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FUTURE FEDERAL ROLE FOR 

SURFACE TRANSPORTATION 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND 

PUBLIC WORKS 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

JUNE 25, 2008 

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

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress.senate 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

BARBARA BOXER, California, Chairman 

MAX BAUCUS, Montana 

JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, New York 

FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, New Jersey 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma 

JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia 

GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

DAVID VITTER, Louisiana 

JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming 

LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, Tennessee 

CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri 

BETTINA POIRIER, Majority Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

ANDREW WHEELER, Minority Staff Director 

(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 2008 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Boxer, Hon. Barbara, U.S. Senator from the State of California ........................ 1 

Inhofe, Hon. James M., U.S. Senator from the State of Oklahoma .................... 3 

Lautenberg, Hon. Frank, U.S. Senator from the State of New Jersey ............... 5 

Isakson, Hon. Johnny, U.S. Senator from the State of Georgia .......................... 6 

Baucus, Hon. Max, U.S. Senator from the State of Montana .............................. 7 

Sanders, Hon. Bernard, U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont ....................... 8 

Barrasso, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from the State of Wyoming .......................... 9 

Cardin, Hon. Benjamin L., U.S. Senator from the State of Maryland ................ 150 

WITNESSES 

Seely, Bruce E., Chair of Social Sciences And Professor of History, Michigan 

Technological University ..................................................................................... 10 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 13 

Responses to additional questions from: 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 28 

SenatorWhitehouse ........................................................................................... 29 

Senator Inhofe .................................................................................................. 30 

Grenzeback, Lance R., Senior Vice President, Cambridge Systematics, Inc. ..... 33 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 36 

Response to an additional question from Senator Carper ............................ 53 

Responses to additional questions from Senator Whitehouse ...................... 55 

Marvaso, Kathleen F., Vice President of Public Affairs, American Automobile 

Association. ........................................................................................................... 57 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 59 

Response to an additional question from Senator Carper ............................ 63 

Responses to additional questions from Senator Whitehouse ...................... 63 

Pisarski, Alan E., Independent Consultant ........................................................... 65 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 67 

Responses to additional questions from: 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 81 

Senator Whitehouse ......................................................................................... 84 

Senator Inhofe .................................................................................................. 86 

Lovaas, Daron, Vehicles Campaign Director, and Smart Growth and Transportation Program Director, Natural Resources Defense Council ................... 90 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 92 

Responses to additional questions from: 

Senator Carper ................................................................................................. 114 

Senator Whitehouse ......................................................................................... 115 

Senator Inhofe .................................................................................................. 116 

Staley, Samuel R., Director, Urban and Land Use Policy, The Reason Foundation ........................................................................................................................ 119 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 121 

Response to an additional question from Senator Carper ............................ 125 

Responses to additional questions from: 

Senator Whitehouse ......................................................................................... 126 

Senator Inhofe .................................................................................................. 127 

Page

IV 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 

Highway Trust Fund Letter ................................................................................... 152 

(1) 

FUTURE FEDERAL ROLE FOR 

SURFACE TRANSPORTATION 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 2008 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS, 

Washington, DC. 

The full committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in room 

406, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Barbara Boxer (chairman of the full committee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Boxer, Inhofe, Barrasso, Baucus, Cardin, 

Isakson, Lautenberg, Sanders, and Whitehouse. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BARBARA BOXER, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Senator BOXER. The meeting will come to order. 

We are very happy to call this meeting to order because the topic 

that we are talking about today is essential for the economic 

growth of our great Country. The hearing is entitled The Future 

Federal Role for Surface Transportation. The current SAFETEALU that is the highway transit and highway safety bill will expire 

on September 30th, 2009. As we prepare for the next authorization, 

it is important for us to examine the role the Federal Government 

has played in the development of our current transportation system, and to look ahead to the role the Federal Government should 

play in the future. 

The upcoming transportation bill should address modern concerns in a post-interState era. Highways and bridges built in the 

1950’s and 1960’s are reaching the end of their expected service life 

and additional funding is needed for major repair or replacement. 

This means we need to make significant investments in the short 

term just to maintain our infrastructure at safe levels, followed by, 

in my view, even larger investments over the next 20 to 30 years 

to completely replace aging infrastructure. 

Not only is our infrastructure aging, but our population is growing and placing greater demands on existing transportation systems. According to the Census Bureau, by the middle of the century, the Nation will have grown to 420 million people from the 

300 million mark hit in 2007. This equates to 11 new Los Angeles 

metropolitan areas and an increase of 50 percent in 50 years. 

The DOT has estimated the cost to our economy from congestion 

alone is $200 billion per year. With freight movement expected to 

nearly double over the next 30 years, congestion will become an 

even larger problem. But it is not too late. Transportation proVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:00 Sep 24, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\_EPW\DOCS\85535.TXT VERN
2 

grams and policies have evolved over time as needs and policy objectives have changed. 

The authorization of the next bill gives us the opportunity to 

take a fresh look at the current program and make the changes 

necessary to ensure the Nation’s transit systems will meet needs 

in the coming years. Given tight financial constraints, determining 

what is truly in the Federal interest is even more important as we 

balance competing interests. 

However, the Federal role is not just to provide funding. There 

is a Federal role in increasing the safety of our Nation’s highways. 

There is also a Federal role in ensuring the efficient movement of 

people and goods which affects our economy and quality of life 

every day. 

Protection of the environment to me is another Federal role. In 

this next bill, we need to more closely examine the linkage between 

transportation and the environment, including air quality, air quality, greenhouse gases and land use. This is the Environment and 

Public Works Committee and we need to successfully address the 

environment and public works issues together. 

These are but a few of the issues that may be raised today. This 

hearing is intended to start the discussion on the key policy issues 

that will frame the future Federal role in surface transportation beyond SAFETEA-LU. 

I want to say a thank you to my ranking member, Senator 

Inhofe, who as you know was chair of this Committee for quite a 

number of years. We don’t see eye to eye on certain things and we 

are very open about it, but when it comes to the infrastructure of 

our Nation, so far we have worked very well together, and I am 

very hopeful we can continue. That also means Senator Baucus, 

Senator Isakson, and Senator Lautenberg, who plays such a key 

role in all these matters. I think the bipartisanship that we can 

bring to this issue will serve our Nation well. 

With that, I will call on Senator Inhofe. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Boxer follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. BARBARA BOXER, U.S. SENATOR

FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

The current highway, transit and highway safety authorization legislation, 

SAFETEA-LU, will expire on September 30, 2009. 

As we prepare for the next authorization, it is important for us to examine the 

role the Federal Government has played in the development of our current transportation system, and to look forward to the role the Federal Government should play 

in the future. 

The upcoming transportation bill should address modern concerns in a post-Interstate era. Highways and bridges built in the 1950s and 60s are reaching the end 

of their expected service life, and additional funding is needed for major repair or 

replacement. 

This means we need to make significant investments in the short term just to 

maintain our infrastructure at safe functioning levels, followed by even larger investments over the next 20 to 30 years to completely replace aging infrastructure. 

Not only is our infrastructure aging, but our population is growing and placing 

greater demands on existing transportation systems. According to the Census Bureau, by the middle of the Century, the Nation will have grown to 420 million people from the 300 million mark hit in 2007. This equates to 11 new Los Angeles metropolitan areas and an increase of 50 percent in 50 years. 

The Department of Transportation has estimated that the cost to our economy 

from traffic congestion alone is as high as $200 billion per year. With freight movement expected to nearly double over the next 30 years, congestion will become an 

even larger problem. 

3 

But, it’s not too late. Transportation programs and policies have evolved over time 

as needs and policy objectives have changed. 

The authorization of the next bill gives us the opportunity to take a fresh look 

at the current program and make the changes necessary to ensure our nation’s 

transportation system will meet needs in the coming years. 

Given tight financial constraints, determining what truly is in the Federal interest is even more important as we balance competing interests. 

However, the Federal role is not just to provide funding. There is a Federal role 

in increasing the safety of our nation’s highways. There is also a Federal role in 

ensuring the efficient movement of people and goods, which affect our economy and 

quality of life every day. 

Protection of the environment is another area in which there is a Federal role. 

In this next bill we need to more closely examine the linkage between transportation and the environment: including air quality, greenhouse gases, and land use. 

This is the Environment and Public Works Committee; we need to successfully 

address the environment and public works issues together. These are but a few of 

the issues that may be raised today. 

This hearing is intended to start the discussion on the key policy issues that will 

frame the future Federal role in surface transportation beyond SAFETEA-LU. I appreciate all the witnesses being here today, and I look forward to your testimony. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA 

Senator INHOFE. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I agree with 

those comments. We have a serious problem here and we are going 

to handle it together. As we begin to focus more on the transportation issues with the expiration of SAFETEA-LU, I think it will 

be increasingly important to evaluate the structure and performance of the highway program. 

One indication of the lack of focus of the program is the enormous number of programs that DOT frequently cites, with 109 programs varied within a large highway and transit program. Of 

course, simply reducing the number of the programs is not going 

to resolve the problem. We have to re-think the fundamental role 

of the Federal Government highway program. The current Federal 

program now tries to be all things to all people. 

Now, 50 years ago-plus when President Eisenhower first conceived the InterState system, he envisioned the system to connect 

the Nation’s, and hence the national defense. The enormous economic benefits provided by the system would not be fully understood for some time. Since then, many new responsibilities were 

added, largely because of the success and popularity of the program. In other words, when we were able to get funding, everyone 

else wants in on the deal and I think we have too many things that 

are in on the deal. 

Many of the activities that were added over the years are very 

meritorious, and my primary question is whether the highway program is the appropriate vehicle, especially given the limited resources that we are facing now that we were not facing back during 

the conception of the program. The new responsibilities were added 

while maintaining essentially the same revenue resources. The result is that there are not sufficient resources to properly address 

the core responsibilities of the program, let alone some of these 

things that have been added on. As we begin the reauthorization 

discussions, I would hope that we would be able to work together 

to redefine the core mission. 

Now, finally I want to point out that yesterday Senator Boxer 

and I, I guess the day before yesterday, along with 65 other SenVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:00 Sep 24, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\_EPW\DOCS\85535.TXT VERN
4 

ators, sent a letter to the Finance Committee and to the leadership 

urging a quick resolution to the looming highway trust fund crisis. 

Due to the high gas prices and the weaker economy, the gas receipts have fallen far below the expectations of SAFETEA. Now, we 

have to address this. 

I know there are a lot of things that we are all uncomfortable 

talking about, even to the extent of adding on the about $8 billion 

shortfall from the expectations of this program Initially, maybe in 

the form of something on the extension of the FHA or someplace, 

I feel comfortable as a conservative going back to 1998 when I complained bitterly when President Clinton at that time took $8 billion 

out of the trust fund and put it into the general fund. At that time, 

I said we were going to regret that we did it. Well, I now regret 

that we did it. I think everyone else does too. 

I think that we could actually get that replaced, and it is my understanding without CBO scoring on this thing. I think we have to 

do it. We are all concerned about our own States, but also about 

the overall program. I know that in my State of Oklahoma there 

are a lot of jobs at risk, along with the fact that we desperately 

need the infrastructure that we had anticipated with the reauthorization of 2005. 

So let’s work together and try to make it happen. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Inhofe follows:] 

STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES M. INHOFE, U.S. SENATOR

FROM THE STATE OKLAHOMA

Thank you Chairman Boxer. I appreciate the opportunity to examine the role of 

the Federal Government in our nation’s transportation system. As this Committee 

begins to focus more on transportation issues with the expiration of SAFETEA approaching, I believe it will be increasingly more important to evaluate the structure 

and the performance of the highway program. 

One indication of the lack of focus of the current program is the enormous number 

of programs—DOT frequently cites 109 separate programs buried within the larger 

highway and transit programs. Of course simply reducing the number of programs 

does not provide focus. We must rethink the fundamental role of the Federal Government in the highway program. The current Federal program now tries to be all 

things to all people. 

When President Eisenhower first conceived the InterState System over 50 years 

ago, he envisioned a system to connect the Nation and enhance national defense. 

The enormous economic benefits provided by the system would not be fully understood for some time. Since then many new responsibilities were added largely because of the success and popularity of the program. It now funds everything from 

building museums to a program designed to get our children to exercise more. 

Many of the activities added over the years are very meritorious. My primary 

question is whether the highway program is the appropriate vehicle—especially 

given the limited resources. 

The new responsibilities were added while maintaining the essentially the same 

revenue sources. The result is that there are not sufficient resources to properly address the core responsibilities of the program, let alone the extra programs we have 

added. 

As we begin SAFETEA reauthorization discussions, my hope is that we will be 

able to work together to re-define the core mission of the Federal highway program. 

We need to determine the fundamental missions of the Federal program and ensure 

that those needs are being met and those aspects of the system are performing well. 

We must be bold in refocusing our limited resources to our nation’s greatest infrastructure needs. 

And finally, I want to point out that yesterday Senator Boxer and I along with 

65 other Senators sent a letter to the Finance Committee and leadership, urging a 

quick resolution to the looming Highway Trust Fund crisis. Due to high gas prices 

and a weaker economy gas tax receipts have been far lower than expected when we 

5 

wrote SAFETEA. As a result, the Highway Trust Fund is going to run out of money 

next year. We need to solve this problem as soon as possible. 

Senator BOXER. Senator, I would ask unanimous consent to place 

in the record this letter that you and I signed, along with many of 

our colleagues from both sides of the aisle, so we have that in the 

record. 

Now, it is a pleasure to call on Senator Lautenberg. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. FRANK R. LAUTENBERG, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY 

Senator LAUTENBERG. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

For almost daily in big cities and small American towns, a gallon 

of gas hits a new record high in price. These high prices are a 

strain on family budgets and force Americans to make choices that 

they should never have to make between filling their stomachs or 

filling their gas tank, or between driving to work or saving some 

gas for a ride with the kids on the weekend. 

