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S. HRG. 115–7 

OVERSIGHT: MODERNIZING 

OUR NATION’S INFRASTRUCTURE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

FEBRUARY 8, 2017 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Environment and Public Works 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.fdsys.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming, Chairman 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas 

ROGER WICKER, Mississippi 

DEB FISCHER, Nebraska 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

JERRY MORAN, Kansas 

MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota 

JONI ERNST, Iowa 

DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon 

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, New York 

CORY A. BOOKER, New Jersey 

EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

KAMALA HARRIS, California 

RICHARD M. RUSSELL, Majority Staff Director 

GABRIELLE BATKIN, Minority Staff Director 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

FEBRUARY 8, 2017 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Barrasso, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from the State of Wyoming .......................... 1 

Carper, Hon. Thomas R., U.S. Senator from the State of Delaware ................... 3 

WITNESSES 

Panos, William T. ‘‘Bill,’’ Director, Wyoming Department of Transportation .... 14 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 16 

Response to an additional question from Senator Barrasso ......................... 24 

Responses to additional questions from Senator Carper .............................. 24 

Response to an additional question from Senator Ernst ............................... 26 

Responses to additional questions from Senator Whitehouse ...................... 27 

McNulty, Michael, General Manager, Putnam Public Service District, West 

Virginia ................................................................................................................. 29 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 31 

Responses to additional questions from: 

Senator Carper .......................................................................................... 65 

Senator Ernst ............................................................................................ 66 

Response to an additional question from Senator Duckworth ...................... 67 

Bobbitt, Cindy R., Commissioner, Grant County, Oklahoma .............................. 71 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 73 

Responses to additional questions from Senator Carper .............................. 85 

Response to an additional question from Senator Ernst ............................... 87 

Pratt, Anthony P., Administrator, Delaware Department of Natural Resources 

and Environmental Control; President, American Shore and Beach Preservation Association ................................................................................................ 89 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 91 

Responses to additional questions from Senator Carper .............................. 98 

Response to an additional question from Senator Whitehouse .................... 103 

Bhatt, Shailen P., Executive Director, Colorado Department of Transportation ..................................................................................................................... 104

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 106 

Responses to additional questions from Senator Carper .............................. 111 

Response to an additional question from Senator Ernst ............................... 113 

Responses to additional questions from Senator Whitehouse ...................... 114 

(1) 

OVERSIGHT: MODERNIZING OUR NATION’S 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2017 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m. in room 

406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. John Barrasso (Chairman of the Committee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Barrasso, Carper, Inhofe, Capito, Boozman, 

Wicker, Fischer, Moran, Rounds, Ernst, Sullivan, Cardin, Sanders, 

Whitehouse, Gillibrand, Booker, Duckworth, and Harris. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WYOMING 

Senator BARRASSO. Good morning. I call this hearing to order. 

President Trump has made improving our Nation’s infrastructure 

a top priority. Infrastructure is critical to our Nation’s prosperity. 

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has jurisdiction over our Nation’s highways and roads, its locks and dams, 

and its ports. These things allow for American goods to go from the 

heartland to the coasts, and even overseas. They allow for flood 

protection for both rural and urban communities that save lives. 

In addition, our Committee has jurisdiction over the environmental laws that impact the modernization of infrastructure. 

Doesn’t matter whether the setting is urban or rural; rules and 

regulations can halt and delay the modernization of infrastructure, 

and the impact is particularly counterproductive if they are applied 

without understanding the difference between urban and rural. 

Our Committee has members from both urban and rural areas. 

The members of this Committee represent New York City and 

Newport, Rhode Island; Nebraska City, Nebraska and Natchez, 

Mississippi; Wheatland, Wyoming, and even the town of Wyoming, 

Delaware. The diversity of these cities and towns makes it clear 

that solutions to address and pay for fixing our Nation’s crumbling 

roads, bridges, and dams cannot be one size fits all. What works 

for Baltimore, Maryland, might not work for Baggs, Wyoming. 

Big ticket projects on the scale of the Big Dig in Boston that cost 

billions of dollars or even projects that cost hundreds of millions of 

dollars are rare in rural and small States. Funding solutions that 

involve public-private partnerships—as have been discussed by Administration officials—may be innovative solutions for crumbling 

inner cities but do not work for rural areas, as today’s testimony 

will show. 
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As was stated in the written testimony submitted today on behalf of Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota, ‘‘Public-private partnerships and other approaches to infrastructure investment that depend on a positive revenue stream 

from a project are not a surface transportation infrastructure solution for rural States.’’ 

This Committee has a number of members who represent small 

rural States: Delaware, Alabama, Alaska, Iowa, Nebraska, Rhode 

Island, Vermont, just to name a few. We didn’t forget West Virginia. I want to ensure that the voice of these States is not lost in 

the overall discussion of how to fix our Nation’s infrastructure. I 

want to work with my colleagues to address issues important to 

our States while also not ignoring the legitimate needs of large 

metropolitan areas, as well. 

Stated in the written testimony submitted by the five Western 

States that I referenced earlier, Federal highways in our rural 

States enable ‘‘agriculture, energy, and natural resource products, 

which largely originate in rural areas, to move to national and 

world markets.’’ This is true. It makes no sense that to simply fix 

the roads and ports in our urban areas while ignoring the roads 

and inland ports in our rural areas that allow for products from 

Wyoming, Nebraska, or Iowa to get to the world markets. 

As testimony today will demonstrate, rural water systems also 

have unique challenges. They have been inundated by regulations 

from the EPA which harms their ability to modernize and to function. Rural water systems are challenged by the same regulations 

that big city water systems face, yet do not have the same resources to comply. 

Any infrastructure solutions this Committee considers should 

help address rural challenges. These challenges include funding. 

Like their road project counterparts, these systems are not the best 

candidates for loans. It is important to note written testimony 

today from Mike McNulty, the General Manager of Putnam Public 

Service District in West Virginia. He states, ‘‘Due to a lack of 

economies of scale and lower medium household incomes in rural 

America, water infrastructure is often less affordable, a much 

greater cost per household. This means that a water infrastructure 

project poses a greater financial risk compared to the metropolitan 

project, and very importantly,’’ he says, ‘‘requires some portion of 

a grant, not just a loan, to make the project feasible. The higher 

the percentage of grants required to make a project work results 

in less money repaid to the infrastructure funding agency and a 

correlating diminution of the corpus fund.’’ 

So we are going to have to find new ways to help pay to modernize these important rural projects. It is my hope that this Committee will work to find solutions that not only work for urban 

America but rural America as well. I urge my colleagues to work 

with me in a bipartisan way to find these solutions. 

With that, I turn to the Ranking Member for his statement. 
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OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS R. CARPER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE 

Senator CARPER. Thanks so much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for 

bringing us together for an important—and I think invigorating— 

hearing. 

I just want to say to our guests from Oklahoma, West Virginia, 

Wyoming, the other Wyoming, and from Colorado by way of Delaware, and from Delaware, welcome. We are delighted that you are 

here. 

Mr. Chairman and colleagues, I say this to our guests. These 

folks have heard me say this more times than I want to remember, 

but my dad taught me—born in West Virginia, grew up in Virginia—my dad taught my sister and me that things that are worth 

having are worth paying for. That is what he said. Things that are 

worth having are worth paying for. And he used to say if you owe 

somebody money, work three jobs until you can pay that off, but 

you ought to take responsibility for your obligations. 

The other thing my dad used to say to my sister and me—we 

would have chores to do, jobs to do around our house and garden, 

so forth—and he always said if a job is worth doing, it is worth 

doing well. From that I took the idea that everything I do I can 

do better. I think that is true of all of us. I think that is also true 

of every Federal and State program, infrastructure, roads, highways, bridges, water, wastewater, all of those things. 

So my hope today is you will help us sort of think outside the 

box a little bit on how do we pay for this stuff. It is easy to come 

up with ideas on how to spend the money, but it is always hard 

to figure out how we are going to raise that money. So we need 

some help there and then some help in figuring out how we get better results maybe for less money or for the same amount of money. 

Now my statement. For the record, I have something I want to 

ask unanimous consent that a couple documents, Mr. Chairman, be 

submitted for the record. I hold them in my hand. 

Senator BARRASSO. Without objection. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. Thanks so much. 

[The referenced information follows:] 
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Senator CARPER. As I think most of us know, our new President 

has raised the issue of America needing to modernize and rebuild 

aged infrastructure. As a point of concern, Democratic Senators, 

some of us here in this room, recently released a blueprint for addressing infrastructure challenges at large; not just roads, highways, bridges, but much more broader than that, including water 

and wastewater. I believe that members on both sides of the aisle 

are supportive of addressing this problem. This can be one of those 

issues that actually unites us, and at this point in time in our Nation’s history we could use a few of those, so this is important for 

more reasons than not. 

As a recovering Governor I look at most legislation through a 

particular lens, and the lens that I look at it through is how does 

a particular investment make for a more nurturing environment 

for job creation, job preservation. That is what I think about all the 

time. And in this case they got a bunch of factors that impact on 

a nurturing environment for job creation. I just want to mention 

a couple of them. 

We don’t think about this, I don’t think, that much: quality of 

our work force, the skills that they bring to the workplace is important; affordable energy; safety, public safety; the idea of having access to capital, access to foreign markets; research and development, investing in the right things that actually generate job creation opportunities; tax policy; common sense regulations; access to 

decisionmakers; clean air, clean water; predictability. Businesses 

need predictability. 

In 2013 an outfit, an arm of McKinsey, the big consulting company, called Global Institute, issued a report they called Game 

Changer in which it analyzes how the U.S. could dramatically 

transform and expand our economy. And one of the top game 

changers that they gave us was infrastructure investment, and 

here is what they said. The report showed that we need to invest 

between $150 billion and $180 billion more in infrastructure every 

year just to make up for years of underinvestment and to enable 

robust future growth. They said, the Global Institute told us in 

their report that if we invested at this level, it would add somewhere between 1.4 percent and 1.7 percent to GDP every year. Almost double GDP for the last quarter, if you will. It would create 

some 1.8 million new jobs by 2020. 

For a lot of people that are, frankly, on the sidelines, would like 

to go to work, need to go to work, this would be a great place for 

them to go to work, working on these projects. 

In the same report they found that one of the best ways to invest 

and get the most from our dollars is to maintain our existing infrastructure. Not just to do big, fancy, new projects, but to maintain 

our existing infrastructure. Infrastructure investment is critical for 

the economy in part because the direct jobs that we create in construction, restoration work, and displaced workers that we can help 

get back into the work force, which we need to do. But just as important is the fact that modern infrastructure helps people in businesses move more efficiently. 

Last year, the average commuter, we are told this by Texas 

A&M, every year they give us a new update. They told us we wasted 42 hours per person sitting in traffic, not moving. Not moving 
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anywhere. And that is sort of a typical, I think that is like a work 

week for a lot of people, just sitting doing nothing. 

More modern infrastructure would mean less time, pure resources wasted unproductively. Our Nation’s health, our wealth, 

and security rely on production and distribution of goods and services. Every day people and goods move across an array of physical 

systems which are collectively known as our critical infrastructure. 

The critical infrastructure of our country, however, is aging and in 

need of significant capital investments—we all know that—to help 

our economy continue to grow. 

The 2013 infrastructure report card issued by the American Society of Civil Engineers, some of them are here today, they gave us 

for roads, dams, drinking water, wastewater a D. D. They graded 

our inland waterways and levees with a D¥. The ports received a 

C; bridges received a C∂. As we hear testimony I am particularly interested in hearing the 

witnesses’ thoughts in three key areas. The first is that while financing techniques are a tool that may be appropriate for some 

kinds of projects, financing by itself will not solve all infrastructure 

needs regardless of whether we are a rural or urban State. 

The second area I hope to hear more about is the need for broad 

investment strategy. And while traditional forms of infrastructure 

like roads and ports are essential to our economy, I feel we need 

more investments to protect our natural infrastructure as well, including our shorelines, our dune systems, our ecosystem restoration. Without these protections, risks to manmade infrastructure 

significantly increase and in many cases become unmanageable. 

Finally, I am interested in hearing how the Federal Government—I think we are interested in hearing how the Federal Government can be more efficient, as I said earlier, with our current 

funding streams and get the most out of every dollar of Federal investment. Infrastructure is a shared responsibility with State and 

local governments and in some cases with the private sector, and 

I want to ensure that we are helping State and local governments 

with this shared burden while giving them the flexibility that they 

need. I also want to know how we can make sure that we are 

prioritizing the most critical investments and working to maintain 

the assets we have first before building new assets that we can’t 

afford to maintain. 

Finally, I must say no one size fits all approach will work to 

solve this challenge. We have to work in a bipartisan manner to 

really address these concerns. Build consensus on a path forward 

for the shared State-Federal-local government responsibility to our 

economy. 

Last, Mr. Chairman, colleagues, there are a couple of people here 

before us I know pretty well. We welcome all of our witnesses, but 

I especially want to introduce Tony Pratt, current Administrator of 

the Shoreline and Waterway Management Section within the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control. The current president, I call him Mr. President, of the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association for our Nation. He 

will be discussing a wide range of water infrastructure-related 

issues and why protecting our natural infrastructure is as important as restoring our roads and bridges. 
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Shailen Bhatt, to our right, to Tony’s left. Shailen comes to this 

hearing as the current Executive Director for the Colorado Department of Transportation, stolen from the State of Delaware, where 

he was the Secretary of the Department of Transportation. There 

he led a response to two hurricanes, introduced performance management to the agency, reduced agency debt by 30 percent while 

delivering $2 billion of infrastructure improvements. 

I wrote one more note here. I said we are not blue States. This 

is for all of us. We are not blue States, we are not red States; we 

are the United States. We got States that are largely rural; States 

that are more urban in nature. The needs that we have in our 

rural States—whether it is water or if is transportation—will differ 

from maybe what we have in our more places like where Ben and 

I come from and represent. But we have to look out for each other. 

We have to look out for each other. And if we do that, we will all 

be ahead in the game. 

Thank you so much. Welcome, everybody. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

Senator Inhofe, would you like to welcome your Oklahoma witness? 

