DEPARTMENTS OF TRANSPORTATION, AND 

HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND 

RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2011 

HEARINGS 

BEFORE A 

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE 

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DEPARTMENTS OF TRANSPORTATION, AND 

HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND 

RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS 

JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts, Chairman 

ED PASTOR, Arizona 

CIRO RODRIGUEZ, Texas 

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio 

DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina 

LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California 

MARION BERRY, Arkansas 

CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan 

TOM LATHAM, Iowa 

FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia 

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Obey, as Chairman of the Full Committee, and Mr. Lewis, as Ranking 

Minority Member of the Full Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees. 

KATE HALLAHAN, DAVID NAPOLIELLO, LAURA HOGSHEAD, 

SYLVIA GARCIA, and EVE GOLDSHER, 

Subcommittee Staff 

PART 4 

Page 

Department of Transportation ....................................................................... 1 

Strengthening Intermodal Connections and Improving Freight 

Mobility ............................................................................................................ 265 

Strengthening Intermodal Connections and Fiscal Year 2011 Budget 

Requests ........................................................................................................... 345 

Federal Aviation Administration Fiscal Year 2011 Budget .................... 531 

Maintaining a Safe and Viable Aviation System: Priorities From 

Aviation Stakeholders .................................................................................. 609 

Intercity and Commuter Passenger Rail, and AMTRAK ......................... 669 

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ..................................... 727 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations 


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PART 4—TRANSPORTATION, AND HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND RELATED AGENCIES FOR 2011 


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DEPARTMENTS OF TRANSPORTATION, AND 

HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND 

RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2011 

HEARINGS 

BEFORE A 

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE 

COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE DEPARTMENTS OF TRANSPORTATION, AND 

HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND 

RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS 

JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts, Chairman 

ED PASTOR, Arizona 

CIRO RODRIGUEZ, Texas 

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio 

DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina 

LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California 

MARION BERRY, Arkansas 

CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan 

TOM LATHAM, Iowa 

FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia 

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Obey, as Chairman of the Full Committee, and Mr. Lewis, as Ranking 

Minority Member of the Full Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees. 

KATE HALLAHAN, DAVID NAPOLIELLO, LAURA HOGSHEAD, 

SYLVIA GARCIA, and EVE GOLDSHER, 

Subcommittee Staff 

PART 4 

Page 

Department of Transportation ....................................................................... 1 

Strengthening Intermodal Connections and Improving Freight 

Mobility ............................................................................................................ 265 

Strengthening Intermodal Connections and Fiscal Year 2011 Budget 

Requests ........................................................................................................... 345 

Federal Aviation Administration Fiscal Year 2011 Budget .................... 531 

Maintaining a Safe and Viable Aviation System: Priorities From 

Aviation Stakeholders .................................................................................. 609 

Intercity and Commuter Passenger Rail, and AMTRAK ......................... 669 

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ..................................... 727 

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

62–352 WASHINGTON : 2010 


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COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS 

DAVID R. OBEY, Wisconsin, Chairman 

NORMAN D. DICKS, Washington 

ALAN B. MOLLOHAN, West Virginia 

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio 

PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana 

NITA M. LOWEY, New York 

JOSE ́ E. SERRANO, New York 

ROSA L. DELAURO, Connecticut 

JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia 

JOHN W. OLVER, Massachusetts 

ED PASTOR, Arizona 

DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina 

CHET EDWARDS, Texas 

PATRICK J. KENNEDY, Rhode Island 

MAURICE D. HINCHEY, New York 

LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California 

SAM FARR, California 

JESSE L. JACKSON, JR., Illinois 

CAROLYN C. KILPATRICK, Michigan 

ALLEN BOYD, Florida 

CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania 

STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey 

SANFORD D. BISHOP, JR., Georgia 

MARION BERRY, Arkansas 

BARBARA LEE, California 

ADAM SCHIFF, California 

MICHAEL HONDA, California 

BETTY MCCOLLUM, Minnesota 

STEVE ISRAEL, New York 

TIM RYAN, Ohio 

C.A. ‘‘DUTCH’’ RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida 

CIRO RODRIGUEZ, Texas 

LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee 

JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado 

PATRICK J. MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

JERRY LEWIS, California 

C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida 

HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky 

FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia 

JACK KINGSTON, Georgia 

RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New 

Jersey 

TODD TIAHRT, Kansas 

ZACH WAMP, Tennessee 

TOM LATHAM, Iowa 

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama 

JO ANN EMERSON, Missouri 

KAY GRANGER, Texas 

MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho 

JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas 

MARK STEVEN KIRK, Illinois 

ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida 

DENNIS R. REHBERG, Montana 

JOHN R. CARTER, Texas 

RODNEY ALEXANDER, Louisiana 

KEN CALVERT, California 

JO BONNER, Alabama 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

TOM COLE, Oklahoma 

BEVERLY PHETO, Clerk and Staff Director 

(II)


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(1) 

DEPARTMENTS OF TRANSPORTATION, AND 

HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT, AND 

RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS FOR 

2011 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2010. 

INVESTMENTS IN TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENTS: 

THE FISCAL YEAR 2011 BUDGET REQUEST FOR THE 

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

WITNESSES 

HON. RAY LAHOOD, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

CHRISTOPHER BERTRAM, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR BUDGET AND 

PROGRAMS AND CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER, DEPARTMENT OF 

TRANSPORTATION 

CHAIRMAN OLVER’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. OLVER. The appointed time having got past us slightly, the 

hearing will be in order. 

We have as our guest today Cabinet Secretary Ray LaHood from 

the Department of Transportation. 

Welcome, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. Welcome to the subcommittee. You have known of 

the committee’s workings before. We are very happy to have you 

back again. 

I want to thank you for coming before us to explain the President’s 2011 budget submission and the request from the Department of Transportation. You have been on the job now just over a 

year, and nearly your entire leadership team is in place. During 

this time, the Department has taken a number of successful steps 

forward to transform and modernize the transportation system. In 

particular, the Recovery Act provided you with an opportunity to 

rebuild faltering infrastructure and to lay the foundation for transformative new initiatives and to create tens of thousands of new 

jobs. 

However, this transformation has been hindered by some of the 

same complications that we faced last year; namely, a lack of 

progress on the long-term surface and aviation authorizations and 

the continued insolvency of the Highway Trust Fund. 

It is my understanding that the Department embarked on a surface transportation reauthorization outreach tour as a first step in 

developing the administration’s reauthorization proposals. Given 

the national and long-term impacts and changes the authorization 

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2 

and financing structure will have, I believe the administration 

must exert great leadership in this area, and I will look forward 

to seeing the product of your tour. 

The President’s budget has two important and complex goals; 

namely, reducing our national debt and sustaining an environment 

for continued economic growth that produces good-paying jobs for 

the American people. The subcommittee’s challenge will be to 

produce a bill that is fiscally responsible and yet doesn’t stifle the 

momentum that was created from the critically important infrastructure investments that were made last year and that will continue to be made this year. The 2011 budget proposal before us requests a total of $78 billion, roughly. I hope that is the largest difference we have—I think 

your testimony suggests it is $79 billion, but we will not quibble 

about the one—for the agencies and programs within the Department of Transportation. That includes a modest increase of roughly 

$2 billion, a 21⁄2 percent increase from fiscal year 2010. 

The Department of Transportation’s budget request proposes 

some significant new initiatives. In particular, I am very pleased 

to see the inclusion of $527 million for the Livable Communities 

Initiative. As you and Secretary Donovan testified before this subcommittee last year, transportation and housing are inextricably 

linked but for too long have been treated as separate spheres. 

I look forward to hearing more about the Department’s plans to 

improve coordination with EPA and HUD and, as importantly, 

within DOT’s own agencies; namely, Federal Highway and Federal 

Transit. 

Additionally, I am interested to hear more details about the $4 

billion National Infrastructure Innovation and Finance Fund, 

which appears to be a hybrid between the infrastructure bank proposal from last year and the TIGER grant application program, 

which was established in the Recovery Act. The demand for TIGER 

grants has emphasized the immense need for transportation investments that improve the movement of passengers and freight among 

multiple transportation modes. 

Within aviation, I am pleased that the budget request continues 

the administration’s commitment to the FAA’s Next Generation Air 

Transportation System, better simply known as NextGen. This program is vital to our efforts to accommodate growth in air traffic 

and to reduce delays by increasing the efficiency of the management of our air space. 

Finally, the Department must remain vigilant when it comes to 

the agency’s core safety mission. The last time highway fatalities 

dropped below 40,000 was in 1992, which coincides with the last 

time this country faced a serious economic crisis. However, as the 

country’s economy started to recover in the mid to late 1990s, 

Americans returned to their vehicles, and we saw significant 

growth in vehicle miles traveled, and unfortunately, we also saw a 

steady year-by-year increase in the number of highway fatalities. 

Today, the latest figures from NHTSA show that highway fatalities 

in 2008 were slightly above 37,000, which is the lowest level since 

1961. 

Americans are driving less during our current economic downturn. As the economy recovers and people travel more, DOT will 

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3 

need to remain focused on continued safety improvements across 

our transportation network. In particular, the recent transit tragedies here in the Washington area and in other parts of the country 

certainly underscore the need for Federal oversight and minimum 

safety standards. 

Mr. Secretary, we all know that we are entering a tough budget 

year. The fact remains that our infrastructure needs are great. 

Many roads, bridges, and airports require basic repair and maintenance. Many communities are stifled by congestion and are in need 

of additional highway and transit capacity, and we must continue 

to support alternative solutions, such as high-speed rail, that have 

the potential to transform transportation networks. 

Last year, I expressed my sincere hope that, under your leadership, we could break out of the historical practice of transportation 

silos and focus on comprehensive approaches that reduce congestion, improve mobility, increase affordability, and reduce environmental impacts through safe and efficient transportation system. 

In the last year, you have taken significant steps in that direction. 

I look forward to working with you to maintain that progress 

through the fiscal 2011 budget. 

Now, before you have your chance, I will turn this over to my 

ranking member, Mr. Latham from Iowa. 

RANKING MEMBER LATHAM’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to the hearings this year. We have got a lot of work to do, 

obviously. 

Mr. Secretary, welcome on this very snowy day. It is also a pleasure to see you here at the subcommittee. I am going to keep my 

remarks to a minimum because we have a mere 2 hours to cover 

the $79 billion you have requested for fiscal year 2011 and to inquire about plans for the almost $76 billion you received just a few 

weeks ago. The fiscal year 2010 provides some oversight on the $67 

billion that the Department received in fiscal year 2009, plus about 

$48 billion received under the stimulus bill. That is about $270 billion, or $2.25 billion per minute. So I guess we had better talk fast 

and get underway as far as to doing some oversight. 

So, last year, we were facing bankruptcy in the Highway Trust 

Fund, a lack of authorizations for the surface and aviation programs and a bleak economic and employment situation across the 

country. We seem to have a bit of deja vu as we have all the same 

obstacles, and now we have a disturbing level of national debt 

which we are all concerned about. I think we were all hoping that 

some of the issues were going to be resolved last year. Our States 

do not need another short-term repaving, heavy, quote, ‘‘stimulus 

bill,’’ and these short-term extensions do not allow States to do the 

planning and executing of the need for a real highway construction 

and maintenance program. 

I think we need a real bill. I think it would be helpful, and it 

would get the ball rolling if the administration would put forth a 

bill on paper to bring forth to the Congress. I do not think we really need more listening sessions. We have all heard from our constituents at home and in the States. 

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So as we embark on a new budget cycle, we look forward to 

working with you and the Department. I have had the pleasure of 

meeting with a number of your administrators and assistant secretaries, which I appreciate very, very much, and I am sure we will 

be able to have a good dialogue and will be able to resolve many 

of these issues. 

Because we have such a short time with you today and a lot of 

ground to cover—I know the chairman is working on a schedule on 

a number of different topics this year—I would like to make sure, 

and maybe have a commitment from you, that we have the appropriate person from the Department as witnesses as we look at 

these different proposals that are out there so that we can do our 

homework. If we get that commitment from you, I think it is very 

important to do the kind of oversight that we need. 

Secretary LAHOOD. You have it. 

Mr. LATHAM. So with that, thank you very much, my good friend, 

Mr. LaHood. 

I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you, Mr. Latham. 

Mr. Secretary, the floor is yours. As usual, your complete written 

statement will go into the record, but the floor is yours. 

MR. LAHOOD’S OPENING STATEMENT

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I am delighted to be joined here by the assistant secretary for 

budgets and chief financial officer, Chris Bertram. Chris has 

worked very hard with OMB in putting our budget together. 

I am delighted to be here, and I thank you for the opportunity 

to discuss the fiscal year 2011 budget request. 

I have traveled to more than 30 States, 65 cities last year, and 

I have seen firsthand how much our citizens depend on a safe, 

modern, and reliable transportation system to access jobs, health 

care, and other essential services. 

The President’s request for this year totaled $79 billion, a $2 billion increase over fiscal year 2010 levels. These resources will support the President’s and DOT’s top transportation priorities for 

safety on the roads and in the air, making communities livable and 

sustainable and modernizing our infrastructure. Safety is our number one priority at DOT. 

Our leadership campaigns against the perils of distracted driving, which kills thousands of Americans every year. It has been 

very effective. It is critical we continue to lead the charge. That is 

why we are seeking $50 million for the National Highway Traffic 

Safety Administration to develop an incentive-based grant program, encouraging more States to pass laws prohibiting the unsafe 

use of phones and texting while driving. The President is also asking for 66 additional personnel assigned to the highway and vehicle 

safety issues at NHTSA. In the area of transit safety, we are seeking $30 million to establish a new transit safety oversight program within the Federal 

Transit Administration. This program will carry out a comprehensive safety oversight strategy by establishing common safety standards nationwide, as envisioned in the administration’s transit safety bill. This is an important step forward for rail transit and indusmstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

5 

try, which has suffered recent accidents in Washington, D.C., Boston and San Francisco. This is unacceptable, and we must put 

strong remedies in place as soon as possible. I am urging Congress 

to pass this legislation this year. Transportation must not only be 

safe but also contribute to livable and sustainable communities. 

Chairman Olver, Mr. Latham, and committee members, thanks 

for your leadership and this committee’s focus on livable communities over the years. 

The President’s plan provides record level investments to make our communities more livable. Specifically, we are seeking $527 

million for livable communities, which will help us build on the tremendous successes we have achieved through our sustainable partnerships with HUD and EPA. Together, we are helping States and 

local governments make smarter investments in their transportation, energy, and housing infrastructure with better outcomes for 

our citizens. Our groundbreaking infrastructure in high-speed passenger rail, which has generated tremendous excitement around 

the country, will go a long way to enhance livability in many communities. Our budget seeks $1 billion to continue the $5 billion 5- 

year pledge Congress made in this year’s budget. 

I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Latham and the committee, for your commitment and leadership on high-speed rail so 

far. The $2.5 billion your committee provided the Department for 

high-speed rail grants last year, combined with $8 billion, which 

we announced last week, brings us closer to ushering in a new era 

for passenger rail service in this country. 

Going forward, we must find new ways to finance infrastructure. We have requested $4 billion to establish a new infrastructure innovation finance fund. These first-year funds would be used to invest in multi-modal transportation projects of regional and national 

significance. Our cross-cutting, outcomes-based approach to funding 

will enable us to move away from the silo mentality that has long 

hindered our ability to respond to local and regional needs. 

On reauthorization, the President proposes to continue current 

spending levels with $42.1 billion for highways and bridges and 

$10.8 billion for transit. This request includes $150 million to enable the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to address much needed safety-related infrastructure improvements. 

Turning to aviation, the President’s plan includes $1 billion for 

NextGen, the program to modernize our air traffic control system. 

That is a $275 million, or a 32 percent, increase over fiscal 2010 

levels. These funds are essential for transitioning from a groundbased radar surveillance system to more accurate satellite-based 

system. This system is already in use in the Gulf of Mexico, and 

we look forward to building on our success in this area. 

Finally, we are seeking $30 million to make more long-term, long 

overdue investments/improvements in the U.S. Merchant Marine 

Academy. This has been a goal of mine from the very beginning. 

I want to make the Merchant Marine Academy the jewel that the 

other academies are. We have wonderful, wonderful students there, 

over 900. They work very hard, and we want to make sure the facilities are there for them to accomplish their academic goals. We 

just completed a blue ribbon report, which we will be happy to give 

to the committee. The report outlines in great detail the infrastrucmstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

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ture improvements that are needed at the Merchant Marine Academy. 

I look forward to your questions. 

[The statement of Secretary LaHood follows:] 

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LIVABLE COMMUNITIES

Mr. OLVER. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

We will follow the procedure of each of us, in turn, having 5 minutes per round of questioning. Hopefully, in the 2 hours, now an 

hour and 40 minutes, we will be able to do at least a couple of 

rounds right down the line. 

So with that, Mr. Secretary, your budget request includes, as I 

have mentioned and you have reiterated, $527 million for the Livable Communities program to support initiatives that increase 

transportation choice and that integrate housing and land use into 

transportation decisions. I am pleased to see that you are working 

closely with HUD and with the EPA and others, I understand at 

least. Maybe you can say more about this effort. 

I am curious. What actually is your concept of how the $527 million that you are asking for here, which is a new item, an important item—how that is to be deployed over the period of the fiscal 

year for which we are working? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, since last year, we have had a working 

group within the three agencies of staff that has worked together 

to develop plans for the use of this money. We also have traveled 

around the country, and have looked at places in the country where 

governors and mayors have put together plans for not only livable 

communities but livable neighborhoods. 

When I was in Congresswoman Roybal-Allard’s area, I saw the 

kind of transportation system that goes through neighborhoods 

from downtown Los Angeles and connects people to grocery stores, 

drug stores, and good housing. That is the kind of approach that 

we are really looking at in terms of where people want to live. 

Some people may want to bike to work. When I was in Portland, 

Oregon, I drove to the streetcar event. I saw over 100 people biking 

to work that day. 

Look, there are all forms of transportation that Americans are 

considering in order to get out of their cars. We know people are 

always going to have cars. We know they are always going to want 

to use their automobiles, but we also know that people want to get 

out of congestion. They want different forms of transportation, 

whether it is bus, light rail, walking, biking paths, or other opportunities. So, we are working with HUD to make sure that there is 

housing availability. 

We were in Dubuque, Iowa, and saw what they were doing in the 

millworks area. They had an area of downtown where IBM decided 

to come in with 1,500 new employees, take over an old downtown 

department store, and relocate these 1,500 employees. The mayor 

and the community leaders decided to take this old millwork area 

and completely redevelop it. They are going to need some transit. 

They are going to need some forms of transportation. Some people 

will be able to walk to work. 

These are the kinds of innovative approaches, combining our resources with HUD, with EPA, that will really create the kind of 

neighborhoods and communities where people can attract business, 

attract jobs, and create the kind of housing stock and transportation forms that people really want. 

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Mr. OLVER. Do you anticipate a joint NOFA for the funds here 

from the three departments which have a role in this initiative? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes. I think we will begin looking at things 

that have worked around the country and then make similar opportunities available for communities that want to attract new jobs, 

attract new business, and really create different forms of transportation. 

Mr. OLVER. I have to comment, Mr. Secretary, on your finding 

of the 100 bicyclists that you saw. There were probably a few thousand using bicycles in the Portland area. If you go to Copenhagen— 

some people here may have been to Copenhagen very recently. 

Mine was a little longer ago. I very carefully checked into how they 

were dealing with their complex transportation system in that 

roughly 2 million metropolitan area. About a half a million come 

in by bicycles. About a half a million come in by cars in their daily 

use. About a half a million come in by bus and subway types—light 

rail and rail systems. So there are ways that this can work very, 

very well. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Right. 

Mr. OLVER. We have very clear examples. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Let me just say that when I was in Detroit 

with Congresswoman Kilpatrick we had a meeting with a number 

of her stakeholders. They want to get into this idea of creating 

more options with transit and bus, and so forth. They have just 

elected a new mayor there, and thanks to Ms. Kilpatrick’s leadership, again, our livable community will fit into the kind of things 

that your folks have been talking about there. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Mr. Latham. 

TOYOTA RECALL RESPONSE

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

One issue that has come before us, obviously recently, is the situation with Toyota. I just am curious if you could tell us what the 

Department is doing, NHTSA. 

Are you equipped to investigate and to find out what happened? 

Is there a computer problem or do we know exactly what is going 

on? 

Secretary LAHOOD. We know, as a result of our investigation, 

that Toyota now has determined the fix for the pedal problem that 

has caused the uncontrolled acceleration, but we also had complaints about the electronics. We will be investigating the electronic 

components that are in these cars to make sure that they are safe. 

If they are not, we will have Toyota begin to take a look at that, 

and so—we are in discussions with Toyota every day about these 

safety issues with their automobiles. 

The reason they are where they are today is because of our investigations and our meetings with them. The fact that our acting 

NHTSA Administrator went to Japan and met with the Toyota officials and told them, in no uncertain terms: You need to get on this. 

You have got a problem. You need to fix it. Find the fix. 

As a result of that meeting, they have begun to take seriously 

the fact that they have some serious problems. They believe they 

have found the fix. It is not up to NHTSA to tell them that they 

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have found it. It is up to us to tell them if we think that their solution is not correct. Now we will be doing investigations and studying the electronic part of it. 

Let me tell you why we do this. Every year NHTSA gets 30,000 

complaints, and what we do is we categorize them. We look at 

them carefully. We have had some complaints about the electronics 

in these automobiles, and that is the reason that we are going to 

look into it. 

Mr. LATHAM. Are you getting full cooperation from Toyota? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Absolutely. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. Is there any recommendation from the Department or something—we are both from the Midwest. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Right. 

Mr. LATHAM. You know, as you get on slick roads or whatever, 

your car starts pulling through on ice whenever you slip it into 

neutral. I mean is there any kind of discussion about putting out 

some—if someone gets into a situation where the pedal does stick 

that just putting it in neutral and maybe applying the brakes 

would—you know, why can’t we publicly tell people how to respond 

if they get into a situation? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes. I think that guidance has been put out. 

I have seen that where they have recommended that or to disengage the engine. 

Mr. LATHAM. Then you might lose your braking power if you turn 

the engine off. 

Secretary LAHOOD. We need to fix the problem so people do not 

have to worry about disengaging the engine or slamming their 

brakes or putting it in neutral. That is really our goal. 

Mr. LATHAM. No. I agree. 

Secretary LAHOOD. My advice is, if anybody owns one of these 

vehicles, stop driving it. Take it to the Toyota dealer, because they 

believe they have the fix for it. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. I appreciate it, and we will follow up with 

you on that, obviously. It is a tremendous safety issue for some 

folks. 

Getting back to the reauthorization, the current surface program 

expires on February 28. That is 17 business days and about 10 legislative business days from now. Is there a plan within the administration for an extension? 

HIGHWAY TRUST FUND

Secretary LAHOOD. We continue to ask Congress to pass an 18- 

month extension. We are prepared to find the money for that, and 

we believe that that gives us the time to work with Congress. We 

think the $48 billion that we had starting a year ago has been well 

spent. It has put thousands of people to work. It has resurfaced 

roads and bridges. We are encouraging, and the President, obviously, encouraged in the State of the Union for the Congress to 

pass a jobs bill. 

It is not that the President does not want a robust, comprehensive transportation bill. It is trying to find the $400 billion to $500 

billion to pay for it. That is the dilemma. I talk to Chairman Oberstar about this at least once a week. The 18 months really gives 

us the time to do that. As we finish out this portion of our economic 

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recovery, and if the Congress passes another jobs bill, we will have 

an opportunity to continue to make progress on these projects 

around the country. 