But these high prices also spotlight the lack of planning for our 

current transportation demands. If we want to permit life to have 

a semblance of days past, when families could routinely go places 

where and when they chose, we must change the way we travel. 

The Federal Government has to lead the way. 

First, America needs more and better passenger rail service. 

When good rail service is available, people take the trains. As an 

indication of the need for change, May 2008 was the highest month 

for travel on Amtrak in history. Ridership was more than two million passengers, which was up more than 12 percent from May 

2007. Along the northeast corridor, which is critical to New Jersey 

and other populous States, ridership on Amtrak regional train was 

also up more than 12 percent. 

So I am glad that after passage in both the Senate and the 

House, the President will soon have a chance to make a contribution to grow passenger rail in America by signing my Amtrak bill. 

Getting cars off the road and getting people onto trains is more 

convenient, energy efficient, and economical, especially with such 

high gas prices. 

Second, we need to support transit options for our commuters, 

from subways and buses to commuter trains. Just like with Amtrak, more people are riding America’s public transit options than 

ever before. In the first 3 months of this year, ridership on the Nation’s trains, subways, buses and other transit options was up more 

than 3 percent. Just think, in 3 months it was up 3 percent compared with the year before. That is a rapid shift in choices. 

Third, there is no question that we need a lot of repair for our 

highway infrastructure. When our bridges are collapsing, as we 

saw last year in Minnesota, there is no need to debate whether or 

not our bridges and roads are in disrepair. In fact, nearly 25 percent of our Nation’s bridges are deficient. They have to be fixed if 

we are going to rely on them for the future. 

The bottom line is this, to meet demands of tomorrow, we need 

to make major changes in our surface transportation programs 

today. We clearly have to fix what we have and make sure that 

passenger rail and mass transit play major roles in our future. 

6 

Travelers can no longer get to where they need to with just their 

cars. They need better options, and transit and rail are a key part 

of the solution. Madam Chairman, I am pleased that we are having 

this hearing because if we don’t focus now, we are going to be in 

even worse difficulty than we are in the future. 

Thank you. 

Senator BOXER. Senator, thank you. I think the timing is key 

here because the House has already said that by January 1, they 

are going to have the principles of the bill already put out in outline form. I think that means we have a lot of work to do because 

we want to get the principles of this bill done. We are going to be 

leaving fairly early this year. We have a lot of work to do. 

One of the key people who’s going to be a big player in this, and 

that is Senator Isakson. I just want to publicly say what a pleasure 

it is to work with you, Senator, not only on this, but so many other 

issues. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHNNY ISAKSON, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF GEORGIA 

Senator ISAKSON. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I join you and 

Ranking Member Inhofe in full support of the transfer of the $8 billion back from the general fund back to the Highway Trust Fund. 

We all have to recognize that is a temporary fix that does not solve 

a long-time problem that we have in terms of financing surface 

transportation in the future. 

Finding the appropriate role in ensuring a well-performing service transportation system in light of our limited resources and our 

revenue-raising mechanism is crucial to ensure we have a robust 

reauthorization bill. The Federal role, whatever it may be, must be 

able to adapt to an ever-changing demand on our system. 

Finding solutions in my State is critical. The State of Georgia’s 

Transportation Department estimates we are $7 billion short in 

funding current commitments that they have made. In Fiscal Year 

2007 alone, it was estimated alone that maintenance, safety, and 

other transportation improvements were $445 million short. 

On that note, I do believe the current revenue mechanism for 

surface transportation is broken and no longer appropriate for 

funding our Nation’s surface transportation infrastructure. Just 

raising the tax on an already-broken system will not solve the 

problem. 

Madam Chairman, recently our State legislature convened a joint 

study committee to study the Federal role in transportation and 

the State role in transportation. They recommended that USDOT 

turn back the Federal Highway Transit program moneys to the 

States and allow them to collect the money and spend those revenues in coordination with their transportation plan. This is just one 

of the out-of-the-box proposals that we have to consider as we move 

toward this reauthorization. 

I am very grateful for the opportunity to work on this Committee 

and in particular focus on surface transportation, and I thank you 

for the time today. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you so much. 

7 

I was so pleased that Senator Baucus could join us, who is the 

Chair of the Subcommittee on Highways. We are just thrilled to see 

you here, Senator. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MAX BAUCUS, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MONTANA 

Senator BAUCUS. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I assume everyone else has spoken. 

Senator BOXER. Yes. 

Senator BAUCUS. Good. Thank you. 

Thanks for calling this hearing. Let me start by saying our national population is expected to increase by about 150 million over 

the next half-century, and by 2020 freight volumes will have grown 

70 percent over the levels around the end of the 20th century. Further, a recent study estimated that we need to invest $225 billion 

annually across all levels of government for the next 50 years to 

stay globally competitive. 

To meet these needs, I think we need a robust Federal role in 

surface transportation, now as much as ever before. Some people 

look at our current situation and say we need to abandon the Federal role. Even right now, I have a bill that would fix the Highway 

Trust Fund for a while, but is getting blocked in the Senate. 

While we do need to consider all options, I think the most crucial 

thing is we need a program that is national in scope. As with other 

national programs such as our defense, space and farm programs, 

where our shared efforts benefit all Americans, our transportation 

system is inherently a national program. My State of Montana relies on the Federal program. My constituents frequently drive long 

distances along Federal-aid roads across a vast rural State, and at 

nearly 28 cents per gallon for gasoline and 29 cents per gallon for 

diesel, we have one of the highest fuel taxes in the Country, but 

our smaller population makes it impossible to generate sufficient 

tax revenue to cover needs. 

Meanwhile, it is very difficult to afford to tolls roads because we 

have one of the Nation’s lower per capita income taxes. We are 

about 48th or 47th in the Country. As a rural State, we are less 

likely to generate private investment. Simply put, without Federal 

investment, Montana cannot meet the needs. 

It is important to remember that the needs in Montana are not 

just restricted to Montanans. We have fewer than one million residents, but approximately 10 million people travel to Montana annually to see our natural wonders and scenic areas. Also, like other 

nearby rural States, Montana serves as a key bridge State for 

freight movements that rely on seamless roads across State borders. 

Finally, Montana enjoys a positive trade balance, which demonstrates that those not lucky enough to live in Montana need my 

State’s agriculture and mineral products. As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Transportation which is charged with taking the lead 

in writing key parts of this bill, I held a recent hearing on global 

competitiveness because I believe that for our Country to be competitive, we have to have a much, much more robust national 

transportation system than we now have. Clearly, we must think 

8 

way out of the box and not just go down the usual ways of doing 

business. 

Witnesses discussed other countries’ efforts to invest massive 

amounts of money in infrastructure. One point is clear: They understand the significance of infrastructure. I don’t know how many 

here have been to the Shanghai Port, but anybody here on this 

Committee who has been to the Shanghai Port will be blown away 

by what Shanghai is spending on infrastructure, and immediately 

ask yourself, why in the world are we so far behind in America? 

Go to Shanghai. Madam Chairman, if you take our Committee to 

Shanghai, you are going to get a good transportation bill. 

Today’s hearing is another part of that process where we determine just what we need to do for the future. I have worked on several of these bills and I am looking forward to putting together a 

strong, far-sighted bill this time. 

I again thank you very much for this hearing. We have a lot of 

work ahead of us, but the main thing is it is exciting. 

Senator BOXER. It is exciting. 

Senator BAUCUS. We have great possibilities here, great opportunities to do a lot for this Country. We are on the cusp of doing 

something big. 

Senator BOXER. I am so happy that you came by. I know what 

your duties are these days. My goodness, you have 10 things you 

are juggling. We are just so happy you came by. Thank you. 

Let’s see. We will go back and forth. Senator Barrasso, are you 

ready? Or do you want to wait for Senator Sanders? 

Senator BARRASSO. I would be happy to wait for Senator Sanders. 

Senator BOXER. OK. 

Senator Sanders. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BERNARD SANDERS, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF VERMONT 

Senator SANDERS. Thank you. 

Maybe it talks about the way we live our lives here in the Senate. I agree with Senator Baucus that this is really exciting. Now, 

the rest of the world probably would not think transportation infrastructure is exciting, but that is the world we live in, and he is absolutely right. There are enormous opportunities to improve the 

quality of life of the American people, to create millions of goodpaying jobs, to strike a blow against greenhouse gas emissions and 

global warming, to clean up our environment. We can do all these 

things within a transportation bill. 

I was in Shanghai some years ago. My wife and I were coming 

back from the airport, and she is always more observant than I am. 

We were just driving in this bus and I was half asleep when she 

said, ‘‘What was that went by?’’ It was the magnetic levitation train 

that went by. I didn’t see it, of course, but she saw it zooming by. 

It does say something that we have a rail system which is crumbling and China has trains that we don’t even have in this Country. 

It says something. There was an editorial, Madam Chair, in the 

Brattleboro Reformer, a paper in the southern part of the State of 

Vermont, comparing rail transportation from southern Vermont to 

9 

New York City in 1919 compared to today. You know what? We 

have fewer trains, slower trains today than in 1919 from 

Brattleboro, Vermont to New York City. 

Meanwhile, we talk about the need to reverse global warming 

and address pollution, and that is where we are today. It is absolutely insane, and I know Senator Lautenberg is working so hard 

on Amtrak. But we need a revolution in transportation. 

So I think clearly in my State and all over this Country, all you 

have to do is drive down a street in Burlington, Vermont. There are 

potholes all over the place. Cities and towns don’t have the resources to address that. We have a rail system which is crumbling. 

We have all kinds of infrastructure needs. Especially in these difficult economic times, we have the opportunity to put a large number of people to work in good-paying jobs by rebuilding our infrastructure. 

Also, I think it is fortuitous that on this particular Committee 

where we deal with issues like global warming, we are also dealing 

with infrastructure because, Madam Chair, we have the opportunity now to make sure that new transportation modes are addressing the environmental and global warming challenges that we 

face. 

Today, in the United States of America, and I don’t know how 

it is in Montana, but I will tell you in rural Vermont people have 

no option but to use the automobile. I don’t know how it is in Montana. There is virtually no efficient bus systems, so people have to 

use their cars at great expense. It makes no sense to me at all. We 

have to do something about rural transportation in general. 

So as I think Senator Baucus indicated, if you look at what goes 

on in Europe, if you look at what goes on in Scandinavia, Asia, we 

are behind the eight-ball. We have the opportunity in this bill to 

take some giant steps forward. 

Now, obviously, for the great challenges that we face, we don’t 

have enough money. We are going to have to do some hard thinking. I think investing in infrastructure, creating jobs, cleaning up 

the environment, dealing with global warming—this is exciting 

stuff. I look forward for us to engage these issues. 

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. 

Senator BOXER. Senator, thank you so much. 

Senator Barrasso. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN A. BARRASSO, 

U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WYOMING 

Senator BARRASSO. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I do thank 

you for taking the time to hold this hearing today. 

I appreciate the panel for taking your time to join us as we take 

a look at the future Federal role in the highway bill authorization. 

For those of you who are not very familiar with my home State 

of Wyoming, I will describe it in a few words. Wyoming is a rural 

State with small towns and very long roads. It is not uncommon 

for people in Wyoming, as in Montana, to commute 100 miles 

round-trip to work, to school, or just to shop for groceries. 

Wyoming still serves the national interest, and we do that as an 

integral bridge as people State products from the West Coast all 

the way from various ports to a pinch-point in Utah, where they 

10 

then all come onto InterState 80 and then across the Country toward Chicago. I–80 runs across the entire State. It is 401 miles 

long. Sixty percent of the traffic on I–80 is truck traffic, and it is 

truck traffic most of which does not originate or terminate in Wyoming. 

This constant flow of traffic results in significant damage to the 

InterState system, but the current highway formulas don’t recognize that pressure on I–80. It is a national issue and deserves national attention. 

When I was in the State legislature, I served and was Chairman 

of our Transportation Committee. We realized then in Wyoming 

that we could not rely solely on Federal funding to maintain our 

roads. So we dramatically put up State dollars, knowing that Federal highway bill funding was not going to be all things to all people. That was a tough and expensive decision for the people of Wyoming, but I believe that this Committee is going to have additional 

tough decisions as we move forward, such as: What are the Federal 

roles?; What is the local role?; Is congestion a Federal role or a 

local role?; Are there Federal aid programs that are duplicative and 

can be consolidated?; Do we put more money into urban areas or 

do we increase funding for other programs?; How do we pay for the 

new highway bill?; Who is paying for it?; Are motorists paying 

taxes at the pump that fund ferries and rail systems, or are the 

users of the rails and other mass transit modes paying for their infrastructure? 

In Wyoming, we are always proud to serve our Country, whether 

it is in the military or simply getting goods across the Country. 

However, we must also not forget the rural States. Montana and 

Wyoming work closely together as rural States. Both of those 

States serve the national interest, although we are, as I say, few 

people, small towns, long roads. 

So I am looking forward to participating in this. Madam Chairman, thank you again for holding this hearing. I look forward to 

hearing from the witnesses today. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you so much, Senator. 

Now, we are going to start with our experts. I am going to ask 

you to hold to 5 minutes. Just given how much interest there is, 

we want to get to the questions. 

So Dr. Seely, Chair of the Social Sciences and Professor of History, Michigan Technological University. Welcome, sir. 

STATEMENT OF BRUCE E. SEELY, CHAIR OF SOCIAL SCIENCES 

AND PROFESSOR OF HISTORY, MICHIGAN TECHNOLOGICAL 

UNIVERSITY 

Mr. SEELY. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and members of the 

Committee. 

I began my interest in highways as a dissertation project with 

support from the National Science Foundation almost 30 years ago. 

I am glad to hear that there are others who think transportation 

infrastructure is of some interest. There are times when even my 

own children are not sure that this is an exciting topic. 