Senator INHOFE. Yes, I would. And let me mention, for the benefit of our witnesses and anyone else who might be interested, the 

Commerce Committee and this Committee have nine members that 

are on both, and they are meeting at exactly the same time, so if 

you see members going back and forth, we are doing double duty 

this morning. I think we can do a better job of coordinating those 

committees. 

Anyway, I want to introduce the good looking witness we have. 

Senator CARPER. I already introduced Tony. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator INHOFE. No, I am real pleased to introduce one of our 

witnesses because I have known Cindy Bobbitt for a long period of 

time. She is a Commissioner of Grant County, Oklahoma. She was 

elected to the Grant County Board 13 years ago and currently 

serves as Chairman of the Board. She has been actively involved 

for the past 8 years with the National Association of Counties, 

serving in many different capacities, including Vice Chair of the 

National Transportation Steering Committee. Furthermore, she 

serves on the Technical Oversight Working Group with the Federal 

Highway Administration Office of Safety. 

As you can imagine Commissioner Bobbitt is passionate about 

our Nation’s infrastructure needs, and her experience makes her an 

incredibly well qualified and informed witness for this Committee. 

Grant County is an extremely rural agricultural county in the 

north central part of Oklahoma that relies heavily on proper infrastructure and has many infrastructure needs. In fact, they say that 

Grant County has as many bridges as they do people. 

Commissioner Bobbitt knows the issues that rural businesses 

face, as she and her husband run a farm growing wheat, feed 

grains, alfalfa, and cattle. They have deep roots in Oklahoma, as 

their farm has been in their family since the Land Run of 1893. 

Commissioner Bobbitt grew up in rural life, driving a tractor at age 

9, and she bought her first piece of land when she was 16 years 

old. She knows firsthand the importance of agricultural industry to 
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Oklahoma’s economy and the needs of getting those goods to market. 

Commissioner Bobbitt, I want to thank you for being here and 

for coming all the way from Grant County to Washington, DC. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Senator Inhofe. 

Senator Capito, could I invite you to please introduce your witness? 

Senator CAPITO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It is a great pleasure for me to introduce my friend, Mike McNulty, who is the General Manager of the Public Service District of 

Putnam County, West Virginia. He’s testifying on the behalf of Putnam County, but also the West Virginia Rural Water Association 

and the National Rural Water Association. 

Mike is known as an expert in our State and really throughout 

the Nation in this area. He received a Bachelor of Science from 

West Virginia Tech, and he has a Master’s from Marshall University. He served as the General Manager since 2004, and he was 

previously the Director of the West Virginia Rural Water Association. 

Rural communities—everybody has referenced this—have had 

particular challenges. In West Virginia not only do we have rural 

communities, but we have some tough terrain that poses significant challenges for the deployment and the maintenance and operation of drinking water and wastewater infrastructure. 

But you know what? Mike has found a way, very creatively, in 

his area to work with the regulatory compliance and leveraging the 

Federal dollars to extend a lot of municipal water to a lot of people, 

and we talked just yesterday. There are still some people left that 

we can’t forget about, and we won’t forget about, but I know he will 

bring valuable insight to this Committee. 

Mike, thank you for coming from West Virginia and the others 

from West Virginia Rural Water Association. 

Thank you. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Senator Capito. 

And I would also like to introduce Bill Panos, who is the 17th 

Director of the Wyoming Department of Transportation, since October 2015. He is a graduate of California State University, where he 

studied both physics and forensic science. His previous work has 

included engineering and leadership positions with the TRW Corporation, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the State of Washington, and a number of local governments. 

Immediately prior to heading WYDOT, he was the Director of 

Wyoming’s School Facilities Department for 2 years. 

We will now hear from our witnesses, and we will start with Bill 

Panos, Director of the Wyoming Department of Transportation. 

I do want to remind the witnesses that your full written testimony will be made part of the official hearing today, so please keep 

your statements to 5 minutes so that we may have some time for 

questions. I look forward to hearing all the testimony today, beginning with Mr. Panos. 

Please proceed. 
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STATEMENT OF WILLIAM T. ‘‘BILL’’ PANOS, DIRECTOR, 

WYOMING DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Mr. PANOS. Thank you, Chairman Barrasso, Senator Carper, and 

members of the Committee. I am Bill Panos, Director of the Wyoming Department of Transportation. Today I am presenting a 

statement for my own State of Wyoming and the Transportation 

Departments of Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota. 

As Congress considers surface transportation infrastructure investment we hope that our comments will enhance understanding 

of transportation challenges facing rural States. 

Let me get right to our key points. 

Federal transportation investment in rural States benefits the 

Nation. Highways in our rural States enable truck movements between the West Coast and the large cities of the Midwest and the 

East. They benefit people and commerce at both ends of the journey. Our highways enable significant agricultural, energy, and natural resource products to move from their rural points of origin to 

national and world markets. Our highways enable tens of millions 

of visitors each year to reach scenic wonders like Yellowstone National Park and Mount Rushmore, so those highways ensure that 

tourism dollars are spent in America, furthering national economic 

goals. 

So there is a national interest and plenty of good reasons for the 

Nation to invest in surface transportation in rural States. There 

are needs for surface transportation infrastructure investment in 

rural States as well as in all States. 

If Congress advances a surface transportation infrastructure initiative, the additional funds would be put to good use promptly in 

Wyoming and other States. They would create jobs and provide 

safety, economic efficiency, and other short- and long-term benefits 

to the Nation. 

Next, we have some thoughts on providing some of those benefits. 

Public-private partnerships and other approaches that depend on 

a positive revenue stream are not a surface transportation infrastructure solution for rural States. The traffic volumes on projects 

in rural States are low and almost never feasible for revenue generation, so rural States are unlikely to attract investors for those 

projects even if any project revenues are supplemented by tax credits. Also, with sparse populations and extensive road networks the 

costs per capita of paying off principal and interest is high in rural 

States, a deterrent to borrowing for those projects. 

Now, we do not oppose a role for P-3s in improving the Nation’s 

transportation network, but they are unlikely to result in meaningful surface transportation investment in rural States. 

Any surface transportation initiative should strongly emphasize 

formula funding. Using the predominantly formula-based FAST Act 

approach to distribution would ensure that both rural and urban 

States are participating substantially in a surface transportation 

initiative. Any surface transportation infrastructure initiative 

should continue the current approximate four to one ratio between 

Federal Highway Program funding and Federal Transit Program 

funding. 
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Also, we would have particular concern if in any surface transportation infrastructure initiative, any non-formula elements were 

structured in a way that made rural State participation unrealistic. 

New program elements limited to extremely expensive projects 

likely would not be accessible by our States, at least in a substantial way. That type of initiative may very well lack urban rural balance. 

Strengthening the Highway Trust Fund is a very important objective. The Highway Trust Fund and the programs it supports are 

critical to maintain and improve America’s surface transportation 

infrastructure. We appreciate that in the FAST Act Congress provided financial support to the Trust Fund and its programs 

through fiscal year 2020. Yet without legislation, after 2020 the 

Highway Trust Fund will not be able to support even FAST Act 

Highway and Transit Program levels much less meet needs that 

will grow as the economy grows. So, strengthening the HTF—the 

Highway Trust Fund—is worthy of consideration and action. 

While our focus today is on funding and financial issues, we also 

encourage Congress to take steps to increase Federal program flexibility and to simplify and expedite program and project delivery. 

We want each program dollar to deliver more benefits. 

Before closing I will briefly mention that our rural States face 

significant transportation funding challenges. We are geographically large. We often include vast tracts of Federal land and cannot 

be taxed or developed. We have extensive highway networks and 

have low population densities. This means that we have very few 

people to support each lane mile of Federal highway. Yet rural 

States contribute to this effort significantly. Nationally, per capita 

contribution to the highway account of the Highway Trust Fund is 

approximately $111. Per capita contribution to the highway account attributable to Wyoming is three times as much, at approximately $319. 

So any surface transportation initiative Congress develops should 

be crafted in a way that takes into account funding challenges facing rural States. 

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, those are some of our key points, 

and thanks again for the opportunity to be here today. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Panos follows:] 
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Senator BARRASSO. Thanks so much, Mr. Panos, for joining us. 

Mr. McNulty, welcome, and please begin. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL MCNULTY, GENERAL MANAGER, 

PUTNAM PUBLIC SERVICE DISTRICT, WEST VIRGINIA 

Mr. MCNULTY. Thank you. 

Good morning, Chairman Barrasso and members of the Committee. My name is Mike McNulty, and I am the General Manager 

of the Putnam Public Service District, a State-chartered drinking 

water and wastewater utility located just outside of Charleston, 

West Virginia. 

On behalf of West Virginia and National Rural Water Associations, we are grateful that you have included a voice for rural 

America at this hearing. 

Before I begin my remarks I would like to say thank you to our 

State’s junior Senator, Shelley Moore Capito, for her assistance in 

improving West Virginia’s rural water infrastructure. In my county, we were able to construct a new $16 million wastewater utility 

expansion that allowed us to extend service to 400 homes and businesses. This is a very important project for Putnam County, and 

your assistance, Senator Capito, was essential. Thank you. 

When thinking about national water infrastructure proposals, 

please remember that almost all of our country’s community water 

utilities—both drinking water and sewer—are small. Small and 

rural communities have more difficulty affording public water service due to the lack of population density and economies of scale. 

In many States the great majority of community water systems 

serve fewer than 10,000 people. For example, in West Virginia, it 

is 444 of the 468 community water systems; in Wyoming it is 300 

of the 319 systems; and in Delaware it is 196 of the 213 community 

water systems. 

While we have fewer resources, we are regulated in the exact 

same manner as a large community. 

In 2017 there are rural communities in America that still do not 

have access to safe drinking water or sanitation due to the lack of 

population density or funding, some in my county. If rural and 

small town America is not specifically targeted in legislation to 

fund new water infrastructure initiatives, the funding will bypass 

rural America and be absorbed by large metropolitan systems. 

Small community water infrastructure projects are more difficult 

to fund because they are smaller in scale. Numerous complicated 

funding applications have to be completed and approved compared 

to one large project. This is compounded by the reality that some 

small communities lack the administrative expertise to complete 

the necessary application process and perhaps lack the political appeal of some large cities. 

Second, the lack of customer density in rural America compounded with lower median household incomes means water infrastructure is often a much greater cost per household. This means 

that a water infrastructure project poses a greater financial risk 

compared to a metropolitan project, and even more importantly requires some portion of grant funding—not just loan dollars—to 

make the project feasible. 
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In the last 10 years my district has borrowed over $50 million 

from the Federal Government for projects that were essential to 

our sustainability and expansion. We could not have secured this 

funding from the commercial markets and kept the rates affordable 

for our customers. 

My water utility provides a good example of what water infrastructure development means to rural America. Since its early development in the 1960s, our water utility infrastructure has expanded rapidly, regionalizing or interconnecting with other smaller 

communities to provide and extend water and sewer service and 

become the engine for economic development in our county. 

One of our utility partners, the town of Buffalo, was able to finance the sewer expansion that was needed to serve a new Toyota 

plant with funding from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund 

and our State’s Infrastructure and Jobs Development Council. 

Without the expansion of our infrastructure, we would not have 

been able to service the Toyota manufacturing plant. 

In southern West Virginia, much of our water infrastructure was 

built over 100 years ago by coal companies and is now failing and 

deteriorating. We have areas in my county with failing septic systems that need to be serviced by extending sewer lines. We still 

have pockets of people with no drinking water at all, and they rely 

on hauling water to their home’s cisterns. 

Rural communities are in need of economic stimulus. For example, in West Virginia and Wyoming, the recent declines in the energy sector have resulted in massive losses of jobs, State revenue, 

and the corresponding decrease in State infrastructure funding. A 

new infrastructure initiative targeted toward rural communities 

would be a welcome economic stimulus in rural America. 

In closing, Mr. Chairman, every rural and small community in 

the country thanks you and this Committee for the numerous opportunities this Committee has provided rural America. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McNulty follows:] 
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Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Mr. McNulty. Thanks for joining 

us. Thanks for your testimony. 

Ms. Bobbitt. 

STATEMENT OF CINDY R. BOBBITT, COMMISSIONER, 

GRANT COUNTY, OKLAHOMA 

Ms. BOBBITT. Thank you, Senator Inhofe, for the very warm welcome. 

Chairman Barrasso, Ranking Member Carper, and distinguished 

members of the Committee, thank you for holding today’s Committee hearing on modernizing our Nation’s infrastructure, inviting 

me to testify on behalf of the National Association of Counties. 

Infrastructure is important to our Nation’s 3,069 counties because we build and maintain 45 percent of the public roads, 40 percent of the bridges, and a third of the Nation’s transit and airports. 

My name is Cindy Bobbitt, and I serve as Chair of the Grant 

County, Oklahoma, Board of Commissioners. 

Grant County is rural and serves a population of approximately 

4,500, and our local economy is largely based on agriculture and 

natural resources. We are responsible for 92 percent of over 1,900 

public road miles in the county. We also have the most bridges or 

bridge-like structures, over 3,500. Think about that. That is almost 

one bridge for every resident. 

While this infrastructure was ideal for transporting livestock and 

crops 70 years ago, it is inadequate to support today’s heavier 

trucks, increased traffic, and higher operating speeds. And Grant 

County is not alone. Roughly two-thirds of the Nation’s counties 

are considered rural and face similar infrastructure challenges. 

Today I will highlight some of these challenges and provide recommendations for ways Congress can help us tackle these issues. 

First, rural counties are facing numerous challenges that strain 

our local funding options. Forty-two States limit the ability for 

counties to raise or change property taxes, and only 12 States authorize us to collect our own local gas taxes. We often have to 

choose between investing in infrastructure or in funding our emergency services, courthouses, and health departments, just to name 

a few. 

Second, rural counties are experiencing increasing demands on 

our transportation infrastructure, which can no longer accommodate our agriculture and our energy needs. While local governments can do all we can—and we are trying to—according to the 

Federal Highway Administration 40 percent of county roads are inadequate for current needs, and nearly half of our rural bridges are 

structurally deficient. 

Third, counties are facing high costs of infrastructure projects. 