Mr. LATHAM. I mentioned in my opening statement about—is the 

administration going to put a bill forward to discuss—I know, last 

year, quote, the ‘‘discussion’’ was going on just about every day at 

the White House that this is on the people’s agenda. There was a 

real urgency. Obviously, we are not there yet. Is there going to be 

a proposal from the administration? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, we are working on some principles, and 

we will continue to work with the T&I Committee on these principles. We are not in much disagreement with what the chairman 

has written. 

Mr. LATHAM. Apparently, my time is up. Thank you very much. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

NEW STARTS PROGRAM

Mr. OLVER. We will proceed in the order that members of the 

subcommittee came into the hearing room. 

So, with that, Mr. Price. 

Mr. PRICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, let me add my word of welcome. We are all scrutinizing the budget you sent up, and a couple of things caught my 

attention right away, very favorably. 

The Department’s continued commitment to livable communities 

and high-speed rail development. Robust requests in these two 

areas represent sound investments, I think. I appreciate your leadership in prioritizing these items, particularly given the constrained fiscal environment in which we are operating. 

As you well know, the high-speed rail request builds upon the 

funding that the President requested and that Congress provided 

in the Recovery Act. Believe me, I was pleased to welcome our EPA 

Administrator, Lisa Jackson, to Durham, North Carolina last week 

to announce a major Recovery Act award to North Carolina for further work on the Raleigh to Charlotte leg of the southeast highspeed rail corridor. We have been laying the groundwork for this 

for about 20 years, ever since the corridor was designated in 

ISTEA, but it has been slow progress. It is kind of one grade crossing at a time, it has seemed. So there really has not been a substantial Federal revenue stream. 

We have now changed that, and we feel like our own investments, our efforts in building up this route, have been rewarded. 

We are well-positioned now to make use of the Federal funds to finish the job, basically to get that Raleigh to Charlotte corridor 

where it needs to be, at 90 mile-an-hour speeds, something just 

over 2 hours of travel time between those two points. So we look 

forward to making this a reality. 

In the time I have here, let me turn to another item, which is 

the New Starts program. This is another area where you have 

brought vision and perspective to the Department. I was happy to 

see the announcement last week that the Department would alter 

criteria the previous administration had applied to this program. It 

would alter the criteria, broaden the criteria, that are used to 

evaluate new starts and small starts of transit projects. 

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Rather than emphasizing only those projects that meet a limited 

cost-effectiveness or meet a minimum requirement for decreased 

vehicle miles traveled or increased ridership, the Department will 

instead put greater emphasis on other criteria, such as land use, 

environmental benefits, and economic development more broadly. 

As one who argued that the prior policy was a penny wise and 

a pound foolish, I applaud you for taking this step. However, I 

think we are all aware that this new flexibility is still going to 

apply to a finite resource and that the competition is going to be 

quite intense, maybe even more intense. So it is still very important for States and cities to understand these criteria and how they 

can address them. I know there is an effort with OMB to measure 

and quantify project benefits such as economic development and 

environmental benefits. I think we need to make sure that these 

measurements or any others that we apply are as straightforward 

as possible and are related in the real world to the kind of development we want to incentivize and reward and that we can undertake. 

So I wonder if you could provide any further clarification this 

morning regarding these new criteria, the new measurements, any 

other insight about the features you are going to be looking for, 

projects that would fare best under these new criteria. What is the 

timeline for rulemaking on the new criteria? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, thank you for that. I mean you have 

said it about as well as I could say it. 

The common complaint I heard during the time that I was being 

considered by the Senate—every Senator said to me, Why does it 

take 12 years to get a new start? Because, you know, we go back 

and forth on the economic aspect of it without looking at other criteria. So we made a decision that we need to look at a whole comprehensive set of issues. There will be good competition for this, 

but that is good because what we will get is a lot of good, creative 

opportunities, and it will allow communities all over the country to 

compete for dollars for good projects, whether it be light rail or bus 

or inner city passenger rail or whatever, and to do it in a way that 

reflects the values of the community, in terms of livability, in terms 

of environmental opportunities. We believe these forms of transportation and these projects will get a lot of cars off the road and will 

get people out of their automobiles and will create some opportunities in communities. 

So I mean you have sort of restated what we are going to be 

looking at. We are looking at a lot of different criteria, and we 

think this enhances lots of people’s opportunities around the country and in a much shorter period of time, that it will not take 12 

years. 

Mr. PRICE. Can you give us some indication of how you are going 

to firm these up, though, so that communities know what they are 

dealing with? Also, as to the explicit rulemaking that you will undertake, what is the timeline on that? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, we are getting started with it right 

now. We want to implement this very quickly so that, when our 

budget is approved by Congress, we can begin as quickly as we possibly can. You outlined what the criteria are, and the changes we 

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have made. It is all very accurate, and it is just a matter now of 

implementing it as quickly as possible. 

Mr. PRICE. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. Mr. LaTourette. 

TIGER GRANT ANNOUNCEMENT

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you. 

Mr. Secretary, it is great to see you. You are doing a great job. 

Just one housekeeping matter: 

The last word we had on the TIGER grant announcements was 

February 17. Has anything changed on that? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes. The statutory requirement that was in 

the bill is February 17. It will probably be a day or two before that. 

RAIL SAFETY

Mr. LATOURETTE. I appreciate that. 

I want to thank you on behalf of the State of Ohio for the $400 

million for our rail project that is going to accomplish many of the 

things that you have talked about. 

In 2008, I was still on the T&I Committee, and was one of the 

authors of the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008. In that act it 

statutorily mandates Positive Train Control, over which I am a big 

advocate. It also indicates that, as a baseline for the routes and the 

mileage and where PTC has to be implemented, it is going to be 

effective—they are supposed to look at the map and project out to 

December 31 of 2015. The FRA announced its final rulemaking on 

January 15. Despite being cognizant of that, they are using the 

2008 map, and my friends in the rail industry tell me that that 

may lead to over 8,000 miles on which there are not TIH traffic, 

no passenger traffic, being subject to Positive Train Control. 

My question to you is: Why? 

Secretary LAHOOD. You know what, Mr. LaTourette? I will have 

to get back to you on that. I will ask our FRA Administrator to 

visit with you about this. I do not know. 

HIGHWAY TRUST FUND

Mr. LATOURETTE. I would appreciate your looking into it. 

Now, to the Highway Trust Fund, I wrote down that you indicated that there is going to be $42 billion, basically, for the surface 

transportation section and $10 billion for transit. The Highway 

Trust Fund does not generate $52 billion. So I believe that the 

budget proposal calls for borrowing—I guess ‘‘borrowing’’ is the 

right word, but taking—$20 billion from the general fund to fill the 

shortfall. Further, it is my understanding that by taking that 

money you are also going to reduce the contract authority from $54 

billion to $9.5 billion, which I know has to be disconcerting to Mr. 

Oberstar. 

Just an editorial comment, the problem with the stimulus bill 

was that it had some great stuff, but Oberstar would tell you that 

over half the jobs which the administration is taking credit for creating came from 8 percent of the funding, and it was the stuff 

under your control. The other 92 percent of the funding created the 

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other half of the jobs. The jobs bill that has currently passed the 

House and is being considered by the Senate, in my opinion, repeats the same mistake. It has got 25 percent funding for things 

that will actually create jobs. 

You know, in the construction trades 30 percent of the people are 

out of work. It is not 10 percent. It is 30 percent. With no disrespect to the leadership from California, some folks from California get in there and they have all kinds of things that have 

nothing to do with job creation, which gets to the 6-year reauthorization. When Mr. Oberstar was working last year feverishly to figure out a way to get this done and despite a horrendous whipping 

effort by my leadership against a 3-month extension, we got 85 Republicans to vote for the extension—84 against—on the belief that 

we needed a 6-year plan. 

I have to tell you that, even though I have the greatest respect 

for you and the President of the United States, kicking this can 

down the road to March 2011 is irresponsible. This has to be 

worked out. This is not a problem where, all of a sudden, some 

light bulb is going to go on after listening for 18 months. We knew 

it when we passed SAFETEA–LU that we were going to have this 

problem. 

I am telling you, as I have told Mr. Oberstar, that we will bring 

Republicans to the table. I get that the Democrats are scared because of some of the election results. They do not want to have a 

tax increase on top of the other things that are going on around 

here, but the fact of the matter is it is time for leadership on this 

issue, and it is irresponsible, in my opinion, to not deal with this. 

I mean I saw you. Early in your tenure, you made some observation about vehicle miles traveled, and I got the feeling you were 

summoned down to the White House pretty quickly after that, and 

you stopped talking about things like that, but it has got to be 

done. My question is: 

If we can do this in a bipartisan way, will you help us down 

there? 

Secretary LAHOOD. The administration is for an 18-month extension. We are going to work with Congress on that, and we believe 

that is the best path forward. 

I can show you many places around the country where our economic recovery money put a lot of people to work. A year ago a lot 

of those people were on unemployment, didn’t have jobs. Throughout the summer and fall and even into the winter, they continuously worked on these projects, and will continue for the next 6 

months. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Despite my fondness for you, I respectfully disagree. When you look at the jobs that were created, even in the 

construction sector, they were ‘‘make work.’’ You moved up repaving projects that were programmed for 3 years from now. People worked for a few weeks, and then they were out of work again. 

The unemployment rate in the construction trades is 30 percent. 

We need a 6-year bill. We do not need an 18-month bill. 

I thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. Ms. Roybal-Allard. 

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AIRLINE DRUG AND ALCOHOL ABUSE PREVENTION

Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Welcome, Mr. Secretary. 

You mentioned earlier your visit to Los Angeles. I want, once 

again, to thank you for being there and for touring the Metro Gold 

Line Light Rail, which began revenue operations 1 month earlier 

than scheduled, which adds to the very positive record that it has 

of being completed, you know, on time and on budget without the 

loss of any time injury, even though the construction team amassed 

a safety record of more than 3 millwork hours. So, as you know and 

as you noted, we are very proud of that project, and we look forward to continuing to work in strong partnership with you as Los 

Angeles continues to expand its rail network. 

Secretary LAHOOD. It is a great project. It really is. You know, 

I know you all worked hard on it, and really, it is a magnificent 

project for the people. 

Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Well, we worked very, very hard also to 

make sure that the community was involved in that project, so I 

think the results were very positive. 

Secretary LAHOOD. You sure did. Everywhere I go, I talk about 

that project, how you really put a lot of different neighborhoods together with affordable housing and stores. You know, it is a magnificent project. 

Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Thank you. 

In the fiscal year 2010 Transportation appropriations bill, it includes $1.37 million in funding for the Human Intervention and 

Motivation Study, which is a comprehensive education and training 

program for alcohol and drug abuse prevention in the airline industry. As you know, it was originally a substance abuse prevention 

program only for pilots. However, in 2010 I was very pleased that, 

at my request, Congress increased the funding for this very critical 

health and safety program to include a program directly for flight 

attendants. 

Can you give us an update on the status of the implementing of 

these two programs? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I expect to be releasing this very soon. It is 

being reviewed by my office, and we are about ready to release it. 

Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Okay. Great. Will it be this month? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, it will be soon. 

RAIL SAFETY

Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Okay. Hopefully, this month. 

Last week, the National Transportation Safety Board held a 

hearing on the September 2008 Metrolink collision near Los Angeles in which 25 people were killed. At that hearing, the board 

adopted recommendations that requested the Federal Railroad Administration to require the installation of cameras inside all controlling locomotive cabs in order to verify that train crews are operating in compliance with safety rules and operating procedures. 

In response to the NTSB recommendation, what are the Department’s plans to promulgate these new regulations to require cameras inside locomotives? What resources do you expect the DOT or 

the FRA will need in carrying out these recommendations? How 

will you ensure the safety and also protect employees’ privacy? 

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Secretary LAHOOD. We are looking at the NTSB recommendations, and this goes to our number one goal at the Department, 

safety is uppermost in our minds in all forms of transportation. We 

will take very seriously the recommendations. I hope Congress will 

take very seriously the idea that we are pushing a transit safety 

bill that we think is critical for our agency. The law prohibits us 

from getting involved in these kinds of safety activities with transit 

programs. We think we need that kind of involvement, the way 

that the FRA has it over rail. 

So we are going to review the recommendations. That is the answer to the question. This will be a priority, and we will look for 

ways to make these systems safe. 

Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. As you are well aware, hundreds of transportation agencies around the Nation are facing enormous deficits 

at this time. Specifically, the shortfalls are often in operating 

funds, which leads to layoffs at transit agencies at the exact time 

when we are trying to stem the loss of good-paying jobs in America. 

In Los Angeles County, home to 10 million residents, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority is facing a shortfall of 

at least $250 million in operating funds at the end of fiscal year 

2011. We can only imagine what a $250 million operating shortfall 

could mean for Metro, its riders and its employees. 

What are your views on giving some flexibility to the use of Federal funds, at least during this time of crisis, for operating costs for 

transit agencies? Is there something that you and the administration are willing to consider to address that? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, as you know, when you all passed the 

omnibus, you included a provision that allowed for up to 10 percent 

of the transit funds to be used for operating. I, like you, believe 

that it is incumbent upon us to try to be helpful to these transit 

systems. One of the ways we can be helpful is to allow some of the 

funds to be used for operation. It is kind of silly to be providing 

funds to buy buses or whatever, and then you do not have the people to drive them or to operate the system. So we think it is a good 

use of some of the money to be used for operations. 

Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Okay. That is good. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. 

Mr. Carter. 

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Welcome, Mr. Secretary. It is two times in one week. Glad to see 

you. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. Recently, in my office, I have had a parade of people 

come in on projects that were part of the stimulus and were supposed to be shovel-ready and ready to go, but they bump up against 

environmental studies. I mean, for a half a dozen different highways, people have come in and said, We are ready to go, but we 

can’t get the environmental study done. FISH is behind. They have 

a deadline that they have to meet; but in reality they hold back, 

knowing they are overwhelmed, and so we cannot get this stuff to 

FISH and out of FISH. 

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Then once you come out of FISH with an environmental study, 

then the environmentalists take you to court. By the time you get 

through that process, you have got to go have another environmental study by FISH. It is a circular process that seems to be delaying the construction of highways, at least in our part of the 

world, and, from what I understand, around the country. 

So I want to throw out something that has been brought up to 

me, and I would like to have your comment on it, which is if we 

could go to binding arbitration rather than going to the courthouse 

to resolve these issues once environmental studies have been done 

and then the challenge to those environmental studies at the courthouse, which I am sure you are aware, can take years to resolve. 

Rather, let us set up a binding arbitration situation to resolve 

these things so we can build highways instead of bump up constantly against, some would call radical environmentalists. I would 

like to have a comment on this. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Look, Mr. Carter. If you want to do that, you 

are going to have to do it legislatively. 

I mean one of the things that we have to abide by and certainly 

under the economic recovery, which your folks are complaining 

about not receiving enough of the funds—part of that legislation 

said that we have to follow the regular guidelines for constructing 

roads or resurfacing. Part of that is environmental impact statements which many of the States had completed on a lot of these 

projects, and obviously some did not. If you want to seek that kind 

of remedy, my suggestion is that it is going to have to be done legislatively. 

Mr. CARTER. Mr. Secretary, I understand it has to be done legislatively. I have asked for your comment on binding arbitration. If 

we could get a binding arbitration statute written, I would like 

your comment on whether you think that is a good idea or whether 

you would oppose it. 

Secretary LAHOOD. I have not thought enough about it, but, you 

know, I will think about it, and will give you an opinion. Off the 

top of my head, I would rather not say something that I might not 

know enough about. Let me think about it, and I will get back to 

you. 

Mr. CARTER. Well, I would like to hear from you about what you 

feel about it, because I intend to have some other people join me 

in sponsoring that type of legislation. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Sure. Okay. 

HIGH-SPEED RAIL

Mr. CARTER. One more question if I still have time, Mr. Chairman. 

You have just announced $8 billion worth of high-speed rail. 

Most of this high-speed rail is at a 110 mile-an-hour maximum. Is 

there still any interest in the Department to the 150-plus-speed 

trains? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes, sir. 

We allocated money to 13 regions around the country. In some 

of those regions, and certainly in some parts of California and 

other regions, the trains will go faster than 110. It is a matter of 

using some of the resources to fix up freight rail lines and Amtrak 

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lines, but we envision that on some of these corridors trains will 

be going faster than 110. 

Mr. CARTER. But most of the high-speed rail projects you envision going on existing tracking? 

Secretary LAHOOD. That is correct. 

I think all of the proposals that we received were a collaboration 

between the freight rail and Amtrak. Some will build some new infrastructure, but the lion’s share of it will use existing track either 

through the freights or through Amtrak. 

Mr. CARTER. Is there any money available for high-speed rail 

studies to be done? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Absolutely. We will be announcing some study money very soon. That was not a part of the $8 billion, but 

we do have some money that we will be making available very soon 

for studies. 

Mr. CARTER. The only reason I ask is that a recent study by a 

French rail company rated that the cost of the revenue stream 

would be best on that proposal that we have laid out from Texas, 

which I am sure you are aware of. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Okay. Yes. 

Mr. CARTER. We are excited about trying to get that project 

going. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes, we will be making those study allocations very soon. 

Mr. CARTER. Well, thank you, Mr. Secretary. I appreciate your 

comments. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. 

Mr. Berry. 

AIRLINE SAFETY

Mr. BERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you for being here, Mr. Secretary, and for the job you are 

doing. 

This may be public information, and I just had not picked up on 

it, but we have heard a lot lately about the commuter airlines and 

their safety records, their lack of maintenance, their violations of 

rules and regulations, and that sort of thing. 

Could you just tell us—I would be surprised if you have not paid 

attention to that. I am sure you have. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Airline safety is a very, very important priority for us, and we pay a lot of attention to it every day. 

After the Colgan Air crash, Randy Babbitt, our FAA Administrator, traveled the country and held 12 safety summits, inviting 

people from the aviation industry to come in and talk about the 

training of pilots on commuter airlines, fatigue and pay issues. We 

had made some very strong recommendations to the airlines on 

this even before the NTSB report came out yesterday. We also are 

right in the middle of a rulemaking, which will require airlines to 

do certain things in terms of training, in terms of pay, in terms of 

schedules, and those kinds of things. That is our job, to pay attention to these things. 

So we are on this. We know that there is great concern after the 

Colgan Air. I met with the families on two different occasions, so 

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I know the heartache that they are going through. It is a very tragic accident, but since that time we have taken a number of steps 

voluntarily—before anybody told us to—to get on top of this, and 

we will have a rulemaking very soon on this. 

Mr. BERRY. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. Ms. Kilpatrick. 

TIGER GRANTS

Ms. KILPATRICK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, good to see you again. 

Secretary LAHOOD. You, too. 

Ms. KILPATRICK. As you stated earlier, thank you for coming to 

Michigan several times and to my district a couple of times as well. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

Ms. KILPATRICK. Michigan is the epicenter of much of the economic stress that we find ourselves in, so your coming has been absolutely marvelous. Thank you very much. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

Ms. KILPATRICK. A year ago, you and Secretary Donovan sat at 

that table and talked about rebuilding communities and all of that. 

I want to say that, in Michigan, we have been very happy with the 

support we have gotten. 

The recent Neighborhood Stabilization Program that came out 

was announced a couple of weeks ago. Twelve cities, as you know, 

came together in Michigan, and are now doing all of those things 

that you asked us to do. So thank you for that. 

The chairman mentioned the TIGER grants earlier, and I know 

they are out. I know you are getting close to making a decision. 

What is the status of the TIGER grants? 

Secretary LAHOOD. The statutory requirement is that we make 

the decisions on or before February 17. We will be close to that 

date, and we are working with the White House on the rollout of 

those. 

Let me just say that your leadership in Detroit, particularly at 

the meetings that we have had and since then, has been extraordinary, and I want you to know we are going to continue to work 

with you, the staff, the stakeholders. Our transit people are in Detroit in the next few days, meeting with the mayor and others, to 

figure out the kind of things that you all want to do there. So there 

will be some good activity and some good planning that will continue as a result of the meetings that we had when we were there 

last year. 

Ms. KILPATRICK. Thank you very much. 

Secretary LAHOOD. On or before the 17th, probably closer to the 

17th, you will be hearing the news about the TIGER grants. 

AIRLINE SAFETY

Ms. KILPATRICK. Okay. 

On Christmas, a gentleman—a young fellow—brought a bomb on 

a flight that was about to land in Detroit. I am also on National 

Defense, and we have had some briefings on that side. As aviation 

manager in this instance, how close are we? I mean that gentleman 

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was not on any watch list. He is from a wealthy family. Is there 

any update on that? Is there anything you can tell us? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, not really. Those kinds of activities are 

done more through Homeland Security. I mean our job at FAA is 

to work with airports, to work with airlines. Obviously, TSA is 

under the jurisdiction of Homeland Security. We work a lot with 

Homeland Security, but I am going to say this: 

Flying is safe. I can tell you right now there are thousands of 

people in the air all over this country and all over the world. Flying 

is safe. Are there things we need to do? There are things we need 

to do. We are going to look at the NTSB recommendations, but we 

are also going to continue to stay on top of these things because 

we know safety is most important. Thousands of people board airplanes every day and get to their destinations safely, and that is 

something that I want people to know—thanks, in part, to the fact 

that there are people looking out after their safety, whether it is 

through TSA, whether it is through the work that we do with airlines or whether it is through the airlines themselves. 

Ms. KILPATRICK. We appreciate, for those of us who fly twice a 

week, hearing you say that airline flying is safe. That is very important to us. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Right. 

HIGH-SPEED RAIL

Ms. KILPATRICK. My other part, as has been said earlier today, is the high-speed rail corridor. $2.5 billion last year was appropriated, and I know you recently announced the $1 billion that 

came out. Our State got a little of that. There was the $8 billion 

recently and now the $1 billion that is in the bill. That is 9 new 

billion dollars. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Right. 

Ms. KILPATRICK. I hear your requests were way higher than the 

amount of money that we have available. 

How does that $9 billion fare today as we come back for another 

bite at the apple, all of our States? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, what we are going to do now—now that 

we have announced the $8 billion, thanks to your committee, we 

have $2.5 billion in our appropriation bill. We are hearing from 

people right now, and we hope to continue to work throughout the 

next several months to get that money out the door, particularly 

for those communities that felt that they were disadvantaged because they didn’t get as much as they wanted, or States that didn’t 

get as much as they wanted. Very immediately, we are going to be 

announcing some study money that some States need to do. 

We take seriously this high-speed passenger rail and that America is getting into the high-speed passenger rail business. We take 

seriously the fact that this subcommittee added $2.5 billion in our 

appropriation bill. The President is requesting $1 billion in his 

budget. 

Secretary LAHOOD. So we are on our way. High-speed rail is 

coming to America. I have had two conversations with the Governor of Michigan since these announcements. We are going to 

work with Michigan on this, and they will be a good path forward, 

I would think. 

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Ms. KILPATRICK. Thank you for your support. And I just want to 

say before my time ends, you are way better in that chair this year 

than last year. What a difference a year makes. You have always 

been smart and enthusiastic, but I commend you on your knowledge of transportation. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Rodriguez. 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Thank you very much. And it is probably due to 

the fact that you have been out, as you indicated earlier, throughout the country listening to our constituents—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. It is the fact that I came to San Antonio. 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. That is right. Let me also thank you for coming 

to San Antonio and for also reaching out throughout the country. 

We understand how our situation is in terms of transportation 

and the lack of it and the fact that we are looking at other forms 

of transportation. And I know you heard in San Antonio about Port 

San Antonio and the importance of freight, not only air but rail 

freight, coming into San Antonio and the importance of that and 

how critical that is to us as well as the high speed between San 

Antonio and Austin and Dallas and how critical and got a chance 

to hear from our mayor as they plan towards a future. 

And I gather that is the same situation throughout the country. 

We know we don’t have sufficient resources out there; and I am 

hoping that there is an attempt by yourself and the administration 

as we look at—if it happens or doesn’t happen—a new stimulus 

package or an effort through the jobs, trying to put these resources 

in transportation and infrastructure that that—and I ask you to 

comment on that if possible. 