Listening to you, though, I am struck by the fact that this is not 

the first time these kinds of issues have come up. I could tell you 

11 

of examples when other members sitting in other committee rooms 

in this building talked about very similar issues in the past. What 

I cannot do is tell you where the future is going, and I don’t necessarily have very specific policy recommendations. What I can try 

to do is explain as a historian how we came to be in some of the 

situations that we are in. 

I have periodized in my testimony three periods, and I want to 

in each instance suggest some features of the Federal role that 

emerged. Two hundred years ago, Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the 

Treasury for Thomas Jefferson, was presenting to the Congress a 

plan for roads and canals as a national system that was necessary 

for the Country. The key thing that emerged at that time in Gallatin’s idea was that this was a national system that had to be addressed, not something that could be addressed on a smaller, piecemeal role. 

Over the course of the 19th century, a second key feature, 

though, was that the Federal Government was one of a series of 

actors in this story. Local, State and private, each had their own 

role. The Federal Government’s role tended to be to address those 

problems of national significance that others lacked the resources, 

the capacity, or the expertise to deal with. 

Real innovation began in terms of the Federal role with the push 

for highways at the turn of the 20th century, and a number of very 

important features are connected with that story of building highways. A key emphasis was the need to provide technical expertise 

and knowledge, and was something that only the Federal Government was deemed to be able to address. 

In the course of doing that, especially at the turn of the century, 

there was a special emphasis on efficiency. The idea was very 

strongly held that technical experts, especially engineers, were the 

best people to try to make sure that Federal funds would be spent 

most efficiently and best in terms of the national need. This was 

not easily accepted. Senator Borah in 1919 with some horror addressed the question to the Chief of the Bureau of Public Roads, 

Thomas Macdonald, who would serve from 1919 to 1953 as head 

of the bureau. That is an amazingly long period of time. But Macdonald testified that roads in this Country would never be completed, and that the Federal role would never be done. Senator 

Borah, a conservative, was a bit bothered by this, but that role has 

in fact proven to be true. 

The Federal aid system is also a big part of this story, that it 

has been done cooperatively with the States, but always focused on 

a national network as the key focus of Federal activities. The Federal role changed rather substantially, as in so many aspects of 

American life, during the depression. It was only in 1938, for example, that cities were eligible for Federal aid highway funding. That 

has certainly opened up a major change in the process. 

But the InterState system, funded in 1956, but conceived in the 

1930’s, planned in the 1940’s, funded in 1956, and then built over 

the next 30 years, fundamentally alters many aspects of American 

life. Funding and technical standards remain key aspects of the 

Federal role, but ironically the InterState program also bore the 

seeds of its own problems, because the so-called freeway revolt of 

the 1960’s altered in very substantial ways this idea that we could 

12 

leave experts to take care of the problem of building American 

highways. 

Public hearings, environmental impact statements, beautification 

of highways, attention to aesthetics, a whole range of things 

emerged in the 1960’s as new pieces of the Federal role in highways. 

In the end, we have lost trust in expertise, I fear, with some less 

than positive results for the way that funding has been produced 

for highways in the last few years. The emergence of earmarks, 

demonstration projects and a whole range of things that have displaced expertise as a central, but not the sole factor in deciding 

how to spend for highways is one result. 

The last point I would make is that the entire process by which 

transportation policy has been addressed in this Country has tended since 1912 at least, even earlier, to be modal. We have policy 

on roads, aviation, shipping, canals, buses. We do not have transportation policy. In 1991, the transportation bill that year, ISTEA, 

emphasized intermodal service as the essential dimension. We have 

only begun to try to get there, but unfortunately not only do we 

still think in terms of modes, Congress is structured in terms of 

modes. So this Committee deals with highways, while others deal 

with railroads, with aviation. The result is an inability structurally 

to talk about transportation, as opposed to trying to deal with a 

mode-by-mode analysis. 

Looking forward, I would suggest then issues of intermodal ability, of conception of a national system, and especially one focused 

on the Federal role in terms of expertise would be key issues that 

I would suggest we should be thinking about for the next 50 years. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Seely follows:] 

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Senator BOXER. That was very interesting. 

Now, we would call on Lance Grenzeback, Senior Vice President 

of Cambridge Systematics, Inc. Welcome, sir. 

STATEMENT OF LANCE R. GRENZEBACK, SENIOR VICE 

PRESIDENT, CAMBRIDGE SYSTEMATICS, INC. 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. Thank you. 

Madam Chairman, Senator Inhofe, distinguished Committee 

members, my name is Lance Grenzeback. I am Senior Vice President of Cambridge Systematics. We provide transportation policy, 

planning and management consulting services to Federal, State 

and local transportation agencies and to private sector transportation and investment companies. 

I am pleased to appear before you to discuss the Federal role in 

surface transportation. I will focus my remarks today on freight 

transportation on the Nation’s highway system. I will argue that 

the key Federal role should be to maintain the capacity and the reliability of the highway freight system, reduce major highway bottlenecks to freight movement, authorize new institutional arrangements to improve and operate highway networks, especially at the 

multi-State and corridor levels, and balance the economic risks as 

the freight transportation system adjusts to changes in demand, 

fuel and fuel costs, carbon taxes, and greenhouse gas regulation. 

On the first point, maintaining capacity and reliability, as several of you have mentioned, the economy is forecast to grow at 

about 2 and a half percent per year over the next 30 years. This 

will nearly double the demand for freight transportation. The major 

drivers of this growth will be consumption, production, trade, and 

supply chain practices. 

The U.S. population will grow to about 380 million by 2035, consuming more food, clothing and housing, which will mean more 

freight moved on the highways. The number of people employed in 

manufacturing will likely continue to drop, but industrial production will rise because of automation, generating more products to 

be shipped. Trade is expected to grow faster than the economy as 

a whole, increasing the flow of imports and exports through international gateways such as the ports of L.A. and Long Beach. 

Finally, more businesses are moving toward on-demand supply 

chains, replenishing whatever the customer consumes as soon as it 

is sold and generating even more shipments. Most of the demand 

for freight transportation will center around our major cities and 

their surrounding major regional trade areas, as shown in figure 1 

of the handout, which I believe you have with you. Trucks will 

carry upwards of 80 percent of all domestic freight tonnage. 

Figure 2 on the handout shows the projected growth of freight 

truck trips. The black line indicates the highest growth in highway 

truck strips. The growth is widespread across the Country, including many of the jurisdictions that you represent. 

In studies for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Transportation Research Board, we have calculated that annual spending by 

all levels of government is nearly $50 billion less than needed to 

maintain the condition and performance of the Nation’s highway 

system alone. 

Senator BOXER. Could you say that one more time, sir? 

34 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. Yes, ma’am. We did a study for the 

U.S.Chamber of Commerce and a followup study for the Transportation Research Board. In the studies, we looked at the difference 

between current revenues and the level of expenditures needed to 

maintain the condition and performance of our highway and transit 

systems. For highways alone, the gap is approximately $50 billion 

annually. 

Senator BOXER. Fifty billion dollars. 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. Yes, $50 billion—five-zero. That is correct. 

In this environment, I think it is vitally important that the Federal Government act to maintain the capacity and reliability of the 

highway freight system. If we do not, we will—as many of you have 

mentioned—we will certainly increase the cost of doing business 

and the cost of living for all of us. 

On my second point, reducing delays and highway bottlenecks. 

As more urban areas become saturated with traffic, bottlenecks 

have grown along the freight routes, creating corridors of congestion instead of corridors of commerce. The worst bottlenecks, shown 

in Figure 3, are at the urban InterState interchanges in our metropolitan areas. These bottlenecks affect three critical elements of our 

highway freight system. The metropolitan networks shown in Figure 4, which account for about 40 percent of our large freight truck 

trips. The mega-region networks shown in Figure 5, which account 

for about 30 percent of trips and serve the core of the Nation’s 

warehousing and distribution operations. And then the national 

trade corridors, shown in Figure 6 of the handout, which also account for about 30 percent of trips, and are key to linking our cities, our regions and our gateways. 

Dealing with traffic bottlenecks in urban areas has traditionally 

been the responsibility of State and local governments, not the Federal Government, but we are not reducing these bottlenecks because their costs are often so high that they cannot be tackled by 

a single State or city. We need a new national program that pools 

and focuses Federal, State and private sector resources on reducing 

major highway bottlenecks. We need to focus on these bottlenecks 

soon. Capital improvements take a considerable amount of time to 

implement. In the short term, we need to look more intensively at 

operations. 

My third point deals with authorizing new institutional arrangements. I suggest that Congress take a lead role in defining new institutional arrangements that allow States to coordinate their highway investments and operations at the same scale as the private 

sector businesses. Most major industries and the motor carriers 

and railroads that serve them, operate at a multi-State trade area 

level, but State departments of transportation and their economic 

development agency counterparts do not. We need institutional 

mechanisms that bridge the gap between national and State government, addressing freight transportation at the multi-State level. 

One idea emerging from the I–95 Corridor Coalition’s projects 

and workshops would involve congressional authorization and initial capitalization of a national transportation infrastructure bank 

which could, in turn, establish multi-State or regional infrastructure banks. These would enable groups of States to finance projects 

of regional and national significance. This would facilitate public 

35 

and private investment where it is most needed—in major bottleneck projects that have a long economic life and substantial economic benefit. 

Finally, to my fourth point, balancing economic risk. Increasing 

demand, fuel costs, carbon taxes, and greenhouse gas regulations, 

will trigger changes in supply chains and business location, affecting industry competition, jobs, and economic development across 

the United States. I suggest that Congress work aggressively to coordinate national policies on transportation, energy, greenhouse 

gas regulation, and particularly economic development, with the 

objective of balancing the economic risk between business and carriers, the public and private sectors, and regions and communities, 

so that uncertainty about the future does not lead to continuing 

under-investment in our freight transportation system. 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Grenzeback follows:] 

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Senator BOXER. Thank you so much. 

Now, we are pleased to hear from Kathleen Marvaso, Vice President of Public Affairs, the AAA, American Automobile Association. 

Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF KATHLEEN F. MARVASO, VICE PRESIDENT OF 

PUBLIC AFFAIRS, AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION 

Ms. MARVASO. Good morning. Thank you for the invitation to 

speak with you today. I am Kathleen Marvaso, Vice President of 

Public Affairs for AAA. 

AAA is a federation of motor clubs in the U.S. and Canada serving over 51 million members. Our members are the prime users 

and beneficiaries of the surface transportation system. They are 

commuters and leisure travelers and they use public transit. The 

system plays a vital role in their lives, and of course it underpins 

the economic well being of our Nation. 

As we look to the next funding bill, we think there is an enormous funding challenge, and we have to contemplate asking users, 

who have little appreciation for the importance of the transportation system and who are already highly skeptical of how their 

money is spent, to pay more. This is a time when they are dealing 

with record-high fuel prices in a tough economy. 

AAA’s interest in the transportation system has always been focused on personal safety and mobility. We face serious challenges 

in both regards in terms of the number of crashes, injuries and 

deaths on our roadways and the increasing congestion which disrupts our lives and our economic activity in this Country. 

AAA has traditionally supported a strong Federal role in transportation, especially as it relates to safety. We believe that significantly more investment is needed, and we are willing to consider 

all options that put the public interest first. Safety is an area 

where AAA believes that national leadership is critical and a 

strong Federal role is required, but we do not favor just maintaining the status quo of the program. 

More than 42,000 people die each year on U.S. roads. It is about 

117 a day, about five an hour, and millions more are injured each 

year. Despite the very sincere and committed efforts at the Federal 

and State levels, we are stalled in those efforts to turn that tide. 

We need to adopt new approaches in what we are doing. 

Motor vehicle crashes are a public health threat and they should 

be treated as such. Like other high-profile public health challenges, 

smoking and disease prevention, it is expected that the Federal 

Government has a role in protecting the public health. The same 

is certainly true in traffic safety. 

If the fatality and injury numbers alone are not a strong enough 

argument for the continued Federal leadership of traffic safety, 

consider the economic and quality-of-life impacts. This spring, AAA 

worked with Cambridge Systematics on a first-of-its-kind study of 

the societal costs of crashes, as compared to congestion. This report 

calculates the cost of crashes for the same metropolitan areas covered by the annual urban mobility report that is produced by the 

Texas Transportation Institute. 

While certainly not intended to argue that congestion is not an 

important issue, we found that the societal cost of crashes is a 

58 

staggering $164 billion annually in the urban areas studied, nearly 

two and a half times the $67 billion price tag for congestion. These 

safety costs include medical, emergency and police services, property damage, lost productivity, and quality of life. 

So we certainly believe that is a compelling need for a national 

focus on safety. But here, too, there is a need to re-think the existing approaches. We need increased focus on results and metrics in 

order to properly evaluate current safety programs so we are investing in those projects and programs that are actually having an 

impact. We need to employ new approaches to change behavior, 

which is our greatest challenge. We need to foster more integrated 

approaches to safety to overcome the limitations of the current Federal structure. 

To achieve success, there needs to be increased cooperation and 

joint planning in all levels of government between health, transportation, law enforcement and in some cases, like drunk driving, 

criminal justice system professionals. All of these sectors need to 

work closely to develop new and better ways to address the epidemic loss of life on our highways. It is difficult to imagine what 

the safety atmosphere would look like without Federal leadership, 

guidance and oversight. 

The Federal Government must also continue to play a major role 

in collecting and managing data to measure what is working, 

whether that is in safety, freight mobility, congestion, or other programs. Limited transportation dollars can be applied more effectively throughout the system by increasing the focus on testing and 

evaluation. We need to move toward more performance-based, outcome-driven approaches in what we do. To accomplish this transformation, we need significant improvements in data collection and 

analysis. 

Now, we recognize that the challenges before you are not easy 

and the prospect of completely reforming the Federal transportation program is daunting, but this reexamination is long past due 

and it is imperative to do this if we want the public’s buy-in going 

forward for changes. We are prepared to do our part in educating 

our members and the public of the importance for the transportation investments we need and for program reforms. 