Based on the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, the cost of construction materials and labor for highway and 

bridge projects increased 44 percent between 2000 and 2013. Just 

a few years ago, in Grant County, we could budget for a road reconstruction project at less than half a million dollars. Today that 

same project would cost about $1 million per mile. 

With these challenges in mind, we have some recommendations 

to strengthen our Nation’s infrastructure. 
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First, Congress should make more Federal highway dollars available for locally owned infrastructure. County roads, bridges, and 

highways serve as a lifeline for our citizens and are critical to the 

movement of freight and other goods and services to market. While 

more financing options are available in urban areas, rural areas do 

not often attract that same interest from the private sector. Now 

more than ever we need a strong Federal-State-local partnership to 

remain competitive. 

Second, increased Federal funding to bridges, particularly off-system bridges, is vital. We must build for the future, not the present. 

Twenty years ago we were building our bridges 18 to 20 feet wide. 

Today we are building our bridges 24 to 26 feet wide. But that is 

not going to be wide enough to accommodate our larger and heavier 

equipment. According to USDOT, to eliminate the Nation’s bridge 

deficient backlog by 2028, we would need to invest $20 billion annually, well above the $12.8 billion invested today. 

Third, an increased focus on safety and high risk rural roads will 

help our communities and help reduce the number of fatalities we 

see each year. 

And finally, we urge Congress to increase the role of counties in 

statewide planning and project selection processes. We recognize 

that there are more infrastructure needs than there are funds 

available. However, counties have the ability to provide input on 

potential projects and can help maximize the effectiveness of Federal infrastructure dollars. 

In closing, as Congress considers ways to modernize our Nation’s 

infrastructures counties stand ready to work with our Federal partners to achieve our shared goals of strengthening transportation 

networks, improving public safety, and advancing our economic 

competitiveness. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, for 

the opportunity to testify today. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Bobbitt follows:] 
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Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Ms. Bobbitt. Thank you for your 

testimony. 

Welcome, Mr. Pratt. We look forward to hearing from you. 

STATEMENT OF ANTHONY P. PRATT, ADMINISTRATOR, DELAWARE DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL; PRESIDENT, AMERICAN SHORE AND 

BEACH PRESERVATION ASSOCIATION 

Mr. PRATT. Thank you. I appreciate the time to address the Committee today, and I want to thank Ranking Member Carper for recognizing something a little bit out of the box. We are not talking 

about roads in this testimony, we are talking about green infrastructure, particularly coastal infrastructure. 

I am Tony Pratt. I am the Administrator of Shoreline and Waterway Management for the State of Delaware, and also the President 

of ASBPA, which is a national nonprofit organization advocating 

for beaches through science and good public policy. 

Infrastructure—obviously, from our panel members—is something which we talk about in terms of roads and bridges and manbuilt infrastructure, but the green infrastructure that I am talking 

about—particularly beaches, dunes, and wetlands—are incredibly 

important in a number of factors or a number of facets: the safety 

that they provide during storms, the recreational opportunities, 

and the great number of jobs that come with those components. 

I want to talk a little bit about the kind of jobs, first of all, that 

come from beaches. Of course, construction of beach nourishment 

projects is something that provides opportunity for engineers and 

planners and economists to do a lot of planning work. It is an opportunity for dredge companies with a tremendous amount of employment to come and do work. We think about beaches, and Delaware is a good example; Rehoboth Beach, that many of you may 

have attended and had some good times in Rehoboth Beach. We 

think about the primary jobs that come from beaches: restaurant 

help, cooks, chefs, wait staff. We think about hotels and motels and 

the employment there. We talk about people who are lifeguards 

and retail sales and real estate sales. 

But there is another facet of jobs that we don’t talk about very 

much, and that is plumbers, electricians, roofers, builders, any 

number of trade jobs; hotel and motel management folks up and 

down the seaboard; but also these construction jobs and travel corridor jobs that we have not considered much of, which is if you 

drive from Washington to Rehoboth Beach or Ocean City, Maryland, you are going to go past a number of stores that are there 

primarily because of the recreational attraction of the coastline. 

Dr. James Houston, who is from ERDC, the research laboratory 

from Vicksburg, Mississippi, indicated in work that he has done in 

the past that beaches get more recreational use in the U.S. than 

all of our national parks combined, which is a pretty stunning 

thought. This adds up to a major economic impact. Beaches help 

generate $2.25 billion annually to the national economy. 

In 2012, according to Dr. Houston, for every $1 invested by the 

Federal Government, the Federal Government returned $570 in annual tax revenues from beach tourism. One dollar spent and $570 

returned. It is a very good investment, we believe. 
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Estuarine research over by the eastern seaboard in the Gulf has indicated that for every $1 million invested, approximately, in estuary recovery, that there are 30 jobs created. 

Coastal infrastructure is a wise investment. You either pay now, 

or you pay later. We have found in numerous storms, Katrina and 

Ike and Sandy, many storms that have hit the Gulf and Atlantic 

Coast, and now the West Coast is suffering some severe winter 

weather, that the impacts are tremendous. 

Sixty-five billion dollars was allocated for the States primarily 

from Massachusetts to North Carolina and concentrated on about 

Maryland to Massachusetts. Sixty-five billion dollars was allocated 

to restore from that and recover from that. If we took a third of 

that, about $20 billion, and had invested in that over the Nation 

over the last 20 years, it would have been about a $1 billion investment. We have found that in Sandy, where there were good beaches and dunes in place, $1.9 billion was saved because of that investment. 

We believe that if we had done that $20 billion over 20 years for the entire Nation, about $1 billion a year, that number would have 

been far higher and that $65 billion need would have been much 

greater reduced. 

Beaches and dunes provide many benefits. We talk a little bit 

about jobs; we talk about the protection they afford. But they are 

also the dividing line between open water, gulf coast, ocean coast, 

and estuarine waters, which are highly productive, producing jobs 

for fishermen, for recreational tourism. 

In Delaware we had an example of the Department of Interior investing $38 million in recovery of a national wildlife refuge. Had 

we spent about $2 million to $3 million in restoring the beach prior 

to the damage being occurred and all the damage of the wetlands 

happening and loss of forest, we would have probably avoided that 

$38 million investment. It is wise for a lot of factors, for jobs and 

for protection and for estuarine waters. 

In my summary statement, we believe, from my organization and 

from my State of Delaware, that a higher investment in our coastal 

infrastructure that protects man-built infrastructure, that provides 

jobs, that provides protection for our Nation’s productive habitats, 

is a wise investment. We are advocating for something in the order 

of $5 billion over the next 10 years. I know that there is probably 

justification for a higher number than that, but I think that is a 

modest request when the current funding is about $75 million to 

$100 million a year. We think that that number should be much 

higher. 

And I thank you for your time today. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pratt follows:] 
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Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much for your testimony, Mr. 

Pratt. We appreciate hearing from you. 

Now I would like to go to Mr. Bhatt. 

Thank you very much for being with us. Please begin. 

STATEMENT OF SHAILEN P. BHATT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Mr. BHATT. Thank you, sir. 

I want to thank you, Chairman Barrasso, and Ranking Member 

Carper and members of the Committee. I also want to recognize 

another neighbor in Senator Inhofe and thank him for his efforts 

to pass the reauthorization for transportation. 

In the interest of time, I will summarize my testimony. In addition to serving as the Secretary of Transportation in Delaware and 

as the Executive Director of Colorado Department of Transportation, I also served as the Deputy Executive Director for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and at the Federal Highway Administration, so I am keenly aware of the balance of urban and rural 

needs in the country and how it is not a one size fits all solution. 

Colorado is a large, diverse State with rapidly growing metropolitan areas experiencing increasingly constrained mobility and vast 

rural areas that rely on an effective and well-maintained transportation system to move agricultural and energy products to market. 

I am going to tell a quick story that I used a couple years ago 

in testimony before the Senate Finance Committee prior to passage 

of the FAST Act. And I tell this story because I think it is indicative of the challenges that we face. 

When I first began as the Executive Director of the Colorado 

DOT, I took an 1,100-mile trip around Colorado. The first traffic 

jam I got into was in a pretty rural part of the State, up near Fort 

Collins, on I–25. I–25 is the major north-south artery not just for 

passenger traffic, but also an important freight corridor that connects Canada and Mexico. Freight is an incredibly important part 

of our job in the transportation world. 

When we got outside of Denver, where I anticipated the traffic, 

we headed north. We got to a four-lane section, two lanes in each 

direction, which is similar to a lot of the interstate that is present 

in many rural areas. It was a Thursday morning, well after rush 

hour, so I assumed that there was an incident ahead because the 

traffic reminded me of the Beltway during rush hour. My regional 

engineer informed me that there was no incident, that that was 

just how traffic flowed on I–25 on a regular basis. 

So when I asked what the plan was to add capacity, I was told 

that the plans on the books were for that section of I–25, a 45-mile 

section, to be widened in 2070 based on current funding level. So 

a 16-year-old who got their driver’s license could have anticipated 

that road being widened when they turned 70 years old, and that 

is just unacceptable. And that is not an urban problem; that is not 

a rural problem. That is a problem for the State of Colorado and 

for commerce. 

Like the rest of the Nation, funding for transportation in Colorado is at a crossroads. Our primary sources of funding, both the 

State and the Federal gas tax, have not increased in nearly 25 

years. 
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Now, in order to advance these important improvements to the 

I–25 corridor, we have cobbled together State, local, and private 

funds with toll-back bonds and a $15 million TIGER grant to construct just a 14-mile first phase from Loveland to Fort Collins. But 

there remains over $1 billion, just in this corridor alone, in unfunded needs. 

Now, we have an annual budget of $1.4 billion, the vast majority 

of which goes to asset management, which we don’t even fund fully. 

We are short $1 billion a year to meet the currently identified 

transportation needs throughout the State. In fact, in the next decade we have $10 billion in unmet funding needs for highway and 

transit projects across Colorado. 

We are working to address the severely deficient section of I–25 

south of Denver, between Colorado Springs and Denver. These are 

the two largest cities in the State. The interstate is still in its original configuration. We are working toward having that project ready 

to go in 18 months, but we lack $400 million to $500 million to 

make the initial improvements. 

In another example, we are poised to move forward in 2018 with 

improvements to central 70 corridor in Denver, but we are short 

about another billion dollars on that project. Every year we delay 

that project goes up. 

We take advantage of financing tools such as TIFIA and publicprivate partnerships and toll-back bonds, but financing alone does 

not solve our funding challenge in transportation. We have been 

challenged to do more with less. We are trying to do that. We have 

implemented cash management to flush out any cash reserves. 

Where it makes sense, we are using tolling and public-private partnerships. And finally, we are embracing technology. I believe that 

connected vehicles, autonomous vehicles, vehicle-to-vehicle infrastructure, and vehicle-to-vehicle technologies will help us operate 

the system much more efficiently, but that does not change the 

need that we have a significant need for investment in the system. 

To conclude, I would respectfully thank this Committee for their 

attention and care and say that the timing is right for additional 

revenues to States through the existing funding formulas for us to 

invest in our infrastructure. The economy continues to recover, and 

significant new investment will be necessary to sustain and expand 

on that economic growth. We stand ready to partner with the Federal Government to make significant investments in our transportation system for the benefit of all Americans. 

I am happy to answer any of your questions. Thank you very 

much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bhatt follows:] 
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Senator BARRASSO. Well, thank you very much for your testimony, Mr. Bhatt. We appreciate you being here. 

We are going to turn to questions, and I will start with Director 

Panos. 

In your testimony, you discuss Build America Bonds program 

that was part of the 2009 stimulus package. You note that it 

doesn’t work for rural States who want to build roads and bridges. 

I looked at that list of projects funded by Build America Bonds on 

the Treasury Department Web site. When you look at it, our State 

of Wyoming had six projects; the State of Delaware had six 

projects; the State of Vermont, Senator Sanders, a member of this 

Committee, had four projects; West Virginia had two projects; 

Rhode Island had only one project. In contrast, New York had 59; 

California, 158; Illinois, 245. 

Could you explain to the Committee why these sorts of bond programs don’t really work for some of the smaller States? 

Mr. PANOS. It is a great question, Mr. Chairman. You know, my 

response really is limited to surface transportation, and the explanation really relies on the characteristics, the fundamental characteristics of rural States. 

As I said in my written testimony, we have low population densities, and we have very extensive road networks, so paying back 

the principal and interest involves a high cost per capita, and it 

discourages borrowing for transportation in rural States. In fact, 

after talking with a State treasurer this last week, Wyoming has 

never borrowed for a road project, a surface transportation project 

in the State of Wyoming. 

So that is how I would at least briefly respond to the question. 

Senator BARRASSO. OK. And never borrowed in 120-some years. 

So never borrowed. 

Mr. PANOS. That is correct. 

Senator BARRASSO. Am I correct in assuming that all things 

being equal, that if additional resources are provided, that you 

would rather have these resources go to your departments, because 

you provided testimony for a number of different States, for five 

different States, it would go to your departments so that the States 

could decide where to apply the funds rather than to receive specific directives from Washington on how the money is spent? 

Mr. PANOS. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BARRASSO. And as I say, you are here representing the 

interests of the transportation departments in five different States. 

What would you say is the principal concern of the rural States in 

developing the surface transportation programs within the framework as prescribed by the FAST Act? 

Mr. PANOS. So, first it is important to note that the FAST Act 

struck a very good balance with respect to rural and urban interests, and I want to thank Congress for that. They did a great job 

of moving the FAST Act through and balancing urban and rural interests. 

There is also a concern, and I think it is not just in rural States, 

but I think it is in a number of different States, about the stopand-go of the Federal actions, and the FAST Act, as you know, 

runs through 2020, which provides, and commendably provides, 

more stability than other recent authorizations. Yet as to the ap-
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propriations, I think we are operating under a continuing resolution, which restricts our ability, actually, to plan for future 

projects. In our State, we are working with our State legislature 

now and needed to ask for twice the amount of borrowing authority 

that we would have otherwise to be able to cover some of those 

costs, cash-flow needs for the projects as it relates to the continuing 

resolution. 

So that is our State, but other States as well have advanced construction and borrowing against State funds, if available, to keep 

highway projects on schedule until the Congress completes its appropriation process. So, that is one thing, the continuing resolutions. 