But I also would want you to comment on the importance of safety on rail. I have a lot of small communities where those trains are 

going through where you used to have one train a week and now 

we have one or two a day and how critical it is to put the resources 

there, you know, not only in rail safety improvements, and I would 

also ask you to comment on that. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Safety is our number one priority at DOT in 

all modes of transportation. We have paid a lot of attention particularly to what happened in California with the train wreck, 

what has happened here in Washington, D.C., where some people 

were killed on the Metro system. That is the reason we put forth 

this transit safety bill that we are asking all of you to pass, so we 

can really get into the oversight opportunity on these transit systems around America, which we have been prohibited from doing 

by law. Somebody needs to provide the oversight. That is the reason we put forth this bill. We really encourage you—this steps up 

and shows that safety is a priority on the rail. 

The positive train control rule that we have out is another example of how safety is a priority certainly on the rails. Also the work 

that we have done with our FAA Administrator stepping up with 

the 12 safety summits, and the recommendations that he made 

after the Colgan Air. Immediately after the helicopter hit the small 

plane over the Hudson, the two air traffic controllers were dismissed. We took direct action against the pilots who overflew Minneapolis by 150 miles. 

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Look, we are not going to sit around on our hands waiting for 

somebody else to do these things. When we see violations, we will 

step up and take action. 

We need your help on this transit safety bill, though. 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. You will get it. 

Let me also ask you to follow up on—I know that some of us feel 

very strongly that if there is any form of stimulus that it be utilized for infrastructure and for transportation purposes. 

Secretary LAHOOD. We still have to complete the work that was 

started with the first stimulus money. We are just about ready to 

obligate all of that money, and we were obviously pleased that the 

President asked Congress to pass another jobs bill which would 

provide us substantial dollars that we can continue the progress 

that we are making in putting people to work. 

MOTOR CARRIERS

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Let me ask you a question as it deals with the 

border as we talk about Port San Antonio for air and rail. We have 

a good number of 18 wheelers come through there coming from 

Mexico, coming and going, and the importance of making sure the 

safety requirements of being licensed and all that and the resources that are being put in that area. Can you elaborate on that? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Every truck that comes across is subject to 

very, very tough safety standards. Our people are there checking 

these trucks and making sure that the drivers of the trucks have 

the proper licenses, that the vehicles are safe. Even though the 

Mexican truck program was suspended, we still are doing our work 

in checking these trucks that come across the border. 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. And that becomes really important that we continue to do that—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. We will. 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. And the resources are there. 

Once again, thank you. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Pastor. 

HIGH SPEED RAIL

Mr. PASTOR. Good morning, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Good morning. 

Mr. PASTOR. First of all, I want to thank you for the excellent 

job you are doing and also personally for the hospitality that you 

have always expended to me. Thank you. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

Mr. PASTOR. As you know, the 20 miles of the light rail that we 

have constructed has been in operation for 1 year; and probably the 

reports that you are getting is that it has been a success. The ridership has succeeded all expectations, and I think we finally have 

persuaded the naysayers that it is a good investment. And I tell 

you today we are in preparation to extend the line east. Mesa is 

asking for an extension. From the downtown area in Phoenix, we 

are looking to extend it west and south; and we think that the 

south extension and the west extension will get to the people that 

will probably need the transportation because of their socioeconomic levels. 

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So we continue to work with the FTA, and I have to tell you region nine is—is a great partner with us and we thank you for your 

cooperation. 

Hopefully, February 17th I will have a chance to call you and 

thank you for the people mover. As you know, that is high on our 

list for the TIGER grants, and hopefully we can get that accomplished. As you know, when that region continued the project, that 

one has met the environmental impact statement. People are working; and with the additional grant, that will add more employment. 

What I wanted to talk to you a little bit about is, first of all, 

thank you for the Livable Communities. The chairman, I guess, 2 

years ago, 21⁄2 years ago, maybe 3 years ago, started this initiative; 

and it is one that we all support. But every community is different; 

and in the Phoenix metro area, Maricopa County, we have these 

20 miles; and even within the 20 miles there are differences. 

So I guess that I would ask, as you provide money for the planning and the studies, there are areas that have been studied and 

have been looked at, but in order to make them livable, we need 

to provide incentive grants to communities so that the actual— 

whether it be the small business that is going to create jobs along 

with the affordable housing becomes a reality. In today’s time, as 

you know, with the economy, that type of grant given to the authority, the various authorities, might be able to make this a reality. 

So I don’t know right now—I know you are going to create the 

office, but hopefully as this is being created that even within one 

light rail line there are different economic situations and opportunities so that there is flexibility so that working with the communities we can achieve. 

I will give you an example of what just occurred in Phoenix. 

There was a large apartment complex privately owned that went 

belly up, and working with HUD we were able to have the city of 

Phoenix pick it up through all the tax credits and all the rules. 

Well, that particular apartment unit is less than a half mile from 

the light rail. So with that hopefully affordable housing and use of 

light rail will increase. And it is projects like that that we have an 

interest in, that we are looking for that flexibility so that we can 

maximize the investment, especially where you have a light rail existing that will create the jobs and create the businesses and also 

make a livable community. So I make that request. 

Secretary LAHOOD. First of all, to your comment about your light 

rail, if you build it, they will come; and that is a great example of 

it. I was there, when that system got started, and I know that it 

is exceeding the ridership that anybody thought. It is because people really like these kind of systems. They are comfortable. They 

are affordable. They deliver people where they want to go. 

And on the Livable Community issue, we will certainly work 

with your folks to try to fashion things that make sense for the 

neighborhood or for the community. 

Mr. PASTOR. Can I also echo what Congresswoman Roybal-Allard 

said? Because of the economic status situation at the State of Arizona and the metro areas, Phoenix and other cities, the use of Federal money to continue to be used for operation—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. The operating. 

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Mr. PASTOR. It is a great relief. So if you can continue that, we 

would greatly appreciate it. 

Secretary LAHOOD. I think Congress will continue it. It is important right now when ridership is down and it is hard to operate 

these transit systems. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. Ms. Kaptur, you are up. I will take you at this point 

or you can wait for a couple of people to catch your breath. 

Ms. KAPTUR. I am good. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay, you are good. Ms. Kaptur. 

SAINT LAWRENCE SEAWAY

Ms. KAPTUR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman; and welcome, 

Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Good morning. 

Ms. KAPTUR. Great to see you again. I apologize I couldn’t be 

here earlier. I had a committee conflict. 

I wanted to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the time that we spent 

together last year in Messina, New York, at the St. Lawrence Seaway’s 50th anniversary. For you to take that trouble in your first 

year to go up there was really commendable. 

You were at the time very supportive of the long-term infrastructure improvements for the Seaway and that the administration was 

going to be supportive of those programs. You know that the St. 

Lawrence Seaway is important not just to the region but to the 

maritime ports of the Great Lakes that depend on international 

water-borne commerce, including my home port of Toledo, Ohio. 

In reviewing your fiscal year 2011 budget request, however, and 

the 10-year asset renewal program, I note that it is not funded at 

a level necessary to ensure on-time completion of the projects along 

the Seaway. In fact, the fiscal year 2010 President’s budget included an outyear estimate for fiscal year 2011 of $18.482 million 

to complete 25 asset renewal program projects. However, the Seaway’s fiscal year 2011 submission we received earlier this week 

only includes $15.7 million for 20 projects. So there appears to be 

a gap there, and I have three questions. 

Why did the administration reduce the Seaway’s asset renewal 

program budget by almost $2.8 million or 15 percent? Number two, 

will this reduction require additional years to be added to the program? And, finally, what assurances can you make that similar reductions in subsequent years will not be made to this program? 

I would be interested in your general comments and then the 

specifics as your staff gives you the numbers. 

Secretary LAHOOD. My general comment is you know that we 

have a commitment at DOT to the St. Lawrence Seaway. It is very 

important. I am going to let my assistant secretary, if you don’t 

mind—— 

Ms. KAPTUR. Fine. 

Secretary LAHOOD [continuing]. Chris Bertram answer the specifics, but I want you to know we are committed to the St. Lawrence Seaway. It is very important. 

Ms. KAPTUR. Thank you. I know you are. 

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Mr. BERTRAM. Congresswoman, the request is $15.6 million, 

which would complete the 3-year structural rehabilitation of the 

bridge that goes over to Canada as well as upgrading the Seaway 

locks and the miter gate at the Eisenhower lock. This is what the 

St. Lawrence Seaway tells us they need for what they can actually 

accomplish in fiscal year 2011. 

We continually monitor where they are on their capital program 

and assess what they can actually spend and obligate in a given 

year. As you know, their construction season is actually somewhat 

constrained up there because of the weather, but we believe that 

the $15.6 million is enough for their needs for 2011. 

Ms. KAPTUR. So you are saying that the President’s budget, the 

2010 budget, included an outyear estimate for 2011 of $18.482 million for 25 projects. Your budget is only covering 20 projects at 15 

point—you said 6? Because the number I had was 15.7 million. 

Mr. BERTRAM. We have 15.6, but we can—— 

Ms. KAPTUR. And you are saying that the Seaway Authority said 

they don’t need the additional funds in 2011? They can’t spend 

them? 

Mr. BERTRAM. Right. They told us that that is the funding levels 

they need for the projects they can undertake in 2011. 

Ms. KAPTUR. So when the Department of Transportation submitted its budget to OMB, that is what the Seaway administration 

asked for, the Seaway Authority, or did OMB cut it? 

Mr. BERTRAM. I would have to review what we sent to them. I 

don’t recollect right now what the Seaway Authority asked for from 

OMB. 

Ms. KAPTUR. I would be very interested in any detail that your 

office could provide on which projects were anticipated in the prior 

budget and what has happened with your 2011 budget request. 

Secretary LAHOOD. We will do it. 

Mr. BERTRAM. We will do that. 

HIGH SPEED RAIL

Ms. KAPTUR. Okay. And then, speaking parochially—I am looking at Mr. LaTourette down the table there. He and I anchor both 

ends of Ohio, and I am sure you must have asked about high-speed 

rail in your questioning. Of course, the first projects that have been 

identified by the administration will really not go into the northern 

corridor of Ohio. They are focused on a crosshatch across the State. 

Did you cover that, Steve, in your questioning? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I did not. I thanked the Secretary for the 400 

million bucks for the DCC corridor, as I call it, the Dayton, Cincinnati, and Columbus. 

Ms. KAPTUR. Yes. Where we really need the administration’s 

help, if I can just take an extra minute, is in the higher-speed corridor that would be Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Toledo, Chicago, which 

has to go through Indiana. For some reason—and I just place this 

on the record—the State of Indiana was not able to provide a 

match for planning in the northern part of Indiana, and that has 

really put on hold our ability to move that high-speed rail corridor. 

They claim they didn’t have the match. Perhaps the Secretary 

could get to the bottom of this and figure out—— 

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You know, as a Buckeye, I feel I want to work with the Hoosiers, 

but, you know, they have got to come to the table here. And perhaps the Secretary could play a role in that so that the higherspeed corridor could get the same attention as the corridor that will 

go in Ohio’s situation from Cleveland to Columbus to Cincinnati, 

but the more traveled corridor will be the Pittsburgh-Cleveland-Toledo-Chicago corridor, and we can’t do it without Indiana coming 

to the table. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Look, I would say that Indiana is interested 

in this project. We are going to be making some planning grant 

awards here very soon, and we will be working with Indiana on 

this. 

Part of the dilemma in some of these States is the legislature 

was not able to pass the match money. That was true in about 

three or four States around the country. I don’t think it is for a 

lack of leadership on the part of Governor Daniels, but maybe the 

timing wasn’t right. But we are on top of this. We know it is important. 

I will also tell you that the reason the three Cs was funded was 

because of the strong support from the Governor and from the Ohio 

delegation. 

Ms. KAPTUR. We understand that. We know what that is all 

about. 

INFRASTRUCTURE FUND

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. 

We will start the second round and continue in the same vein 

here. 

Mr. Secretary, you have proposed here—one of your big initiatives is the National Infrastructure Innovation and Finance Fund. 

I think we have started calling it NIIFF. I am not sure that is the 

proper terminology or not. But, anyway, this appears, as I mentioned, to be combining the proposal for last year’s infrastructure 

fund, which was proposed at that time for $5 billion, and we moved 

some of that money around to do a bunch of other things, including 

the $21⁄2 billion for HSIPR and the money for TIGER that went 

into the ’10 bill and such. 

The high demand for the TIGER program has clearly been established by the response to that set of funding opportunities, and it 

certainly demonstrates a great need for investment in the infrastructure, especially projects that improve the movement of passengers and freight among multiple modes of—which include ports 

and rail and transit and air and highways. 

Now, when—last year, we never got legislation for an infrastructure bank. And it is not unauthorized. It is a major item. Do you 

have a sense of when we will get a proposal, a legislative proposal, 

for the infrastructure bank as you have proposed this year? Am I 

correct that it is sort of a hybrid between last year’s infrastructure 

and the TIGER program? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Okay. Well, I am not going to refer to it as 

the NIIFF, because I don’t particularly like that term. I don’t think 

it reflects the value of the program. But I will refer to it as the infrastructure fund, and we will be proposing authorization language 

very soon. And we envision this—and when you see the authorizamstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

31 

tion language—as an opportunity to fund multi-modal projects that 

include highway transit, rail, ports, and maritime. 

Mr. OLVER. Does it particularly include components or incorporate lessons that you have learned from the process of going 

through the TIGER grant process, which is not quite complete? All 

of us want to be able to call you to say thank you for whatever it 

is that you have done at that time. That certainly is true. But are 

lessons that you learned in that process already being—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. We received a lot of very creative proposals 

from around the country, almost all of them multi-modal, and we 

have seen that there is a lot of creative thinking, a lot of creative 

juices flowing, a lot of creative proposals. We think that what we 

would propose in an authorization bill is multi-modal, taken from 

some of the creative things that we have seen come in from around 

the country under TIGER. 

Mr. OLVER. When people respond to a notice of funding availability, the responses that you get depend very much on the capacity on the part of the folks who were making those applications. 

Some have very great needs and not very great capacity, and others have a great deal of capacity to put forward—and maybe have 

even stronger needs if they have that capacity. Do you have any 

thought about how one takes into account that there are places 

that have great need but not so much in the way of capacity to accomplish that, to help them? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, we have traveled around the country 

enough, and we have relationships with enough of these stakeholders to know, who these people are, what their capacity is, and 

how they can really utilize the money. Our people work with stakeholders day in and day out. We have developed lots of relationships 

as a result of TIGER and the proposals we have received, and our 

people are pretty good at making judgments about this, I think. 

Mr. OLVER. But I am sort of asking are we also being good at 

helping them with technical assistance if—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. Absolutely. 

Mr. OLVER [continuing]. There is a strong need that is identified 

by—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. It is one of the ways that we have really broken down the silos, too. We have got transit people working with 

rail people working with highway people because these multi-modal 

proposals that we have received really have allowed us to get all 

of our people working together, reviewing these, talking about 

them, and trying to give some good technical assistance to people. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. 

Mr. Latham. 

REAUTHORIZATION

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

If you hear everyone’s questions, we are talking about new initiatives and the tremendous demand obviously that there is for dollars to go towards infrastructure, whether it be high-speed rail or 

highways, whatever. But I think one of the biggest problems we 

have—and Mr. LaTourette really focused in on it—is the fact that 

there is no certainty out there because we do not have a reauthorization. 

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We are looking at your own solvency tables for the highway trust fund, and June 4 of this year it will go below $4 billion. You have 

to go into the cash management plan at that point. 

By August 20th, we go in the negative. I assume that there will 

need to be another infusion of general funds into the trust fund to 

keep that operational. I would like to know just how much will you 

need? I know last year in your testimony that what was be going 

to be asked for was going to be offset. That was an assurance we 

were given. It didn’t happen. But how much will we need to make 

up the difference in the trust fund and what do we tell our States 

when they can’t plan more than 6 months down the road? That is 

a problem. There is no long-term planning because there is no certainty out there for the States today. 

Secretary LAHOOD. I am going to have Chris give you the figures, and then I will tell you about the other part. 

Mr. BERTRAM. Yes, sir. The highway trust fund will require $9 billion to stay solvent through the end of this fiscal year. $8 billion 

would be for highways and $1 billion for mass transit. That is our 

current estimate. We provide the Congress weekly updates of the 

status of the trust fund and as we get closer to the summer we will 

probably have a more precise estimate of what that figure is. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Our highway people are in communication 

with the States all the time, in terms of what their plans are. So 

it is not as if we are not providing technical assistance and it is 

not as if they don’t know at some point Congress is going to pass, 

a transportation bill. There are no secrets in these States about 

what they want to do, and we are talking with them and we are 

working with them. Some of the stimulus money has been used to 

fund things that they would have maybe ordinarily done under an 

authorization. 

Mr. LATHAM. I think the problem is they don’t know—they probably believe that we will keep the commitment we have at the current baseline levels. But the fact of the matter is, if we are talking 

about a $400 or $500 billion reauthorization to dramatically increase, they cannot plan for any of that today because the money 

is not authorized. There is no plan. 

You know, I have got the table of how we are going to go into 

the negative and $8 billion for highways, another billion for mass 

transit coming out of the general funds, which we are going to have 

to borrow to do that. We have all the requests here from everybody 

for more and more of these projects. I mean, we are at a point that 

there has got to be some certainty out there, and I think that you 

would be able to—it is not just the States but local communities 

would be able to plan if, in fact, we had certainty, but I don’t see 

any effort really to do that. I mean, we are kicking the ball down 

the field again. 

I don’t know if there is a question in that, Ray. 

Secretary LAHOOD. It didn’t sound like it. 

Mr. LATHAM. But it is very frustrating to the people that come 

into my office every day and want to know what is going on. I don’t 

see anything moving. 

I mean, last year when I started talking about that and mentioned it, I didn’t see any reauthorization done for, you know, the 

last fiscal year, this fiscal year, or going into next year; and Mr. 

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LaTourette said if you heard the thud, that was Jim Oberstar falling down outside. But what do you see—how can we move the ball? 

I mean, tell us. I don’t see the administration coming forward with 

a plan. 

Secretary LAHOOD. The President has asked Congress for an 18- 

month extension in order to—— 

Mr. LATHAM. Starting when? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Starting when we requested it, I don’t know, 

maybe 6 months ago. I can get you the date, but it was probably 

6 months ago, whenever we asked for it. We are not going to try 

to start the clock today. We are going to start it from when we 

made the request. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. My concern is you are going to start a new 

Congress. March of 2011 will be a new Congress, and Lord knows 

what is going to happen. That really kicks it probably another year 

down the road. That is the problem. 

And the States are just pulling their hair out, the local communities. There is no certainty. And it is just very frustrating to a lot 

of us who would like to see—who have the great demands for these 

projects to be able to plan long term, and you simply can’t do it. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, having been in the seat that you are all 

in, if you can figure out how to pay for $400 to $500 billion, we 

will work with you on that, but where are we going to find $400 

to $500 billion? 

Mr. LATHAM. That is why we are looking for your suggestions, 

also. It has got to come from both sides—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. I agree. 

Mr. LATHAM. But I think the administration actually should have 

some proposals, also. 

Mr. OLVER. I think the point is made. 

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Rodriguez. 

AIRPORTS

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Thank you very much. 

And once again, Mr. Secretary, thank you. I probably have one 

of the biggest rural districts in the Nation in West Texas, and we 

have a good number of small airport relievers that provide resources, and we are trying to enhance it in that area. I would ask 

in terms of some comments in terms of the importance of those reliever airports throughout the community, and including, for example, in San Antonio we have a small one that provides 150,000 and 

in terms of the resources that are allocated in that area for you to 

comment on them. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Sure. Well, those airports are very important, 

and we have a program that can be helpful to some of the smaller 

airports, and that program will continue. They are an important 

part of it, and we know with the downturn in the economy the use 

of those airports, like every airport around the country, has been 

diminished somewhat. But we will continue to work with the smaller airports and do what we can to be helpful. 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Now, we have been looking at moving towards 

the new technology on airports. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Right. 

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Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Where are we at on that? 

Secretary LAHOOD. We have a significant request in our budget 

that the President sent up for next-generation technology. We have 

just implemented a NextGen system in the Gulf of Mexico. I am 

happy to have someone come up from the FAA and brief you on our 

plan for next generation technology. We want it implemented. 

We are working with the airlines, because it is going to be very 

costly for the airlines—you can put it in the airports, but then the 

airplanes have to have it, too. So we are trying to really mesh the 

two of these together, and we have had lots of discussions with airlines about this and how they are going to pay for it and so forth. 

But we think we have an opportunity to really get the next generation technology sooner than maybe most people think. 

LIVABLE COMMUNITIES

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. I also wanted to follow up, and I know there has 

been a great deal of dialogue and collaboration on that, and I want 

to congratulate you on that, regarding the livable and sustainable 

community initiatives. Would you elaborate on the mechanics of 

how this initiative will work and how communities will be able to 

get access to these resources? 

Secretary LAHOOD. If our budget is approved, we have shared resources between HUD and EPA and the Department of Transportation in a program called Livable Communities, and we have a 

working group over the last year and once the budget is approved, 

really begin to work with communities. We know there are neighborhoods around the country, communities around the country, 

that want to do more with light rail, with transit, with streetcars, 

with walking paths, with biking paths; and all of these fit into the 

definition of livable communities. Once our budget is approved, we 

would be off to the races with these communities and neighborhoods in trying to help them implement the kind of dreams that 

they have for other ways to get around the community and neighborhoods other than automobiles. 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. So I gather there will be notices out later on in 

the near future and—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. Yes. This is a part of our budget, once our 

budget is approved, then we can have relationships again with 

these folks around the country that we have been out and visiting. 

They have heard about this program. We have talked about it for 

a year, and once everything is signed, sealed, and delivered as far 

as the money, then we will start accepting proposals. 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. Mr. LaTourette. 

INFRASTRUCTURE FUND

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, I want to commend you for the fund formerly 

known as NIIFF and just come up with a cautionary—I think that 

is a great idea. That really is the wave of the future. And we had 

proposed, and I guess the warning is in SAFETEA–LU there was 

originally a proposal, I think it was $171⁄2 billion, for projects of regional national significance. And the footprint, the requirement 

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was that each project had to be half a billion dollars or more. And 

we knew that we might not get one, but we knew that there were 

going to be 35, 30 projects around the country that were going to 

be built and they were going to be real projects. 

In Ohio, the inner belt, Cleveland, the Bent Spence Bridge that 

connects Ohio to Kentucky, all of those are billion dollar projects. 

But a funny thing happened on the way to the original project 

fund. It went over to the other body, and they pirated it. They took 

200 billion here, 200 billion there, 50 billion there, 50 million here. 

And so, just to take the one that I am interested in, the inner belt 

in Cleveland is a $1.2 billion project. Senator Voinovich got $200 

million. Well, that is great, but you are not building a billion dollar 

project with $200 million. 

So I would hope that—and I know that, given your integrity, that 

you will protect the integrity of this fund and make sure it really 

builds America and doesn’t satisfy a bunch of parochial needs. I am 

interested in the budget submission and the reasoning behind the 

proposed termination of the surface transportation priorities fund 

of $161 million. And I will tell you what concerns me. That has 

an—it is a dirty word around here—earmark. But that fund is congressionally directed spending. So I consider it to be a direct slap 

at the United States Congress and the Appropriations Committee, 

and it will leave one bunch in town that is able to direct spending 

to specific areas, and that is the administration. And I wish you 

would reconsider that. 

But if you have a comment about that I would be happy to—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. Do you know about that, Chris? 

I will let Chris give you the bad news on this. 

Mr. BERTRAM. Mr. LaTourette, those are the congressionally directed projects—— 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Right. 