So again I thank you for the opportunity to be here and I look 

forward to answering any questions you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Marvaso follows:] 

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Senator BOXER. Thank you so very much. 

Our next speaker is Alan Pisarski, an independent consultant, 

sir. 

STATEMENT OF ALAN E. PISARSKI, 

INDEPENDENT CONSULTANT 

Mr. PISARSKI. Thank you, Madam Chairman. My name is Alan 

Pisarski and I am honored to be back before you once again. I recall with great pride that I participated in the first Senate hearing 

on ISTEA, and again on TEA–21 and SAFETEA-LU, so it is really 

a responsibility that I take very seriously. 

My focus today will be on taking the long view on the Nation’s 

travel activity trends and demographic future. We face great challenges. We all know the massive energy costs, housing market in 

severe distress, and a poorly performing economy. But taking the 

longer view, perhaps our greatest challenge will be demographic in 

nature. Senator Moynihan often said, demography is destiny. I 

think this is never more true than today. 

The hallmark of SAFETEA-LU demographically was as we 

crossed 300 million, Madam Chairman, as you mentioned. The 

hallmark of this next authorization cycle will be the first of the 

Baby Boomers hitting 65. There are three impacts of that over 

time, serving a new work force, serving an aging population, and 

serving and creating an affluent society. We are going to have to 

address all of those. 

Transportation will have to be a major contributing factor in the 

enhanced productivity that will make a wealthier society possible 

and sustainable. Although certainly facing many economic challenges in an increasingly competitive world, America will continue 

to be a highly affluent society propelled by tremendous technological advantage. 

The major surge of Boomers into the retirement years will 

present key challenges, most importantly including the need to access, to find, skilled workers to serve a growing economy. The critical interactions will be between employers in search of replacements for the retiring Baby Boomers, and amenity-seeking workers 

looking for the best locations for their families. Employers will go 

where the skilled workers are or where they want to be. 

Connecting distant workers with jobs will be a critical productivity function of transportation. As a result, rural populations will 

be even more critical to the Nation’s economic health and massive 

metropolitan regions will result. 

Looking at these trends through the lens of the current energy 

crisis seems to lead to almost opposite conclusions, but I think we 

have to be very careful and maintain our long-term perspective 

here. Just as the great responses to air quality issues of the past 

decades were resolved by vehicle and fuel technologies, I believe 

that what we will see again is where American lifestyle preferences 

will lead and technology will respond. What we will see change is 

the calculus—the arithmetic—of housing and transportation relationships. 

How does the Federal Government function in that environment? 

Research in Europe and Asia shows that increasing travel speeds 

expands the effective labor market size and pays immense diviVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:00 Sep 24, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00069 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\_EPW\DOCS\85535.TXT VERN
66 

dends in productivity. I think it is something we have to recognize. 

The great benefits of productivity have come and will come in the 

future from increased specialization of labor and the technological 

support that it generates. Increases in the specialization of the 

labor force will mean that workers will need to be drawn from larger and larger pools over greater distances. 

The central Federal role must be to assure that local and State 

governments recognize that they have the responsibility to serve 

the needs of interState commerce and international trade as part 

of their metropolitan mobility planning. I foresee conflicts between 

metropolitan mobility arguments and the needs of interState commerce. 

A major contribution can be made to improving the well being of 

the society by reducing congestion—I won’t dwell on that and others have already mentioned it—and our immense national backlog. 

In closing, my proposed goal for you to consider is that transportation’s goal is to reduce the effects of distance as an inhibiting 

force in our society’s ability to realize its economic and social aspirations. We must accept that people travel for rational reasons. 

Trips have economic and social transactions at their end that benefit the trip-maker and the larger society. With a threatened economy, this is not a time to be inhibiting the economic interactions 

of our society. Rather, we should be seeking to stimulate them. 

There were tremendous gains in the last decade among minorities, African Americans particularly, with regard to access to vehicles and access to jobs through that means. Those people on the 

margins of affordability may have lost ground here in recent times. 

We should not be trying to adapt ourselves and our economy to 

high transportation costs. Rather, we should imagine a world 

where low-cost transportation permits us to overcome the time, energy and dollar costs of distance and visualize how that world 

might come to be. That should be our goal and our sense of the 

Federal role in guiding us to that goal. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pisarski follows:] 

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Senator BOXER. Thank you so much. 

Our next witness is Daron Lovaas, Vehicles Campaign Director 

and Smart Growth and Transportation Program Deputy Director of 

the Natural Resources Defense Council. Welcome, sir. 

STATEMENT OF DARON LOVAAS, VEHICLES CAMPAIGN DIRECTOR, AND SMART GROWTH AND TRANSPORTATION PROGRAM DIRECTOR, NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL 

Mr. LOVAAS. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and thank you, 

Ranking Member Inhofe and other members of the Committee for 

having me here today. 

For the past half-century, the Federal role in transportation has 

been substantial in helping shape the Country’s development patterns and transportation options in ways that are beneficial, but 

also costly. It supports a huge asset class. The built environment 

is 35 percent of the U.S. economy and many consumers get their 

piece of the old American dream, specifically a house, a car, a lawn. 

The dark side of the old American dream is that air and water 

pollution problems get worse in many regions due to increasing vehicle miles of travel. Government fiscal resources are stretched to 

cover far-flung infrastructure, and household budgets groan with 

strain as gasoline hits $4 a gallon and consumers face a dearth of 

transportation alternatives in their neighborhoods. 

The next 50 years are likely to be quite different due to at least 

three drivers: a radical demographic shift pushing up demand for 

development alternatives; growing concern over oil security; and 

the urgent need to constrain carbon dioxide pollution. 

First, demographics are destiny. In the decades from 2000 to 

2025, there will be more than 30 million new households added to 

the Country. Nearly 90 percent of them will be child-free and onethird will be single-person. This is a big change from the last 50 

years. The aging of the Boomers will change things, too, as from 

2012 to 2025 the ranks of senior citizens jumps by an eye-popping 

1.5 million a year. Nearly 50 million new homes will be built from 

2000 to 2025, and the different preferences of empty-nesters, nonesters and singles mean that demand is forecast to outstrip supply for attached and small units, with excess supply of large-lot 

units. 

Another change agent is concern over oil addiction. We use 20 

million barrels as day, a quarter of world consumption, yet hold 

only 3 percent of world reserves. Transportation is responsible for 

the lion’s share of consumption and is 96 percent reliant on oil. We 

are in the middle of the largest transfer of wealth in history, 

spending more than $500,000 daily on oil imports. Oil accounts for 

more than half our trade deficit. We must drive down the oil-intensity of our economy and our transportation sector. 

The third driver is the pressing need to cut heat-trapping pollution. Global warming harms species, water resources, public health, 

and coastlines. Unchecked, it would cost the economy trillions of 

dollars a year by the turn of the century. Boosting energy efficiency 

in transportation must be a part of a global warming action plan. 

In short, there needs to be a strong Federal role to help shape 

the future as it helped shape the past, with at least five components. First, strategic investments in system improvements based 

91 

on performance goals, building a bridge to somewhere, rather than 

nowhere. Goals must include cutting pollution, saving oil, providing 

travel choices besides driving, minimizing the overall environmental footprint, repairing existing facilities, making our economy 

more competitive and equitable, and reduced fatalities. 

Second, we need a national strategy for freight traffic. Increasing 

trade means more container ships, more trucking, and more rail 

traffic if there is no national plan for managing growth with an eye 

to efficiency and environmental protection. 

Third, we need a world-class rail system to complement our highway system. A multi-modal system connecting cities would help 

route the coming wave of freight and passenger traffic, easing congestion, saving oil, and cutting pollution. 

Fourth, we need to empower local governments, which is where 

most people and economic activity are located. Sixty-five percent of 

Americans live in metropolitan areas. Metropolitan areas generate 

three-quarters of the Nation’s economic activity and local governments own three-quarters of our roads. But just 5 percent of Federal dollars go directly to localities. That deserves a boost. 

Fifth, we need incentives for local governments to reform development rules. Demographic changes mean there is already pent-up 

demand for development that is walkable, with a smaller environmental footprint than traditional car-dependent suburban sprawl. 

Yet even the idyllic corner store is illegal in most of the Country. 

Almost 80 percent of developers say they would built walkable 

products if allowed. Consumers deserve more choices. 

The trust fund is also suffering from a shortfall and with high 

energy prices the gap will only get wider. Road pricing is proven 

to reduce congestion, provide important revenue for transit 

projects, and cut carbon dioxide emissions. Another tool, pay-asyou-drive insurance, doesn’t provide public revenue, but offers traffic and pollution reduction benefits and would save most consumers 

cash when they need it most, about $500 a year. 

Last, but certainly not least, I commend the Committee for including investments for States, cities and transit in the climate bill 

that was considered just a few weeks ago. The climate bill is a repair kit for our environment and the transportation bill, which actually is also an energy bill deciding the future of transportation 

energy, adds indispensable tools to the kit. 

I look forward to working with the Committee to hone those 

tools, transforming transportation into a low-carbon energy-efficient system more suited to our changing demographics. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lovaas follows:] 

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Senator BOXER. Thank you very much. 

Our last speaker is Dr. Samuel Staley, Director, Urban and Land 

Use Policy at the Reason Foundation. Welcome, sir. 

STATEMENT OF SAMUEL R. STALEY, DIRECTOR, URBAN AND 

LAND USE POLICY, THE REASON FOUNDATION 

Mr. STALEY. Thank you. I am very pleased to have this opportunity to speak to the Committee on this issue. 

What I would like to do in the few minutes is to really emphasize 

three different points, one of which is probably the most important. 

Also I think it is off the radar screen of many not only in the policy 

community, but also in much of the planning community. That is 

the way that mobility and travel patterns have changed so significantly over the last 30 years, which has created a very important 

challenge. 

Very often what I will find is that the debate over the Federal 

role tends to be framed in the historical context of the InterState 

Highway System. However, if we look at the way travel patterns 

have changed and we look at those particularly in urban areas, 

where most of our congestion is, not to dismiss the importance of 

rural areas—and I will get back to that in a few minutes—but 

what we are finding is that travel is much more complex and much 

more dynamic than it has been in the past. 

If we look at the nature of the traffic congestion in particular, as 

well as the kinds of bottlenecks that are emerging that are interfering with our freight system, much of that is wrapped up in the 

dynamics and the complexity of these travel patterns. Notably, in 

most urban areas, 85 percent of the traffic is not interState or 

through-traffic. It is local traffic that is using our Interstates as a 

local connector. More than half of the traffic on our Interstates in 

urban areas in peak times is in fact not work traffic. So the commuting element of our travel has been reduced significantly. 

What this really means for me, as someone who really focuses on 

urban economies and productivity, is that when we are looking at 

issues of traffic circulation, and when we are looking at issues of 

traffic congestion, on the urban level we are really looking at a 

local problem. The local and regional organizations are going to be 

in the best position to address those concerns. So there is an important element of redefining the Federal role to enable State and 

local organizations, as well as regional organizations, to address 

traffic congestion and transportation capacity issues, using as 

many tools as possible. 

I think we also need to make sure that this debate over the future of transportation and the Federal role keeps in mind that 

there will be significant adjustments in behavior, and most of those 

adjustments, particularly by consumers of travel, are going to be to 

maintain mobility. What we know historically, as well as through 

data analysis, is that wealthier nations and, wealthier cultures 

value mobility and they will pay to maintain that mobility. 

Now, in the context of the current case, particularly with gas 

prices going up, what that means is that there are tremendous incentives to adopt and develop new technologies that will enable to 

maintain that mobility while minimizing the actual out-of-pocket 

costs. I will just use us as a quick example. Simply shifting most 

120 

of your miles from a minivan to a Toyota Prius essentially gives 

you a fiscal net-positive cash-flow even in the current environment 

with gas prices. I actually ran the calculations, and personally that 

is what we did in my family. So we are preserving our mobility 

without having to move our house or move our household in a significant way. We need to keep that in mind. 

But tied into that, and keeping in mind that technology, and that 

we will see trends toward less and less use of oil, we are seeing 

the technology come on-board, which is allowing us to move to different types of ways to power that mobility. We need to make sure 

that we are not too keyed into short-term changes in energy markets when we are thinking about long-term changes in travel behavior. 

The final thing is that it is critical that we find and create new 

tools for bringing new resources into the transportation problem. 

At the Reason Foundation, we have talked an awful lot about the 

importance of being able to tap into private capital to finance new 

infrastructure. Certainly, looking at road pricing should be a critical part, we believe, of this Committee’s deliberations and the use 

of public-private partnerships to enable local and State governments and regional entities as well to begin to develop infrastructure in order to meet the travel needs of local regions. 

Now, this is not to dismiss the importance of rural investments. 

In fact, I think that what we will have to do is re-think what the 

Federal role is on a number of different issues. I think we believe 

that rural maintenance of major road infrastructure, particularly 

as it relates to freight corridors, will remain a Federal role and an 

important one as well. 

But probably the most important thing from our view that the 

Federal Government can do is to allow more tools and resources to 

be available for local and State entities to use creative financing to 

meet these transportation and infrastructure capacity needs. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Staley follows:] 

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Senator BOXER. Thank you, sir. 

Well, we are going to go back and forth, 5 minutes each. 

Let me say, Mr. Staley, our family made the Prius change as 

well. It is a big difference when you can take a car and get over 

50 miles per gallon. It is a big difference, and it does help you continue to move and not feel the changes as others are feeling it. My 

hope is that our American car companies will step up to the plate. 

They are starting to do it, and it will change the nature of the debate, I think. So I wanted to mention that. 

Now, I am going to go to you, Mr. Grenzeback, because you said, 

and I want to make sure I got it right, that we are falling short 

$50 billion a year. That is what the Chamber of Commerce said? 

Who did you quote on that? You said we are falling short $50 billion a year. Is that what you said? 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. Yes. We have done two studies. 