The second really is flexibility, program flexibility; and delivering 

programs and projects is fairly complex, and planning and programming requirements sort of keep multiplying, and the performance management rules recently put forward also add to that. 

So, developing some ideas, like we are doing here today, in areas 

to improve program flexibility and improve project delivery I think 

will help a great deal. So those were just a couple of observations, 

the continuing resolution, stop-and-go, and then program delivery 

improvements which would help our State and others. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you. 

Mr. McNulty, if I just could visit with you a little bit about the 

testimony where you mentioned that almost all the water systems 

in West Virginia, as well as Wyoming, serve populations I think 

you said fewer than 10,000 people. Like larger water systems these 

small systems still need to comply with complex Federal regulations, with less administrative and technical expertise than the 

larger counterparts do. 

So could you talk a little bit about what steps—because we all 

want to make sure we don’t want to sacrifice safety—what steps 

Congress could take to simplify compliance? 

Mr. MCNULTY. I believe Congress could allocate more funds for 

technical assistance in training to help the smaller communities 

and the operators and administrators to ensure that they are able 

to be up on all the regulations that come out of the EPA and so 

forth, and I believe that would really be the biggest benefit, to have 

more dollars to go to technical assistance. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you. 

Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks so much. 

Mr. Panos, when was the last time Wyoming raised their gas 

tax? 

Mr. PANOS. Not very long ago. 

Senator CARPER. In 2013, right? Three or 4 years ago? 

Mr. PANOS. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. They raised it by what, 10 cents? 

Mr. PANOS. We did. 

Senator CARPER. Did everybody who voted for that get thrown 

out of office? 

Mr. PANOS. No. 

Senator CARPER. Why not? 

Mr. PANOS. The State and the citizens there saw a need for it. 

Senator CARPER. Is there a lesson there for us in the Congress? 
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Mr. PANOS. I am sorry? 

Senator CARPER. Is there a lesson for us in the Congress? 

Mr. PANOS. Certainly in our State, in our particular State, it was 

necessary because of the changing economy in our State. Our State 

went through, and continues to go through, an economic shift that 

is not repeated in many States, but my friend to the left here, in 

West Virginia, has had that as well with the energy economy and 

other things. The State legislature saw that coming, and they were 

able to support certain transportation projects by moving that forward. It was very difficult in the State legislature to move that forward, but Wyoming was very aware of its impending future and 

was proactive at being able to support that. 

Senator CARPER. We are scheduled to run out of money in the 

Federal Transportation Trust Fund in 2020, and I just remind my 

colleagues it is 3 years from now, but it is just around the corner. 

Thank you. 

West Virginia, Mr. McNulty, former Congressman from New 

York State with whom I served. Actually, it is another Michael 

McNulty, but we are glad you are here. Abraham Lincoln used to 

say the role of government is to do for the people what they cannot 

do for themselves. The role of the government is to do for the people what they cannot do for themselves. What is the role of the 

Federal Government with respect to addressing the drinking water 

needs and the wastewater needs of States like my native West Virginia? 

Mr. MCNULTY. Thank you, Senator. The Federal Government, I 

see it as the obligation to ensure that the funds are available for 

any mandate that comes down the pipeline, for additional testing 

and water quality standards. I believe it is certainly the Federal 

Government’s obligation to make sure that communities receive the 

funds in order to comply. No unfunded mandates. 

Senator CARPER. Good. 

Mr. Bhatt, I am going to ask you to answer for the record, not 

here because I don’t have enough time. But the request I am going 

to ask you to answer for the record. In fact, I will ask all of you 

to do this. Better results for less money. What are some things that 

we need to do? I think we tried to do that in the FAST Act, to provide the opportunity to get better results for less money. What are 

some other things that we can do, should do between now and, say, 

2020 to enable you and us to get better results for less money? So 

I will ask all of you. You don’t have to answer that now, but you 

know that if I had the time I would ask you to answer that on the 

record. 

I would just ask for Tony and for Shailen, it is great to see you 

guys. Thank you so much for your service to our State and to, really, the United States. We have a road in Delaware that is called 

State Route 1, and you can pick it up, you come to it on I–95. You 

come between Wilmington and Newark, Delaware, the northern 

part of the State, and you pick up State Route 1, which takes you 

to Dover, Dover Air Force Base, and on down to our beaches. We 

are proud that we have more five-star beaches than any State in 

America. If you stay on State Route 1, it goes on into Delmarva, 

to Ocean City, Maryland, and on down into Virginia. 
119 

There is a bridge that goes over an inlet. There is an inlet that 

comes, it is called Indian River Inlet, and it is just north of Bethany Beach, and it flows east-west with the tides. And there is a big 

bridge built over it, several bridges were built there over time, and 

we had to eventually replace the bridge because of scouring that 

was going on in the inlet. When Hurricane Sandy came to town it 

had a very adverse effect on the bridge there, and I just wanted 

to ask Tony and Shailen, just take a minute, talk to us about the 

intersection of shoreline protection, dune protection, and an infrastructure, major infrastructure investment of over $100 million. 

How do they intersect there? 

Mr. BHATT. I will start, since I was responsible for that bridge 

during Hurricane Sandy, and I was actually driving toward Route 

1, and I got a call from the Governor saying that on CNN he had 

seen that our new $250 million bridge had washed away. So instead of turning left, I turned right, got down there. 

It turns out that the new bridge had not washed away; the old 

bridge had washed away, which I think was a pretty good justification for us for replacing the old bridge. You know, those hurricanes, 

I remember when I first became the secretary in Delaware. Three 

weeks after that Hurricane Irene showed up, and everybody told 

me that hurricanes don’t come here; you know, they often veer off 

or they go somewhere else. And in my 4 years there we had two 

hurricanes, so something changed around that. The infrastructure 

is so critically important. What I was so struck by was once that 

land link was lost, how incredibly impacted those communities 

were, and people trying to get out, get back in, get their kids to 

school. 

So I would just say that it just draws home the importance of 

investment in infrastructure, and it is so incredibly important that 

we do make intelligent investments. 

Senator CARPER. My time has expired. Thank you for that. 

I would just say to my colleagues we spent a fortune on that 

bridge, new bridge, and the next hurricane that comes along, it 

could further undermine that bridge if we don’t invest in the dune 

protection and in the beach protection. So one hand sort of washes 

the other. That is an important point I wanted to make. Thank 

you. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Senator Carper. 

Senator Inhofe. 

Senator INHOFE. I have to tell you, Mr. Bhatt, when the tornadoes veer off, they come to Oklahoma. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator INHOFE. First of all, I have something to submit for the 

record, Mr. Chairman. This is the largest coalition I have seen. 

This is a letter to President Trump from over 500 organizations 

through almost everything in America. So there is the level of popularity, and I want to ask that that be made a part of the record. 

Senator BARRASSO. Without objection. 

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Senator INHOFE. Ms. Bobbitt, you have had a little bit of an advantage because you have had a lot of advice and counsel with 

Gary Ridley. And I am sure, Mr. Bhatt, you and Mr. Panos both 

are friends of Gary Ridley. He has actually served as a witness before this Committee more than anyone else in the history of this 

Committee because he knows the subject. We have been able to 

pass a lot of good things, and I think we have done some pretty 

creative things. 

Now, Commissioner Bobbitt, it is unique the challenges that you 

face in a very rural, rural Oklahoma, and you have had to be creative from time to time. Could you expand on the funding challenges and give an example or two of how you have gotten projects 

over the finish line with the limited funds in your county? 

Ms. BOBBITT. Thank you for that question. 

Yes, Grant County is very rural, 4,500 people. While we have the 

most bridges and the fifth highest number of road miles in the entire State of Oklahoma. Yet our funding is 63rd out of 77 counties. 

So we definitely have a challenge. 

But one unique thing that we have done in the past—as counties, 

we worked as a partnership with the Oklahoma Department of 

Transportation, Gary Ridley, and we came across—when they were 

going to deconstruct the I–40 cross-town bridge there were a lot of 

used beams there. Now, beams that we could have our engineers 

inspect and look at, and we recycled them. So we took ownership, 

counties took ownership of all those 2,000 beams, and we brought 

them back to our counties. 

Grant County received over 100 of those beams, more beams 

than any other county. We have more bridges than any other county. Successfully, we have already built 10 new bridges, and we 

have more beams to put in place as soon as we get the funding. 

And that talks about how important a partnership is. That was a 

State and local partnership. We also would like to have that same 

partnership with the Federal Government to help us bring home 

projects. 

Senator INHOFE. As you know, the President has talked about 

the public-private partnerships. Is there any comment you can 

make about how you have been successful in doing that in your 

area? 

Ms. BOBBITT. The partnerships, the private partnerships will 

probably work really good for Oklahoma and Tulsa County, but the 

partnerships might not work so well for our very rural county. But 

what we can do is we have municipal bonds that are tax exempt 

that we really need to protect because we do use those types of financing to help us move our projects forward. 

Senator INHOFE. Well, during the FAST Act, and I have had the 

advantage of dealing with these issues for 22 years in the Senate 

and then 8 years before that in the House on the Committee, so 

I have been here for all of those reauthorizations that we have had. 

One of the problems we had, and people forget about this, up until 

the middle 1990s the biggest problem we had with the Highway 

Trust Fund is we had too much surplus. And we know what happened to that, and we know now that we are in a crisis. 

But one of the things we have done has been more—and you addressed this, Mr. Bhatt—a little more creative on things that we 
131 

could do in the bill in giving more power to the States and giving 

them options, for example, on the enhancement percentages, say 

from State to State. In California they may have different ideas 

than we have in Oklahoma and how to use those, so we gave different States that option. 

What do you think about giving States more of those types of options and how you can stretch your dollars a little bit more? 

Mr. Panos. 

Mr. PANOS. Senator, I think anything that we can do to reflect 

the conditions in rural States through those kinds of adjustments 

are very, very helpful to rural States. 

Senator INHOFE. Mr. Pratt, do you agree with that? 

[No audible response.] 

Senator INHOFE. This is a trend that we have started, and we 

want to continue with this, giving more of the options to the States. 

Do you all pretty much agree that that is moving in the right direction? 

Mr. BHATT. Thank you, Senator. Yes, I would say that one of the 

best parts of the FAST Act, in addition to the certainty, was the 

flexibility, and I think it is incumbent upon States to work with 

locals and others to make really good decisions. We pass on and we 

interact very closely with our local partners to make sure that it 

is a Colorado or a Delaware or an Oklahoma solution. 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Senator Inhofe. 

Senator Duckworth. 

Senator DUCKWORTH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

This question is for Mr. Pratt. The Flint water crisis tragically 

taught our country a new lesson of the dangers of old infrastructure. In allowing our water infrastructure to crumble, millions of 

families find themselves in real danger of drinking lead-contaminated water. Not every community is satisfied with this dangerous 

status quo. 

In Madison, Wisconsin, local officials demonstrated leadership in 

throwing away Band-Aid fixes. They actually, at the local level, 

committed to a decade-long infrastructure project that culminated 

in fully replacing every service line, every lead service line in Madison. 

Now, when my constituents learn about the infrastructure initiative completed in Wisconsin, they don’t understand why the children of Wisconsin deserve greater protection than the children of 

Illinois or of Delaware. There is no good answer, and I think that 

is why this Congress needs to act swiftly and decisively to provide 

States and local governments with direct funding support, far 

greater than our efforts to date, to jumpstart vital water infrastructure projects. 

As a State official, Mr. Pratt, who must struggle daily in balancing the needs to address fiscal challenges and meet the needs 

of your residents, would you concur that States such as Delaware 

both need and would put to good use direct Federal investments in 

critical infrastructure such as safe drinking water? 

Mr. PRATT. I will answer that from the perspective of somebody 

who handles beach management and wetlands management, not 

water supply management. But certainly the overarching theme is 
132 

that we have not invested as we should have as a Nation in that 

infrastructure. I would welcome any other comments from the 

panel, but it is not my world of expertise on water supply, but certainly the stories we hear from around the Nation are compelling 

stories about how I think that the overarching issue is that we 

have an appetite for construction of new and not much of an appetite as a Nation for maintenance of what we have built in the past, 

or improvement of what we have built in the past, and that is a 

philosophical point I think that needs to be changed. But I am not 

an expert on water supply issues, but thank you for the question 

anyway. 

Senator DUCKWORTH. Well, not necessarily just water supply. 

You know, the people of Illinois sent me to the Senate with a clear 

message. Americans are ready, willing, and eager to start rebuilding our Nation at all levels, all infrastructure. When I travel across 

Illinois, from rural communities to suburban neighborhoods to 

urban centers, there is a unifying call on Congress: please work to 

modernize our Nation’s infrastructure. Make it a priority. Whether 

it is roads, rail. 

Simply put, Illinoisans want Congress to place a big bet on 

America, and they want their tax dollars invested in American 

workers and in American companies to rebuild and modernize 

American infrastructure, and we must go beyond road, rail, and 

bridges. We should be wise in making sure our investments prepare us to succeed in the 21st century. This includes investments 

in broadband to empower every family to access high speed Internet. In fact, you know, I have parts of Illinois where our kids can’t 

do their homework because they don’t have access to broadband. 

We can’t track businesses to rural communities because there is no 

broadband. So it is not just about the water or the bridge or the 

road; it is all of it. 

And I do think that there is a role here to play for the Federal 

Government to come in and provide those resources in partnership 

with local and States. I just don’t want us to fall into the trap that 

we think, oh, Madison replaced all of their own lead water supply, 

so that is what every State should do. To each their own. And anyone on the witness panel can certainly talk to this, but how important is the role of Federal Government coming in with Federal dollars to help you be able to do this? 

Mr. PRATT. I will answer that from my perspective, too. In the 

world I work in, it is very imperative that the Federal Government 

take an involved position. Home rule indicates that local communities will develop their own land use plan and will develop as they 

see is best for their community. That is across the board of residential and industrial and recreational areas and commercial areas. 

And when that fabric of community is built, if there is anything 

that is imperiled, it is usually the Federal Government that has to 

come and bail out the aftermath. If there is a complete breakdown 

of waters of life, if there is a tornado, if there is a forest fire, if 

there is an earthquake, or if there is a coastal storm, it is the Federal Government that responds and has to respond after the suffering has occurred, whether it is pollution of water and no water 

supply for a community or it is a community that has no roads left 

after a storm or a tornado has wiped out a community in Okla-
133 

homa. It is the Federal Government that will have to come out and 

put the dollars up there. 