Mr. BERTRAM [continuing]. In an appropriations bill, and we 

don’t terminate them. We are not rescinding them, but we don’t 

propose any new funding for that in 2011. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. So you continue the program with no money, 

is that—I got it. We will deal with that during the appropriations 

process. 

I don’t want to be a one-note Johnny, Mr. Secretary, but, again, 

the figure is 30 percent unemployment among civil engineers, the 

sand and gravel guys, the asphalt people, the concrete people, the 

laborer, the operating engineer. And according to GAO almost half 

of the stimulus funds that went through your Department that did, 

in fact, create jobs went for repaving projects, as I mentioned earlier. 

In Ohio, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that the stimulus 

bill created or saved 13,000 jobs. Of those 13,000 jobs, 11,000 were 

teachers. I like teachers. I think it is great. But that is not stimulating the economy. 

In Ohio, it has been pretty well publicized that over a million 

dollars was spent on signs, not saying ‘‘slow down,’’ ‘‘construction 

zone,’’ but saying ‘‘this project was paid for by the Recovery Act.’’ 

So the sign makers are fully employed in Ohio, but the people that 

build the highways are not. And it was further a requirement that 

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the sign had to be up before you could begin to put a shovel in the 

ground, which seemed a little odd to me as well. 

We have a problem with unemployment. A job solves that. The 

President talks a lot about health care. A job can solve that for a 

family. Retirement security, a job can solve that. Foreclosure problems, people losing their house, a job can save that. 

I just have to tell you, I heard what you said, and there are proposals. Mr. Oberstar has a proposal. I am working with Mr. Oberstar. We can find in a bipartisan way the 400 to $500 billion to 

fully fund, but it is going to take some tough choices. 

And I will be a bipartisan basher. This started with President 

Bush. When he came up on SAFETEA–LU and said we only had 

$256 billion over 6 years, that was crazy. And because he wouldn’t 

recognize and his bean counters wouldn’t recognize that, we had to 

enhance the revenue to the highway trust fund. It would have 

taken a nickel then. Now it takes a dime. 

I get people don’t want to vote for a tax increase. I get people 

don’t want to switch to vehicle miles traveled. I get people don’t 

want to use the bonding authority of the United States. But if this 

administration continues to pump out stimulus bills that fund 

things like treatment for sexually transmitted diseases rather than 

putting the operating engineers to work, shame on you. And if the 

United States Congress can’t work in a bipartisan way to come up 

with a 6-year bill that gets the job done, then shame on us. 

I went up to Mr. Emanuel after the State of the Union address 

and said, I am ready, and he has invited me to send our proposal 

down. I will work with anybody, as will many Republicans, but to 

kick this can down the road until 2011 is a political decision. It is 

not an infrastructure decision that will rebuild America. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you, Mr. LaTourette. 

Mr. PASTOR. We are going to stick very closely to let the Secretary get finished here, and we are going to hold it to 5 minutes 

now. 

NEXT GEN

Mr. PASTOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The stimulus package did save a lot of teachers jobs, and school 

boards and school districts are very thankful, and cities have gotten some firemen and some policemen that stayed on the job and 

other people. They are thankful. And in the district I represent, 

jobs went for infrastructure, and people are working. And I was 

only sad to see that it was not a bipartisan bill not because of my 

choice but because of people that either felt it didn’t go far enough, 

which may have been my colleagues’ reason for not voting for it, 

or because they didn’t want to spend the money. But the reality is 

we have made attempts to create employment and thank God that 

people have stayed in a job and will continue to do it. 

I support infrastructure development, and I will join Mr. 

LaTourette, as he knows he and I have a friendly relationship, that 

there are water treatment plants and bridges and all of that, and 

I agree with it. And hopefully in a bipartisan manner he and I and 

others can work to get a jobs bill that creates more infrastructure 

that is greatly needed. But that is the reality today and for the future we need to work together. I guess both of us need to quit lookmstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

37 

ing at the next reelection and look to the next generation, as I 

heard at the State of the Union. So we are willing to do that. 

I want to thank you for the emphasis in the budget on safety. 

I have to tell you that sometimes we overlook it. The whole texting 

issue, distraction for drivers, is very important. And so as people 

are driving and wanting to text and not text, but the whole issue 

of how people are not paying attention to their driving whether— 

it is very important. 

But the issue I have—it is not an issue. It is just a question, with 

NextGen. I have to tell you that a few years ago I was greatly disappointed because I saw a lot of disarray and confusion on how to 

get it going, and it seemed like things weren’t happening because 

some agencies weren’t involved and probably the priority was not 

there. 

Today, you are telling me that there is a project over in the Gulf 

of Mexico and it is becoming a reality. I can wait for the Administrator Babbitt for more specifics. But, overall, is it under budget 

and on time? I guess that is my main concern. Because we can’t 

spread it out like we have other programs dealing with navigation 

in the sky. So this is very important, but it is very expensive. So 

under budget and on time is a very big concern to me. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, we have a good plan. We have some 

very good resources in the budget that is being proposed to all of 

you. We have people that think about this every day. 

As I said, we have had lots of discussions with the airlines last 

year about how they can pay for what they need to implement in 

the planes. We are pretty far along on this, and we think we will 

have it sooner rather than later. There is a commitment from Congress, there is a commitment from the industry, and this is, if not 

the top priority, which is safety, it is right up there for us to implement this. The White House is behind us on this, also. 

Mr. PASTOR. I am glad to hear that the airlines are involved in 

this. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Absolutely. 

Mr. PASTOR. The other is the air traffic controllers. Because I remember sitting here in the hearings always trying to discuss the 

screen and the mouse. So, hopefully, they are involved. 

The other question I have, and I support you for the high-speed 

rail, but one of the disappointments I guess that I heard this morning is that they will still be using lines that are accommodating 

freight, Amtrak, et cetera. And at most hearings I have sat through 

here, it has always been if you try to accommodate three partners 

or two partners, it is always that you are not going to have that 

speed that you are looking for above—even to get to 90 is quite a 

challenge. So I just hope you can resolve that issue, because it is 

a problem in using the current infrastructure, especially the rails. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. 

Ms. Kaptur. 

TIGER GRANTS

Ms. KAPTUR. Thank you. I will try to get through this in 5 minutes, Mr. Chairman. 

First of all, Mr. Secretary, the largest transportation project in 

Ohio history was a Federal project crossing the Maumee River, the 

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38 

largest river that flows into the Great Lakes, Interstate I–280 in 

the region I represent. Shortly we are going to be solar powering 

the main pylon, which looks like a large Roman candle, and I believe it will be the first such solar-powered major lighting effort in 

the United States of America. We would like to invite you out to 

help us on this landmark—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. I will be there. Thank you for your leadership, too, and to the community. 

Ms. KAPTUR. Thank you. It has taken many, many years and 

thank you for your openness to that. 

Number two, I have two quick questions. One is, the administra- tion is about to make $1.5 billion in TIGER grants funded through 

the recovery bill, and there is an additional $600 million that we 

provided in the regular budget, in the fiscal year ’10 bill. Do you 

anticipate recompeting the TIGER grants for the new funding, the 

extra funding, or are you in the next 2 weeks going to roll out an 

announcement that spends the entire $2.1 billion? 

And the second part of my question on that is, if a project scored 

high in the initial round of scoring but is not funded, are you going 

to make those projects compete again? 

Secretary LAHOOD. We are statutorily required to make announcements on the $1.5 billion by February 17, which we will do, 

and then there will be competition for the additional money. I take 

your point on programs where we didn’t have enough money but 

they are valuable programs or projects—I will get back to you on 

whether they can compete for those funds. 

Ms. KAPTUR. I thank you. I just want to state for the record, and 

I will provide more detail, that the top project in our region, which 

was the modernization of our shipyard, was not able to be funded. 

And I have talked with the Secretary and you have been great in 

trying to explain what happened. 

It was the top priority of our city, county, myself, our Governor, 

everybody else, but here is what we ran into. In the Recovery Act, 

there is a section 601(a)(8) that defines project if located within the 

boundaries of a port terminal to include surface transportation infrastructure modifications as are necessary to facilitate direct intermodal interchange transfer and access into and out of the port. So 

our State thought that a port project would be eligible, our shipyard would be eligible. What happened is, once it got over to DOT, 

it then got administered by the Highway Administration, and that 

is where we ran into difficulty. 

We will explain that, but we are hoping that in the new jobs bill, 

assuming the Senate passes it, that if a project—our State DOT Director was in here yesterday and said if a project is eligible for any 

DOT program, it should be eligible for the recovery jobs program. 

We ought to find a way to do that and not have a stovepipe inside 

of DOT telling us we can’t do it. So it seems there is a conflict in 

the law. We will try to clarify it to the best our ability, but we 

wanted to make you aware of it. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

ENVIRONMENTAL EFFORTS

Ms. KAPTUR. The final question that I have is just a request for 

information. That is, are there any programs at U.S. DOT authorimstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

39 

ties or funding to help urban communities, urban counties consolidate all their public vehicle fleet maintenance and management to 

go green? Is there anything in the law? Is there anything in what 

you are doing over there? Because I think this would save us a 

great deal of money. 

Because we have State fleets, city fleets, county fleets, and transit authority fleets. Everybody has got their own garage. Every garage leaks energy. The vehicles are not that green. And so I am 

looking for any type of incentive program or demonstration program that might exist through DOT that we might be able to look 

in and, if it does not exist, to create the authority to have it exist. 

Secretary LAHOOD. We will get back to you on that. 

Ms. KAPTUR. I thank you very, very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. 

Mr. Latham for your final round. 

TRANSIT

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Secretary, as you know, there are many States in the country that don’t have large transit systems, like Iowa. In our case, we 

put about $60 million a year into the mass transit account with the 

gas taxes that we pay. We get back about $35 million in the formula. And we still have tremendous needs as far as new equipment 

certainly as far as the systems we have. Is the Department doing 

anything to address the funding inequities for the smaller transit 

systems like in the State of Iowa? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Well, our transit administrator is trying to 

work with States like Iowa, and why don’t I get back to you with 

some of the specifics that he has been doing. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. If you would. 

Secretary LAHOOD. I will have him come up and meet with you. 

MOTOR CARRIERS

Mr. LATHAM. Great. Thank you. 

As you know, in the fiscal year ’10 omnibus there was a provision 

in there to authorize the use of heavy six-axle trucks on interstates, highways in Maine and Vermont. The committee never really got a chance to have a hearing or to really debate anything 

about that, and there is a lot of interest from other States, obviously, for the same types of provisions. I just wanted to know what 

your thoughts are on that like a countrywide pilot program that 

would allow the States to increase the allowable weight on the 

interstate and would you be in favor of considering such a pilot 

program? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Our administrator for truck safety is working 

on this, and I will get back to you with the specifics on what we 

are working on. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. Obviously, we have the same types—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. This is a very, very controversial hot topic, 

and either I will come up and brief you or I will have our—— 

Mr. LATHAM. Let us get into one that is real easy, then. What 

about Mexican trucks? Where are—— 

mstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

40 

Secretary LAHOOD. We are working with the White House on a 

proposal. 

Mr. LATHAM. And I know we have had discussions between the 

of two of us with NAFTA and the commitment we have made with 

NAFTA to make sure it has to be done in a very safe way, obviously. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Right. 

Mr. LATHAM. But you are going to get back to me again? 

Secretary LAHOOD. No. I am going to just tell you we are working with the White House on a proposal. Once we have that, I will 

be happy to come up and show it to you. 

Mr. LATHAM. Is there a timeline that you are looking at? 

Secretary LAHOOD. Soon. 

Mr. LATHAM. Soon? In the interest of time, we have votes on the 

floor. So I will yield back my time, and I appreciate very much—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being with us. 

I have a couple of quick questions, and then we will close. 

If when we get around to passing this bill sometime later, some 

months later in the process, if it is in regular order, a limited number of months, and if the economy still looks as if there is need, 

what would your thought be about going above the 10 percent that 

has been allowed for—several people expressed an interest in going 

above the 10 percent allowance for the capital funds that go out by 

formula being used for operating expenses, going to a higher percentage. 

Secretary LAHOOD. I think that if you all decide to get into that 

kind of debate, we will talk with you about it. I think you know 

where we stand on the principle of doing it, and so if you all decide 

to do something else, we will talk with you about it. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. The other thing that I hear several people 

mentioned at one point or another is the streamlining of the processes. It is clearly the processes whereby one does planning and environmental work and design and finally at some point some 10 or 

12 years later get to construction on a project that people are concerned about. 

Does the administration have any kind of preparatory work to 

work directly with the T&I? Because that is an authorizing issue. 

We have to somehow streamline these processes for major capital 

programs. 

Secretary LAHOOD. I talk to the chairman all the time, and also 

we are working with their staff. So we will continue to do that. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. I thank you for that. 

I just also want to thank you very much for the rail money out 

of the recent announcement a couple of weeks ago, the announcement that involves Connecticut and Massachusetts and Vermont in 

the Connecticut River Valley. That is a very valuable program that 

I think much of it can be delivered within certainly ’10 and ’11 at 

least, and a large portion of the work will be done during this calendar year that we are in, and a good deal of time will be saved 

in the trip for people who are using that Amtrak corridor. So I 

greatly appreciate that. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thanks for your leadership in the area and 

in the region. 

mstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

41 

Mr. OLVER. I yield to Mr. Latham. 

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I just want to say a lot of members here have said that you have 

come to their States. I haven’t been with you in Iowa, and I don’t 

think you have been with the chairman in Massachusetts, so we 

would invite you to join us. 

Secretary LAHOOD. I have been to Iowa. I wasn’t in your district. 

Mr. LATHAM. What? 

Secretary LAHOOD. I spent a half day in Dubuque, and that is 

where I learned about the new IBM employees in the millworks 

area. Whenever I am invited, Mr. Latham, I will be in your district. 

Whenever I am invited, Mr. Olver, I will be in your district. 

Mr. OLVER. I am hoping that I will be able to invite you after—— 

Secretary LAHOOD. When Mr. Rodriguez invited me to San Antonio, I came. 

Mr. OLVER. We will see. 

Finally, I just want to thank you for your very strong leadership 

in this field. And, really, if there is a little bit of testiness coming 

from members who have great concerns, it is not with you, not 

meant in any kind of a personal way. I am quite certain. And I 

want to thank you also for the steady communication with the subcommittee. It is very much appreciated. 

Secretary LAHOOD. One of the values I bring to this job is I have 

sat in those chairs and I know that when Mr. LaTourette speaks, 

he speaks with great authority and great sincerity, and I wouldn’t 

question his motives at all. I know that there is a great deal of 

frustration being expressed, and so we have our job to do, and we 

will continue to work with all of you on the way forward here. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you very much. 

Secretary LAHOOD. Thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. The hearing is adjourned. 

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(265) 

TUESDAY, MARCH 16, 2010. 

STRENGTHENING INTERMODAL CONNECTIONS AND IMPROVING FREIGHT MOBILITY: AN OUTSIDE PERSPECTIVE 

WITNESSES 

WAYNE JOHNSON, DIRECTOR OF LOGISTICS, AMERICAN GYPSUM 

COMPANY 

JOHN WOLFE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PORT OF TACOMA 

BEVERLY K. SWAIM-STALEY, SECRETARY, MD DEPT. OF TRANSPORTATION 

RICHARD F. TIMMONS, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN SHORT LINE AND REGIONAL RAILROAD ASSOCIATION 

TIMOTHY P. LYNCH, SEN. VICE PRESIDENT, AMERICAN TRUCKING ASSOCIATION 

CHAIRMAN OLVER’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. OLVER. The subcommittee will come to order. At its core, the 

global economy determines winners and losers based on the costs 

at which a product can be produced and then brought to market. 

Within the global marketplace, the United States cannot compete 

with labor costs in developing countries. As a result, we must ensure that every other step of the process is more efficient, including 

the ability of domestic manufacturers to transport finished goods to 

the marketplace. 

To that point, investments in our national infrastructure are not 

only about creating immediate construction jobs, but also long-term 

jobs that are established when manufacturers can access and gain 

advantage from an efficient, interconnected transportation network. In order to meet this challenge, the federal government plays 

a central role in developing and maintaining an intermodal system 

that meets our nation’s national needs. 

Last month, the Department of Transportation announced 

awards for the TIGER grant program established within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This is a significant step for 

our federal transportation program, as it reflects a growing understanding that the interconnections between modes are just as important as mobility within a mode. 

Helping us explore these complex networks, we have before us 

today a distinguished panel of experts and practitioners who represent different modes engaged in the movement of commerce. Beverly Swaim-Staley is Secretary of the Maryland Department of 

Transportation. John Wolfe is the Executive Director for the Port 

of Tacoma. Richard Timmons is President of the American Short 

Line and Regional Railroad Association. Wayne Johnson is the Director of Logistics for the American Gypsum Company. And Tim 

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266 

Lynch is Senior Vice President for the American Trucking Association. 

Thank you all for being here today. I believe that we at the 

table—there are a number of other hearings going on. That is one 

of the features once one gets into this hearing process. You have 

people who are three different subcommittees, and very often all 

three subcommittees are meeting at the same time. One of the others that I serve on is meeting at this very time. 

Today I believe we will all benefit from your perspective, particularly on how our current system operates and where you believe 

there are opportunities for improved mobility. Furthermore, recognizing that the U.S. population is estimated to grow to close to 400 

million people by 2050, I hope you will discuss how we can plan 

ahead to minimize conflict between the movement of freight and 

passengers, and what role new technologies may play in alleviating 

that tension. Your testimony will also set the tone and provide 

practical insight for tomorrow’s hearing, where we will hear from 

the federal modal agencies that primarily impact freight mobility. 

Specifically, the Federal Highway Administration, the Federal 

Motor Carriers Safety Administration, the Maritime Administration, and the Federal Railroad Administration will provide testimony on their respective fiscal year 2011 budget request. 

With that, let me recognize our Ranking Member John Latham 

for any comments that he would like to make. 

RANKING MEMBER LATHAM’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome the panel 

here today. And I think this will be an important hearing. I think 

it is interesting that the hearing from last week about livability or 

sustainability, the administration was supporting a proposal to 

take the scarce, and some would say nonexistent, highway trust 

fund dollars from the states, and instead give those funds to community planners. 

If I am reading the testimonies correctly here today, these witnesses are saying just the opposite: highway trust fund dollars are 

desperately needed for road maintenance and congestion mitigation. Not only does our economy depend on the jobs that construction and maintenance supports, but general industry, distribution, 

and manufacturing depends on smooth mobility of freight. 

My home state of Iowa, obviously, is an agricultural state, and 

our economy and the livelihood of thousands of farming families 

and other people in the business depend on agricultural products 

grown and processed in Iowa and getting to other cities, states, 

and, like Mr. Wolfe’s testimony will say, to the rest of the world. 

I really do look forward to the testimony and the questions and 

answers the next couple of hours because I think it will drive home 

the need to keep highway trust fund dollars for the purposes it was 

intended by the creators of the trust fund, and probably perhaps 

even more importantly, that the expectation of every person who 

buys a gallon of gas that these funds will be used to improve roads. 

So with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. We will now hear from the panel. Your 

complete written statements will be included in the record. If you 

can keep your oral summary to somewhere around six minutes— 

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267 

we usually have this listed at five, but we are going to do six minutes today for each of you. Then we will be able to get on to questions from the panel. Thank you very much. Ms. Swaim-Staley. 

MS. SWAIM-STALEY’S OPENING REMARKS

Ms. SWAIM-STALEY. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Olver 

and Ranking Member Latham, members of the subcommittee. I am 

Beverly Swaim-Staley, Secretary for the Maryland Department of 

Transportation. Thank you very, very much for the opportunity to 

be here today to provide testimony to you from the state of Maryland on a topic that is of great importance to us in the public sector. My comments and a more extensive set of written comments, 

of course, you have been provided with. 

Maryland’s recent efforts in intermodal freight planning and investment, and the need for continuation of our federal matching 

grants, plus an improved organizational structure to support complex projects are some of the efforts that we are trying to advance 

in the state of Maryland. For more than 35 years, the Maryland 

Department of Transportation has functioned as a multimodal 

agency. Within the umbrella of the Department of Transportation, 

we have capital and operating responsibility for everything transportation-related, from the state-owned short line railroad on the 

eastern shore of our state to the port of Baltimore to the BWI 

Thurgood Marshall Airport and the interstates and roadways. 

Now and in the future, freight growth in the U.S. will depend 

upon the provision of strong, critical capacity networks throughout. 

Some improvements are definitely needed in order for us to be able 

to alleviate the congestion that we experience, while others are required to accommodate a greater share of the modern freight equipment, including the post-Panamax ship and Doublestack. And 

those are some of the challenges that we certainly face in the state 

of Maryland, both at our port and our freight lines, just making 

sure that we can handle the larger cargoes that need to pass 

through our state. 

Fortunately, I think Maryland has a flexible funding and organizational structure that does give us some of the flexibility, I think, 

to fund across the modes. In fact, we have a dedicated modal 

stream that really allows us to move revenue streams from one 

mode to the other, which I think is of extreme importance to us in 

Maryland. 

Of course, the current downturn in the state revenues has affected our ability to fund new capital projects as well as our operating program. We have really also been forced, as many have, to 

look at non-traditional resources. We are employing things such as 

a public-private partnership at our new port—and I will speak a 

little bit about that in a moment—also looking to foster transit-oriented development, as well as other opportunities to move freight 

throughout our state. 

As you might expect, Maryland’s location along the northeast corridor is key. Our proximity, of course, to dense population centers 

make it very important, and frankly forces us to operate in megaregional environment and to make sure that those investments 

that we are making in our region are across-region. 

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268 

Like other states, we work across modes and borders to try to 

solve impediments to the growth and efficiency that we need to 

keep our states economically viable. MDOT is engaged in partnerships in several major areas, at our port and also in an intermodal 

rail-truck container facility. 

One of our recent investments, our Governor O’Malley has announced a 50-foot berth at the port of Baltimore. This is our first 

public-private partnership. It is a 50-year lease with a company 

called Ports America. It is going to bring 5,700 jobs to our state 

and allow us to be able to work with the post-Panamax ships once 

the canal, the Panama Canal, opens. And we are very pleased 

about that. 

We also have a CSX Gateway project, which is by far one of our 

most important projects. Of course, being able to provide for 

Doublestack is critical to the port of Baltimore. We need to make 

sure that we are working with our freight railroads to accomplish 

this. We were very pleased that USDOT awarded the project $98 

million from the TIGER funding recently. Unfortunately, despite 

considerable state and private matching funds, this award is still 

20 million shy of what we need for that segment from Pennsylvania 

to Ohio. 

To realize the full benefits of the project, we needed to clear the 

route all the way from Maryland to Virginia, and to provide 50 percent of the cost to construct the new inland port. We have made 

that obligation for our state, but we need federal funds to match 

that. 

We recognize the significant competition that was available in 

the TIGER funding, and we are certainly very appreciative of the 

first steps. And we certainly hope that these investments will continue to create solid employment and give permanent and longterm boosts to our economy, national and in the state as well. 

Congress has given states broad flexibility for federal funding. 

We are very appreciative of that. We encourage the continuation of 

these programs and further applaud Congress’s action to include 

600 million in the fiscal year 2010 National Infrastructure Investment Grants. We consider this kind of funding critical. We believe 

that it is very well timed, and it will provide us with the flexibility 

to delivery deadlines in a better fashion than we were allowed 

under the recovery fund. 

So going forward, we believe that states are going to want access 

to programs like this, programs that benefit intermodal, 

multimodal, and freight projects, and we certainly urge your support in continuing to fund these kinds of long-term projects so that 

they have predictable funding streams, quite frankly. 

Traditional private investment previously has had little public 

input, but we believe that these new programs are providing incentives for the business community to coordinate goals and projects 

within state and local governments. We are involved in our statewide freight plan. We are involved in many coalitions along the 

northeast corridor to make sure that we are part of a very viable 

freight network throughout the country. 

