken 

time and those who have participated in the formal process. The 

informal process can be just as productive. So I can’t be more appreciative of Mr. Rahall’s cooperative efforts today in trying to 

steer the committee in a productive path forward. As he said, too, 

probably a six-year, full reauthorization of our transportation policy, the full bill. Hopefully, we can get the FAA bill. That accounts 

for another 9 or 10 percent of our gross domestic product, and we 

don’t have say over the whole economic activity or all the legislation and the budget and the bigger picture, but we do have our little corner of legislative responsibility on behalf of the American 

people, so we are determined to move forward and then with other 

key pieces of legislation during the year. So, with that, we have 

just been delighted to be here. It is brief, but we do have votes 

later this afternoon. We have got a little quick listening session before we board our aircraft back to the Nation’s capital. But thank 

you so much for hosting this, Mr. Rahall and the mayor who came 

out and other local officials and state officials. Thank you. If there 

is no further business—— 

Mr. BROWNING. I would like to thank you all, also, for coming. 

Mr. MICA. Well, thank you. 

If there is no further business before the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, this 

meeting is adjourned. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 9:40 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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Charleston, WV, Listening Session, February 14, 2011, Testimony for the Record 

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