Investment ahead of time, before the disaster, before the crisis 

has occurred, is an important turning point we need to make, and 

I believe absolutely the Federal Government has a tremendous 

amount to save by that investment. 

Senator DUCKWORTH. I thank you for those comments. 

Anybody else from the panel? 

On the end. 

Mr. BHATT. I would just say that 70 percent of our construction 

dollars for transportation in Colorado comes from the Federal Government, so it is incredibly important that there is a strong Federal 

role in transportation investment. And on the broadband comment, 

Governor Hickenlooper has directed us to work with the economic 

development folks to provide broadband. I believe that broadband 

are the new highways of the 21st century, and it is incredibly important for us in Colorado as well. 

Senator DUCKWORTH. I am out of time. Mr. Panos, you will have 

to respond on the record. Thank you. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Senator Duckworth. 

Senator Capito. 

Senator CAPITO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank all of you. 

A couple of things. I would like to start with Mr. McNulty. First 

of all, I would like, for the record, to thank you, as a resident of 

Charleston, West Virginia, who was affected by the chemical spill 

into our primary water source. Putnam County Water District really came to the rescue for a lot of folks who were without water. So 

I don’t know if you want to just take a couple seconds and say 

some of the things that you did as a regional resource to try to help 

people who were without water in a crisis. 

Mr. MCNULTY. Thank you, Senator. Our water utility, we immediately were in contact with the Governor’s office, Governor 

Tomblin, and we worked with his staff to make sure that they 

could start bringing in tankers. We do have a fuel station located 

at our water treatment facility. And we also helped local folks that 

came in with their own containers and filled those containers and 

so forth. So we did play an active role, and so did many other rural 

utilities surrounding Kanawha County and so forth. A lot of folks 

helped out. 

Senator CAPITO. Well, your help was very much appreciated and 

everybody’s help. I think West Virginia and rural communities 

around the country are known for neighbors helping neighbors, and 

certainly in that instance you all definitely helped us. 

I would like to kind of pivot off of something that Mr. Pratt mentioned. In your experience at Putnam, in Putnam County, are you 

looking more at extending new or replacing old? Where is the pushpull there in terms of water infrastructure? 

Mr. MCNULTY. Both, actually. We are expanding. As I mentioned 

earlier in my testimony, we just finished up a large sewer expansion to existing homes and businesses. But we are also very well 

aware of the maintenance that has to be done and upkeep of our 

system. So we have expanded our water treatment plant, as you 
134 

know and have been there to see it. So we are still in that balance 

of doing both. 

Senator CAPITO. Is it easier to get funding for one or the other? 

Mr. MCNULTY. I haven’t had a difficult time obtaining funding 

for either one. 

Senator CAPITO. OK. OK. 

The other thing, in your testimony you mentioned the WIFIA. 

We passed the bill, the WRDA bill, last year as we were leaving, 

and in that is WIFIA, which is a water infrastructure financing 

method similar to TIFIA for the waterways and for water projects. 

Now, in my view, this holds great promise, I feel as though, for another funding mechanism for rural America and rural American 

water systems. You have expressed some skepticism for that. 

Would you like to speak about that? 

Mr. MCNULTY. Yes, ma’am. The WIFIA will not really benefit the 

smaller rural communities because you have to have larger projects 

to qualify. And of course, our greatest concern is that we do not 

want to see any of the funds from the Drinking Water SRF or the 

Clean Water SRF go to fund WIFIA; we want to make sure those 

funds stay intact. 

Senator CAPITO. I think the intention of WIFIA is to use those 

as a jumping point; not intending to decrease their value or decrease their amounts but to use them as a leverage point. I am 

wondering if it would be possible for local, smaller projects to band 

together for a WIFIA project. I don’t know if that is within the 

boundaries of the law. Do you know that? 

Mr. MCNULTY. I really don’t know. We would have to do some 

research and get back to you, Senator. 

Senator CAPITO. OK. 

I would like to ask you, Mr. Panos, on the transportation issue. 

You mentioned in your statement that the PPPs don’t work for 

rural areas. We have had a couple in actually Mike’s backyard, 

Route 35, that has been a PPP project that I honestly don’t think, 

we are on the verge of getting it completed now, could have gone 

on if we hadn’t had the ability for our State DOT to use the PPP 

projects. Why is that not working in rural America; is it the scale 

or what? 

Mr. PANOS. Thank you for the question. Generally, in the rural 

States we just don’t have the revenue generation or the volumes 

that would support a public-private partnership concept. Certainly 

other systems, as well, other financing systems we could look at, 

but direct funding works best for us through the formulaic system; 

it has been worked out over a number of years, and at least for 

rural States it works very, very well for us. Again, it is based on 

the volumes that we have and then the expansive nature of our 

surface transportation system. 

Senator CAPITO. Can your State sell bonds to begin paying on a 

payback so you can get the project done earlier? They are called 

GARVEE bonds we have in West Virginia, but don’t ask me what 

GARVEE is the acronym for, I couldn’t tell you. 

Mr. PANOS. Senator, the State of Wyoming has used bonds on a 

very limited basis. Again, our primary source of transportation 

funding is from the Federal Government through the formulaic system. The comment earlier I think was made about the 10 cent fuel 
135 

tax that was passed in Wyoming some 4 to 5 years ago. That only 

pays about less than 20 percent of the cost of surface transportation; the vast majority of capital highway funding in Wyoming 

comes from the Federal Government through the formulaic system. 

Senator CAPITO. Thank you very much. 

Mr. PANOS. Thank you. 

Senator BARRASSO. Senator Fischer. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Like many of my colleagues I believe in the importance of funding our surface transportation infrastructure, and reliable infrastructure does represent a critical investment in advancing our 

safety and commerce. The Highway Trust Fund has served to equitably distribute funds to all States, rural and urban, and is the 

linchpin of our transportation system. 

As many here are aware, the Congressional Budget Office 

projects that the Highway Trust Fund will face a deficit of well 

over $100 billion in the 5 years following the FAST Act expiration. 

So that is why I have introduced the Build USA Infrastructure Act, 

which would address the near-term solvency of the Highway Trust 

Fund without raising taxes on hardworking Americans. 

I would like to ask our State DOT directors, Mr. Panos and Mr. 

Bhatt, how important is certainty in the formula funding to your 

States’ transportation systems? And when it comes to maintaining 

our roads and bridges, is there really any substitute for this critical 

apportion funding? 

Mr. Bhatt, would you like to start, please? 

Mr. BHATT. Thank you so much, Senator. Funding certainty is 

everything. You know, I do conservative talk radio once a month; 

I just go on the show. And it is not always a love fest, but I think 

it is important for government to go out and talk to all of our constituents. And somebody said why did you stop this project at point 

X? Any fool could see that all you had to do was continue it on 

down another 20 miles. But unfortunately we have to have logical 

termini that are based on the transportation need and the financial 

need. 

So one of the best parts about the FAST Act was getting us out 

of that cycle of continuing resolutions around funding. If we have 

certainty around funding, then we can make better plans, and it 

costs States and all taxpayers less money when we have certainty. 

Senator FISCHER. And Mr. Panos. 

Mr. PANOS. For Wyoming and surface transportation, I think 

that certainly the idea of certainty in funding, Federal funding is 

very, very important to us. We are very conservative in terms of 

how we look at financing our system. Our system is not being expanded as we speak; it is being preserved. So, we are just getting 

in enough money to preserve the system that we have now, our 

2,000 bridges and 7,000 miles of roads. So, for us, we take a very 

conservative role. 

So the proposal that you are referring to I think identifies a couple of things. One, it identifies that the Highway Trust Fund is not 

going to be a consistent source of funding after 2020, and that is 

critically important to us because we are not expanding, we are 

just preserving what we have there; the investment has already 

been made by the Federal Government. And the second is that it 
136 

really looks at the process, the regulatory review of the projects 

and looks at how time consuming that is and the need to improve 

that. So we support addressing both of those things. Those are 

things that I think not only Wyoming, but other rural States would 

agree with. So, it is good that you stepped up and put some of 

those ideas front and center for us to look at. How we go about 

that, obviously, we will work with Congress over the next few 

months to develop, but I think they are solid ideas. But we, like 

Colorado, are looking for consistency. 

Senator FISCHER. Thank you for your compliment of the proposal. 

I think it is really important to identify a consistent revenue source 

without raising taxes at the Federal level to be able to fund beyond 

maintenance, because we all need to make sure we have that capacity in the future as well. 

And you mentioned a second part of my proposal that really addresses the critical delays that projects are faced with when they 

have to wait for that Federal Government approval, and I can tell 

you that my State has spent time and money on those burdensome 

Federal Highway Administration processes that really don’t change 

any outcomes moving forward. 

For example, we are looking at upgrading a substandard Dodge 

Street S-Curve project in Omaha, and that has seen costs grow by 

$3 million because of these burdens that are out there. 

Again, this idea that is in the Build USA Infrastructure Act is 

based on a proposal that I was able to get advanced in the State 

of Nebraska that has proved successful, and hopefully we will be 

able to have a conversation on that here. 

But I would ask you both—Mr. Panos, you address part of it, but 

I believe a greater State authority over this approval process is 

going to—because we have shown that it is going to move that approval process forward without really taking shortcuts. We are still 

going to meet the requirements that are there, but I think it is a 

better system to put in place and a better use of taxpayer dollars. 

Would either of you like to address that, just on the delays you 

have faced with going through the Federal Highway Administration? 

Mr. BHATT. Thank you, Senator. I am quite torn on the answer 

that I give you, and I say this with all respect. I, as a director of 

DOTs, have fought with the Federal Highway Administration to try 

and expedite projects over the years when we were ready to go on 

something, so on the one hand expediting projects is very good. We 

have a big project, a $1.2 billion viaduct replacement in Denver 

right now that is about over a decade in the planning process, and 

some people would say, well, that took 13 years to get to construction, how ridiculous. There is a school that is right beside that 

project. If my children went to that school, I wouldn’t want a State 

DOT to come in and just say, hey, we are moving the road right 

beside you. We are taking 63 homes in the process of that, and one 

of the Federal requirements that we have to follow is there are certain rules and regulations; when we take property, we have to 

show a burden and we need the property, and we have to follow 

rules around relocating people. 
137 

So, as the State DOT person, I would love for there to be fewer 

regulations. As someone who is impacted by the project, I think 

that some of those Federal regulations do serve a purpose. 

Senator FISCHER. And I wouldn’t disagree with you on that, but 

I think if we can expedite, that would always be a saving. 

I apologize, I am over my time. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much, Senator Fischer. 

Senator Rounds. 

Senator ROUNDS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It isn’t very often that we have the opportunity in a Committee 

like this to talk about what we want to see in the future. You have 

heard the President suggest that infrastructure is critical. You are 

hearing members on both sides of the aisle saying that the time is 

now to actually start discussing how we do infrastructure development in the United States coming up. 

I want to take this at a different level than simply asking about 

rules and regulations and so forth. My friend, the Ranking Member 

here, as a former Governor in his home State recognized that they 

could make good decisions there about what their needs were. They 

see major issues that we don’t see in South Dakota. They are concerned about rising water levels in their neck of the woods. 

In South Dakota we are concerned about things like our rural development of the basic infrastructure of simply delivering rural 

water. In fact we have rural water programs in South Dakota that 

the States fully funded their share of it, and yet the Federal Government hasn’t got enough money in it to actually pick up their 

share, and the cost is going up, and we have people that don’t have 

that water available. We have other rural water systems in the 

State that basically they don’t have enough money to even do some 

of the maintenance on some areas, and they haven’t quite filled 

them out yet. 

Just for a minute, what I would like to do is—as individuals that 

have a clear understanding from the State and local level, the opportunities and the capabilities that you have—I want to reach out 

a little bit here. Let’s make a couple of assumptions that perhaps 

a lot of people in this country would say will never come true. 

Some people would say we are talking about la-la land or fairy 

land, but let’s assume, No. 1, that Republicans and Democrats actually agreed on a need for an infrastructure bill. 

No. 2, let’s agree, just take the assumption, and keep the snickers down, OK, but let’s agree that Congress actually agreed on a 

funding bill and that Congress actually agreed differently than in 

the past, they actually agreed on how they were going to pay for 

the funding bill. And then let’s agree that we actually agreed on 

how we would distribute a significant part of those funds back to 

States and local units of government. 

And let’s say that we actually had the foresight to talk not just 

about roads and bridges, but about water development and about 

broadband, which is clearly important, and perhaps give some opportunity for States and local units of government to have some 

flexibility in what they saw as needed economic development. And 

let’s just say they actually had the foresight to make a deal with 
138 

the States where the States actually had some skin in the game 

and had a match, similar to what we have in the Highway Fund. 

Now, I know I am making some major stretches here, but let’s 

say that we also said that we expected that a number of different 

projects could be made available, whether you talk about ports of 

entry along the borders, whether you are talking about ports along 

our coasts, airports, road bridges, water development, and so forth. 

This is your opportunity to just expand in terms of what your capabilities are and what the limitations are that the Feds currently 

put in place, what we do to hamstring you, but also the things that 

you think you are capable of doing. Can I just each of you—and I 

don’t care in which order—can I ask you to just share a few seconds about what you see as your capabilities and what you could 

do with the resources if you had that shot? What could you do to 

make it better for the people that live in your area? 

Yes. 

Mr. PANOS. Senator, if I could start, for us in Wyoming, certainly, with surface transportation, which I am speaking about 

today, we would implement more safety projects. Safety is our No. 

1 issue. And if we can develop additional safety projects and put 

them on the ground, whether that be construction of additional 

lanes or other kinds of safety systems, we would. We are maintaining what we have, and that is what we have dollars for right now. 

We have a great relationship with the Federal Highway Administration, a great relationship with our Federal partners. 

Senator ROUNDS. Could you start it fairly quickly? 