Senator BOXER. When you say we? 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. My firm, Cambridge Systematics. We have 

done several studies within the last 4 to 5 years, the first was for 

the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the second was for the Transportation Research Board. We have done similar work for the Federal Highway Administration and AASHTO. All these studies 

looked at the difference between current revenues and the level of 

experience need ed to maintain or improve the Nation’s highway 

and transit systems. 

What you find is that if you look out over the next 10 years, the 

gap between current revenues and what you need to maintain the 

system—— 

Senator BOXER. Just to maintain it? 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. Just to maintain. To maintain the condition of 

pavements and bridges and keep congestion at about the same 

level it is today, and is running in the range of about $50 billion 

per year for highways, and you would add another $8 billion to $10 

billion for transit. 

Senator BOXER. Oh, my goodness. 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. If you want to move to the next level, which 

is to try to improve the performance of the transportation system— 

that is to invest in projects that have a positive economic return 

to the economy—you could double that. 

Senator BOXER. OK. Oh, my goodness. Stop right there. 

I just want to proceed, then I will call on you, Mr. Pisarski. 

This is kind of sticker-shock, so I just want to go through this 

with you and just talk it out. 

You are saying that just to maintain what we have, does that 

mean major fixes to bridges that are falling down, I trust? 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. Yes, I would hope so. 

Senator BOXER. Yes. OK. So to maintain what we have, do the 

infrastructure repairs, and rebuilding of what we have, just for the 

highway piece, we are short $50 billion a year. If we look over at 

the transit side, we are short about another $10 billion a year. 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. In round numbers, yes. 

Senator BOXER. OK. So just for my colleagues to know, and my 

staff will correct me if I am wrong, the last bill we passed was $286 

billion over 6 years. If we adopt just the $50 billion, and ignore the 

131 

transit part for a minute, it gets us to $586 billion of a bill that 

we would need to pass just to maintain what we have. 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. Yes. We have built a very extensive road system, excellent highways. 

Senator BOXER. I am not challenging you. 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. We must maintain that system. 

Senator BOXER. I am not challenging you. I agree with you. I am 

just trying to get it in my head what this Committee is faced with. 

Max called it exciting. He is right. It is exciting and challenging, 

which leads me—and I will get to Mr. Pisarski in a minute to comment on the question—but I think Senator Inhofe and colleagues 

on both sides, you know, when the House, both Don Young and 

Oberstar came out and said they needed a $500 billion bill, I looked 

at my staff and said, well, what are we going to get for that? They 

basically said we are going to be able to do what we are doing, but 

make sure we keep everything up. It is just something we need to 

think about as we go forward. 

Mr. Pisarski, I am going to call on you, but before I do, I hope 

you will answer this. We are all looking at creative ways to be able 

to pay for this. Senator Inhofe and I are going back and forth with 

new ideas and thoughts on how. And I know Senator Baucus is 

going to have a major, major, major role in his committee on all 

of this. 

So could you, Mr. Pisarski, first of all confirm if you agree with this $50 billion number, and it is $60 billion if you go to transit? 

And second, if you have any thoughts of how we could look at the 

funding gap, and what ideas you have for funding. And then I will 

open it up to the rest of the panel to see if you have ideas for funding. But why don’t we start with you? 

Mr. PISARSKI. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Yes, in fact I worked on the Chamber study and the Transportation Research Board study with Lance. I testified a couple of 

weeks ago in the House that our current backlog is about one and 

a half reauthorizations worth of funding. The numbers that Lance 

used are now a year old, and with the increases that we have seen 

in the cost of materials, the numbers will be higher for sure. 

Senator BOXER. Does that include State share? 

Mr. PISARSKI. Yes, ma’am. 

Senator BOXER. OK. That is important. 

Mr. PISARSKI. We are talking about total national capital. 

Senator BOXER. OK. That is good. That is better. 

Mr. PISARSKI. It is total national capital. 

Senator BOXER. That is better. And the State share is about 25 

percent? 

Mr. PISARSKI. It is 25 percent of total amount, but 50 percent of 

capital, roughly 50/50. Susan Binder, who used to do the condition 

performance report, is painfully aware of this work. The new Condition and Performance report that will be coming out in 2006 I 

would assume would update these numbers. 

Senator BOXER. OK. My time has expired, and no one has given 

us the golden answer. But let me just say, I want to take a minute. 

Bettina, would you introduce Susan? I think everyone on both sides 

should know about this exciting new hire we made. So Bettina? 

Susan, stand up. Tell them her background. 

132 

Ms. POIRIER. She worked for the government for over 30 years, 

including DOT and the Maryland Department of Transportation, 

and was the Executive Director of the blue ribbon panel. 

Mr. PISARSKI. Madam Chairman, may I say that USDOT only 

lost about 20 percent of its capability when Susan came over. 

Senator BOXER. We are thrilled that she did do this. We are very 

happy. We think that she has proven she can work with both sides. 

This is good for our Committee. 

Anyway, Senator Inhofe? 

Senator INHOFE. Let me say also, Madam Chairman, that we on 

the Republican side love Susan just as much as you do. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator INHOFE. Let me make one comment. 

Mr. Lovaas, I think you are kind of fighting a trend here. We did 

have, as you well know, 3 weeks ago a climate bill. We know the 

outcome of that. I think trying to insert some of this stuff in a 

transportation bill that is otherwise totally nonpartisan would be 

doing a great disservice to our coming up with some solutions. That 

is just my observation on that. 

Let me clarify, Mr. Grenzeback. When you talk about the figure 

of $50 billion, isn’t that primarily State, county, Federal? That is 

all dollars, and not just Federal? 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. Yes, sir. 

Senator INHOFE. And Federal is essentially about 40 percent of 

that. 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. Yes, spending by all levels of government are 

included in that $50 billion. 

Senator INHOFE. I think it is important to clarify that. It is something that is important for clarification purposes. You know, I am 

going to use my time in trying to come up with something that the 

Chairman and I were talking about just a few minutes ago. Regardless of what happens in the upcoming election, should the majority change, it wouldn’t make any difference at all as to how we 

are going to treat this. I am sure that Senator Isakson, Senator 

Baucus, the Chairman and myself are going to try to resolve this 

problem. We have to make some major changes. 

The young lady sitting behind me, Ruth Van Mark, has been 

with me for over 20 years. We spent 8 years on the House side. I 

have to say to you guys that times have changed. Those were the 

good old days. We always had a surplus in the Highway Trust 

Fund. We sat around there and a lot of people thought we were 

spending too much money on transportation. Frankly, I think we 

were at that time. But times have changed. 

Now, we are faced with a situation where we are going to have 

to do something. What we are talking about up here is maybe 

going back, just something we might be thinking about, and we can 

talk about this later, to the original concept. 

Back when it all started 50 years ago, the amount of money that 

was in the trust fund was really used for expanding and just maintaining surface transportation. That is what it was all about. 

Maybe we need to start segregating in our minds rail, safety, surface, and go back and maybe the amounts that we would have to 

work with would work in surface transportation. 

133 

Now, I mentioned in my opening statement that it appears that 

because of the increase in the price of fuel, and people are driving 

less, and the Highway Trust Fund is not a percentage but a 

centage, which is the problem. It has gone way below expectations, 

to about $8 billion, we are approximating. That happens to be 

about the same amount of money that in 1998 when then-President 

Bill Clinton looked at a $16 billion surplus in the trust fund and 

took $8 billion out of it and put it in the general fund. 

My feeling is, in whatever vehicle is out there we might want to 

be looking at, is to undo what shouldn’t have been done in my opinion, which I stated on the floor in 1998, and bring that back into 

the Highway Trust Fund. In fact, we have CBO and a neutral scoring that should happen. 

Now, what I would like to do in this brief period of time is have 

each one of you, starting over here, kind of comment briefly on the 

idea that we just are thinking about up here that maybe go back 

to the original concept, and then have each of the other programs, 

which are very important—transit and everything else—kind of 

stand on their own. 

What are your thoughts about that? Let’s start with you, Mr. 

Grenzeback. 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. I think that having each system stand on its 

own makes good sense, except that you must treat the national system as an integrated transportation system, so you will want some 

flexibility to move moneys among the various modes to solve capacity and congestion problems. 

I think that Mr. Seely alluded earlier to the fact that in the 

1800’s, we had a consensus that investment in rail was the direction for economic development. In the mid–1900’s, we had a consensus that investment in the highways, especially the InterState 

system, was the foundation for economic development. 

I think we have approached the point today where we are at capacity on almost all of our systems—highway, freight rail and transit rail. We are up against the question, again, as to where we invest strategically for economic development. I would suggest that 

you want to approach investment in our transportation systems 

this from a very broad perspective, looking at what we need to do 

for economic development. 

Senator INHOFE. I think what we are talking about is independent funding sources, because we have to do something. 

Any comments, Mr. Seely? I know my time has expired here. 

Senator BOXER. If I could just jump in here, this is something we 

have been batting back and forth. The notion is that we need to 

get more funding. Let’s face it, we do. So let’s just say—and I am 

throwing this out, it is just a thought—if we decided, for example, 

that rail was important and we needed to make more investments 

in rail, who really benefits from that? Obviously, the people who 

ship goods in and put those containers onto the rail. If you were 

to be able to agree on a fee per container, that would go for rail. 

So what we are trying to talk about here is a way to not try to 

take this dwindling Highway Trust Fund and put every single 

thing that we do into that. It is just not there. So that is the kind 

of thing we are talking about, if that helps. 

Senator INHOFE. That is correct. 

134 

Senator BOXER. Yes, that type of idea. That is not a fee that we 

agree on or anything. That would be an idea, though. What do you 

think of that? 

Mr. SEELY. The point that strikes me is there has always been 

a highway financing crisis. We have moved through a series of 

these. In the 1920’s, with the first effort, the question was how are 

you going to pay for these roads. It was mainly local and State. 

Bonding was used. Convict labor was used. There is a long, long 

roster of ways to fund it. 

The gas tax emerged, and one historian has called it the only 

popular tax in American history. Part of the logic was that people 

were willing to pay a penny or two for gasoline, with the understanding it would lead to improved roads. But when the Highway 

Trust Fund comes along, the innovation is not that we are creating 

the trust fund. It is that we are segregating a variety of funds and 

again connecting them to roads. But the Highway Trust Fund was 

created with an increase in funding because of the increase in the 

size and scale of the system to be funded. 

So now we are in a situation where once again we are looking 

at a mechanism to do this. A whole range of different avenues have 

been out there. I think the crucial thing to avoid is the idea that 

there is a magic bullet out there. Instead, what I think we need 

to look at is the totality, as is being suggested here, of local, State, 

national funding and private opportunities so that you are able to 

do this. 

My only concern, Senator Inhofe, is that if you start thinking 

again of individual forces, you find yourself back in, then, one answer, one piece. But again, the issue of integration is the fundamental challenge. The InterState highway system in advertently 

had a major detrimental impact on the Nation’s rail system. Funding for airports also in the 1950’s again had a detrimental impact. 

No one considered the unintended consequences for other modes of 

transportation. 

Senator INHOFE. I appreciate that. I am not sure I agree with 

you totally. If I could just get one comment from Mr. Pisarski, because I think he is uniquely qualified to address this. 

Mr. PISARSKI. I guess my sense is that over the year the Highway Trust Fund has been a very powerful tool. Over the years, it 

has accrued more and more people who are interested in helping 

to spend that money. It seems to me that it is not a multi-modal 

program simply because we have a source of revenue that everybody spends unless it is a multi-modal source of revenue generation. We have two tools that really work well: the Aviation Trust 

Fund and the Highway Trust Fund. We have a bunch of other 

modes that need Federal help and they have been trying to draw 

on those trust funds. I think we are tapped out in those trust 

funds. The Highway Trust Fund is no where near close to being 

even able to address the highway program, much less the ancillary 

programs and the goals that people have for it. 

Madam Chairman, you asked me before about what we need to 

do. I think the answer is, unfortunately, it is one of those ‘‘all of 

the above things.’’ The thing that upsets me most is I hear people 

arguing about tolling versus tax, private versus public. We need all 

of it. We need private help. It is a small, but a significant part. We 

135 

are going to need bonding, as people have mentioned. We are going 

to need trust fund revenues. We are going to have to look at general revenue. In the Chamber study, we did propose something on 

the order of a container fee for pieces of interState trade coming 

into the Country. 

We are just going to have to open the door to almost every opportunity. 

Senator INHOFE. Yes. Let’s go on. 

Senator BOXER. OK. Thank you, Senator. 

I am going to call on Senator Baucus. Before I do, I want to say 

that we love Ruth as much on our side. 

Senator INHOFE. As we love Susan, is that what you are saying? 

Senator BOXER. Yes. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BOXER. Senator Baucus. 

Senator BAUCUS. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Mr. Pisarski, I appreciate that you recognize many sources of 

revenue. My real question is, how can we keep this a national system? I believe it is national. We just can’t let each city—the 

wealthy cities, the powerful cities—do their thing, the wealthy 

States, the donor States do their thing. It just won’t work. 

So my question is, how do we keep this national in scope so there 

is buy-in nationwide? So we are all as Americans in the same boat 

together here? 

Mr. PISARSKI. Forgive me, Senator, for making a little bit of a 

historical point. When Senator Moynihan was chairing the Committee, I once said to him that even if you abolish Montana, forgive 

me, it is still going to be just as far from Chicago to Seattle. I think 

the point is that we have a national geography that is massive. We 

have a massive society of 300 million people, and we need national 

systems to support that. 

I am very concerned about the donor-donee issue. I am more concerned about the varying levels of growth that we are seeing in the 

Country. I think it is going to make it extremely difficult for you 

to form legislation with that in mind. Part of that, I think, will be 

the necessity to focus, to come down to interState commerce, to 

come down to the fundamentals that the Nation looks to the Congress to support. 