So in conclusion, we would urge you to continue to fund mode 

neutral programs like the TIGER program, the projects of national 

regional significance, and the national infrastructure investment. 

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269 

And I want to thank you very much for the opportunity to be here 

today to talk about this. 

[The information follows:] 

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Mr. OLVER. Thank you. Mr. Wolfe. 

MR. WOLFE’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. WOLFE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. I want to thank you for this opportunity to testify before you today on strengthening intermodal connections and improving freight mobility. 

I would like to talk to you about some of the most important 

tools we have for keeping our nation’s economy strong and keeping 

U.S. companies successful competitors in the global marketplace. 

U.S. seaports are the gateways for the import and export of 7.8 billion tons of cargo annually. This trade activity helps our nation’s 

ports provide high-paying jobs through public-private partnerships, 

and generate billions of dollars in business income and spending 

annually. 

I am proud of the innovations at the port of Tacoma that have 

brought freight movement. Back in 1981, we built the first on-dock 

intermodal rail yard on the west coast, a pioneering development 

that helped our shipper save time and money by transferring containers directly between ship and train. About 60 percent of the 

containers transiting our port travel by rail to the American heartland, almost all of them loaded on dock directly from ships. 

The port of Tacoma and the port of Seattle, 40 miles to our 

north, together represent the third largest container load center in 

North America. We also handle large volumes of agricultural products and break-bulk cargoes. In addition, the port of Tacoma is a 

strategic military port. Both ports realize the importance of keeping cargo moving efficiently and cost-effectively through the Puget 

Sound region, or that cargo will flow through other port gateways. 

In 1996, that concern for transportation efficiency led ports, cities, counties, Washington state DOT, railroads, trucking interests, 

and our Regional Metropolitan Planning Organization to create the 

FAST corridor project, the identification of 25 grade crossing and 

port access projects in the Puget Sound region, half of which are 

now completed, to reduce congestion impacts from freight movement. 

This initiative showed what major partnerships and major investments, almost half a billion dollars, can accomplish. One of 

those FAST corridor projects critical to the port of Tacoma is the 

extension of SR–167, the home of one-third of our region’s distribution and storage facilities into our port. The SR–167 project is the 

type of project that can greatly benefit from programs like the 

TIGER program, which use merit-based criteria to fund large, nationally significant projects, with special emphasis on freight mobility. 

Under TIGER, for the first time, ports were able to apply directly 

for this type of federal funds. By one analysis, 22 of the 51 projects 

recently awarded TIGER grants contain a strong freight component, and those 22 projects receive 49 percent of the total funds. 

They still had to compete, however, against transit and other nonfreight projects. We think that a better long-term solution would be 

to create a federal funding program similar to TIGER, but a program that is completely dedicated to freight mobility. 

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A remarkable consensus has developed within the freight industry on what kind of federal freight program this country needs. 

Such a program should mandate the creation of a national 

multimodal freight strategic plan, provide dedicated funds for 

freight mobility projects distributed through a competitive grant 

process using objective merit-based criteria, permit ports to apply 

directly for these funds, and establish a multimodal grade office at 

USDOT under the Undersecretary for Intermodalism. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to also single out two recent freightrelated initiatives of the Obama administration for special praise. 

First, the effort by the International Trade Administration and the 

Department of Commerce, in cooperation with other federal agencies and the private sector, to draw attention to the need for a national freight policy and a 21st century supply-chain infrastructure; 

and second, the administration’s national export initiative to create 

2 million jobs by doubling U.S. exports over the next five years. 

I want to emphasize, however, that if this initiative is to be successful, we will need to make major strategic investments in freight 

transportation infrastructure, for example, intermodal connections 

at our ports to handle these trade volumes more efficiently. 

Last, but by no means least, Mr. Chairman, I also need to mention the longstanding concern of the Pacific Northwest ports about 

the problem of cargo diversion to Canadian ports. Today, we are in 

a tense competition with the port of Vancouver, and especially the 

port of Prince Rupert in British Columbia. They are currently winning that competition because of the strong partnership among the 

national, provincial, and regional governments of Canada, known 

as the Asia-Pacific Gateway Strategy. This national strategy includes a $3 billion investment in the 

gateway program by the Canadian government, the largest infrastructure project in British Columbia history. As you know, we do 

not have anything comparable in terms of a national strategy for 

the United States. If we were to ask the federal government to do 

one thing, it would be to develop such a strategy for the U.S., and 

to work with our public ports and others to make the targeted investments needed to implement it. Thank you. 

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Mr. OLVER. Thank you, Mr. Wolfe. Mr. Timmons. 

MR. TIMMONS’ OPENING REMARKS

Mr. TIMMONS. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I 

appreciate the opportunity to testify in my capacity as the president of the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association 

this afternoon. 

The short line railroad industry is not the largest segment of our 

transportation system. Indeed, we may be the smallest. But for 

large areas of the country, short lines are the only connection to 

the national railroad network. There are 550 short lines operating 

in 49 states. Every member of this subcommittee except one represents a short line railroad, and I can assure you we are working 

hard to acquire a short line in Representative Pastor’s district as 

quickly as possible. 

State DOTs recognize that short lines provide congestion reduction benefits while reducing highway pavement damage costs. For 

example, the Kansas Department of Transportation found that the 

diversion of rail traffic from Kansas short lines to trucks would cost 

the state over $50 million in pavement damage costs each year. 

Railroads in general and short lines in particular are exceptionally capital-intensive industries. These small businesses reinvest 

nearly 30 percent of their gross revenues in repairing and upgrading their infrastructure, more than other industry in the country. 

With the passage of the Railroad Safety Improvement Act in 

2008, the regulatory compliance costs for short lines have skyrocketed. Twenty-six separate regulations are in the works. These 

regulations will create serious financial burdens for small railroads. And I have no doubt that several short lines will cease operations in the next two years because their resources will just not 

be sufficient to meet this burden. 

Foremost among these costs for both the seven large class one 

railroads and some short lines is the requirement to install positive 

train control systems under certain conditions. The Federal Railroad Administration estimates that the positive train control mandate will cost approximately $14 billion over the next 20 years, diverting critical funds from other necessary and more important effective safety and infrastructure improvements. 

It is quite possible, however, that a solution to the PTC issues 

may be found outside the appropriations process. One proposal 

would provide a tax credit for PTC improvements. The ASLRRA 

endorses this concept, absent a tax credit that Congress should seriously consider appropriating funding to assist railroads in deploying this new technology. 

While the financial burdens of regulatory changes have mounted, 

the public benefits of rail have gone largely unnoticed in federal 

planning and funding. This committee is to be commended for 

three recent actions to reverse this trend. First, it has provided 

funding for the rail relocation program to allow local governments 

to mitigate the effects of rail traffic on safety, motor vehicle traffic, 

quality of life, and economic development. We commend this action, 

and believe that this program could create dramatic improvements 

to freight mobility if it were funded at its authorized level of $350 

million annually. 

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Second, the committee is to be commended for 20 million in support in 2009 of rail infrastructure damaged in serious Midwest 

flooding. We hope that awarded funding not yet dispersed can 

quickly be released to allow the disaster recovery process to continue. 

Third, state DOTs recognized where a dollar of railroad improvements can generate benefits in excess of a dollar spent on highways. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 specifically allowed state DOTs to use federal high way dollars for passenger and freight rail transportation and port infrastructure 

projects. Many states made funding available for freight rail 

projects deemed in the public interest. We urge the committee to 

grant the same flexibility previously provided in the ARRA whenever general fund resources are appropriated for future transportation purposes. 

These three actions by this committee are steps in the right direction. However, they do not offset the significant new financial 

burdens that are created by the regulatory provisions of the Rail 

Safety Improvement Act, the most sweeping regulatory regime in 

railroad history. 

Let me just briefly touch on additional actions we hope the committee will consider. An effort has been afoot to use appropriation 

riders to waive federal weight limits on trucks. Diversion of truck 

traffic from short lines to heavy trucks adds to congestion and 

damages bridges and highway infrastructure, as well as posing serious safety concerns on our highways. We respectfully request that 

the committee refrain from increasing truck weights in appropriations bills. 

The Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing Program, or RRIF, provides federal infrastructure loans that must be 

paid back in full and do not require annual appropriation. I am 

proud to say that in the 12–year history of this program, not a single short line has missed a single quarterly debt payment. 

We have discussed in the past and continue to support the concept of lowering the interest rate on RRIF loans as a way to increase the use of this program. The RRIF statute provides that 

such a subsidy can be covered through federal appropriation, and 

we urge you to do so. For a relatively modest subsidy, the government would be leveraging substantial additional private investment and railroad infrastructure for a program that has a perfect 

record with regard to loan repayment. 

Now petitioners who appear before this committee, me included, 

are seeking additional federal funding for their own policy interests. I encourage you to take note of the burden that the staff of 

the Federal Railroad Administration has been placed under the 

past year, and to appropriate sufficient resources to allow the FAR 

to advance its ever-expanding mission. The rapid growth in passenger rail spending combined with the implementation of sweeping rail safety laws threatens to overwhelm a hardworking core of 

federal railroad experts. 

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Mr. Chairman, I thank you and the committee for the opportunity to present the industry’s views on these matters, and will 

be happy to answer any questions at the appropriate time. Thank 

you, sir. 

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Mr. OLVER. Thank you. Mr. Johnson. 

MR. JOHNSON’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the 

subcommittee. My name is Wayne Johnson. I am the director of logistics for American Gypsum, out of Dallas, Texas. I have submitted a longer statement for your record, so I will keep my remarks brief at this time. 

I am also representing the members of the National Industrial 

Transportation League, where I serve as chairman of the Highway 

Transportation Committee. The league is an association of companies that conduct industrial and commercial shipping throughout 

the United States and internationally. Founded in 1907, the organization is one of the oldest and largest associations in the country, 

representing more than 600 member companies involved in the 

transport of all kinds of freight domestically and internationally, 

including ocean carriers. 

The American Gypsum, which I represent, sells and distributes 

gypsum wallboard or drywall. We have been in business for over 

40 years, and we are the fifth largest gypsum company in the 

United States. My job is to make sure our production materials are 

on hand, on time, and our finished product is moved to our customers on time, every time. Ours is a very cost sensitive industry, 

so a continuous vigilance on holding down transportation costs is 

extremely important. 

In our free enterprise system, we are challenged daily by the risk 

and competitive pressures of the marketplace. Those challenges 

make us better and more efficient and more productive. By ignoring the imperatives of improving our national transportation and 

freight system and reducing system congestion, we are imposing 

additional cost burdens on American industry and the American 

economy which we cannot recoup. 

Congestion leads to inefficiency, longer transit lines, missed 

schedules, and production interruptions. Simply put, we need to get 

moving on fixing the problem. Folks in Washington have been diverted to recovering from this deep depression, which we need to 

do. Recovery is essential to our business. However, I and others 

feel that this slack in the economy has temporarily pulled a curtain 

over the problems of congestion and delay that had been making 

headlines daily when the economy was booming. 

The truth is that the problems of the freight transportation system do not go away. They have picked up steam, and resumed normal and growing production and consumption cycles underlying the 

cause of those ills will be revealed again, except next time maybe 

not so small. 

American is under-investing in our freight transportation system. 

We are not paying sufficient attention to real transportation infrastructure needs and requirements of the American economy. If we 

do no keep up, we will fall farther behind the competition, and 

competition that is global and relentless. The consequences are obvious. 

Mr. Chairman, in your invitation to testify, you indicated an interest in the so-called just-in-time delivery process in American industry. Just-in-time is indeed now a fundamental core element of 

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industrial management that has been adopted across the board of 

economic activity, from manufacturing to grocery stores and retail 

distribution. Just-in-time has its roots in postwar Japan. Japanese 

auto parts had relied on large stockpiles of parts and assemblies 

and reported onsite. This was expensive, wasteful, and inefficient. 

It was difficult to determine what needed to be ordered when, and 

there was a specific amount of capital tied in both those piles of 

parts waiting to be used. 

Just-in-time became a revolution in our thinking about manufacturing and production and distribution. We moved from merely observing inventory in a static way to actually managing the flow of 

materials, supply chain management. Today, when a cashier rings 

up your purchase of a new flat-screen TV, a signal is sent through 

the retailer’s supply chain that it is now time to move another one 

to the store floor. Another signal is then sent out through the chain 

to produce another TV, and a further signal is moved out to bring 

the parts needed to build that TV. 

Unless the freight transportation system works as well as the 

manufacturing process on the plant floor, or the restocking process 

in the electronic store, we are not going to be able to flow the right 

part nor product at the right time, at the right price. Almost is not 

the same as just-in-time. It is an unacceptable standard. 

In the modern concept of freight transportation, it is no longer 

appropriate to think in the terms of single modes of transportation. 

I am a director of logistics, not the company’s truck person. I am 

charged with bringing all aspects of freight transportation together 

for the company in the most efficient and cost-efficient manner. 

American freight distribution, whether it is for manufacturing or 

end-product consumption is intermodal. 

For example, for-assembly furniture moves from South Asia by 

ship to the U.S. port and is then transferred to a train or truck, 

or in most cases both to get to the point of sale. That process is 

repeated endless times for every conceivable consumer product. It 

is a highly complex and choreographed ballet that works well when 

it hands off clean, fast, and has spiraling costs when confronted 

with missteps in the form of choking congestion, bottlenecks, long 

lines, delays, and so on. 

I cannot control the queue of the highway interchange nor the 

choking traffic that we see everyday in American urban life. That 

furniture retailer must restock his showroom floor in time for the 

promotion being advertised in the local newspaper. If the sale is on 

a Saturday or Sunday, it does not do much for the truck to pull 

into the loading dock on Tuesday. 

The scope and dimensions of the intermodal transportation challenge is shaped by literally tens of thousands of transactions that 

span American economic—a panorama. There are millions of pickup and transfer delivery combinations. 

Among the broadly diverse membership of the league, there is a 

very deep concern that we are adrift. We are grateful now that we 

have the right insight to serve transportation authorization and the 

new funding to carry us through the rest of the year. Respectfully, 

I am urging this Congress and this administration to move with 

dispatch on the hard work that lies ahead to craft a long-term service transportation bill, and in doing so, use this opportunity to exmstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

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amine both the present and future needs of our freight transportation system in its totality. 

We need to address and assure that the transportation system is 

working. We need to use this time to lay out the dimensions of the 

challenge ahead of us, and rationally discuss new means to pay for 

the investments we have been delaying, but now must undertake. 

For the record, league members have said repeatedly they are 

willing to pay their fair share of the cost. We are both users and 

beneficiaries of our freight transportation system. Our single proviso is that whatever additional revenues, from taxes, user fees, 

and so forth, we are asked to pay are used for the intended purpose. 

I know there are other committees in Congress that have primary jurisdiction to write the authorized legislation for transportation programs, but it is the providence of the whole Congress to 

make that decision. Your hearing today is helpful in that regard. 

As we move forward in that process, I would ask that you help 

change the way we think about freight transportation in the 

United States to begin—low-cost transportation really matters to 

this country. When delay, congestion, and high cost in freight 

transportation begins to squeeze out American products in the 

marketplace, we lose competitiveness, loss of jobs, and viability. 

Those are not acceptable outcomes. Freight does matter. Thank 

you. 

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Mr. OLVER. Thank you very much. Last but not least, Mr. Lynch. 

MR. LYNCH’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Latham, Congressman Carter, I think we have reached the stage where everything 

has been said, but not everybody has had a chance to say it. So I 

will try and not be redundant with the comments made by my fellow panelists, and hopefully be brief. 

Every day, thousands of trailers and containers carrying everything from bulk commodities to consumer goods float through our 

nation’s transportation network. And highways are the primary circulatory system for this network. Trucks move 70 percent of the 

nation’s freight tonnage and draw 83 percent of the nation’s freight 

bill. 

If you break down the flow of goods into three distinct mileage 

categories, 0 to 500 miles, 500 to 1,000 miles, and over 1,000 miles, 

truck transportation almost exclusively handles the short-haul 

market, dominates the mid-level market, and is a significant player 

in the third or long-haul market. More importantly, trucks exclusively serve over 80 percent of the communities for the products 

and goods they receive in the United States. 

Trucking is a partner with virtually every other transport mode. 

Intermodal traffic today is at the top of commodities transported by 

the railroad industry, and individual trucking companies are 

among the largest, if not the largest, customers of the rail industry. 

Having said that, it is important to note that even if we double, 

double intermodal traffic over the next 10 years, at the end of that 

10-year period, intermodal traffic will still represent under 2 percent of the market. Clearly, we need a vibrant and robust transportation infrastructure program in this country. We just have one 

small problem. We cannot seem to figure out how to pay for it. 

The American Trucking Association has taken the position that 

we will support an increase in the Federal fuel tax to pay for our 

highways and bridges. Additionally, we believe we need a new 

focus on goods movement and freight mobility, obviously the subject of this hearing. But more succinctly, as some of the other panelists have said, we need a national freight policy. 

Within that freight policy, we believe we need an emphasis on 

addressing congestion. Congestion for the freight community has 

three negatives: It wastes time and delays pickup and deliveries; 

it results in excessive consumption of fuel at a time when we 

should be doing all we can to reduce our fuel consumption; and it 

contributes to unnecessary carbon emissions. 

We believe that one part of the solution for the nation’s congestion problem is to address the choke points or bottlenecks in the 

system, and to ensure that capacity improvements remain a priority for the program. 

There is another important component to infrastructure investment that is vital, but often overlooked, and that is safety. At ATA, 

we believe that the combination of improvements in vehicle technology, the training and performance of the driver, and infrastructure, whether it be something as simple as fixing the potholes or 

more complex like extending off- and on-ramps between interstates, 

have all contributed to a continuing decline in highway accidents 

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and fatalities. And I would be remiss if I did not mention at this 

time we would certainly hope that the subcommittee fully funds 

the MCSAP program, the primary safety program for the trucking 

industry in this appropriations cycle. 

As this subcommittee well knows, the options or alternatives are 

not appealing. As a matter of fact, we would be hard pressed to pay 

for a six-year extension of the current program, with no new programs, with the current revenue stream. To us, there only appear 

to be three options. We can either summon the political will to pay 

for the system with enhanced revenues; we can continue to supplement the program with general revenue funding; or we can scale 

back the system. 

What we cannot do is attempt to add new programs and financial 

burdens when we are failing to address the most fundamental infrastructure needs now. Perhaps we have reached the point where 

we need to take a hard look at what we can pay for under the userbased system, and what we may need to consider paying for 

through general revenue funding. 

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my comments, and I would be 

happy to answer any questions you and the other panel members 

may have. 

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Mr. OLVER. Well, thank you very much for your testimony. I 

think you have thrown quite a lot of fairly diverse controversies on 

the table that we can delve into bit by bit here. From here, we are 

going to go back and forth with questions from the panel, and each 

of us will have five-minute periods. 

Basically, it is better if these involve short questions, and then 

answers by allowance of time for the members of the panel to answer those questions. But sometimes members have longer statements that they want to make. I think we will limit each of us to 

about six minutes, and this not including the explanatory piece 

that I was doing. [Laughter.] 

HIGHWAY TRUST FUND

Mr. OLVER. Let me start. In your opening statement, or in your 

written statement—I am not absolutely certain whether you said 

these words, Mr. Johnson, but in your written statement, you said 

that the members of the National Industrial Transportation League 

are willing to pay their fair share of the costs to maintain and improve our national transportation network. 

Ms. Swaim-Staley, the Secretary of the DOT for Maryland, has 

explained somewhat in her testimony what the Maryland DOT 

does, and argues there are fees and taxes, fuel taxes and such, that 

go into that fund, but there is also a flexible funding, as the 

words—I think the term ‘‘flexible funding’’ is what you used, which 

includes business taxes or fees, and individual taxes of an income 

tax or sales tax nature that goes into the fund, which does this. 

And you had also mentioned the leverage that you get with building private partnerships, which are relatively new. 

You even mentioned the words ‘‘transit oriented development.’’ 

One of the most valuable things that you can have is the air rights 

over transit and highways, especially in urban areas. Usually those 

development monies go into the funds which are supporting the 

transportation systems. So there are a variety of ways. 

You did not mention congestion pricing or tolling specifically in 

your verbal testimony, if I remember correctly, but of course they 

were a part of what the commission had put forward. 

I am going to spend most of this making a statement, I see. 

[Laughter.] 

We have a need in transportation for two or three times the 

amount of revenue that we now have going into it, especially if— 

we are talking about a need at the surface transportation, which 

is generally meant to be highways and transit, mostly passenger 

sorts of things, although the authorizing committee is also clearly 

working on what the needs are for freight, and has done so, as you 

mentioned with relocation. 

We have proven that the trust fund, built out of what we have 

been doing at the national level, cannot be adequate, and will be 

less adequate over time because our fuel efficiencies from which we 

draw revenues for the moment are going to increase. The fuel efficiencies are going to be increased, which means lower taxes per 

unit moved. 

So we have some very serious problems, which go to Mr. Lynch’s 

comment. We have to figure out how to pay for this. Would you like 

to give people, with what I have said—where are we going to get 

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the money from? We know we have had a big commission looking 

at it. Where do we think we are going to get the money, and when 

are we going to get the political will, which involves some of your 

inputs, too, for what has to be done? 

Anybody want to comment on what I have said? 

Mr. LYNCH. If I could, Mr. Chairman. You know, we recognize 

clearly that with fuel efficiency, hybrid vehicles, et cetera, there is 

probably going to have to be some sort of a change. We have sort 

of laid out in the written testimony what we think are some principles for any new taxing schemes that might come along: Ease of 

collection, ease of auditing. 

Right now, under the fuel tax, you basically have about 2,000 

people that actually write the check to the IRS. If you go to some 

of these others, you will multiply that by literally millions of potential units of taxpaying for that, which obviously increases the auditing cost. 

But at the end of the day, we can have the current system, we 

can have a new system, but somebody is ultimately going to have 

to raise their hand and say, yes, I support increasing that, whatever at that point. 

Mr. OLVER. You say only 2,000 units are actually paying the fuel 

taxes? 

Mr. LYNCH. That is about the number that actually write the 

check to the IRS on the fuel tax. Those are the jobbers. 

Mr. OLVER. Interesting. 

Mr. LYNCH. I mean, we all pay it at the pump, but none of us 

in this room have ever written a check to the IRS for a fuel tax. 

Mr. OLVER. Do not the individual gas stations, fuel stations— 

they do not—— 

Mr. LYNCH. They do not write the check. 

Mr. OLVER. They do not write the checks either. 

Mr. LYNCH. No. 

Mr. OLVER. It is coming from their suppliers. 

Mr. LYNCH. Correct. 

Mr. OLVER. Somewhere along that supply chain. 

Mr. LYNCH. Correct. 

Mr. OLVER. Well, that is a good thing to understand, for me. 

Okay. Anybody else? You were going to comment, Mr. Johnson. 

TRUCKING WEIGHT LIMITS

Mr. JOHNSON. Yeah. You know, shippers are more than willing 

to pay their part. I mentioned that there are things that we support. We support tolling of roads that are new, not present interstates or present roads we have, but the new roads construction, 

we support that. So that brings funds through the committee. 

If we raise the weight limits on trucks to 97,000 pounds, the ATA 

and National Industrial Transportation League both support 

that—— 

Mr. OLVER. Raise the weight limits, which makes more damage 

to the infrastructure. 

Mr. JOHNSON. No. In 45 states today—and most of the States I 

am sure that you represent here have heavier weights on secondary roads. And what we are saying is—— 

Mr. OLVER. Than on the interstates. 

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Mr. JOHNSON. Than on the interstates. 

Mr. OLVER. Really? Do Texas and Iowa have higher fees on the 

secondary roads than they do on the interstates? 

Mr. JOHNSON. No, they do not, no. Maine is a good example of 

that. Maine just recently had the exempt—— 

Mr. OLVER. We did not have anything to do with that. [Laughter.] 