Mr. PANOS. We could. And we have plans to put in place because 

of our great relationship with the Federal Highway Administration 

and others. So, as to surface transportation, we would focus on 

safety. That is our No. 1 issue, and we are a safety agency. Probably more than we are a transportation agency, we are a safety 

agency. So we would focus on that. 

Thank you, Senator. 

Mr. MCNULTY. We would expand water distribution systems and 

wastewater collection systems and build facilities for treatment, as 

well. For instance, we have a project in our home county, Putnam 

County, West Virginia, we have 56 homes without potable water. 

These folks have to haul their water back to their home cisterns. 

Our county commissioners have applied for a small cities block 

grant for the last 5 years for $1.5 million, and for the last 5 years 

they have been turned down. And that project is designed. It would 

be ready to go the day after the funding got in place. 

Senator ROUNDS. Thank you. 

Ms. BOBBITT. Thank you, Senator. We would probably look at our 

off-system bridge systems, because we want to make sure that we 

have safe bridges for our school buses, our emergency services, ambulances, fire departments. We would want to make sure that 

those routes were brought up to standards. And yes, we could do 

that pretty quick. We have engineering on several bridges; we just 

don’t have the funding. So we have shovel-ready projects ready to 

go. Thank you. 

Senator ROUNDS. Sir. 

Mr. PRATT. My perspective, of course, is very different. I am not 

a highway transportation planner, but looking at it out of the box 
139 

because of the scenario you present is very dizzying, so I will be 

dizzy—— 

Senator ROUNDS. I know. It is what I call a fairy tale; quick, get 

it done. 

Mr. PRATT [continuing]. Any of those things would happen, but 

if we did, I think, first of all, the very first thing we need as a Nation is a better informed discussion as to how we invest in a 

decadal sense. We are doing investments, I think, in short-term 

very much. I hate to say it. I was an elected official in Delaware, 

in a small town, and we tend to make decision on a 2- and 4- and 

6-year kind of time frame so we can bring something home to our 

constituents. We really want the decadal planning, understanding 

where the population trends are, where the vulnerabilities are, and 

the value of the return on the investment. If we did a better job 

of that, we would know how to utilize the funds that were available 

if they were untethered. So I think we need much better information in the decisionmaking process informed by those factors. 

Mr. BHATT. We lost 35,092 Americans on roadways last year. 

Safety is our No. 1 issue. We are going toward zero debts, and we 

are going the other way, 10 percent increase the last couple of 

years. So I would say safety would be our No. 1 priority. We have 

literally dozens of projects that are ready to go but for funding, so 

funding, if there was a way to find bipartisan agreement, would go 

a long way to saving American lives. 

Senator ROUNDS. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Senator. 

Senator Whitehouse. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Chairman. 

I appreciate very much our guests here from Wyoming and West 

Virginia and Oklahoma and Colorado, but you all fail to share one 

of Rhode Island’s attributes, which is a coastline. You are all landlocked. So I would like to address our guest from Delaware, who, 

like Rhode Island, shares a coastline. 

In Rhode Island we have sewage treatment plants that have, as 

we face rising seas along our shores, moved first into the flood zone 

and now into velocity zones for storms. After a major storm, I, far 

too often, have to go and talk to a family who is looking at the remnants of their home that has been torn into the sea by the storm 

activity. 

We have coastal roads that are at risk of either destruction or 

flooding, and in many cases the coastal road is the access to a community, which creates very significant emergency services risks. 

And as we are mapping more effectively where storm and sea level 

will be intruding, we are finding more and more that the emergency services are on the wrong side of the flooding area. I think 

people remember the scenario in Senator Booker’s State of New 

Jersey, where they couldn’t bring the fire equipment in during 

Sandy because of the flooding, and neighborhoods burned with nobody to fight the fire. So, you know, we have those concerns. 

I have seaside restaurants, places like Tara’s and the Ocean 

Mist, two wonderful bars right side by side on the sea, that not 

long ago had 100 feet of beach, and people would play volleyball 

and sun on the beach; and now they are up on pilings and the 
140 

ocean washes under their buildings. State beach facilities are similarly compromised and having to be moved backward as we yield 

more and more of our coastline to the shore. 

And of course, in a really major storm, something equivalent to 

the hurricane of 1938, which gave Delaware a pretty good hit, but 

really nailed Rhode Island, the 10 inches of sea level rise we have 

already seen, the 9 feet of sea level that our State and Federal experts tell us to expect by the end of the century, plus we get about 

2 feet, if the wind conditions are right, in added tide, plus we get 

about 2 feet in added tide when the moon and the stars all line up, 

so you get an astronomical King Tide, we are really planning for 

some very serious disruptions. 

So I hope that my colleagues, as we consider what our next infrastructure investments should be, will understand that in our coasts 

we not only get all the other effects of climate change, but we get 

this rising sea level and then the worsening storm surge that compromises our coastlines. 

Let me turn it over to you to comment, because I know Delaware 

has actually, I think you have even lower elevation than we do, 

and a lot of these similar coastal problems. I visited there with 

Senator Coons to hear from your experts, and I know he is aware 

of Rhode Island’s, because his dad, who, sadly, just passed away, 

was the head of the Rhode Island Fisheries Association for a while. 

So, with that, I leave it to you to talk about coastal infrastructure. 

Mr. PRATT. No, your points are well made, and I appreciate the 

opportunity to address it. I am from the Boston area originally; I 

know the New England coastline. You have a lot better topography 

in Rhode Island than we have in Delaware. We are very flat. We 

are very much a remnant of a higher sea millions of years ago. 

That said, 1 foot of rise in sea level can be exponentially hundreds of feet of intrusion in a landward direction. So what do we 

do? No. 1, I think you hit on it. The NFIP is producing much better 

maps that inform us as to where the risks are going to be, where 

the risks are today, and where they are going to be, and we can 

begin to utilize those in the local communities to begin to plan how 

we can remove critical infrastructure to better places. 

I think the best indication of what sea level will be in the future 

is when we have a high tide in its form, when the tide is 2 to 3 

or 4 feet above the predicted, we see where the water goes, and we 

certainly map where those intrusion areas are. We have to do a 

better job, and that is part of the discussion I think we are doing 

here today, which is looking at how we manage the coastlines so 

that they provide the protection they have provided for a long time; 

optimize what we learned in Sandy. There is a comprehensive plan 

that has been developed by the Corps of Engineers for the northeastern States. I think if we expand that out to the southeast, the 

Gulf Coast, and eventually the west coast, that kind of systems 

thinking. 

And one of the things that I think ties into my colleagues here 

is we have—particularly in the eastern seaboard, in the more urbanized area—we have a tremendous stress on our highways for 

congestion and also a tremendous number of 18-wheel tractor trailers that are on roadways. New Jersey has just taken a lot of money 
141 

to separate, on the Jersey Turnpike, truck traffic from pedestrian 

or automobiles for other use, and I think that is a way that is coming to the future. I think we are going to have to look at how the 

waterways of this Nation have to be returned as a means by which 

we get better transportation of goods and services around the 

coastal area, and that means port management, which would 

produce sediment if dredging has to occur to accommodate larger 

ships and more ships and more boats, and sediment should be utilized in all cases for benefit of restoring beaches, restoring wetlands as much as we possibly can. And we have some institutional 

blockades to that which we have to take on, but I am kind of running out of time here. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. I appreciate it. 

With the Chairman’s leave, if I could make one more point to the 

Committee. 

Senator BARRASSO. Yes. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. This isn’t a question that requires an answer. 

One of the things that we have discovered in Rhode Island, as 

we have tried to develop the tools to be able to anticipate what 

storm surge and rising seas present by way of risks to us, is that 

the FEMA mapping of this has been, frankly, outright defective, 

and that as we look at it we find that FEMA is unable to replicate—when it has to go back and do it again—the results that it 

claims are solid. If you can’t go back and replicate a result, it is 

probably not very solid. We see them making premise decisions in 

their mapping that don’t make any sense. We see them operating 

off of facts that are proveably not accurate. 

And the result is that very often we find people put into flood 

zones that aren’t really going to be flood zones, in which case they 

have to buy insurance that may not be necessary. But far worse, 

you find people who are not being told that they are in a flood zone. 

And the discrepancies between what our university and our coastal 

resources center are doing and what the FEMA maps show are 

really considerable, and I hope that at some point some of our more 

coastal folks might join together in taking a hard look at that because a lot of people are going to be really disappointed by being 

let down by defective and erroneous flood mapping. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Senator Whitehouse. 

Senator Ernst. 

Senator ERNST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for our 

panelists for being here today. This really has been a helpful discussion. We have a number of members that come from those 

coastal areas, and it is a great discussion. 

What I want to point out in my question, and I will start with 

you, Mr. McNulty, is that a Federal Government one size fits all 

approach simply doesn’t work. I come from Iowa. I am landlocked. 

I don’t have oceanfront property. And let me dig into why I think 

there needs to be a little bit of difference in the Federal Government. 

One of Iowa’s top infrastructure priorities is flood mitigation. We 

have heard a little bit about flood mitigation here. Our second biggest city in Iowa went through two major flood events, 2008 and 

2016, and to date they have not received any construction funds de-
142 

spite being authorized in the 2014 WRDA bill and again mentioned 

as a priority in the 2016 WRDA bill. 

A few months ago I had a meeting with the head of the Corps, 

and we had a conversation about the process. The Corps and the 

Office of Management and Budget used to budget for flood mitigation projects. I expressed to him that communities like Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and States like Iowa will likely never see Federal assistance from the Corps because they lose out every time to larger 

States that have higher property values and thus higher economic 

benefit. 

I am really interested in improving these metrics so our rural 

communities have a fighting chance at tapping into Corps expertise, because if the only metric the Corps uses to determine the economic benefit of a project is property value, then it is hard for me 

not to conclude that the Corps considers building beaches in front 

of multi-million oceanfront homes to be a higher priority than protecting the people that live in Iowa. 

It was also suggested to me in my meeting with the Corps that 

because Iowans have a pick yourself up by the bootstraps attitude 

and we work very well together in our communities to properly 

mitigate, we move farther down the list of priority, and we are basically being penalized for being proactive. 

So my question for you, Mr. McNulty, is how can we work together to improve or broaden the metrics the Corps uses to give our 

rural communities a fighting chance at Federal funds? 

Mr. MCNULTY. Perhaps my colleague, Mr. Pratt, might be able 

to answer that just a little better than I can when it comes to flood 

mitigation. 

Senator ERNST. OK. I am willing to listen. Thank you. 

Mr. PRATT. Well, certainly, I am coming from one of those States 

that has rich valuable oceanfront properties, and I certainly understand the position you are coming from. I will say this. In my dealings with the Corps, even from the State of Delaware with oceanfront, there is a lack of funding to do even a lot of the work we 

have to do. I mean, it sounds like we do get a lot of money, and 

as my testimony indicated there is a tremendous return on that investment. And I don’t think that the Corps’ metrics right now take 

into account the full range of benefits in any front of flooding, 

whether it is ocean or Gulf Coast or whether it is riverine or it is 

snow pack melting in the Sierras this coming spring. 

I don’t think the metrics are there. I don’t think the Corps has 

the ability to give an informed discussion to anybody as to the full 

range of benefits. There could be recreational benefits. My understanding of the Corps process and what they have been doing in 

Delaware is that they look at not the personal property value, but 

they look at the infrastructure at risk, the density of infrastructure, the utilities, the roads, the waterways, the electrical delivery 

system, and what the overall effect is if that fails during a storm. 

And we have—as the Senator indicated—we have not only still 

water flooding, we also have velocity water, and that was certainly 

the case in Sandy. Had we only had still water rising issues, that 

would have been one thing in New Jersey and New York; it is a 

totally different thing when you have waves 3 foot, 5 feet, 6 feet 
143 

washing through structures, and one structure falls into the next 

to the next to the next. 

So I think the Corps certainly needs a liberalization of its analytics on how the benefits accrue and inform the discussion. I don’t 

know your State’s needs, but I certainly think that that is something that nationwide the Corps’ process of deliberation and how 

they develop the benefit-cost ratio, because that is what they predicate their spending on, is the higher the benefit-cost ratio. And if 

you are at the high tipping end of that, then you are going to get 

some funding; and if you are at the lower tipping rate of that, then 

you are not going to get any funding. And that is what we have 

to uncover, is what goes into that benefit side. 

I have often stated all costs, up to the penny, of all Corps 

projects are calculated right down to the penny. The benefits we 

probably leave 50 to 80 percent of them on the table. I think we 

need better information. 

Senator ERNST. I think so. I think the one size fits all approach 

isn’t working because every community is different. If we see all 

the Federal funding going to areas on the coasts, it is really hard 

for me to go back home and justify why the safety of the people 

in Cedar Rapids is not as important as the safety of people and 

livelihood of people that live on the coasts. So thank you very 

much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much, Senator Ernst. 

Senator Booker. 

Senator BOOKER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank this panel, too. I concur with my colleague and 

friend from Iowa; this is a very valuable discussion, and I really, 

really do appreciate it. 

I have really big concerns about our Nation’s water infrastructure, especially as it affects rural areas in America, as well as some 

of the poor areas. It is the kind of thing that a lot of the natural 

private sector incentives don’t often provide for us being built out, 

and as a result of that you see real challenges for families around 

this country about getting access to clean, safe water. 

So maybe I will start with Michael McNulty. You talked in your 

testimony that we have families in many parts of this country, and 

I believe in West Virginia as well as New Jersey, that lack the 

proper facilities. And according to the Census Bureau, when it 

comes to these water facilities, they say that 500,000 homes around 

the country lack access. Five hundred thousand in America, the 

richest country on Planet Earth, lack access to hot and cold running water or a bathtub or a shower or a working, flushing toilet. 

Now, that, to me, is astonishing data. It includes about 11,000 

homes in New Jersey and portions of rural Alabama that are home 

to low income, predominantly black communities. Less than half of 

the population is connected to a municipal water system. 

Many of these families’ septic systems fail, and they are forced 

to dump sewage behind their homes, which brings up a lot of very 

serious health problems. 

In addition to tainting the water supply in general and harming 

the local environment, this is a leading spread of intestinal 

parasites such as hookworm. A lot of these parasites are really not 
144 

thought to even exist in the United States of America, but still 

exist in a lot of these communities in rural areas. 