Senator BAUCUS. Senator Moynihan must have had a fixation on 

Montana. 

Mr. PISARSKI. Yes. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BAUCUS. This is a divergence because when Senator 

Moynihan was still in the Senate, I was at a big lunch and he had 

two charts on easels. One chart was, in descending order, the 

amount of dollars spent per State on public education, elementary 

and secondary. And New York was at the top, and it went down 

the list. The other chart was math and science scores of maybe 

sixth-through eighth-graders in the Nation. On that chart, Montana was up there, with North and South Dakota and some of the 

other States. Senator Moynihan said, what possible correlation can 

you draw between these two charts? That is, spending on education 

versus performance. He said, there is no logical conclusion. One 

cannot draw any conclusions from these two charts, except if you 

136 

want your child to have good math and science education, move to 

Montana. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BAUCUS. But I would like to ask Mr. Seely about any 

thoughts you have to keep this national in scope, so that we are 

all working together. 

Mr. SEELY. The thing that I guess strikes me as a historian is 

that the key points about building national systems was consensus 

on the importance of the effort. So in 1916 and 1921, with the initial legislation, there was broad agreement on how essential it was. 

Even within those 5 years, the focus changed from post roads to 

highways. 

Senator BAUCUS. How do we get broad agreement today? 

Mr. SEELY. How do you get broad agreement? The problem was 

too large to be addressed individually. In effect, Senator Moynihan’s comment was really the same as was being addressed 

throughout all of those. It would be wonderful to talk about keeping all the funding in the States with large populations and large 

bases, but unfortunately they would lose the benefits if other 

States that couldn’t afford to do it were left out of the mix. 

The InterState system, though, created the same kind of common 

focus. There was excitement about it. Often, though, ironically it 

comes to a sense of crisis. In the 19-teens and 1920’s, there was 

a recognized sense that if you don’t do something, you have a major 

crisis. 

In 1956, the InterState legislation emerged after eight and a half 

years of battling in Congress over how to fund this system. Indeed, 

the 1956 legislation doesn’t create the InterState. It creates the 

trust fund that allows the construction and funding of the InterState. The system has roots that go back another 15 or more years. 

So it is not unusual to have gaps in this process. What is really 

intriguing is that at some point, ironically, in our American democratic political system, it often takes a crisis before it tips things 

over. 

Senator BAUCUS. That is correct. So how would you define the 

crisis? 

Mr. SEELY. Right now, I think the crisis is the essential necessity 

of this kind of national-scale infrastructure for competing in a global economy. 

Senator BAUCUS. About two or 3 years ago, I was with a group 

of folks at the Business Roundtable talking about how crisis moves 

America, whether it is Pearl Harbor, Sputnik, whatever it was, 

then we move. Otherwise, we tend not to move very far. My view 

is that international competitiveness is the looming crisis. It was 

easy to respond to Sputnik because you can see it up there, and 

we put a man on the moon. But this is a crisis that is like a stealth 

crisis. It is subtle. It is like the frog in the hot pot. It is not boiling, 

and so forth. 

It is so hard to see anyway, and I’m sorry to repeat myself here, 

but in the group I mentioned all that. And one of the CEOs of a 

major railroad popped up and he said, Senator, I have seen Sputnik. It is the Shanghai harbor. I agree with him. I agree with him. 

Once you see that Sputnik, then there is a sense of what we have 

to do as a Country, and get moving here. 

137 

Senator BOXER. OK, Senator, we are going. 

Senator BAUCUS. We are going to Shanghai. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BOXER. Get ready and pack your bags. We will go to 

Shanghai. 

Senator BAUCUS. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. 

Senator BOXER. OK. 

Senator BAUCUS. I have another question that I would like to 

submit for the record. 

Senator BOXER. That would be terrific. OK. 

Senator Isakson. 

Senator ISAKSON. You know, on that point, one of the problems 

we have is the average Georgian says the crisis is $4 gasoline. We 

are talking about a crisis of crumbling infrastructure. One of the 

things we have to do is educate the American public that with a 

coordinated intermodal system that is up to standard, you raise 

economic prosperity. But if it crumbles, your economic prosperity 

goes down, which makes the cost of gasoline and everything else 

even more of an economic problem. I think we have an education 

job to really work on as we go about this. 

Ms. Marvaso, twice in your remarks you used the word mistrust. 

At the end, and I am going to read this for a second, you said, ‘‘If 

we fail to understand the amount of mistrust the public has in our 

ability to deliver recognizable transportation improvements and be 

good stewards of the motorists’ dollars, we will fail in reducing fatalities, fail in cutting commuter times, and fail to grow our economy in a way that keeps us globally competitive.’’ 

Would you elaborate on the mistrust? 

Ms. MARVASO. I would be happy to, Senator. 

You have gotten onto a line of discussion that AAA believes is 

really critical, and that is the public perception. We have done 

some research on this over the years. We have done a number of 

focus groups in the past 5 years. We find this to be just absolutely 

pervasive. It is a deeply held mistrust of the system. 

It is not just the Federal system. It is all levels of government 

who spend their money. So what we have is a populace that doesn’t 

understand that they are paying for their roads when they go to 

the pump. They mistrust deeply what is happening with the money 

that does go into their roads, whether or not it is well spent or not. 

They just don’t perceive it that way. 

I think considering that we have such a very, very serious gap 

in the funding and the need for such significant investment, and 

one way or another it is going to come down to the road users. You 

know, they are going to be paying these fees whether it is in gas 

taxes or road fees or registration fees for vehicles or any other way 

you can look at this. Even if you put a container fee, ultimately it 

is going to be passed along to the consumer. 

You are not going to be able to do this without strong public 

backlash unless there is a greater understanding of the importance 

of this transportation system. We have found, and we have just 

done some focus group research in the last couple of months, and 

we were very surprised to find, as near and dear as safety is to our 

heart, when we talked about safety arguments, we didn’t get a lot 

of resonance with people about understanding and appreciating the 

138 

importance of the system. What really, really resonated was global 

competitiveness. You can really talk about that and get people to 

pay attention to what you are talking about. 

So we think that this is critical. We are doing our part, but we 

are a not-for-profit. We are going to be having to look at other 

stakeholders and partners to do this. Public education is critical. 

We have a monumental task ahead of us and we cannot do it, I 

don’t believe, with a secure commitment for the kind of investment 

we need, one way or another, it is going to take more investment, 

and we can’t do it without bringing the public along. 

Senator ISAKSON. To that end, when you say the word mistrust, 

two words pop into my mind. One is corruption and the other is 

incompetence. Would you rate that mistrust either way? Because 

mistrust is a general, generic term. 

Ms. MARVASO. Yes. I am trying to think about our focus group. 

I am visualizing what they were. Really, honestly, some of it is fair 

and some of it is not fair. I think that the public grabs onto some 

notions, certainly the bridge to nowhere is one, but there are local 

projects that are another. They have the perception that their 

projects go on and on for years, that they are over budget, and that 

they are late, whether they are or not. It is just a deeply held view 

that, whether it is the State Departments of Transportation or the 

Feds or whatever, do not execute this well. They do not do things 

on time and on budget. 

Senator ISAKSON. Well, on that end, Dr. Staley and Mr. Lovaas 

both made comments regarding the importance of local planning. 

You talked about the 80 percent walkable communities. You talked 

about shopping traffic using Interstates. We have had that problem 

in Atlanta. A lot of this incompetence or mistrust I think we cause 

some of it in the laborious mechanism that we force the process to 

go through before in reality a road is built. 

I will give you one example. I ran for office for the first time in 

1976 and was elected on a commitment to get a road widened. This 

is the Johnson’s Ferry-Abernathy in Atlanta, which is irrelevant. 

Thirty years later, they are finally finishing the last EIS study and 

they are acquiring the right-of-way and they are going to start construction next year. That is a gross example of the problem. 

We have to in some way as we protect our air and keep it clean, 

recognize that in urban areas where local traffic is using an InterState, we need to work on ways to make that not happen, yet the 

Clean Air Act sometimes prohibits those improvements from taking 

place because it is a non-attainment area. We had a situation like 

that in Atlanta. We have to do a better job on educating people on 

density. You can have density and have green space at the same 

time. I know you work with Earl Blumenauer a lot, I think, on a 

lot of stuff in urban areas. I know I am going over my time here, 

but part of that mistrust is what the system makes to appear to 

be incompetence, which is in face due diligence in a myriad of disciplines that you have to go through before you put a new project 

in the ground, whether it is a highway or a local road or possibly 

even a rail corridor. 

I apologize for going over. Thank you. 

Senator BOXER. That’s fine. 

Senator Sanders. 

139 

Senator SANDERS. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I was elected Mayor of Burlington in 1981. One thing I learned, 

as someone who inherited a crumbling infrastructure of our city 

streets and water systems, is that the longer you delay, it just 

doesn’t get any cheaper. It just gets more expensive. So one of the 

insanities of this whole thing is that we allow our infrastructure 

to crumble rather than maintaining it, and we just spend zillions 

of dollars more than we should. So this is an issue we have to get 

a handle on. 

I am sorry Senator Inhofe is not here because once again I would 

slightly disagree with his approach in ignoring environmental 

issues. I think given the crisis of greenhouse gas emissions and 

global warming and other environmental problems, I don’t think 

you can ignore them. 

The other point that I would make is what Dr. Seely said. I think 

you have to look at transportation totally as an integrated matter 

because every time you invest in one area, it has an impact on another area. For example, there have been studies out there that if 

we had a good rail system it would mean fewer people having to 

go by car to airports, for example. And it would impact air traffic 

if you can go between major urban cities by rail, for example. 

The issue, Madam Chair, about funding is obviously going to be 

a crucial issue. I think we all agree. No matter how you divide it 

up, we need more money. It will be a big debate about that. I 

would just throw into the hopper my feeling that it is not good 

enough. I think where Ms. Marvaso was coming from, we have to 

explain to consumers. Well, they understand something. You know 

what they understand? They understand that the middle class in 

America is collapsing; that poverty is increasing; but many of them 

are working longer hours for lower wages. 

You can explain all you want to them about why you want to 

raise their taxes, and they don’t feel good about it. And they are 

right. The other thing you can explain to them is that the top onetenth of 1 percent of income earners earn more money than the 

bottom 50 percent. 

So I think we have to take a hard look at how you raise money. 

It is not simply, in my State as in Montana and in Georgia and 

in rural States, people travel long distances to work. Senator 

Isakson has people who make $10 an hour who are traveling 100 

miles to and from their jobs. You can tell them all the good reasons 

why you are going to raise their taxes, but they are not going to 

be too sympathetic. And you know what? They shouldn’t be too 

sympathetic. We have a very unequal distribution of wealth and income in America. Transportation is a national issue. If you can pay 

$12 billion a month for the war in Iraq, we can start putting money 

through our national income into transportation as well. 

I would like to ask Mr. Lovaas just a question. Talk radically, if 

you want. Talk boldly, because I think we need some bold thinking 

about green transportation, if you like. Now, I know the other problem that we have in the Senate, that I learned after a year and 

a half here, is the incredible Balkanization. Next door, they are 

doing something else of importance. We are doing it here, and people are not talking to each other. We don’t talk. We don’t have the 

responsibility for wondering why, as you said, Madam Chair, we 

140 

don’t have plug-in hybrids today which get 150 miles per gallon, 

while GM is giving us the Humvee which gets eight miles per gallon. But that is part of what this debate should be about, and why 

we don’t have rail is, in a sense, in another committee, and aviation is over there. 

Mr. Lovaas, talk both from a cost-effective point of view and an 

integrated environmentally conscious point of view about where 

you think we should be going transportation-wise. 

Mr. LOVAAS. I think we need to carefully consider what the next 

50 years are going to look like. Frankly, in terms of the revenue 

question, I feel we are putting the cart before the horse here. The 

American public before they agree to pay additional levies to fund 

transportation infrastructure want to know what they are buying. 

In the last 50 years, it was buying a world-class interState highway system. The question is, what is next? Maintaining that system makes sense. Dealing with the growing freight problem makes 

sense. And investing in other modes—— 

Senator SANDERS. When you say dealing with the growing freight 

problem, are you talking about rebuilding our rail system, among 

other things? 

Mr. LOVAAS. Building a rail system to complement the highway 

system to connect our cities we believe makes sense. So in terms 

of the environment, as Mr. Pisarski mentioned and I think Mr. 

Staley mentioned as well, we are making leaps in technology with 

our vehicles and our fuels, and that is terrific. And we will fall 

short of our energy goals and our environmental goals unless we 

also address the problem of runaway vehicle miles traveled. 

Senator SANDERS. Given the jurisdiction of this Committee, 

which our Chair has to deal with, what ideas do you have? What 

incentives can we provide in this Committee, given our jurisdiction, 

to enhance energy efficiency, say, in transportation? 

Mr. LOVAAS. Well, basically the Committee needs to lay out a vision for what the transportation system will look like under the 

highway title, which is the jurisdiction of this Committee. That 

should be bound by certain performance goals, including oil savings 

goals and environmental goals, including greenhouse gas emissions. It should work more with local jurisdictions and with metro 

areas to improve transportation choices within those areas. Because what is happening right now is that Americans really don’t 

have as many choices as they would like, especially environmentally beneficial ones. This would make a huge difference out 

there, and it would complement the remarkable progress we are 

making with vehicle technology and cleaner fuels. 

Senator SANDERS. Yes, sir? 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. Senator, in answer to your question, you have 

to separate our transportation and funding of the transportation 

systems from our environmental and energy goals. Right now, we 

are on the wrong side of the curve. We are basically dependent on 

people spending more on gasoline and driving more in order to 

fund the maintenance and upkeep of our highways. I think we 

should begin to look at separating those. 

In the short term, we are going to have to rely on fuel taxes, either indexed or increased. Our fuel taxation program is efficient 

and accepted. But I think in the longer term, we must look at tollVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:00 Sep 24, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00144 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\_EPW\DOCS\85535.TXT VERN
141 

ing to support the improvement and maintenance of roads where 

there is a market and the congestion to support it. 