I dissociate myself. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Okay, all right. I agree then. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay? 

Mr. JOHNSON. But it was there. I mean, they get the 100,000 

pounds on their roads. And it helped them a lot. I mean, the efficiencies in Maine today are just tremendous. Vermont got it. Florida got it for the emergency because of the storms down there. So 

it does help, and it is a way of revenue for the committee. 

Mr. OLVER. I think I got you into the woods here on that question, in any case, probably. Mr. Latham. 

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you for being succinct, Mr. Chairman. Interesting. I think in Iowa, as far as the weight, usually they suspend 

on the state and county roads in the fall during harvest. They will 

suspend the weight limitations, but not on the interstates, obviously. 

GLOBAL COMPETITION

Mr. Lynch, in your testimony, you talked about how the U.S. lags 

behind our global competitors, namely Germany, Japan, and the 

U.K., and Canada. Can you give us an insight? Why are they more 

successful than we are, and maybe give us some ideas? 

Mr. LYNCH. Well, I think probably twofold. One, the size of their 

system is vastly smaller than ours, so they have got less to pay for, 

and in some cases they have had a longer history, if you will, of 

relying on alternative modes. 

The second is that they seem to have been able to figure out the 

taxing side of this to pay for the system that they have chosen to 

have. And so I think those two in combination explain that, and 

why we are—we have not raised the fuel tax here since 1992, I believe it was, or 1993. 

And by the way, in all fairness, I mean, the American Trucking 

Association has not always been at the forefront in support of increasing that fuel tax. But this is, after all, our workplace. This is 

our office, and that office is crumbling. And so it was not without 

a lot of thought and debate internally that we reached the conclusion that we did. 

HIGHWAY TRUST FUND

Mr. LATHAM. I had mentioned opening, again, Mr. Lynch, 

about—and we had a hearing last week about a proposal to take 

more highway trust fund dollars to give them to the community 

planners or different types of sustainable developments and things 

like that. There are already—I think it is 104 different programs 

that are funded out of the highway trust fund, and there are several of them that have to do with highways or roads or bridges, 

whatever. Most all of them have nothing to do with that. 

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What would you—if we were to going to start up new programs 

like this, would you continue to support new revenue, tax increases, for the trust fund? 

Mr. LYNCH. One of our feelings about the fuel tax is that essentially 99 cents out of the dollar is actually going to roads and 

bridges. Some of these other taxing schemes, the administrative 

costs, the compliance costs, reduce that down anywhere from 10 

cents to 15 to 20 cents. So we are fairly hard-nosed business people 

in that if you tell us you are going to pay a dollar, and you get 99 

cents of real value, we are pretty supportive of that. 

By extension to answer your question, we recognize that many 

of these other programs certainly may have value, but when you 

are dealing with roads and bridges that are in desperate need of 

funding, we believe that those dollars need to be focused on where 

they are desperately needed. 

INFRASTRUCTURE MAINTENANCE

Mr. LATHAM. And I will, as we are going to have several turns 

here—but I think in your testimony you talked about focusing on 

the interstate highway system, and maybe in Iowa, where we have 

the farm-to-market roads, every four miles, we have hard surface 

roads so people—and that is extremely important, obviously, for us 

to have those types. I mean, everybody loves the interstate if you 

are going across country. But is there a mix? 

I mean, everyone who buys a gallon of gas basically wants to 

make sure, nobody how they drive, that the roads are good and 

safe. Is there a mix, or do you still think we should focus in on the 

interstate system? 

Mr. LYNCH. We use a statistic. Actually, it is not just us. DOT, 

I think—and I may not have exactly the percentages right here. 

But something like 75 percent of the freight, highway freight, 

moves on less than 10 percent of the road system. So logically, you 

would suggest that you need to focus those resources there. 

However, we do not know on any given day if that load is coming 

from or going to a farm or rural community, so we have to be very 

cognizant of the fact that while the bulk of the traffic may not be 

on those roads a significant amount of time, they will be on those 

roads at some point in time, and those roads need, and those 

bridges need, to be maintained as well. 

Mr. LATHAM. Mr. Johnson, I know you are—how would you—just 

by paying your freight bill is how you propose basically to increase 

funding? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes. Of course, we paying our freight bills, we pay 

them to truckers, railroads—— 

Mr. LATHAM. Lynch wants you to pay your bills. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, he does, very much so, on time, every time. 

We pay all of these modes. And, of course, there are increased costs 

to us. Our shippers have agreed that we need to increase these 

costs in order to maintain our infrastructure in the United States, 

or in all modes, whether it is rail, truck, barge, ocean, whatever it 

may be. We need a viable transportation system to get our products 

to market. That cost of that viable transportation system needs to 

go up, we feel, in order to keep it a viable system. And we are willing to pay a share of that. 

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We know, as you know, that if we pay that share it might be 

passed on to product prices and to the stores. But that is what 

America needs. 

Mr. LATHAM. Actually, Fort Dodge, Iowa has a lot of drywall gypsum there. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yes, they do. 

Mr. LATHAM. I see I am out of time, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. Ms. Kaptur. 

FUEL COSTS

Ms. KAPTUR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this important hearing. And welcome. Thank you so very much for putting 

your remarks on the record. We appreciate your coming here. 

Could I ask those representing private interests, what has happened to the cost of fuel versus your total cost of doing business 

as a share of your accounts? Anybody want to take—over the last 

15 years. 

Mr. OLVER. Did you say 50 years? 

Ms. KAPTUR. Fifteen. 

Mr. OLVER. Fifteen? 

Ms. KAPTUR. Fifteen years. 

Mr. LYNCH. Trucking is a very labor intensive industry. Obviously, we have the drivers. We have dockmen working on the 

docks. When fuel spiked up two summers ago, that was the first 

time in a very long time that fuel costs actually surpassed labor 

costs as our number one cost, on average, for truck companies. 

Now there are always exceptions. Some people have other fixed 

costs, but fuel costs surpassed labor costs that summer. We are 

back down again where labor costs are above, but it will not take 

much of a spike back up again. 

Ms. KAPTUR. For you to feel that? 

Mr. LYNCH. To feel that, yes. 

Ms. KAPTUR. So it is not insignificant. Would you say on average, 

what percent of your total cost of operating nationally, you know, 

just average of the total cost of business is fuel? I can tell you for 

the greenhouse industry that I represent, it is close to 40 percent. 

Mr. LYNCH. I was going to say 40, but if I could submit that for 

the record, if I am off by too much on that, but I think it is about, 

generally speaking, 40–40–20. 

FUEL EFFICIENCY

Ms. KAPTUR. All right. Where in the industry is the most important research being done to produce more fuel efficient vehicles? 

Mr. LYNCH. Am I up again? 

Ms. KAPTUR. Well, whoever wants to answer. Maybe, you know, 

state of Maryland could answer. 

Mr. LYNCH. Trucks on average, 18-wheelers, get about six miles 

to the gallon. That is the bad news. The goods news is if we got 

a 50 percent boost in our fuel economy, that would be pretty significant, not only be up to eight, but it would be a 50 percent improvement. 

We are working closely with our manufacturers—— 

Ms. KAPTUR. Who are the major manufacturers, sir? 

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Mr. LYNCH. Boy, if I forget one, I am going to be in big trouble. 

Volvo, Mack, Cummings, International, Freightliner. Well, 

Peterbilt is under Freightliner. They may be in the smaller class 

vehicles. I do not think they are in the class sevens and eights. 

Ms. KAPTUR. Do you know where the power trains for those are 

made? 

Mr. LYNCH. Those are mostly made in the Midwest. And do not 

ask me who all of those folks are because I know I will miss a few, 

and then I will really be in trouble. 

Ms. KAPTUR. Okay. But to your knowledge, you do not know any 

company that is in partnership with federal research agencies or 

the One Tank Command or anybody else to try to get new propulsion systems to help to reduce the vehicular mile cost. 

Mr. LYNCH. I am aware that there was an Army—a military program, because they are a huge user of trucks. And again, if I could 

submit for the record—— 

Ms. KAPTUR. I appreciate that. 

Mr. LYNCH [continuing]. Where they are in that research. 

INTERMODAL VS. MULTIMODAL

Ms. KAPTUR. Okay. I just wanted to note that in many of your 

testimony, some of you used the term ‘‘intermodal.’’ In fact, I think 

that is on the cover of what we were given, intermodal, whereas 

the state of Maryland, Ms. Swaim-Staley, you used the term 

‘‘multimodal,’’ which is what the director of transportation in Ohio 

always says. Could somebody define the difference for us? Do you 

want to take a stab at what the difference is, why you would be 

using these terms in what sounds like interchangeably in your testimonies? 

Ms. SWAIM-STALEY. Well, I was going to say, coming from our 

standpoint, it would be—I am sorry, yes. They are interchangeable. 

I mean, the Department of Transportation in Maryland, all of the 

modes of transportation are within one department. So I think 

from our standpoint, we do tend to use the terms interchangeably. 

I am not sure if they have more significance for anyone else here 

on the panel. 

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Wolfe. 

Mr. WOLFE. Yes. Let me just add, in the port industry, typically 

intermodal is defined as rail movement, and multimodal is a combination of rail, truck, and other means. 

INTERMODAL EFFORTS

Ms. KAPTUR. You know, I wanted to just use this opportunity, 

and then I will cease, Mr. Chairman—when the recovery bill came 

through here, our region’s top priority project was a multimodal effort at our port to try to reduce truck traffic by permitting containers to be put on the ships, because I represent a port city, and 

to reduce carbon emissions and so forth. And what was really interesting, everybody locally, the local transportation agency, the governor, me, the senate—everybody supported this, right? 

It never made it out of the Department of Transportation because they are so stovepiped over there. If you try to get them to 

think multimodal, they find you 59 reasons why you want to do is 

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impossible, because why? FHWA does not agree that this happen, 

the highway administration. 

But, you know, we are trying to put them all together. And it 

was really interesting to watch an agency literally tie itself up in 

knots rather than working with the community that thinks it sees 

the future and wants to have a better future serving all, port, rail, 

truck all together. DOT made it impossible. 

So now we have to go back and apply under TIGER grants or 

some other category. You know, of course, we are year behind. We 

have 15 percent unemployment. We wasted all of this time. But it 

was really interesting—and I commend you, Mr. Chairman, for 

holding this hearing, because you would think they are there to 

help, you know, to try to not get tied up in—we all know where 

we want to go with this, but they were not thinking multimodal. 

They were not thinking intermodal. There are all these internal 

regulatory histories that made change very difficult, very, very difficult in our situation. 

So I just wanted to put that on the record and thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. This is a comment. Let me try to tie myself into a 

knot here. There must be some philosophical difference that is distinct between intermodal and multimodal. But I am really surprised, Mr. Wolfe, at your comment that in the port business, 

multimodal usually means port and rail. I would have thought that 

might be bimodal rather than multimodal. I would think 

multimodal and intermodal, they at least sort of infer at least more 

than two. 

So let me leave that at that. Mr. Carter. 

NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION STRATEGY

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Wolfe, when you 

were talking about the port of Tacoma and Seattle competing with 

Vancouver and Canada, it brings to mind—and I represent the 

state of Texas. And I was amazed. Recently, I had a coastal ports 

only, not any of our inland ports, come into my office and fill it up 

to overflowing with the number of coastal ports we have all looking 

towards what is going on with the expansion of the Panama Canal 

and competition with Mexico. 

As I understand it, Mexico already is getting a lot of the west 

coast competition in the southern area, mainly because of some investments they have made, and also because there was some restrictions on the San Diego, L.A. area. 

When you are looking at trying to get rid of this competitive disadvantage, where do you think the investment starts? Does it start 

at the ports and work outward? As you envision the solution for 

your port, think in terms of the other ports that have the same 

competition issue. And where do you envision we start? 

Mr. WOLFE. What we envision is an advisory committee of industry experts coming together. So it would include the ports, of 

course. It would include the trucking industry, the rail industry, 

other logistics partners and policy decisionmakers coming together 

with a national strategic plan. 

So it is not one entity that is going to drive this. It is a collective 

group that is focused on a national transportation strategy so that 

we can compete with the other gateways outside of the U.S. 

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Mr. CARTER. And it is my understanding—and I am really new 

at this transportation business, but I am trying to learn. And when 

I was in Hong Kong, I saw some of the super container ships that 

looked like they were going to fall over to me. And I understand 

there is just certain ports that can actually even deal with those. 

That is part of what the expansion of the Panama Canal is all 

about. And I am wondering if—right now, as I understand it, like, 

for instance, the China trade to Texas comes into Mexico, across 

Mexico on rail, into Texas, and then is distributed by rail and by 

truck out of Texas. 

Explain to me the disadvantage of the foreign port to domestic 

port that we are dealing with there versus, let’s say, domestic port 

to domestic port, internal domestic port. 

Mr. WOLFE. Primarily, those decisions about which gateway a 

shipper uses is driven by cost. It is cost inefficiency. And so in today’s environment, cost is critical. And so when we look at the port 

gateways, we absolutely need to be competitive with those other 

gateways, Mexico, Vancouver ports, and on the east coast as well. 

And so I do not think the shipper is going to be biased one way 

or another. They are going to be looking at their cost, and that is 

what is going to drive the decisionmaking. And so for us, it is critical that we have an infrastructure program that supports efficient 

movement of cargo because inefficiency equates to higher cost. And 

so we are at a disadvantage today, no question. And we need to get 

our act together. 

As a U.S. policy decisionmaking group and industry group, we 

need to get our act together because the competition has got their 

act together. They are ahead of us, and we need to get back in the 

game, and we need to have a strategic plan moving forward that 

is a national plan identifying the key strategic gateways and corridors for trade and freight mobility, and we need to make strategic 

investments into the future, now and into the future. 

Mr. CARTER. So you think it is a strictly infrastructure solution, 

or do we have regulatory restraints that also cause our ports to not 

be competitive with these foreign ports? Because I have heard at 

least some rumor to that effect. 

Mr. WOLFE. No question that regulatory constraints—I will give 

you an example of one that we deal with. It is the harbor maintenance tax that is a tax that does not exist in Canada. So when you 

add all of the costs associated with the movement of cargo, at the 

end of the day, those regulatory mandates that have a cost associated with them can be a competitive disadvantage. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. 

Mr. TIMMONS. I would just add one other observation related— 

I am the railroad guy, so I am not really the port expert. But I 

have been involved to some degree with Chinese discussions related to port consistency and reliability. Generally, the port development in the southern portion of Mexico was a reaction to uncertainty related to labor concerns. 

When there are labor strikes, the entire train of ships, all the 

way back to their destinations, gets bollixed up, and deliveries cannot be made. And the Chinese are very concerned about that, and 

started looking eight years ago at alternatives, which the Mexicans 

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were very forthcoming in offering. And so that is factor also, consistency and reliability. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you. 

LINKING RAIL AND PORTS

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. I am going to focus upon you two here 

at the left end for the moment. Mr. Wolfe, you have a port at Tacoma. Can you tell me—you were not there at the beginning, in 

1981, when the port started working on its first—started on the 

rail link directly to the port, I take it. 

Mr. WOLFE. Right. 

Mr. OLVER. Do you know, how many other places—you do mention that it is the first that did so. How many of them—for instance, Baltimore, does it have a direct rail to port connection 

there? 

Ms. SWAIM-STALEY. Yes. At the port of Baltimore, we have CSX 

that services directly into the port. And we also, through a small 

arrangement that we have with a local railroad, we also have access to Norfolk-Southern with our port, although not—— 

Mr. OLVER. What would be the cargo size between your two, the 

Baltimore port to rail versus the Tacoma port to rail? Does Seattle 

also have a port to rail connection? They do both, Seattle and Tacoma do? 

Mr. WOLFE. Let me just make sure I understand the question. 

Mr. OLVER. Quickly. Maybe you should pass back and forth, for 

exactly what kind of tonnage is going directly rail to port. 

Mr. WOLFE. Sure. So we measure our cargo in terms of tonnage 

and also in terms of volume. And so our volume has taken a hit 

during this recession. So we had—— 

Mr. OLVER. Is there not some relationship between—I realize 

there is a density possible difference, but there must be some relationship between tonnage and volume? 

Mr. WOLFE. There is, there is. Let me give you figures in terms 

of volume, if that is okay, and then we will see if we can compare 

in terms of volume because I have got the volume figures more 

clearly than I do the tonnage, if that would be okay, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. I guess I would like to get from the organizations— 

I am always interested in metrics, where it is we are doing these 

very forward-looking things and what kind of volumes and what 

kind of metrics are used in the industry to compare by—but I was 

sort of curious. Do you have a sense of how many—are there 15 

or 20 that have large volume rail to port? 

Mr. WOLFE. There is on average about—there are about 10 major 

gateways into the United States. 

CSX

Mr. OLVER. Okay. Both of you talk about gateway initiatives, one 

being the CSX initiative. 

Ms. SWAIM-STALEY. Right. Ours is specific to CSX Railroad. 

Mr. OLVER. Yeah. Now there must be—every one of the class one 

railroads must have a major gateway initiative that functions. I 

know about the Alameda corridor into Los Angeles. 

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Ms. SWAIM-STALEY. And Norfolk-Southern has the heartland corridor. So yes, many of the companies in the east coast, we have it. 

There are initiatives—— 

Mr. OLVER. What kind of investment has gone into your Baltimore gateway initiative in total? 

Ms. SWAIM-STALEY. CSX is a fairly new initiative, the CSX initiative with regard to gateway. 

Mr. OLVER. Gateway and port are maybe two different things because your gateway initiative does not only involve the transfer 

from rail to port, I assume. 

Ms. SWAIM-STALEY. Well, the gateway initiative I am referring to 

is a specific—it is a name of the CSX effort to achieve—it is very 

specific to a single railroad. That would be CSX from the east coast 

into the Midwest. 

Mr. OLVER. What is the size of the initiative in its dollar value? 

Ms. SWAIM-STALEY. I do not know in terms of the total value. I 

believe that we—they had requested in funding recently in TIGER 

for a major portion of the portion almost $300 million in terms of 

the cost. And that was just for, I think, about half of the whole segment. 

PORT INVESTMENTS

Mr. OLVER. I am asking imprecise questions that make it difficult, I think, to answer. Mr. Wolfe, can you tell me how much 

money has been invested in the Tacoma port to get to where you 

are in today’s dollars? 

Mr. WOLFE. I would like to submit exact numbers for the record. 

But it is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. And that is over—— 

Mr. OLVER. Now you mentioned that Canada has got a $3 billion 

program related to Vancouver and St. Rupert. 

Mr. WOLFE. Right. 

Mr. OLVER. And then you mentioned that they have started this 

out as if, oh my gosh, this is really a dangerous and disastrous sort 

of thing that is happening to us. But $30 million was the first 

input at St. Rupert. That is 1 percent of the $3 billion. We are not 

getting very far at that point. When are we likely to have a facility 

at St. Rupert that is going to be competitive with Seattle and Tacoma? 

Mr. WOLFE. It is so today. And maybe I am mistaken when I said 

30 million. It was 300 million. 

Mr. OLVER. 300 million? 

Mr. WOLFE. 300 million. 

Mr. OLVER. Ah, do not think I missed that one. I thought you 

said—— 

Mr. WOLFE. Okay. I must have misspoken then. It was a $300 

million investment. And they are apparently handling in excess of 

200,000 containers annually, and they have plans for expansion upwards of 2 million containers. That is targeting the U.S. market. 

Mr. OLVER. And what is Seattle and Tacoma doing now? 

Mr. WOLFE. We are handling last year about 1.5, and Seattle was 

about 1.7 last year, I believe. 

Mr. OLVER. Million? 

Mr. WOLFE. Yes. 

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Mr. OLVER. So it will take them awhile. When do they think they 

will reach 2 million? 

Mr. WOLFE. Well, it is driven by the marketplace, so, you know, 

probably conservatively five to seven years. It will be dependent on 

how quickly the market returns. Their target market is the U.S. 

market. It is not Canada. 

Mr. OLVER. Yeah. I do understand that. But it is getting into the 

U.S. in a different way. 

Mr. WOLFE. Correct. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. Am I done here? I am going to quit. Who is 

next? Tom. 

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to continue 

to pursue this, I guess. Mr. Wolfe, in your testimony, you talked 

about some theories about charging more for the U.S. ports to pay 

for the road and the rail infrastructure improvements, and about 

new port fees and all of this. And then in the same time, you are 

talking about competition you have. Is that going to make you less 

competitive if it costs more to come through your port? 

Mr. WOLFE. Yes. Cost is going to be a key driver. When I suggested that the ports are supportive of—and you have heard it earlier with the NIT League—it is support for user fees. And so the 

users of the system are supportive of increasing the fees so that the 

infrastructure that we need has funding necessary for it. 

The other critical point there—— 

Mr. LATHAM. The user fees, who would pay that? 

Mr. WOLFE. The shippers. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. 

Mr. WOLFE. And ultimately all of us as consumers. 

Mr. LATHAM. Right. But does that not make you less competitive? 

Mr. WOLFE. It may make us less competitive. But it absolutely 

is necessary for us to have that infrastructure to compete, otherwise the cargo is going to continue to move through these other 

gateways. And I think it is a combination of things. I mean, we 

have the port at a local level provides infrastructure funding. So 

we have a responsibility. There is private sector funding. The railroads participate in that. So there are multiple ways in which to 

fund the infrastructure. 

Mr. LATHAM. It kind of sounds like the post office model. If 

stamps are—mailing letters is much more expensive than doing an 

e-mail today, well, you just raise the price of a letter. I mean, it 

makes you even less competitive. I am not sure about the model 

here we are talking about. 

But, General, we have been ignoring you. Did you have any— 

with your military background—and Ms. Kaptur was talking about 

innovations as far as trucks and things like that. Do you have anything to say about your experience? 

Mr. TIMMONS. What I would say in specific about railroad locomotives is relative to a continuous effort to work on EPA requirements, tier 0, 1, 2, 3, and now 4—and so the industry—the locomotive manufacturers are working on that. That has had a tremendous impact on the environmental aspects of the railroad industry, 

which is when you look at the actual efficiencies associated with 

freight rail, they can move a ton of freight on a gallon of fuel 436 

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miles. Nothing else comes near it except maybe barges, and barges 

are very restricted to very large bulk quantities. 

In addition to that, the innovation of using multiple small engines, small relative to railroad and locomotives—in other words, 

a truck engine or a combination of truck engines in new locomotives, permits them the same efficiencies with much less cost 

and emissions. So there is a lot of technology associated with this. 

Some of these locomotives are in service now, and there are also 

some very, very innovative systems related to electric-related locomotives that the technology appears to be worthwhile, so that there 

are some efficiencies associated with that. 

In addition, I think there are some very promising additives that 

have come along in the last few years, very sophisticated additives 

that will save 10, 12, 14 percent fuel consumption. And for the railroad industry and the consumption of fuel for these locomotives, 

that is very, very significant. 

Mostly in the past, we were happy with a 4 or 5 percent saving. 

And generally, out of additives, you got about a 2 percent. Now we 

are seriously looking at anywhere from 10 to 14 percent. So there 

is a lot of technology, and a lot of interesting things in the pipeline. 

Mr. LATHAM. I would suggest using soy grease on your curves, 

too. It really helps make it—— 

Mr. OLVER. Did you say grease? 

Mr. LATHAM. Yes. Actually, the Norfolk-Southern uses soy grease 

going around the curves, made out of soy. 

Mr. TIMMONS. They did. They piloted that 10 years ago, and it 

is a great environmental benefit, and it is just as effective as a petroleum lubricant. 

Mr. LATHAM. What is your opinion of the—maybe we covered this 

a little bit—the appropriation bill, the provisions last year for 

Maine and Vermont as far as overweight trucks, your official position? 