So I was a former mayor, and these were issues that I was dealing with all the time, and it can be difficult, very difficult for cashstrapped cities, municipalities, rural and urban, to fund projects 

based off of only loans, which are essentially just low interest debt, 

especially in a lot of these lower income rural areas and urban 

areas that don’t have the kind of high revenue streams or tax base 

that can support the kind of work. 

I believe the answer has to be more grants and grant programs. 

As you know, currently a State can use no more than 30 percent 

of the total amount that it receives from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund on direct grants, and I am wondering would you support removing that 30 percent cap and letting States provide more 

clean water grants to communities with demonstrated financial 

need? 

Mr. MCNULTY. Absolutely. Let’s remove those restrictions. 

Senator BOOKER. And if we were able to remove that restriction, 

can you just give an idea of what impact that would have for these 

struggling rural and urban cash-strapped communities? 

Mr. MCNULTY. You know, in West Virginia, as many folks know, we have a $500 million deficit in our budget coming up, and with 

the decline in the economy, especially with their coal severance tax, 

so communities no longer have the funds to contribute toward 

projects like they once did. By removing that restriction and possibly even lengthening the time that the loan could be paid back, 

communities could do so much more. We wouldn’t have to rely on 

local partners much, where they are cash-strapped. So it just would 

add tremendous benefit across the country. 

Senator BOOKER. So maybe on that point, because I do know that 

for me, when I was mayor and trying to manage things, even lowering the cost of loans really helped us to do a lot of projects. 

But perhaps for you in my last question, Bill Panos, there is a lot of talk about a $1 trillion infrastructure package right now. My 

worry is if that is much more about low interest loans and not 

about direct grants. And the thing that I know, for those of us who 

are concerned about debt and deficits, that we have to understand 

that investments in infrastructure actually create a multiplier effect in economic growth. 

So I just want to know, maybe for the last 20 or so seconds that 

I have, would you just comment on the power of having an infrastructure package that did include direct Federal investments, not 

just loan programs? Is that something that you would say is important to have, a balance in that infrastructure of direct Federal investments, especially in areas that can’t afford even the low interest loans that would need some Federal resources invested in their 

communities? 

Mr. PANOS. Speaking for surface transportation in rural States, 

yes, direct investment does help, especially with States that have, 

rural States like Wyoming, that have low volumes and don’t have 

the kind of revenue generation that other States do. So, yes. 

Senator BOOKER. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Senator Booker. 
145 

Senator BOOZMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you 

and the Ranking Member Senator from Delaware for having this 

very, very important meeting. 

We appreciate you all being here. 

Ms. Bobbitt, as one of Arkansas’s largest industries, agriculture 

is crucial to the State’s economy. Arkansas is home to 44,000 

farms, generating an economic benefit of $20 billion a year and employing one out of every six Arkansans. I believe investing in infrastructure will help create jobs, keep commodity prices low, and help 

us remain competitive on the global stage. 

Can you explain how a reliable and efficient infrastructure system helps industries such as the agricultural industry remain competitive? 

Ms. BOBBITT. Thank you for that question. Excellent question. 

Senator BOOZMAN. We like you unless we are playing you at 

something. 

Ms. BOBBITT. Yes, I agree. 

Senator BOOZMAN. As your neighbor. 

Ms. BOBBITT. You are right. 

Yes. If you think of the United States map and consider it a puzzle, and each piece of the puzzle is a county, and that is 3,069 

pieces in that puzzle, and it connects, and if you take a piece out 

of that puzzle, it is not complete. Well, it is the same thing with 

our roads and our bridges, and we all have to connect because 

while we grow the agriculture products in our States or in our 

rural counties, it has to be delivered to the urban areas. So it is 

very important that we all work as a partnership and make sure 

that we can deliver our foods and our fiber to the urban area. It 

is not rural versus urban; we are in this together. We are one piece 

of the puzzle. 

Senator BOOZMAN. Right. 

Ms. BOBBITT. Thank you. 

Senator BOOZMAN. And the second part was going to be what are 

the repercussions of the fix as it fails strategy that we are using 

now. And as you point out, you can have great roads in Oklahoma 

or great inland waterways or whatever, but if you can’t get there 

or get out of there, it really does all go together. 

Ms. BOBBITT. Again, that is correct. We don’t have blue roads, 

and we don’t have red roads; we have roads and bridges. So it is 

a partnership, and it does need to be. The same trucks that come 

down the interstates and the highways get off on our county roads, 

and we have to get our food and fiber off the rural area and into 

the counties or into the urban areas. 

Senator BOOZMAN. Right, especially as you look to what the futurists tell us that America is going to have to do as far as feeding 

the world 20, 25 years as we go forward. 

Mr. McNulty, according to a recent Michigan State report, water 

prices across the country have risen by about 41 percent since 

2010, which really is an amazing statistic. If this particular trend 

continues, it is estimated that 35.6 percent of American households 

will not be able to afford water services within the next 5 years. 

In your professional opinion, what kind of effect will rising water 

prices have on a rural State such as Arkansas? 
146 

Mr. MCNULTY. It will be hard. It will be hard for the citizens because they will begin to cut back their use of potable water. But 

that will not change the debt service requirements that are on 

those systems. So you are in a Catch–22; folks are thinking, well, 

I will reduce it and save money, and then the water system is like, 

well, I can’t make my debt payment, so we are going to have to 

continue to raise rates. So I think it will be a very challenging time 

for rural water systems. 

Senator BOOZMAN. So tell me about—in the next infrastructure 

bill that we do, do you feel like it is important, then, to address 

affordability? 

Mr. MCNULTY. Absolutely. Affordability has to be one of the primary factors when considering when you are funding a project in 

this country. What can people afford? You know, we talk about 

folks that already have potable water and sanitation, then the folks 

that do not have any at all, no access. So those folks are typically 

going to be in rural America, much lower income. 

Senator BOOZMAN. So we are really kind of in a Catch–22 situation, as you mentioned. Again, the EPA, sometimes rightfully so, 

sometimes very, very aggressively trying to get the last little bit 

out that is so expensive as far as our point sources and things. 

That raises rates, as you make it such that you remedy that. But 

then, as you point out, you are in a situation where people actually 

don’t use as much water, so then that raises rates further. 

Mr. MCNULTY. It certainly can. 

Senator BOOZMAN. Very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Senator Boozman. 

Senator Cardin. 

Senator CARDIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to thank all of our witnesses. To me, this is one of the 

most important subjects we have to deal with as an area where we 

can get Democrats and Republicans working with this Administration to get things done. 

As Senator Carper pointed out in his opening comments, we are 

not proud of the fact that we get a D on infrastructure. When you 

go to any other country, just about, certainly in the industrial 

world, and see the way that they deal with transportation versus 

the way we do, we need to invest more. I think the number is $1.6 

billion the American Society of Civil Engineers said we need in regards to our surface transportation. 

Mr. Chairman, I just really want to underscore the point that 

you made in your opening statement about rural areas versus 

urban areas. In Maryland, I can tell you the Appalachia Highway 

System program now, which has been rolled into the overall surface transportation programs, is absolutely vital for job creation in 

western Maryland. The north-south highway, which is important 

for the people of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, is 

critical to their economic future, and it doesn’t come without a cost. 

There is an initial cost, but you get it back by economic growth. 

So, yes, I–81, which is very important for the Washington County 

part of western Maryland, is a vital link which we are trying to get 

some fast lane grants for, but we need more money. And with Senator Carper on the eastern shore of Maryland, I think he would 
147 

agree with me that a lot of people want to get to our beaches, and 

there is a real issue of safety in getting through the eastern shore 

of Maryland and Virginia and Delaware, and they are expensive to 

do these highway projects, and we need to do it. 

In the urban areas we have our challenges. I live in one of the 

most congested corridors in the country, one of the most congested 

corridors literally in the world, the northeast corridor, and we need 

to invest in ways to deal with this. I want to get Senator Carper 

down here easier than his Amtrak ride every day. We could make 

that a little faster for him if we had modern high speed rail. 

It was interesting. I had my staff go back, and it was Senator 

Moynihan who advocated as a member of this Committee back in 

the 1990s for inclusion of MAGLEV in the highway bill. MAGLEV 

has been here for a long time. Japan has a system that carries 

many thousands of passengers at world record speeds of 361 miles 

per hour, and Japan is now planning another 300 miles of 

MAGLEV route between Tokyo and Osaka to carry 100,000 passengers. 

I mention that because that is what other countries are doing, 

and we are still stuck in technology that is really kind of old. So 

we do need the capacity to modernize our infrastructure system. 

I know that Prime Minister Abe will be here this weekend, and 

he is going to talk to President Trump about partnerships that 

could be done with Japan to advance MAGLEV technology that 

could help our northeast corridor in dealing with some of these 

issues, so there are real opportunities here. 

But let me just take my remaining time with Mr. Pratt to go 

over the water issues. I agree with Senator Boozman, affordability 

is the key issue on our water. Our water infrastructure needs, the 

number I have is about $655 billion over the next 20 years in order 

to modernize our wastewater and clean water supplies. We have 

240,000 water main breaks a year, costing literally billions of dollars in waste. So a more efficient system would help everybody. 

But if you are talking about affordability, then you need support, 

public support to deal with the water infrastructure. If you put it 

all in the rates or you look for public-private partnerships, which 

I am for, but there is going to be a cost to the consumer in the public-private partnership if you can make money off the project. So 

we really need a stronger commitment for the basic programs, the 

revolving funds, et cetera, so that we can modernize our water infrastructure, make it more efficient without an excessive burden on 

the ratepayers who are middle income families who can’t afford it. 

I would like to get your experiences that you have seen. 

Mr. PRATT. Of course, I am coming at this from a perspective of 

a natural resource manager, but certainly it is within the realm of 

what my sphere of exposure is involved in. I think it is an overarching issue that the public is not aware, sometimes, of the risks 

of ignorance that we have put ourselves in, and that is at the Federal and State level. We have ignored problems we have known 

about for a long time, whether it is a coastal hazard, as Senator 

Booker was talking about earlier and others. We have exposure to 

a number of risks, certainly water supply, water distribution, 

transportation systems, the infrastructure that protects those. 
148 

I don’t think we have informed the public well enough. The imperative is not out there to the degree that it should be to get a 

public movement behind that investment, and I think we have to 

tell the story better. My reaction is basically we need to be very 

gut-honest about how impoverished we have been in maintaining 

our infrastructure systems and how much more work we have to 

do in an ever increasing population with demands on limited resources. 

Senator CARDIN. I thank you for that answer. I will point out 

that this Committee will hear a great deal from me on the Chesapeake Bay and what we need to do, and I appreciate Delaware’s 

leadership on that. How we deal with wastewater is very much a 

critical factor in how we deal with the Chesapeake Bay, and dealing with shorelines and the way erosion takes place is very much 

a part of this overall strategy. So I thank you for your answer. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Senator Cardin. 

Senator Sanders. 

Senator SANDERS. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and 

thank you for holding this really important meeting in an increasingly contentious political environment in the Senate and around 

this country. I would hope very much that on this issue there could 

be a coming together to address what almost everybody understands is a national crisis. So thank you very much for holding the 

hearing, and I look forward to working with you. 

Let me just talk about Vermont for a second. Vermont’s roads need an additional investment of $700 million a year to get into a 

state of good repair. Vermont, small State. The only reason 

Vermont is now in 28th place in the Nation for road condition is 

because we had to rebuild after Hurricane Irene, which knocked 

out a lot of our bridges and our roads. So we invested a lot. But 

I would hope we can go forward in rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure not as a result of disasters, but being proactive in it. 

We are the richest country in the history of the world. We used 

to, Mr. Chairman, lead the world in cutting edge infrastructure. 

We were No. 1. That is no longer the case; we are now behind 

many, many other countries. And the result of that is loss of productivity, the result of that is the loss of safety. Too many accidents occur because of a crumbling infrastructure. And the result 

of that is the loss of economic potential in jobs. 

So when we talk about rebuilding our crumbling roads and 

bridges and water systems and wastewater plants, I had the opportunity to be in Flint, Michigan, a year or so ago, and what I saw 

there made me disbelieve that I was living in the United States of 

America. But it is not only the water in Flint, Michigan; we have 

failing water systems all over this country. 

We used to lead the world in terms of our rail. Today we are behind Japan, behind China, behind many, many other countries. 

So, Mr. Chairman, I think that there is bipartisan agreement 

that we have not invested in our infrastructure, and I think there 

is bipartisan understanding that when we invest we create jobs. 

Now, a couple of years ago I brought forth legislation called the 

Rebuild America Act, and I proposed a $1 trillion investment, and 

at that point that was thought, by Republicans and Democrats, to 

be a wild and crazy idea. But I am glad—I think there is an under-
149 

standing that given the depth of the problem, given what the 

American Society of Civil Engineers tells us in terms of a need to 

invest $1.6 trillion above current spending levels, that $1 trillion 

is in fact a reasonable amount of money. 

And when we do this not only do we create a Nation that is more 

productive and safer; we also create up to 15 million jobs, and jobs 

in areas where we need them, and one of the areas certainly in 

rural America has to do with broadband. 

So, Mr. Chairman, I want to put in a plug for broadband as part 

of our infrastructure, with the understanding that any small town 

in Wyoming or a small town in Vermont, you are not going to attract businesses. Kids are not going to be able to do well in school 

unless we have access to high quality broadband. So this is a proposal that makes sense on many levels, and I think there is bipartisan support. 

Where the difference of opinion is going to come, I think, which 

is outside of the jurisdiction of this Committee, is how we fund the 

trillion dollars. I am not sympathetic to giving huge tax breaks to 

Wall Street or the large multinational corporations who invest in 

our infrastructure. That is not the way we should be going, in my 

view. I think interest rates are very low now. I think it is appropriate that in a Nation which is spending $650 billion on the military, yes, that over a 10-year period we can invest $1 trillion in rebuilding our infrastructure, which will pay for itself by job creation 

and increased tax revenue. 

So I would just like to ask, and I apologize for not hearing any 

of your comments, but somebody, maybe the gentleman from Wyoming, about the needs of rural America. Wyoming is different from 

Vermont, but we are both very rural States. 

Where would you like to see infrastructure investment going? 