Senator SANDERS. But the essence of tolling means that somebody, the worker who is using it? 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. But beyond that, we must look to charging 

user fees on vehicle miles of travel, as opposed to taxing just 

fuel—— 

Senator SANDERS. I understand where you are coming from, but 

from my perspective, those are fairly regressive approaches. 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. It would allow you to separate your fuel policy—— 

Senator SANDERS. Yes, but you are going to be adding more expenses and more taxes on low-income working people. 

Mr. LOVAAS. Senator, regardless of what you do to generate revenue, the reality is that the Federal gas tax, we haven’t been able 

to increase it for 15 years, and there are real reasons why. Those 

reasons include the fact that the American public doesn’t buy the 

product line anymore. They have lost faith in it, as the spokesperson from AAA said. We need to give them an alternative vision 

for the next 50 years that makes sense. 

Senator SANDERS. Well, I don’t really agree with that. We have 

provided hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks for the 

wealthiest 1 percent. Most of my constituents do not come to me 

and say that is really a great idea. When you are talking about politics and the power of special interests right here in Washington, 

DC, I would say those hundreds of billions of dollars could do a lot 

more going into building our infrastructure than giving tax breaks 

to millionaires and billionaires. 

Yes? 

Mr. STALEY. Senator, I think it is a really important point that 

you are raising, but I think one of the things that we are missing, 

particularly in the area of tolling, is there is another important aspect to tolling which really speaks to Ms. Marvaso’s point about the 

trust in government. There is a reason why almost half of our lane 

miles have been added through tolling over the last 10 years. There 

is also a reason why we have been able to expand capacity along 

the I–15 in San Diego, as well as the 91 express lanes in Orange 

County that are doing so well. It is because tolling creates transparency in terms of where the revenues are going and the facilities 

that are being built. People can actually see the benefit, and then 

they also have the option. 

What we have seen happen is that although there has been a lot 

of resistance to tolling at the beginning of each of these projects, 

whether they are in Minneapolis or Denver or San Diego or even 

Orange County, once the facilities are built and the tolling is in 

place, the popularity increases significantly because at that point 

is when the benefits become transparent and people are willing to 

pay for facilities when they know that they are going to have that 

benefit. 

So I think that is an element of tolling that needs to be considered because it helps address the question of whether we trust 

whatever organization it is to actually provide these kinds of transportation facilities. 

Senator SANDERS. Thank you. 

142 

Senator BOXER. Yes. Let me say before I call on Senator 

Whitehouse, and I’m looking forward to hearing from him, I just 

want to say, Senator Sanders, there is a way for us to help the 

middle class and the working poor, even if they do have to pay for 

vehicle miles traveled, through the tax code. In other words, I 

would support, for example, because I think you do have to look to 

the people who are using the system to help keep it up. 

Now, there is a way to make a refundable tax credit. They just 

should say how much they pay, and if they fall into a certain income category, we can deal with it. But I am of a belief that we 

are going to have to pay for this. We are going to have to pay for 

it, and I don’t believe it is the general fund. We have a lot of other 

things we need to do with the general fund—education and all the 

things you and I want to do. 

I am just thinking, and I hope you will open your mind to the 

notion, for example, because I now drive a Prius, I use less gas. I 

am paying less taxes. I was smart. I bought a Prius. Terrific. I figured gas would go up and it did. But I am using the highway as 

much as Joe Smith, who is driving an old car because he doesn’t 

have enough money to go buy a Prius. 

Now, it is not fair that I am now paying less into the Highway 

Trust Fund. I feel bad about that. I want to support. I don’t want 

to support the oil companies. I am happy. I am thrilled. I wave 

when I go by the gas. But I want to support the Highway Trust 

Fund. 

So the point is, there ought to be a way to do vehicle miles traveled in a way that I have to pay. Maybe when I register my car, 

if I go 50,000 miles or more, I pay X. If I go less than 10,000, I 

don’t pay anything. And then my friend, Mr. Smith, who now has 

to pay a little more, but is in the working poor, he ought to be able 

to get a refundable credit back to him. 

So I just hope you will keep your mind open to the fact that I 

don’t think we are going to get anywhere if we decide we want to 

spend, say, on the Federal share, $400 billion—I am pulling a number out of the air—and we don’t pay for it. I think it is a non-starter. I think we are going to have to pay for it and figure out a way 

to give back the money to the poor person you are talking about 

who can’t afford it, but the rest of us I think have to pay. 

Let me hear from you back. 

Senator SANDERS. I would just say that I think infrastructure 

and transportation has got to be looked at in the overall context. 

An important part of what we do is an overall government. If we 

can fund $12 billion a month for Iraq, if we can give hundreds 

of—— 

Senator BOXER. But I am not for that. 

Senator SANDERS. I know you’re not. Believe me, I know you’re 

not. And if we can give hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks 

to people who don’t need it, I think we have to take a hard look 

at those issues and say infrastructure is enormously important for 

every single American. 

Senator BOXER. So you think it ought to be paid for out of general tax funds, and not specific—— 

Senator SANDERS. My main concern, coming from a rural 

State—— 

143 

Senator BOXER. Yes. 

Senator SANDERS. I just don’t want to see some guy who through 

no fault of his own travels 100 miles to and from the job, very common in my State. 

Senator BOXER. And in mine. 

Senator SANDERS. OK. And I don’t want to see that person have 

to pay for all of these—— 

Senator BOXER. Yes, but there are other ways to get at it. 

Senator SANDERS. We can discuss those, but that is my concern. 

Senator BOXER. I just want to say that I share your view completely. I come out at a different conclusion, because I don’t think 

you are going to be able to fund everything we want to fund without user fees. I think user fees make sense, but I think we need 

to always take care of the folk that are forced into the situation. 

We have a lot of time to discuss it. 

We will hear from Senator Whitehouse, then Senator Cardin. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Thank you, Madam Chairman. First of all, 

thank you for holding this hearing. This is my first venture into 

the wonderful world of Federal transportation policy, so it is helpful to start with a real foundational hearing like this for me. 

I have some very probably elementary, you will forgive me if they 

are too elementary, foundational questions for the witnesses. It 

strikes me that in government, we are not that great at distinguishing between capital and maintenance. We are not that good 

at distinguishing things between that and the private sector one 

could economically finance, rather than expense; as we look at 

whether to spend to pay for a particular project or function, whether to borrow, whether to deficit finance, whether to toll, which is 

basically privatizing the borrowing. I don’t see, and maybe you can 

explain, where in our policy oversight of this transportation sector, 

we force disciplined decisions in those different categories where we 

calculate what the returns on the investment would be that would 

justify treating it as a capital expenditure, or where are the economic gains. 

I think we are all prepared to generally understand that the investment in the InterState highway system created enormous economic gains for the Country and should probably be treated as a 

capital expenditure. Once we get beyond those sort of broad-brush 

strokes and you get down into, OK, here is a project that is going 

through Vermont, and here is what we are going to have to do 

about it, that it goes through a rigorous process of definition into 

those funding categories, and that there is a principled basis for 

putting things into those different funding categories. 

Could you elaborate on that? Let me know if I am off-base and 

what the structure is out there for making those determinations. 

Do you want to go first? I am sorry, I can’t see any names. 

Mr. PISARSKI. Senator, there is a long history here in government 

about how you deal with capital. Maybe Bruce can opine on that. 

Over the years, we have talked about the fact that when you invest 

in the highway system, you in effect are adding to the Nation’s assets, as opposed to when you are doing operating costs, maybe you 

are just expensing something. 

We in many cases have now asked the States to keep track of 

the total asset value of their system. There is an accounting system 

144 

that permit it. As I recall, Lance maybe remembers, I think it was 

like $1.4 trillion or $1.5 trillion as the total asset value of the national highway system, and that the need to support that system 

and to make sure that next year it is not $1.3 trillion is a very important factor. 

Treating expenditures differently when you are adding to assets 

and when you are not I think is a very important, potentially significant perspective. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. But the Highway Trust Fund doesn’t do 

that now. The Highway Trust Fund is just like a checkbook, money 

in and money out. There is no financing aspect to it. It is not a revolving loan program. It doesn’t have any—— 

Go ahead, yes. 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. Yes, you are correct. We put in place an InterState highway program and are used to funding it, but we have 

lost sight over the time that there was an economic value attached 

to those investments. People are now beginning to ask, what is the 

economic payoff of transportation investments. Interestingly, we 

are seeing that it—— 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. It has to be a pretty disciplined determination, because every single one of us is going to want to say 

that the project in Rhode Island creates massive national economic 

returns, and therefore we should borrow money to build it right 

now in Rhode Island. But making sure that is in fact true, and we 

can all be certain that when Senator Isakson wants to do one in 

Georgia that if the bill comes back, yes, this has great economic 

value, we can each have trust in this. I don’t know where that—— 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. The most innovative work is being done on the 

rail projects, where the States have said we cannot afford to invest 

in the highway capacity, but we would like to invest in rail freight 

capacity. We are beginning to get a discussion between the private 

sector railroads and the States on whether the States should make 

a public investment in the rail system. The debate is asking the 

questions, what is the proper share, what is the economic payoff, 

how do we divide that economic payoff between the public and the 

private sector, and how do we use that information to allocate roles 

and responsibilities in financing. 

We are beginning to see a little bit—— 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. But it is a pretty anecdotal and political 

process, right? 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. No, there are States that are doing a fairly rigorous analysis of the economic benefits of transportation investments. I would not say that it is at the level of standardization 

that you would like to put in legislation and move completely 

across the national highway program, but it is getting there. I 

think the highway agencies and the railroads are beginning to look 

at economic benefits because at core they are trying to justify why 

you should spend public dollars on transportation program as opposed to other public programs. Economic benefit analysis is creeping back into the system, and I think it would be well worth encouraging. 

Senator WHITEHOUSE. Madam Chair, my time has expired. I see 

a lot of fingers and head nodding. I would just encourage anybody 

who wishes to fill in to please just, with a response to the record, 

145 

get in touch with my office, because I don’t want to take more time 

since my time has expired. But I am interested in this question of 

how we draw the line between what is an expensed item and what 

is an appropriate investment, and how you discipline that selection, 

and to what extent the existing regulatory and funding infrastructure presently accomplishes that function. If that could be a question for the record for anybody who wishes to respond to it. 

Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Senator BOXER. It is kind of like when we did the global warming 

bill. How do you know what offset really is truly an offset and is 

going to result in a diminution. We came up with a plan to have 

some sort of a seal of approval that we felt could accomplish that 

by people who know. But it is an interesting idea, and I think it 

is one we need to pursue. 

Senator Cardin. 

Senator CARDIN. Madam Chair, thank you very much, and thank 

you for holding this hearing. I think it is an extremely important 

subject. 

I think the dilemma we face is that transportation infrastructure 

is more than just moving people and freight. You have talked today 

about safety issues, environmental issues, and smart growth—all 

that has a much stronger impact than just moving people and 

freight. 

The Chairman knows of my interest in public transportation. I 

was reminded just how important that was this week when I left 

the Capitol about 4:30 in the afternoon to get around four miles 

north of here. An hour and a half later, I arrived. 

Senator BOXER. Four miles? 

Senator CARDIN. Yes. We invite you to visit Montgomery County 

any afternoon leaving from downtown Washington, and you will 

know what I am talking about. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator CARDIN. Madam Chair, I could use your help in moving 

a bill we have here to modernize the WMATA system that seems 

to be held up by one Senator. I will just make one last plug on 

that. When at peak hours, it is the Federal employees who are trying to use that mass transit system, and we had a strong vote in 

the Committee, and it is now on the Amtrak bill. We hope that it 

will stay on the Amtrak bill and be signed into law, increasing the 

Federal Government’s partnership. 

My point is this, historically we have looked at funding transportation through transportation revenues. We have fought to keep 

those transportation revenues for transportation infrastructure. 

But I think we have to look beyond that now. I think about the 

transit systems and the concept of fare box policies. We have one 

in Maryland that I don’t think makes a lot of sense, quite frankly. 

We are trying to encourage people out of their passenger vehicles. 

There is a strong public reason to do that, and fare box policies 

don’t always make sense. 

It seems to me, knowing the contribution that transportation infrastructure makes to other issues, there should be a greater understanding of the need to supplement the transportation revenues 

from other sources, broader sources. You did that on the global climate change bill, which made sense. We had a serious national 

146 

issue, an international issue, to deal with greenhouse gases, and 

therefore we looked at ways of financing what we needed to do in 

a broader sense than just a narrow funding source. Quite frankly, 

I think the transportation revenues are becoming a narrow funding 

source. 

If we are going to have the infrastructure we need for the multiple purposes that this hearing has been focused on, then we are 

going to have to look at a broader way of how we meet those goals. 

I don’t have the answer, but I do think we have to break the traditional thought here. I would welcome any comments. I have 2 

minutes left on my time, so if any of you want to take the time, 

fine, to respond on this issue. I hope you support me on this. 

Senator BOXER. 

[Remarks off microphone.] 

Mr. LOVAAS. Right. I just want to use this opportunity to say 

that we are actually looking at some alternative funding sources 

like the road pricing, which we discussed; like the potential for a 

VMT fee, that kind of thing, along with the potential to achieve 

land use changes through providing incentives, and to use the revenue generated by these new funding sources to build transportation alternatives which will remedy some of the equity questions 

that Senator Sanders was raising earlier. 

We are actually doing this study over the next year with the 

American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the American Public Transportation Association, ITS America, Cambridge Systematics, the Urban Land Institute, among others. We look forward to unveiling it around the time of the next 

Transportation Research Board conference, where we hope to inform the debate about what is possible. 

But it can’t just be about the revenue source. Again, that is putting the cart before the horse. The American public wants to know 

what they are buying. 