Mr. TIMMONS. Our official position is that we align with the Department of Transportation, which was opposed to those particular 

initiatives. They are described as maybe guinea pig initiatives, simply to put an experimental 100,000–pound rig on highways and see 

how this thing works. It is from our standpoint ill-advised. 

Mr. LATHAM. What funds—what is the most effective assistance 

we can do? There is the Energy Act, the capital grant program, 

some rail line relocation grant monies. What would you like to see 

as far as funding? 

Mr. TIMMONS. In that relocation initiative, the actual authorized 

amount was 350 million, and the appropriated amount was 20 million or thereabouts. And so the $350 million I think would make 

a very substantial impact on mobility enhancement. 

Ms. KAPTUR. Should I ask Mr. Lynch if he would like to see that 

come out of the highway trust fund? [Laughter.] 

Mr. TIMMONS. Please. 

Mr. LATHAM. I would, but I am over time. Thank you. [Laughter.] 

Mr. OLVER. Ms. Kaptur. 

Ms. KAPTUR. I have no further questions. 

Mr. OLVER. No questions in this round. Mr. Carter. 

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INTERMODAL EFFORTS

Mr. CARTER. We have been talking about a long-term approach 

to the intermodal transportation infrastructure. And, of course, it 

is pretty clear everybody wants to build infrastructure. Are there 

other approaches that have been discussed by any of the industries 

that would help facilitate efficiency in the intermodal transportation besides building new infrastructure, that scientific approaches say the RFID tags to facilitate the process, or some other 

new approach that I am not aware of or that we are not being 

aware of that is being looked at by the various industries to make 

more efficient what we have got until we can get the infrastructure 

we have got to built? Anybody got suggestions? 

Mr. LYNCH. I will take a stab at that. I mentioned earlier that 

in the sort of 0 to 500 mile market, trucks dominate. I mean, you 

are going to end up trucking the freight farther to get it to a rail 

head than if you just have it on the highway to go. 

Having said that, I do not think we have even really scratched 

the surface of what we could be doing with the MTOs in terms of 

trying to coordinate traffic moving in and out of major metropolitan 

areas. Unfortunately, most major metropolitan areas look at us as 

a nuisance, you know, that we are sort of out there just because 

we want to be a nuisance on the highway, when in fact we are out 

there because we are either picking up or delivering something. 

I believe that there are still a lot more opportunities to work 

with major metropolitan areas, coordinating deliveries with the 

customers. We do not much care whether we are—we do not want 

to be on the road at 4 o’clock or 5 o’clock in the afternoon any more 

than the car drivers want us to be out there. But we cannot deliver 

at 3 in the morning if there is nobody there to accept the deliveries 

at 3 in the morning. 

You have got some major big box retailers that literally will have 

hundreds and hundreds of trucks coming in and out of that facility 

on a given day. That can be much better coordinated so that they 

are not all arriving at the same time, day or night. So I think there 

is still a lot more that can be done, and a lot more efficiencies to 

get out of the existing infrastructure. 

Mr. TIMMONS. I would make the observation that in the railroad 

industry the application of a global positioning system on certain 

high value and hazardous material load has become fairly commonplace, if not blanketing the industry, certainly not unusual to see 

GPS systems track these commodities, which enhances efficiency, 

delivery, and of course safety in case there is some kind of an issue 

or a problem. 

The RFD system is extensively used by the railroad industry, 

and I do not think there are hardly any pieces of equipment that 

do not have RFD tags on them, a very advanced process for reading 

those along the right of way as the equipment is moving toward 

destination. So that is a fairly reliable and robust system that is 

in place today. 

But GPS seems to be very, very valuable. The trucking industry, 

by the way, has piloted some of this in terms of tracking high value 

Department of Defense loads. And there is a national tracking center that keeps track of every one of these vehicles that is moving 

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with any kind of sensitive or explosive materials, bombs, and weapons, and things of that sort nationwide. 

So it is a good approach. It is not fully employed, but over time, 

I think that will ultimately—particularly for chemicals and hazardous materials, it will be prevalent. 

Mr. CARTER. Anyone else? 

Mr. WOLFE. I would just add on a local level, the ports have 

looked at utilizing the gate assets off hours, and that has been effective, and also automation of terminals and creating velocity 

within the terminals versus adding new infrastructure, and there 

has been some success there and more to do there as well. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I will mention, too, that the shippers, when the 

hours of service changed a few years ago, we started spending a lot 

of the money in technology to get trucks in and out of our facility 

a lot faster. We understand from trucks and rails both. We have 

to be on the road or on the rails in order to make money. And we 

spent a lot of money to make sure that those units, which was assets, were on the road a lot faster and making money for them so 

we can reduce our cost and keep our cost competitive in the world. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Berry. 

Mr. BERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could each one of you tell 

us what your greatest need is that you think we can have some impact on, besides money? [Laughter.] 

NATIONAL FREIGHT POLICY

Mr. LYNCH. I will start this one, I guess. I would say, Congressman, to develop a freight policy, a national freight policy so that 

the intermodal, the multimodal is in fact coordinated. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And I will have to second that. The modes today 

seem to—rail and truck and others—seem to argue. They are pretty much against one another, like they are supposed to, but there 

is no coordination between the modes. I think I would like to see 

and the shippers would like to see a better coordinated effort for 

all of the modes, where our system is—a national transportation 

policy is in place that improves the infrastructure for the entire 

United States for all modes. 

Mr. TIMMONS. Mr. Berry, bear with me for just a moment because my answer requires just a little bit of background. These 

small railroads actually are the product of a piece of legislation 

that came about in 1980 called the Staggers Act, and that deregulation of the rail industry unexpectedly produced a quantum leap 

in the number of these small railroads. And the reason for that was 

that the larger railroads under the Staggers Act were then permitted to divest themselves of properties that were not so economically viable, and they have not maintained those properties and 

those bridges. And there were small entrepreneurs that seized 

those small properties, and because of the low overhead and the 

flat organizational structure, they went ahead and have turned 

those things into some moneymaking organizations and have managed to grow them. 

Still and all, the railroad standard today for freight cars is 

286,000–pound axle weight cars. The old standard was 263. So 

these small railroads inherited this vast array—and we started out, 

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keep in mind that we were at 8,000 miles and we are at 52,000 

miles. 

So in inheriting all of these well-worn pieces of railroad across 

North America, the requirement to invest and bring that 263 up 

to 286 so that they could continue to interchange with the modern 

equipment and facilities, bridges, et cetera on the large railroads 

has been our largest task. And we have managed to significantly 

improve the system through individual investment, through to 

some degree RRIF loans, and to a very extensive degree the 45G 

short line tax credit that has been in effect for the last five years. 

We expect that it will be passed again this year. That is a tremendous benefit to the small railroads. It permits them to invest 

in their systems and upgrade these. 

So that is a little bit of a windy answer. The bottom line is it 

is the track upgrade that we really need to ensure that the system 

is compatible nationwide. 

Mr. WOLFE. Mr. Berry, I want to echo what the panel has suggested in terms of a national freight policy, and also within that 

a strategic freight mobility program at the national level that is coordinated and has priority projects based upon the key gateways 

and key corridors for freight movement. That is absolutely necessary for our success. 

Ms. SWAIM-STALEY. From a state DOT standpoint, I mean, I 

would echo what the panel has said in terms of flexibility. But I 

also would like to add that I think when there is new transportation—in any new transportation programs or new transportation 

authorization, that not only the flexibility for intermodal, but also 

to encourage projects and participation of projects that are regional, in other words, across state lines. 

So many times the funding that we receive as a DOT, you know, 

it is limited to what we can do within a state. But when you are 

talking about these kinds of challenges here, in a state like Maryland, we are a small state. You know, anything that we do to improve our freight capability, they really must include partnerships, 

you know, along the eastern seaboard as well as, you know, to the 

Midwest. So we would just encourage that kind of approach in future programs. 

Mr. BERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

FREIGHT FUND

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. I now am left with three questions. I am 

not quite sure which one to take up first. Probably we will have 

a very foreshortened second and a third, fourth round. So let me 

ask it this way. I think it was you, Mr. Wolfe, who first mentioned 

the dedicated freight fund. A couple of other people—I am not sure 

right now which it was who mentioned that also. But I would like 

your reaction to what you think we would gain, given how difficult 

it has been to keep the trust fund going by itself, the trust fund 

for which it is supposed to cover freight as part of it—how would 

freight by itself fare in that mix, given the difficulties that we are 

having raising enough money to do much of anything nowadays? 

And defend for me what each of you thinks is the merit or demerit 

of this? Assess for me what it is. And let me start with Ms. SwaimStaley. 

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Ms. SWAIM-STALEY. Again, for us, meeting freight needs addresses for us a number of—as I said, across our modes. Not only does 

it have a positive impact upon our port, for example, but because 

our transit lines share—they literally share the railroads with the 

freight line. So anything that we can do to benefit the freight lines 

and freight movements is probably also going to have a very positive impact upon our ability to provide commuter rail and transit 

in our urban regions. 

Also, of course, we run an airport, so obviously there are benefits 

that cross there as well. And then, quite frankly, we are a very congested state. So to the degree that we can accomplish a better way 

to move our freight, it also is going to have a very positive impact 

upon our highway. So again, for a DOT like the state of Maryland, 

addressing the freight needs really crosses many of the other priorities that we have as well. 

Mr. OLVER. Do you really think it is easier to address the freight 

needs if you create a freight fund when you are saying that there 

has to be—you are really saying that out of a need for collaboration 

and cooperation among the modes. 

Ms. SWAIM-STALEY. Which is why, as I said, from our standpoint, 

what we would like to see in future programs is the same kind of 

flexibility that has been allowed in places like TIGER, where the 

states can really have the flexibility to determine which solutions 

work best for them. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. Mr. Wolfe, we are going to take about 45 seconds each person down the line here. I think we can do that. 

Mr. WOLFE. Okay. So—— 

Mr. OLVER. Maybe a minute, actually. No. Stick with it. 

Mr. WOLFE. Okay. The advantage that I see with a separate 

freight fund is simply that right now we are competing across the 

different areas. And by separating freight as a specific area of 

focus, number one is we are able to better prioritize our needs on 

a national basis and coordinate that through an advisory council 

that I recommended; and two, that those funds are dedicated specifically to freight. There is not competition for other types of 

needs, recognizing those needs are still there. 

The challenge that we have highlighted is how do we secure the 

funding for freight. And I do not have a simple answer to that. I 

think it is a multipronged approach. But I do think that there is 

value in separating freight from the other national needs. 

Mr. OLVER. I really do think you hit on the nut of it, though, is 

we cannot figure out how to fund transportation in whole. How the 

heck do we figure out how to do freight since obviously your needs 

comes from the sense that it has not been well handled up to now, 

and I agree with you. Mr. Timmons. 

Mr. TIMMONS. I think the devil would be in the details on this 

arrangement. Generally, the railroads have avoided funding per se. 

We are not in the highway trust fund. We do not contribute to that. 

We did for some years contribute to reduce the—— 

Mr. OLVER. But a freight fund would be beneficial to you. 

Mr. TIMMONS. I suppose it could be if the details were worked 

out like that. If we were not contributing to it in some way, but 

were working with it, I suppose this would be a good thing. [Laughter.] 

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Mr. TIMMONS. If somehow—and it always seems to circle around 

that somehow there are no free rides. If somehow we were contributing, certainly we would not like that. We have got enough—you 

know, 20 percent of the railroads’ bottom line for the major railroads, and 30 percent for short lines, of their operating revenues 

at the end of each year goes into maintenance. And so any other 

contribution in that regard would be very, very difficult for us to 

stomach. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Well, of course, shippers, the major reason shippers would like to see a special fund like that is to keep transportation funds pouring towards transportation to keep our products 

going to destination on time, on good infrastructure roads and railroad, or highways or whatever. 

Secondly, I think a special fund, if you had the funds that were 

viable for transportation going into that fund revenues, whether it 

be rail, truck, barge, ocean, whatever it might be, I think you are 

going to find there is lots of money available there that is being 

spent for things that should not be spent. So you are going to have 

more—— 

Mr. OLVER. Yeah. But you also probably agree that it should not 

be spent for transit either, would you not? 

Mr. JOHNSON. If it is for transportation improvements, yes. If it 

is in that transportation project passing through. 

Mr. OLVER. Transit, passenger transit? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Yeah. Well, again, we are a freight shipper. But, 

you know, it is part of the transportation program of the United 

States. It is a transportation plan. You need to put it all together. 

Mr. OLVER. We are going to give Mr. Lynch a half a minute now. 

It is down to that. 

Mr. LYNCH. Well, our position is fairly simple. If the source of the 

revenues are highway users, then the beneficiaries of those revenues should be highway users. If we are going to expand the recipients, then we have got to figure out some way to expand the contributors into the fund. And I think the comment was rather eloquent about the railroads think about that. 

But not only is it not fair to the highway users, but if there is 

a shipper who is—you know, if it is Walmart that is using trucks 

95 percent of the time for their freight movement, and they are ultimately the ones paying the bill—— 

Mr. OLVER. Do you have any objection to Maryland’s rather comprehensive trust fund? 

Mr. LYNCH. No, we do not, provided that the revenues that go 

into that trust fund are not coming exclusively from highway users. 

Mr. OLVER. Well, but we went through that earlier. Their fund 

is built from a whole series of monies coming from a variety of 

sources. Mr. Latham. 

NATIONAL FREIGHT POLICY

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thought it was interesting in response to Mr. Berry’s question, when you talked about 

having a freight system plan in this country. And tomorrow we 

have a hearing with each of the Federal Railroad Administration, 

the Highway Administration, and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety 

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340 

Administration, the Maritime Administration, and the point witness tomorrow is the Undersecretary of Policy, who is the DOT official supposedly for coordinating that. But now he is also going to 

be in charge of the livability. 

Do you think there is the focus put on a national freight system 

that there should be? I mean, we have got a lot of diversions going 

on here of not only the dollars, but of time and commitment, I 

think. Any comment? 

Mr. LYNCH. Well, I think—— 

Mr. LATHAM. Jump right in there, Tim—— 

Mr. LYNCH [continuing]. That there should be—and we said it 

over and over and over again—and the commissions that were set 

up by Congress clearly recommended that there needed to be a 

focus on freight and freight mobility. And if there is any federal, 

true federal interstate commerce function here, it is the movement 

of goods. People, too, but, I mean, we would absolutely support 

that. 

Mr. LATHAM. It does not seem like with this type of diversion of 

effort that the emphasis is where it should be, which is absolutely 

critical as far as freight movement. Yes, go ahead. 

Ms. SWAIM-STALEY. Well, I think there is a relationship. Again, 

in a very urban state like Maryland, that I think where both of the 

things are very important—and frankly, freight, moving freight 

through our urban regions is something that we have to do, but 

still within the context, quite frankly, of sustaining our communities, many of whom are also in those same very old urban regions 

where we have our freight movements. So I think there definitely 

are connections in a state like Maryland. 

Mr. LATHAM. I mean, they are talking about a different concept 

than what maybe you are referring to. It is all passenger. 

Mr. TIMMONS. But, you know, Mr. Latham, the issue here has 

been neglected. The national freight plan, there is no such thing. 

And the problem is a quickly burning fuse into the future. So the 

railroad industry anticipates that its volumes will increase 60 to 70 

percent by 2025. They are paranoid. The industry at large is paranoid about preparing for that bow wave of freight traffic and trying 

to invest heavily in its infrastructure across the nation. And so notwithstanding this economic slowdown, the burden is still there, and 

the railroad industry is still, despite the slowdown, investing billions of dollars in their annual capital expenditure in infrastructure 

upgrades across the country. But I do not know whether we are 

going to be able to make it in time. 

Mr. LATHAM. And you are not affected as much as the major railroads with the short lines. There is a huge apprehension over the 

increased passenger rail. 

Mr. TIMMONS. Yes. 

Mr. LATHAM. What effect does that have on freight? 

Mr. TIMMONS. In the short line world—— 

Mr. LATHAM. I would say it is as much for you in the short line, 

but—— 

Mr. TIMMONS. That is true. But it is a problem for us. We have 

got 1,800 miles and 44 small railroads that are affected by passenger or commuter systems. We surprised ourselves when we 

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341 

funded mandates of positive train control, which are $14 billion 

over the next 15 years or so. We are going to be affected by that. 

Now it depends I think to a large degree on what corridors you 

are referring to when you say is there going to be an impact on 

freight as a result of passenger. If you are talking about the Northeast corridor, the most heavily trafficked region of the country, 

there is an awful lot of passenger traffic up there. And when you 

implement the positive train control with all the freight increases, 

I think there is going to be an impact. 

In other regions, it will be far more manageable. 

PASSENGER RAIL

Mr. LATHAM. Do you have any comments as far as—as you increase the passenger rail, obviously you are going to reduce the capacity for freight. 

Ms. SWAIM-STALEY. Well, you could on the challenge. I mean, we 

obviously want to make sure, again in Maryland, that both work. 

And it is a tremendous challenge because we are trying to increase 

our transit on our MARC lines, our commuter rails. You can fill the 

trains as frequently—as much volume as we can put out there. And 

it is a real challenge to find the balance with our freight carriers. 

But because we also operate the port of Baltimore, it is also in our 

best interest to make sure that, you know, in our case, both CSX 

and Norfolk-Southern are also well served. 

So it is definitely a challenge finding that balance. I mean, we 

need—— 

Mr. LATHAM. So who has the right of way? 

Ms. SWAIM-STALEY. Well, the railroads own our right of way in 

the state of Maryland. 

Mr. LATHAM. No. I mean who has priority? 

Ms. SWAIM-STALEY. Well, again, in the case of CSX, they are the 

dispatcher. 

Mr. LATHAM. Between the freight trains and passenger trains. 

Ms. SWAIM-STALEY. So for the freight, I mean, again CSX, you 

know, owns our right of way for much of our MARC line, so they 

are the dispatcher. 

Mr. TIMMONS. In a technical sense. In a technical sense, the passenger has the right of a way. In a practical sense, CSX is the dispatcher. 

Mr. LATHAM. Right. 

Mr. TIMMONS. So you can figure out who gets priority. Freight. 

Mr. LATHAM. Say that again? [Laughter.] 

Mr. OLVER. Who gets the priority? 

Mr. TIMMONS. The priority in a railroad sense goes to passenger. 

But the passenger trains are dispatched. In other words, in the 

railroad industry, there is a control center, and they are the ones 

who decide who gets priority on the railroad. And so if the system, 

the leg of railroad, is dispatched by a freight railroad, there are 

very often going to be freight railroads that get on the tracks first, 

and the passengers get on when they can. This is a continuing rub 

between passenger and freight railroads, and it has been so for a 

long time. 

Mr. LATHAM. So passengers have the priority, but in practice it 

may not always be—— 

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Mr. TIMMONS. It may not always be the case. 

Mr. LATHAM [continuing]. Be the case, okay. Okay. I see I am out 

of time. Thank you. 

Mr. TIMMONS. That may be too much candor. [Laughter.] 

Mr. LATHAM. We do not get enough of that around here, I can 

assure you. 

Mr. OLVER. All right. I thought that was what you were saying, 

that while technically they have the priority, that it turns out practically to be that the freight gets it in those circumstances. 

Mr. TIMMONS. In many circumstances. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. I thought that was what you were saying, but 

was not sure. Anyway, we have been abandoned by other than myself and my Ranking Member. So I am going to take—— 

Mr. LATHAM. And I am ready to leave. 

Mr. OLVER. You are ready to leave? [Laughter.] 

Mr. OLVER. All right. Well, I will do my couple of questions. And 

if you do not want to follow up, I will just close, so it will pass on 

there. 

I wanted to just explore. Actually, the authorization for rail relocation has been in place since the SAFETEA–LU authorization 

passed in July of 2005. While the authorization is quite substantial, as a few pointed out, now $350 million per year—I am not 

sure whether it was that—it might have started at 250 and gone 

up from the 250 over time. But in any case, it was not actually appropriated until I came to chair this committee three years ago. 

And we have had numbers up as high as 35 million, but is what 

I think the appropriation is in the present fiscal year that has not 

gone out yet. 

TIGER GRANTS

Does the TIGER grant program substitute for that in a situation 

where—I think it was you, Mr. Wolfe, who pointed out that getting 

to Chicago takes a day, and getting through Chicago takes a day. 

There is obviously some problems in movements of freight in major 

metropolitan areas. Does the TIGER grant take of that? Because 

each year the administration, whether it was the previous administration of this administration, has proposed eliminating the rail relocation appropriation, though the authorization stays there. 

Just quickly, do you think that the TIGER grant is an adequate 

substitute for that were we to continue—it is not authorized—were 

we to continue to appropriate there. 

Mr. TIMMONS. Well, I think you should keep the rail relocation 

program, although it has been modest. 

Mr. OLVER. It has been modest, and part of it has been earmarked, and part of it has been competed. 

Mr. TIMMONS. That is correct. But it has gone to small railroads 

and large railroads to great benefit. 

Ms. SWAIM-STALEY. Yeah. With Maryland, I do not think we 

would say one replaces the other. 

Mr. TIMMONS. No. They would complement. 

Mr. OLVER. You would not say one replaces the other. 

Mr. TIMMONS. No. They are complementary. 

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HAZARDOUS MATERIALS

Mr. OLVER. Well, we will see about the authorization. Anyone 

else want to say something to that one? All right. My last set of 

comments—and this is the third of the set that I was thinking 

about earlier. Mr. Timmons, you have pointed out something about 

the short line system, which is very diverse, that have gone from 

8,000 miles to 52,500 miles. Nobody had greater than 263,000 

pounds, now some seem to need to go higher. And on the other 

hand, our major class ones are all probably at the 286, certainly, 

and there are only six of the American ones and a couple of Canadians who come in. 

You also point out in your metrics for your system that five 

states have no class one, that 10 other states have more than 75 

percent of their trackage is short lines. 

So it suggests to me is that we have a kind of problem that 

maybe involves the highway system as well. If you get to going 

from interstate standards and so forth, and you have to move down 

through local roads and such, if you were having to do 12-foot lanes 

and say 8-foot shoulders as a standard that was being imposed all 

along the way, we would really tie ourselves up in knots. And I am 

wondering whether the concept of how you get all the way to positive train control—you had mentioned that as a serious problem for 

the short line system. 

Now is there some point along there where you do not even think 

about train control? Is that only where you have passengers operating on the same systems? 

Mr. TIMMONS. Mr. Chairman, this is an enormously complicated 

problem, but let me just say this about that. Fundamentally, in the 

simplest sense, positive train control is required for on small railroads that are moving a specific volume of passengers or commuters and for hazardous materials. There are five major hazardous materials that are the focus of positive train control. 

Mr. OLVER. How many miles of the present 52,000 miles do we 

have hazardous materials moving on? 

Mr. TIMMONS. It is a moving target. You will have different commodities based on different shippers and different company needs. 

Now just as a wild guess, I would say that somewhere around 35- 

to 45,000 miles are going to experience hazardous material traffic. 

But the further—— 

Mr. OLVER. Just because some of those mileages are alternates 

when some other problem has occurred? 

Mr. TIMMONS. Some if it may—— 

Mr. OLVER. Surely we are moving our hazardous material along 

set routes for the most part, if it is nuclear material or such. But 

if it is industrial material, they have a specific route they have got 

to go. It must be possible. Maybe you could provide for us how 

many of your short line miles are actually having hazardous materials of the five that you say are—— 

Mr. TIMMONS. We can do that. But the complication—and I am 

not being evasive here. But the complication is associated with the 

requirement now of the last two years to route assess every hazardous materials movement on rail, big railroads and small. So we 

are required to use a specific analytical model before you move this 

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traffic, and try to determine how close it goes to high-threat urban 

areas or other locations where there are populations of people or 

schools or something else, and then to try to decide if we can reroute those. 

This is an enormously difficult challenge. And so the actual routing will vary depending on a number of conditions. 

Mr. OLVER. Well, this whole discussion at this point is giving me 

a headache, I will tell you. [Laughter.] 