Mr. PANOS. I can speak for surface transportation in Wyoming 

and say that any proposal that brings forward something that we 

can take advantage of as a rural State is a positive thing. P-3s and 

other kinds of borrowing doesn’t work in Wyoming, doesn’t work in 

rural States, because we simply do not have the revenue generation to be able to support that kind of thing. So any proposals that 

move forward are helpful. 

The second thing I would say is the existing formula system, the 

formulaic system for delivering those dollars, those Federal dollars 

to rural States works; and yes, there could be improvements in 

project delivery, yes, there could be improvements in having flexibility for States, but those systems do work. So enhancing moneys 

to those existing delivery systems would be very positive for rural 

States like Wyoming. 

Senator SANDERS. Thank you, Mr. Panos. Let me ask you this. 

In Vermont, with a few exceptions, and we are expanding it a little 

bit, if you live in a more rural area, and you want to get to work 

in a more urban area—I use those in quotes because our largest 

city is 40,000—the only way to do it is by an automobile. And I 

think we need to build up our rural bus system as well. Do you 

have problems with that in Wyoming? Can people get to work in 

other ways than through an automobile? 

Mr. PANOS. Through our Federal funding programs, we do have 

a transit program through the Department of Transportation that 
150 

connects us, the State government, with our local governments, 

counties and cities, to provide senior transportation, to provide—— 

Senator SANDERS. Just senior. But if I am a worker in an area, 

and I want to get to work other than by automobile, in Vermont 

it is pretty hard to do. Is that the case in Wyoming as well? 

Mr. PANOS. It is hard, but not impossible. We also have private 

sector agreements with some of our largest energy producers that 

also have transportation for their workers to come from cities. So 

we have some of that in Wyoming as well. But it is different than 

needs in some of the other States that are not like Vermont and 

Wyoming. It is different than the needs in New York or some other 

places. 

Senator SANDERS. Absolutely. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Senator Sanders. 

We are going to go to a second round, just a couple of quick questions that we have. 

From a Colorado and Wyoming standpoint, the testimony mentions the need for direct Federal investment in highways. I agree. 

I was chairman of the Transportation Committee in the Wyoming 

State Senate before getting elected to this position. 

Before Congress increases funding, I think it is critical that we 

show the American people we are actually being efficient with the 

current levels of funding, so are you aware, from a Colorado-Wyoming standpoint, of any actions that Congress could take to make 

the projects less costly to ensure that the current spending is efficient as possible? Are there unnecessary burdens and expenses 

that you have to deal with that we could just get more bang for 

the buck? 

I don’t know; Mr. Bhatt, if you would like to start, and then Mr. 

Panos. 

Mr. BHATT. Thank you, Senator, and thank you for your career 

work in this transportation field. I think that I hear this a lot from 

folks, you know, what can the Federal Government do, what can 

State governments do, what can locals do, what can we do better. 

Maybe it would be useful to have a cost-benefit analysis done by 

Congress to come in, and from a non-partisan viewpoint just say 

what are the costs that are imposed by some of these regulations 

or by some of these processes, and what are the benefits, because 

I think that some people view costs and benefits very differently, 

and I think it would be useful to understand where there are necessarily benefits and where there are actual costs that are slowing 

down the system. And then, at the end of that, everybody just says, 

OK, it was bipartisan, so in a bipartisan way we will implement 

it. I think that might be a useful exercise. 

Senator BARRASSO. Mr. Panos. 

Mr. PANOS. Mr. Chairman, I would say that reducing program 

delivery burdens would be helpful for us. I will give you an example. We have a project in the northern part of our city of Sheridan, 

called the North Sheridan Project; it is an interchange project. 

Fourteen years for us to develop the planning, permitting, and program delivery, about 2 years to complete. And this is a safety 

project for our commercial traffic that is moving through that part 
151 

of our State. So anything that we can do to deliver projects quicker, 

that is a good thing. 

Improving States’ flexibility and also improving our flexibility in 

the use of some of our infrastructure. Let me give an example. The 

Senator had talked about broadband, and one of the things that we 

do in Wyoming is we are engaged in a broadband infrastructure 

project, as the Chairman knows, and we use our rights-of-way 

along the sides of our highways to run our broadband lines. That 

single decision has created an accelerated broadband infrastructure 

throughout the State of Wyoming. So that single decision, that single flexibility allowed us to do more things with the existing infrastructure that the Federal Government is funding in our State. 

Senator BARRASSO. And then a final question that follows up 

with what Senator Sanders was talking about about rural States, 

could you talk about how Federal investment in transportation 

projects in rural States also can benefit urban States? 

Mr. PANOS. Yes. There are a couple of things. One is the national 

connectivity benefit. Truck traffic through Wyoming starts in the 

West Coast and goes to Chicago or goes to East Coast cities. This 

is a national benefit. The idea that we invest in those interstate 

highways will help commerce at both ends of the trip. 

The other is, again, as I think we stated in my written testimony, these highways in rural States bring product to market; they 

bring agricultural products, they bring forest products, they bring 

energy products to markets that they need to go to. So there is a 

strong benefit there to urban areas by investing in rural States. 

Finally, in both my opening statement and in my written testimony I mentioned tourism. These roads bring millions of visitors 

to Yellowstone National Park and Mount Rushmore every year. 

These are dollars that are spent in America, tourism dollars that 

are spent in America, and not in Europe or Canada or some other 

place; and the reason is they can get there, and they can home 

safely. And the only way that they can get there, as the Senator 

from Vermont had pointed out, is a highway, is by car. So investing 

in rural States helps urban areas and the Nation in those respects. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Mr. Panos. 

Senator Carper. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you very much. 

I had a special interest in that question and your answer. I 

thank you. I will just scratch that one off my list. 

We have a history in this country of a user pay approach; those 

who use roads, highways, bridges pay for them, directly or indirectly. Is that an approach that we should generally stick with or 

move to something else, Mr. Panos? 

Mr. PANOS. In Wyoming, with our surface transportation—— 

Senator CARPER. Very brief. Very brief. 

Mr. PANOS [continuing]. We have a mix of user fees, registration 

driver’s license fees, and what you had referred to earlier, the tax. 

All of that adds up to only about 30 percent; 50 percent comes from 

the Federal Government, and then the other 20 percent or so comes 

from a variety of different sources. 

Senator CARPER. I didn’t ask you for the mix. I asked is the idea 

of user fee approaches, something we have done forever, is that 

something we should move away from? We can borrow money to 
152 

do all this; we repatriate money from overseas for multinational 

corporations. Should we stick with the user fee? 

Mr. PANOS. I apologize for answering with a mix. Yes, moving toward user fees is helpful. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

I know you are water, but any thoughts on user fees, user pays? 

I realize in some places it is a hardship, especially in very poor 

communities. 

Mr. MCNULTY. Well, Senator, we are certainly doing that now 

through rates, so that is the approach we have across the country. 

You know, it is not just 100 percent grant funded in many cases; 

and even if it is you still have to have user rates to pay for O&M. 

Senator CARPER. OK, thanks. 

Same to you. 

Ms. BOBBITT. Thank you, Senator. Yes, we definitely support 

user fees. In Oklahoma we had gas taxes, as we do on the Federal, 

and in our wisdom in the dirty thirties, they robbed our transportation funds and used it for other things, and now we can’t support 

it. But user fees, people are always willing to support user fees. 

Thank you. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Tony, I know this is not really up in your alley, but any comments before I go to Shailen? 

Mr. PRATT. Well, I do have one thing, if I could. 

Senator CARPER. Very briefly. 

Mr. PRATT. The Highway Maintenance Trust Fund is a good example of a user fee that is not being applied to what it would be 

used for, and that would be something else to keep in mind in this 

discussion. 

Senator CARPER. Thank you. 

Shailen. 

Mr. BHATT. Yes on user fees, and I would say that users are already paying higher taxes in an unintelligent fashion because they 

are sitting in congestion, they are paying more for goods, and so 

the user is—— 

Senator CARPER. Paying for repairs of their personal vehicles. 

Mr. BHATT. Yes. 

Senator CARPER. Another follow up, if I could, for you, Mr. Secretary, Secretary Bhatt. Colorado, one of the fastest growing States 

in the country in terms of population. I am told your population is 

expected to increase by nearly half in the next 25 years. And much 

of the population growth is anticipated to be in the greater Denver 

area, but also the urban centers. What challenges do growing 

urban areas face in Colorado and other places? How are you planning to ensure mobility for a larger population there? 

Mr. BHATT. Thank you, Senator Carper. We have an infrastructure that was designed in the 1950s, built in the 1960s, for a population of 3 million people in Colorado. We are at million people 

now. We are going to 8 million people in the next 20 years, and 

I can’t build my way out of congestion in Denver. 

Senator CARPER. What do you think, contraception? 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BHATT. Possibly. 
153 

Senator CARPER. That would be a unique use of the Transportation Trust Fund. 

Mr. BHATT. Yes, planned transportation is where we need to go. 

But you used the word mobility. I think that whether it is in a car, 

in ride sharing, in transit, in multi-modal, I think that in the 

urban areas. I can’t widen I–25 to the 15 lanes that it needs because we will just never do it. If we don’t have the money, we won’t 

have the environmental clearance. So it is not just about widening 

roadways in our urban areas, but in our rural areas. It is just not 

a one size fits all, as Senator Ernst talked about. 

Senator CARPER. All right, time has expired. 

Mr. Chairman, great hearing. Great panel. Thank you all so 

much. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much, Senator Carper. 

Senator Sanders. 

Senator SANDERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

There are some people who think that we are looking at a looming water crisis in this country in terms of being able to deliver 

clean water to the people of America. Are they right in their concerns? Can somebody comment on the situation of making sure we 

get clean water to people in this country? 

Mr. PRATT. I am the closest person for that. It is not my bailiwick, but I will say that we look at water resources across the Nation. There were some questions earlier today using problems we 

have had around the Nation already, in Madison and other locations, and I think we have an aging infrastructure in the water delivery system, as well. Water pollution from septic systems is polluting our bays. Senator Cardin mentioned about the Chesapeake 

Bay problems. 

And the simple answer, Senator, is yes, we do have a looming 

problem. I think it is something we need to look into and inform 

the public as to what the risks are. I have heard it referred to as 

patching holes with gum and tape as best we can, but we need to 

do a lot better, and it should very much be a part of this discussion. 

Senator SANDERS. Further discussion on water? Anyone want to 

comment on it? 

Sir. 

Mr. BHATT. I would just say in Colorado water is everything, you 

know, where it comes from, how it gets disbursed. So while I do 

transportation for a living, I think that a lot of our growth that we 

talked about, if there is not clean water and water supply in Colorado and the rest of the country, then why are we doing any of 

this? 

Senator SANDERS. Right. 

All right, next question is rail. When we look at infrastructure, 

is it appropriate to look at rebuilding an aging rail system, which 

now, in many ways, lags behind other major countries around the 

world? Am I right on that or wrong on that? 

Yes. 

Mr. BHATT. Sir, prior to serving in my current role, I was the 

Secretary of Transportation in Delaware, served on the Northeast 

Corridor Commission. Senator Carper, a long advocate for rail. I 

think it is ridiculous that in the U.S. we don’t have the rail as an 
154 

option in urban areas where we have the density that is similar to 

that in Japan or other urban networks in Europe. 

The efficiency is there; there is transit-oriented development that 

comes out of it. We have a lot of sprawl caused by a car culture 

that needs to be addressed. Some urban centers are doing it, but 

there are certainly corridors in this country that could benefit, 

whether it is through new technologies like MAGLEV or 

Hyperloop, but rail investment is certainly something that is lagging in this country. 

Senator SANDERS. And in terms of climate change, keeping 

trucks off the road and investing in cargo moving through rail 

would also be of help, would it not? 

Mr. BHATT. I think one of the best commercials I have ever seen 

was one of the freight commercials that said we move a ton of 

freight with a gallon of diesel. I forget. I am butchering that completely. 

Senator CARPER. It is a ton of freight from D.C. to Boston, one 

gallon of diesel fuel. 

Mr. BHATT. I set that up nicely for you, sir. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BHATT. So, yes, from a climate impact statement, it just 

makes a lot of sense. We talk a lot about passenger, both cars and 

moving people around, but freight is an incredibly important part 

of that, and passenger rail can help solve a lot of that problem as 

well. 

Mr. PRATT. If I could just add one thought to that. I worked on 

the Regional Sediment Management Plan for the Delaware Bay 

and Estuary, and in that capacity worked with a colleague from the 

State of New Jersey, a transportation planner, and he and I had 

a lot of private conversations, and he talked about New Jersey 

being a particularly congested State that the highway system is already obsolete. As best as they can try to stay ahead of it in the 

very urbanized corridor of the Route 95 corridor, and we have to 

go back to relying upon a tri-modal transportation surface system, 

which includes obviously rail, waterway, and roads. 

So if we don’t embrace that, if we don’t embrace all three options—and I know a previous secretary of transportation, Anne 

Canby, who was there before Secretary Bhatt, talked about we 

have a lot of chicken going out of Delmarva and empty cars coming 

back, and we have coal comes down and we have chicken cars 

going back, how we can utilize these cars a lot better on rail tracks. 

Senator SANDERS. All right. As somebody who believes we should 

move aggressively to wind and solar and sustainable energies, do 

we have an electric grid capable of supporting the movement to 

sustainable energy? Anyone want to comment on the State of our 

electric grid? Any thoughts on that? No? OK. 

All right, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you very much, Senator Sanders. 

I would mention that Bill Gates, this past year, has his reading 

list, and one of the books that he recommends reading is The Grid. 

He has met in the past with members of some of—— 

Senator SANDERS. I thought you were going to say he was going 

to read my book. 

[Laughter.] 
155 

Senator BARRASSO. I didn’t see your book on his list of the best. 

There was one called String Theory, but I don’t think that was 

your book. No, thank you. Would you like to plug the book shamelessly right now? 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BARRASSO. Well, if there are no further questions, members may submit follow up questions for the record. The hearing 

record will be open for 2 weeks. 

I want to thank all the witnesses today for being here, for your 

time, your testimony. I think it was very helpful. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:18 p.m. the Committee was adjourned.] 

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