Senator CARDIN. Absolutely. And transportation infrastructure is 

popular. If the people of this Nation know that the revenue source, 

the funds, are being used to improve the transportation infrastructure of this Country, they are going to support us. It can be broader than just a narrow user fee. 

Mr. LOVAAS. I think that is absolutely right. A multi-modal program that is national in scope and that has clear performance goals 

in terms of transportation, economic competitiveness, energy and 

the environment, I think that will sell well with the American people. 

Mr. PISARSKI. Senator, if I might add, to go back in history, the 

early transit programs at the Federal level were general revenue 

funds when HUD was the organization that managed it. There is 

no reason not to be looking at that again in more extensive ways 

because of the services that transit provides and its reach. I think 

the other programs need to be open to that as well. 

If you look at the Canadian system, for instance, they have a 

very different approach to funding, and they produce some very 

nice systems. 

Senator CARDIN. Well, I agree. I think, Madam Chair, you are 

going to see the struggle next year on trying to pass a surface 

transportation reauthorization program with the size of the pie creVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:00 Sep 24, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00150 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\_EPW\DOCS\85535.TXT VERN
147 

ated by the dedicated revenues. It is going to make it impossible 

for us to achieve our goals, so we are going to have to look beyond. 

Senator BOXER. No question. But I just have to say that in a perfect world, if all of a sudden we were forming the government and 

we didn’t have anything else on our mind. We had no deficits. We 

had no debt. And we sat down and said, what are the important 

things we have to do? Right up there, highways, transit, freight 

rail moving. 

Now, the problem is we have got that right up there. We have 

to deal with it, and we have deficits, we have debt. So I just think 

you are absolutely right. Look, in another circumstance, I would be 

saying this is a basic function of government and just that’s it. But 

I cannot sit here and do that in a situation where we are facing 

these debts and deficits. 

So we have a Highway Trust Fund and it has gone down. We 

have people like me who own Prius’s who are paying less into it, 

which isn’t fair, which leads you to vehicle miles traveled as one 

way to help. You have the Bernie Sanders problem, which is a 

problem of people who really are living on the edge. We don’t want 

them to be hurt, so we have to figure out a way that if we do these 

user fees, you know, somehow they are compensated for it. 

We have a lot of issues here. But I would just make a prediction. 

I don’t see us, unless there is a change in the economy and all of 

a sudden we are in a great prosperity, and all of a sudden revenues 

are floating in to the government, and all of a sudden the Iraq war 

is over. It’s not going to be over all of a sudden. It is going to take 

us months, even at the best of circumstances. 

So we are going to have to figure out how to pay for everything 

we want to do. I feel we can do it. Now, what I am struck by is 

none of you wants to really, except for Mr. Lovaas—congratulations 

on your courage—none of you really wants to put anything out 

there, which is a little troubling to me because we need to hear— 

well, I heard toll roads, but that really doesn’t reach to the bigger 

question. That is just a little regional solution to a congestion problem. I don’t love them. I can live with them. It’s OK if people want 

them. It’s OK. I don’t look at it as an answer. 

I think what we need to look at is who is using these roads. Who 

is making a lot of money using these roads? There are a lot of big 

business that uses very heavy trucks. There are a lot of ships that 

are coming into port making our air filthy. That is part of our 

transportation system. And all those goods come off of those ships 

and they go on trucks, and they go through the place I live in California, and people have asthma real bad. 

So these people are using our system. In a situation where the 

gas tax is just declining with not that much end in sight, and let’s 

just say wonderful things happen and we have a plug-in hybrid, 

and let’s just say—this would be my dream—because this is the 

Environment and Public Works Committee, maybe let’s just say 

there is a breakthrough and now everybody goes and buys plug-in 

hybrids. Wow. Let’s just say that. Gas tax. I want to say that. That 

is going to happen over time. 

So we really have to grapple with this question. We are going to 

have to have the courage to do it, and we are going to have to look 

to all of you as the experts here not to pound on us, because I just 

148 

don’t think saying it is going to be a general purpose of government 

now, because even if you could make the argument that it should 

be—and I could make that argument as a good Democrat—we can’t 

do it because of all the competing needs that we have and our deficits and our problems. 

So we got a lot of great testimony today, which I so appreciate, 

but the thing is, and I guess I will close with one question to Ms. 

Marvaso, which is distrust. We have a problem. You talked about 

the 42,000 people in the U.S. who die each year in motor vehicle 

crashes, and millions more are injured. You say the status quo in 

safety is not acceptable. What can we do here to help with that, 

in this Committee? 

Ms. MARVASO. Well, it definitely is going to take, and we certainly have to do things differently. We need to look at the current 

program. We need to make it more—— 

Senator BOXER. What does that mean? You are talking generalities. What do we need to do to cut back on these deaths and injuries? Give me specifics. 

Ms. MARVASO. We need a greater investment, to be sure, and I 

will say—— 

Senator BOXER. In? 

Ms. MARVASO. In safety. We are pleased to see—— 

Senator BOXER. And on the road, what does that mean? 

Ms. MARVASO. I’m sorry? 

Senator BOXER. On the roads, what does that mean to you, a 

greater investment in safety? 

Ms. MARVASO. I think a greater investment in the programs and 

the grant programs that we have. 

Senator BOXER. To do what? I am just driving you to find out 

what you mean. Grant programs that do what to make our roads 

safer? What makes our roads safer? 

Ms. MARVASO. Well, we have made wonderful strides, I think, in 

improving the roads. We certainly have made strides in improving 

the vehicle. We have a huge challenge when it comes to changing 

behavior, to getting people to wear seat belts and to stem the tide 

of drunk driving. It takes different approaches. We are not doing 

things currently that are making a very significant difference. 

Senator BOXER. You are talking about roads that are not safe. 

Ms. MARVASO. Yes. 

Senator BOXER. What about speed limits? What does AAA think 

about speed limits? 

Ms. MARVASO. Well, we certainly do acknowledge the fact that I 

believe 25 percent of all crashes are attributable to speed, so we 

do believe that speed is a serious issue. 

Senator BOXER. Do you think we should lower the speed limit? 

Ms. MARVASO. Changing behavior is really a serious issue. We 

have speed limits now that people exceed by 20 miles an hour. So 

it is behavior. How do you get to some of these people who are 

going to violate the law no matter what? That is I think where we 

are really missing it, and we have to look at new approaches. We 

need to meld the approaches that we have been doing for many, 

many years. NHTSA has good work. Federal Highway has good 

work. But we have to bring in some new approaches. 

149 

Senator BOXER. Do you think railroad crossings are dangerous, 

where we have these railroad crossings across the highway? 

Ms. MARVASO. Certainly. We have made progress there. 

Senator BOXER. I don’t know about your State, but in my State 

the railroad crossings are just—it’s a terrible thing and very, very 

dangerous. The amount of money to cure that problem is just beyond. It is just billions. 

I will let you close. 

Senator ISAKSON. You could tell I had a question on my face. 

Mr. Pisarski, in the end of your last answer, you referred to the 

creative system in Canada. I took it to be a kind of creative system 

of raising revenue to build roads. Was that right? 

Mr. PISARSKI. No, sir. We were just talking about transit programs. In Canada, the transit programs are almost entirely a function of local governments and provincial government. The national 

system stays pretty much out of it. I think it is on the order of $20 

million a year, or something like that, that they put into it for special support programs. They have managed somehow to develop 

some very effective transit systems, certainly among the best in 

North America. 

Senator ISAKSON. You are talking about bus and rail? 

Mr. PISARSKI. Particularly rail in Canada. What they have done 

over time is as capacity needs have risen, they have moved up the 

chain from certain limited buses to extensive buses to rail. They 

have moved that way and I think they have done a very, very effective job. 

Senator ISAKSON. So Canada transit is pretty much provincially 

run and locally run, without a Federal contribution or Federal 

oversight? 

Mr. PISARSKI. I don’t know about the Federal oversight. I am 

sure there is Federal concern and focus. My sense has always been 

that when the Feds get out of spending money, it doesn’t mean 

they should get out of the subject. They need to have oversight. 

They need to look and see what is happening independent of 

whether there is a financial program or not. 

Senator ISAKSON. It is interesting you said that because in my 

opening remarks I quoted the Georgia General Assembly had a 

House-Senate Study Committee whose end recommendation was 

for Federal DOT to turn over the Federal gas tax money to the 

State and let the State run the system. It sounds like you are saying that is what Canada does. 

Mr. PISARSKI. In many respects, it does. In other countries, it 

varies. It is more centralized or less centralized. 

Senator ISAKSON. OK. Thank you. 

Yes? 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. Except, Senator, I would point out that the Canadians have a very different approach to land use planning. They 

can very tightly coordinate their transit investments with land use 

planning so that people—— 

Senator ISAKSON. Tell me what that means. 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. The government controls the land use much 

more than we do. 

Senator ISAKSON. The local government? 

150 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. Yes, the provincial government and the city 

governments do. It is much less diffuse than our system. When the 

provincial government invests in transit, they can also make sure 

that you don’t get sprawl around it, that development is very tightly concentrated, so that you get the travel and economic benefits 

of that investment. 

Senator ISAKSON. So you have provincial zoning basically, land 

use planning? 

Mr. GRENZEBACK. Yes. It is quite a different land use control system than we have in the United States. 

Senator ISAKSON. It’s interesting. Well, my only point, I recognize 

if you were to do that, you still have a tremendous Federal role in 

coordinating transportation, and I think one of the more intelligent 

things that came out of this in the early comments was the fact 

that we have surface transportation in some international waters, 

and this Committee and the Commerce Committee has aviation. 

You know, we have a diffuse oversight in the Senate when it probably ought to be centralized—but that is a political issue for another day—because they are so interrelated. 

In Georgia, we have the ports of Savannah and Brunswick. We 

have the InterState system that feeds them, and then Hartsfield 

International Airport does the air freight. Every time we have a 

lack of coordination there, we have a runaway expense somewhere 

else. 

Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

Senator BOXER. Thank you. 

Thank you all so very much for your help. This is going to be a 

long journey, and we hope you will stay with us until we get it 

right. Thank you very much. 

We stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:05 p.m. the committee was adjourned.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, U.S. SENATOR

FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND

Madame Chairman thank you for holding this hearing today. 

There is a Federal role in our Nation’s surface transportation system. This role 

is not limited to investments in roads and bridges, but should also include public 

transportation within and between cities. The safe, rapid, and efficient movement 

of people and goods across our country is made possible by our interstate highway 

and passenger and freight rail systems—for which the Federal Government has a 

necessary and important role. 

When considering the Federal role in surface transportation, we must broaden our 

thinking well beyond the purview of our Committee’s jurisdiction. We need a holistic 

approach to transportation policy which extends our focus from maintenance and 

construction of highways and bridges to the role of public transit in our transportation policy. We must also include in this discussion the impact our transportation 

has on the environment and the implications our changing environment will have 

on our transportation system. 

We cannot afford to focus exclusively on infrastructure without considering the 

Federal role in moving commuters out of their cars. In Maryland, between 1998 and 

2006, vehicle miles traveled increased by 16.9 percent to 56.6 billion miles. While 

most Marylanders commute by driving alone, over the last 5 years, the fraction of 

those driving alone has been steadily decreased as other modes of transportation 

(walking, transit, and carpooling) have slowly increased. By reducing vehicle miles 

traveled by passenger cars we open our highways up to the more efficient transport 

of goods. 

While investments in transportation infrastructure are required for the U.S. to remain competitive in our global economy, the Federal role extends beyond these investments to Federal transportation and energy policy: the link between our transVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:00 Sep 24, 2014 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00154 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 S:\_EPW\DOCS\85535.TXT VERN
151 

portation systems and the environment requires Federal air quality standards, fuel 

economy standards, and greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. 

In prior hearings, we’ve heard that we need to get people out of their cars and 

into fast, convenient, and reliable mass transportation systems. That will take a 

major investment. Such an investment not only improves the quality of our travel 

and supports the increasing demands that commerce places on the roads and railways of our country. This required investment is not for convenience but is a necessity to help our Nation’s economy to continue to grow in the longer term. 

The price tag associated with addressing these critical needs is measured in the 

hundreds of billions of dollars. Total current spending is well below what is needed 

to improve the condition of our national transportation infrastructure. 

Our transportation system is an essential part of our national security as well as 

our Nation’s economic well-being. In the 2007–2008 World Economic Forum’s Global 

Competitiveness Report, the U.S. ranked first among 131 The rankings were based 

on an index the WEF developed which measures competitiveness—the set of institutions, policies, and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country. 

Among the 12 key ‘‘pillars of competitiveness’’ used to determine these rankings, infrastructure, along with institutions, macroeconomic stability, and health and primary education were considered basic requirements. The U.S. ranked sixth out of 

131 countries in the infrastructure category. 

Despite our country’s high ranking in this study, it is clear from testimony we’ve 

heard over the last several months that we cannot retain this ranking for long, 

given the lack of our Nation’s investment in the transportation system and infrastructure in general. 

It is my belief that Federal investment in public transportation should be a national priority. Our nation receives extraordinary public benefit from mass transportation systems. These systems take thousands of cars off our congested highways. 

They take tons of pollutants out of the air we breathe. They move people efficiently 

into and out of our most important commercial centers. 

Congress should encourage smart growth through funding transit-oriented development corridors with upgrades in transit facilities, bicycle transportation facilities, 

and pedestrian walkways. 

Congress should create Federal tax incentives for employers who provide telecommuting to their employees. Telecommuting has successfully reduced both transportation and energy use, and the EPA reports that if just 10 percent of the nation’s 

workforce telecommuted just 1 day a week, Americans would conserve more than 

1.2 million gallons of fuel per week. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, and to working with my colleagues 

on this committee to define the appropriate role the Federal Government should 

have in our Nation’s surface transportation system and to identify and address our 

national surface transportation investment needs. 

Thank you Madame Chairman. 

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