Mr. OLVER. But we have had positive train control brought to our 

attention in a number of instances here, and we know it is a looming problem in the minds—at least in the minds of almost everybody. So I get a headache. Anyway, I have gone into the red by far. 

I am really taking advantage of my Ranking Member. Do you have 

any further comment? 

Mr. LATHAM. No, I do not. 

Mr. OLVER. Then with that, I really want to thank you for laying 

out the problems for us. And we will see what our other testifiers 

tomorrow say on what the agencies are thinking about some of the 

same problems. 

Thank you very much for being with us today and for your inputs. 

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(345) 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17, 2010. 

STRENGTHENING INTERMODAL CONNECTIONS AND IMPROVING FREIGHT MOBILITY (INCLUDING THE FY2011 

BUDGET REQUESTS FOR FHWA, FMCSA, MARAD, AND 

FRA) 

WITNESSES 

ROY KIENITZ, UNDER SECRETARY FOR POLICY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF 

TRANSPORTATION 

VICTOR MENDEZ, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION 

ANNE S. FERRO, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL MOTOR CARRIER SAFETY 

ADMINISTRATION 

JOSEPH C. SZABO, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION 

DAVID MATSUDA, ACTING ADMINISTRATOR, MARITIME ADMINISTRATION 

CHAIRMAN OLVER’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. OLVER. The committee will come to order. Thank you all for 

being here. The ability to move passengers and freight are core 

functions of our transportation infrastructure. Our ability to ensure 

that these functions are accomplished efficiently with minimal 

losses due to congestion directly impacts the ability of domestic 

manufacturers to compete in the global marketplace and the price 

of goods when those goods reach consumers. Yesterday we heard 

from a panel of practitioners who represent different modes involved in the movement of freight. 

Today, we will hear testimony from Roy Kienitz, the Under Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Transportation. Roy. 

Mr. KIENITZ. Good morning. 

Mr. OLVER. In addition, Mr. Kienitz is accompanied by the administrators of the four federal agencies that are primarily responsible for overseeing the safety and efficiency of our freight transportation network. We look forward to delving deeper into the fiscal 

year 2011 budget request for each of your respective agencies. Specifically, I want to welcome Victor Mendez, the Administrator of 

the Federal Highway Administration; Anne Ferro, the Administrator of Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration; Joe Szabo, 

the Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration; and 

David Matsuda, the Acting Administrator of the Maritime Administration. 

With the exception of motor carriers, all of your budget requests 

are essentially frozen at 2010 levels in the absence of a surface 

transportation authorization. I will be interested to hear how you 

intend to support needed improvements in our national infrastructure under those circumstances with the requested resources. In 

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346 

addition, many of our outside witnesses spoke in support of the 

TIGER grant program established within the American Recovery 

and Reinvestment Act and acknowledged the need for a grant program that addresses the complex interconnections between modes 

and supports improvements in freight infrastructure. I look forward to discussing how interagency cooperation occurred on the 

TIGER grants and how the Department intends to continue this cooperation to support intermodal investments. With that, let me recognize my Ranking Member, Tom Latham, for his comments. 

RANKING MEMBER LATHAM’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to everybody, the witnesses today on the panel. As I mentioned yesterday, 

I think we had an interesting hearing last week about livability 

and sustainability, and truly, I believe we did have some interesting exchanges on a variety of topics under that theme. However, 

I think there is some real and justified opposition to the administration’s proposal to take the scarce, and some would say nonexistent, highway trust fund dollars from the states and instead 

give those funds to community planners. Our witnesses yesterday 

echoed our concerns. The highway trust fund dollars are desperately needed for road maintenance and congestion mitigation. 

Not only does our economy depend on the jobs that construction 

and maintenance supports, but general industry goods, distribution 

and manufacturing depends on the smooth mobility of freight. 

I am also welcoming the opportunity to delve deeper into the 

budget request from the Rail Administration, the Highway Administration, the Maritime Administration and the Motor Carrier Administration. Those modes represent billions of dollars of federal 

investment, affect billions of dollars in industry and commerce and 

touch the lives of pretty much every American. I look forward to 

the testimony and the questions and answers of the next two hours 

because I think this will drive home the need to keep highway 

trust fund dollars for the purposes it was intended by the creators 

of the trust fund, and perhaps even more importantly, by the expectation of every person who buys a gallon of gas, that these funds 

will be used to improve roads. So, with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield 

back. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you, Mr. Latham. Now we are going to hear 

from Under Secretary Kienitz. Your complete written testimony is 

in the record, and if you can keep your remarks at this point in 

the five or six minute range, that will be appreciated and we can 

get on to the questions from this enthusiastic group being joined 

by Mr. LaTourette. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I heard you mention me yesterday. 

Mr. OLVER. We certainly did. We are always interested in your 

comments. Mr. Kienitz. 

MR. KIENITZ OPENING REMARKS

Mr. KIENITZ. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking 

Member Latham, Mr. LaTourette and Mr. Rodriguez. Good to see 

you all again. We have introduced everyone here, and obviously we 

will all be at your service for questions, but I am going to do the 

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only opening statement. So our main goal here today is to talk 

about the Administration’s approach to freight issues and what this 

could mean for transportation programs going forward, both in 

terms of the discretionary actions we might take, and also action 

by Congress, either through appropriations or a long-term reauthorization. This could end up being a large topic. 

When it comes to freight policy, we start where we start with 

every policy, which is with, first, principles. The Secretary, shortly 

upon entering office, and actually even before he was sworn in, 

named a very short list of priorities that he wanted to try to have 

transportation policy pursued to the degree he could, and that was 

economic competitiveness, safety, a state of good repair of the existing system, livability and environmental sustainability. So the first 

question for us is: does an activist role of some kind by the Federal 

Government in freight policy help advance those goals? I think our 

answer to that is a resounding yes. 

The questions get harder after that, which is, of course, what 

kind of involvement, either from a policy or a financial point of 

view, moves us most effectively towards those goals, and where are 

the most effective policies or expenditures in the freight side to 

help achieve those goals or where do you leave off and spend your 

money elsewhere? So that is the sort of balancing question that we 

are going to spend I think most of today trying to talk about. Development of freight policy is something that has been much talked 

about in transportation circles for 20 years. The actuation of any 

such policy, though, basically is constrained by the stovepipe nature of our system. 

Highways has a highway trust fund, rail does not have a trust 

fund, waterways does not have a trust fund, there is transit funding, and each of those categories of funding are limited to expenditures. So the Department has, I think, for a long time wanted to 

take a broad look at freight policy to figure out where enhancements to the system would be most efficient, but we actually do not 

have a financing or policy system that would allow us to follow that 

to its logical conclusion. 

So some of the freight transportation modes operate on roadway, 

public right-of-way, some of them operate on privately owned rightof-way, like freight rail, some of it is privately owned right-of-way 

where publicly funded passenger trains also operate and you have 

those conflicts, so, for a variety of reasons that are in the structure 

of the federal program and just in the ownership structure of our 

systems, it is very hard to pursue a unified policy. I will just give 

one example. For example, on the highway side, the last mile to a 

port or rail terminal is often a big issue. The great growth in 

freight has been intermodal connections between modes. Getting 

the containers off the ship, onto the train, off the ship, onto the 

truck, onto the train, off the trucks, onto the waterways, things like 

that. 

There are often those last mile connections where the stuff has 

to move on locally owned roadways not on the federal aid system, 

not eligible for investments by us, but even though they are very 

short in their extent, they carry huge amounts of traffic. So a lot 

of the energy lately has gone into these questions of how to connect 

ships and rail and those things like that, but actually, the highway 

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connection ends up being one of the places where we also have a 

disconnect between funding and outcomes. Another policy that we 

have talked some about is imports versus exports. The great rationalizations that have occurred in freight movement over the last 20 

years have been largely based on containerization of cargo and the 

efficient movement of containerized cargo into ports, through ports, 

onto trains and over long distances across the country. 

When you actually analyze, though, what that freight flow is, 

containerization has been most effective for imports in the United 

States. It tends to be consumer goods packed in cardboard, put in 

boxes, put in containers. U.S. exports actually tend to be of a different character. They tend to be huge things, like Boeing airplanes, or Caterpillar tractors, or things like that where we are 

very competitive in the world market, or they tend to be bulk 

items, like soybeans, corn, wheat, things like that, or they tend to 

be very small high value items, like high tech computer chips, or 

devices, or things like that, and those things sometimes move by 

container, but sometimes they move by air freight or other methods, and so the investments that have gone in, both with private 

railroads and port operators, but also through government in 

rationalizing the container system, have tended to have more of an 

effect on the efficiency of importing goods and less of an effect on 

the efficiency of exporting goods. 

So a policy consideration that we want to look at going forward 

is the degree that the Federal Government is going to be intervening in the freight system. Is there a way to do it that is at least 

on an equal footing for U.S. manufacturers and exporters, as well 

as importers? I will talk a little bit about how we have tried to 

operationalize some of these ideas. Obviously the TIGER program 

has been the big example for us. I think there has been much discussion of livability as a new concept and some controversy over it, 

and so I think there was an expectation that the great share of the 

funds from that program would go to livability projects, but, in fact, 

the largest category of investment we made was in freight rail. 

That is because freight rail has been one of those things where 

large public benefits are available, but where the private actors do 

not get any return on their investment by creating public benefits. 

Public benefits meaning fewer trucks on the road, less damage to 

roadways, less pollution, safer roads, fewer fatalities, fewer accidents. So at some level, if the public wants to achieve those outcomes, we have to be willing, potentially, to invest, so we have put 

close to $5 million into partnerships with states and private railroads to help improve freight systems on the rail side, and also create connections that are truck to rail, rail to port, things like that. 

So the other thing is in our budget request. As you know, Mr. 

Chairman, we have this national infrastructure innovation fund 

proposal which I think could best be thought of as the next 

iteration of a TIGER program, somewhat larger, and our hope 

would be even more rigorous in its application. We tried very hard, 

particularly with help from Victor’s staff at federal highways who 

have a lot of the in-house freight expertise, to make the decisionmaking about freight investments for TIGER funding based on an 

analysis of freight flows around the country. What we found out is 

there is a lot of good information, a lot of data and good analysis, 

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but there are huge gaps in the information and huge gaps in our 

ability to do the analysis. 

If we are going to have these types of authorities going forward 

to make these investments, we want to be able to do it in a rigorous, defensible way. I think we did that within the limits of the 

information that we have. Then the final thing I will say is that 

one of the other principles we need to follow is shared systems. The 

good news is most of the freight in the U.S. moves over shared systems. It moves over waterways that are shared for other purposes, 

it moves over freight rail tracks that are shared for passenger purposes and it moves over highways that are shared for passenger 

purposes. 

What that means is that any time you do an intervention on one 

of those systems you can say you are going in to do a highway 

project for the purpose of freight improvement, but that same investment could hugely change the dynamic of passenger movements in a way that either crowds out the trucks, or the trucks are 

crowding out the cars, or you are creating benefits for freight and 

disbenefits for passengers or vice versa. The same thing is true on 

the rail system. Because we are picking the low hanging fruit with 

high speed rail and freight rail right now, I think we are fairly confident the investments we are making, both in the high speed rail 

program and in the TIGER will help passenger movements, and 

passenger investments will help freight movement. 

There are places where that is not true, where you do one type 

of investment and it advantages passenger travel and disadvantages freight travel and vice versa. I know the private railroads are 

very concerned about that. That makes our analytical task that 

much more difficult because there are various types of benefits you 

can have, and you cannot have them all, and so you need to trade 

them off against one another. So I think those are some principles 

we are trying to bring to this. We see as a long-term value here 

not necessarily for a separate freight investment program, but 

rather making freight projects of all kinds eligible for flexible investment dollars at the federal level. We think there are real benefits to be gained there. So I think that is a good summary of our 

approach, and I will leave it to your questions at this point. Thank 

you. 

[The information follows:] 

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Mr. OLVER. Well, it was a good summary. I think a very complicated summary. It will take a while to think about this while we 

are supposedly having a budget hearing one gets right back into 

the policy issues that are up there. I will respond to that in kind, 

I guess. Yesterday we had our panel of witnesses and there were 

people there from trucking, rail, ports, manufacturing, they were 

all there, and we had a state DOT head here who had to cover all 

of those issues in her portfolio as well. There was a strong sense 

that there needed to be additional federal investment in large 

scale, big ticket, multimodal projects, which they strongly supported the TIGER program as it was, and would like to see more 

there. I am really beginning to be sold on that idea. 

TIGER GRANTS

Of course, I like to do infrastructure in any case. They all had 

a lot of positive things to say about the TIGER program that was 

funded in the Recovery Act. With that aside, though, federal funding is directed to modal agencies which arguably have a very narrow investment focus, as you indicated, and then you indicated that 

there are some huge gaps in the data and information denoted 

really to make different decisions and to work out of a whole. I 

think freight has not been dealt with in as broad a way as highways and rail passenger circumstances, which have been under federal transit’s bay as opposed to the freight aspect. 

Given this environment, would you expand on the challenges 

that exist—you mentioned the last mile issue which really rings a 

bell with me, that business that we have our Class I railroads who 

are building major intermodal centers sometimes 30 or 40 miles 

away from where the major port, for instance, is. That business of 

getting stuff from port to wherever those intermodals are, how do 

we get it, and what, specifically, is going to be able to deal with 

that? It lays out that old comment that it takes one day to get from 

the coast to Chicago and then one day to get through to Chicago. 

What are we going to do in order to correct that kind of thing? 

Mr. KIENITZ. I will speak to this and then others may want to 

as well. Maybe Joe will. I would say first it is very case specific, 

and so I would hesitate to offer a generic solution to that kind of 

an issue. You know, I have experienced, for example, in the City 

of Philadelphia with the freight railroads, the tracks actually go 

right down to the port. The gap there is that the port is not properly developed, and so there is all of this rail capacity and a lot of 

space that you could use to get stuff in and out, get it onto the 

trains and never have the trucks go on public roads. Very efficient. 

The gap is on the port development. 

Mr. OLVER. Did you give in the TIGER grants any grant solely 

for expanding port facilities to correct that kind of a thing, as you 

have described it in the Philadelphia case? 

Mr. KIENITZ. Not precisely, although the California grant actually is an interesting take on this. What they wanted to do is instead of trucking commodities from the Central Valley of California 

over the highways to the Port of Oakland, they wanted to put them 

on barges in the river system, round them to the Port of Oakland 

on water, and tranship there for export overseas. The distance is 

100 miles or something like that. So, once again, it is a very case 

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specific thing because the river system there is very navigable and 

so that is a good solution in that matter. 

We got a bunch of applications, I know, along the Mississippi 

River for various truck or rail-based transfer points to get grain 

and other commodities on and off the barge system, but part of the 

issue there was there were 12 places all vying to be the place 

where you come to tranship your grain, and so then how do you 

choose from among those? Is one state more worthy than another, 

or one project more worthy than another? That is a very hard type 

of decision to make. The concept is a good one, but the playing of 

favorites is a hard thing. With the port business, too, the port authorities all come here to town and say we are all a united group, 

but in reality they are fierce competitors. They are fiercely competing to get the ships to come to their port and not the other guy’s 

port, and at some level it is hard to—— 

Mr. OLVER. Well, we cannot have the infrastructure needed at all 

ports for all people, for all places. 

Mr. KIENITZ. Right. 

Mr. OLVER. Somewhere, decisions are going to have to be made. 

Mr. KIENITZ. Yes. You know, the Panama Canal expansion is occurring, so by 2014 the theory is you are going to have much, much 

wider, deeper, larger ships, many more containers, and the theories 

of economics will argue instead of taking the ship to L.A. and unloading it, it is going to be more cost-effective to send the huge ship 

through the Panama Canal and then dock somewhere in the Gulf 

Coast or the East Coast for cargo that is bound for the central and 

eastern United States. So there are probably 10 ports on the Gulf 

Coast and the East Coast, all of whom believe that they should be 

the post-Panamax’s center for the cargo, for the movement all over 

the eastern United States. Perhaps one of them one day will be. 

They will not all be. So that is a very hard thing for us. Should 

we intervene in that dispute or should they compete with one another to offer the best service to the provider? 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. Mr. Latham. 

HIGHWAY TRUST FUND REAUTHORIZATION

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We talked a little bit 

about reauthorization of the highway trust fund. Mr. Mendez, and 

your Secretary, and, I might add, your Under Secretary here today, 

have taken quite a beating recently since the budget was released 

in February for the Department’s lack of initiative and cooperation 

when it comes to putting forth a highway reauthorization proposal. 

When we spoke last month, and in the Under Secretary’s testimony 

today on page 7 it referenced the Department’s Surface Transportation Reauthorization Outreach Tour. 

When we spoke, I figured you were touring in preparation of submitting a reauthorization proposal. Unfortunately, the Secretary 

has made it clear that no proposal will be forthcoming from the Department. We can tell you what is needed because it seems like 

every group and constituent I meet with, both here and back home, 

and I am sure it is the same way for everybody else on the subcommittee here, they are telling me that we need a reauthorization 

and need solvency in the trust fund. Quite honestly, I do not know 

if we needed to travel too many places. I think it is pretty obvious 

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what the need is. How many listening stops have you made to get 

input on the reauthorization program? 

Mr. KIENITZ. We have done three so far: New Orleans, Louisiana; 

Minneapolis, Minnesota; Los Angeles, California. A couple more are 

under discussion. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. Where does the money come to do all the 

tours? 

Mr. KIENITZ. From the Department’s budget. I confess. I do not 

know exactly which line item. 

Mr. LATHAM. Is it out of the trust fund? 

Mr. KIENITZ. I do not know. I do not think so. 

Mr. MENDEZ. Yes. We have supported at least one of the—— 

Mr. LATHAM. Microphone. 

Mr. MENDEZ. I am sorry. Excuse me. I know within federal highways we have supported at least one of the tours. I do not know 

that we supported all of them. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. I think probably for the record I would really 

like to see some kind of a breakdown of where the expenses for 

those have gone and where the money comes from, and, if we could, 

I would very much like to see that. I think one thing interesting, 

and we have had a discussion here about, you know, livability planning and those type of things going on and on for weeks here, but 

in August of 2007, the Interstate 35 West Bridge collapsed in Minneapolis and bridge safety became a huge priority for Congress, the 

Department, the highway administration. This committee provided 

an additional $1 billion in spending solely for bridge safety and repair. Can you tell me what the status of that $1 billion, and, you 

know, how many bridges have been brought to an acceptable safety 

level with that? 

Mr. MENDEZ. Well, I do not have the exact numbers with me. I 

certainly can provide them to the committee here in the future 

shortly. We did undertake through our processes, in coordination 

with the state DOTs—you will focus on the bridge issues. As you 

mentioned, when we had that big collapse there was a big focus on 

bridge safety. I can tell you at that point in time, I happened to 

be in Arizona as the state DOT director, and clearly, we did everything we could to move forward on the bridge safety inspections, 

the inspection process. We also at this point in time are reviewing 

the bridge safety inspection process and also coordinating with the 

National Transportation Safety Board on some of those same 

issues. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. So you would say that bridge safety is a 

highest priority and funds should be used in that regard, is that 

correct? 

Mr. MENDEZ. Yes, sir, safety is our number one priority at the 

Department. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. In the budget request they propose to skim 

off a percentage of the highway funds from each state, and according to the Budget Office, $36.6 million would be removed from the 

bridge program in fiscal year 2011, or almost 20 percent of the 

total livable communities fund for community planners. Is this a 

higher priority than bridge safety? 

Mr. MENDEZ. Well, let me just address that. As you mention, 

$200 million from the highway component. Livability, as you know, 

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is a high priority for the administration. I can say I do not want 

to minimize the value of $200 million. We do believe it is modest 

when you look at the overall funding, and so we are simply asking 

for support to advance that administration priority. 

Mr. LATHAM. I mean, my question, is that a higher priority than 

bridge safety? 

Mr. MENDEZ. Well, again, I think it is important for us to be able 

to advance a new priority for the administration. Certainly, we are 

not minimizing the importance of bridge safety. We will continue 

to focus on that, and we are not giving up on bridge safety. No, sir. 

Mr. LATHAM. I see I am out of time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. Ms. Kilpatrick? 

TIGER GRANTS

Ms. KILPATRICK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. I 

want to go back to the TIGER grants just a bit. 

Mr. KIENITZ. Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. KILPATRICK. I do not know if that is the first round or second. That is the first round. Right. Several proposals submitted, 

and I did see the list and how they were distributed. A couple of 

areas got the large grants, other areas got a small piece. I come 

from Michigan so the waterways are international with Canada, 

and the infrastructure left from the auto industry that includes an 

international bridge, and a tunnel, and the railroads, and all of 

those kind of how we send our TIGER grant in. We were not 

awarded that. We did get a small piece of something else, and we 

thank you for that and much more. 

I hope this committee will put more in TIGER grants, as has 

been proposed by the Executive Office, so that we can do more of 

those because I really believe that those grants directly to those 

used for government can be the difference in rebuilding America 

and putting people back to work. That is real important on that. 

Now, does the Department plan to create a more direct grant that 

will just be targeted at freight rail? When I came in we were talking freight rail. Is that going to be a priority as we move more 

goods and services? Is there a need for that? 

Mr. KIENITZ. Thank you, ma’am. I think our approach at this 

point really is that the lesson of the TIGER grants is that if you 

take the strictures off and say this is not money directed at any 

particular use, it is to achieve our goals in the most cost-effective 

way possible, turns out that the freight projects compete extremely 

well, but they should have to compete. Everybody should have to 

compete. That is what creates the upward spiral, the upward pressure to get, you know—— 

Ms. KILPATRICK. I am glad to hear you say that. I want to see 

the competition. I think you get the better products when you compete, and everyone comes together intermodally, by the way, that 

would make that competition real and valuable to the people who 

live in those areas. That is why I think the TIGER grant was very 

creative. In our situation, the businesses and the private, as well 

as the nonprofits and the cities that are involved in that, put together a real good application, and we are going to be working with 

you to see what we can do better by that. Thank you for what you 

have done. 

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Mr. KIENITZ. Absolutely. 

Ms. KILPATRICK. Also, what did get a TIGER grant is a project, 

eight mile light rail down a main business thoroughfare that has 

a public/private partnership. One of the FTA administrators were 

in my district. I was here and could not be there, but he came to 

say that public/private partnerships had not proven to be effective 

in this regard. I was not sure what that meant, and I was not at 

the meetings. The staff reported it in their memos and conversation 

to me. Are public and private partnerships, I do not want to say 

more efficient, but valuable, and in what cases more so than others? Should we be looking at that as well? 

Mr. KIENITZ. Yes, ma’am. Obviously, I am very familiar with that 

project, and the Secretary, you know, that was a decision that he 

personally made. 

Ms. KILPATRICK. Say his name for me, please. 

Mr. KIENITZ. Secretary LaHood. 

Ms. KILPATRICK. Not the Secretary. 

Mr. KIENITZ. Peter Rogoff. 

Ms. KILPATRICK. Yes. I want to meet with him. 

Mr. KIENITZ. Transit administrator. Okay. 

Ms. KILPATRICK. Yes, transit administrator. 

Mr. KIENITZ. I will tell him that. 

Ms. KILPATRICK. Please. I would like to have follow-up in my office. I like how he presented himself and the information. To prepare for the future, that is what we need to know. That is why I 

am asking now. What kinds of things are better, and how do we 

proceed? 

Mr. KIENITZ. Right. I think the issue there, obviously there is a 

real partnership certainly in the development of the first phase of 

that project. It is a financial partnership. I think part of what Mr. 

Rogoff wants to understand is what the operating partnership will 

be. I think their experience is that having a single operator who 

is responsible for everything that goes either well or poorly in operations is a more effective and accountable system. I know that 

there has been some discussion over who is going to be the operator of that project once it eventually gets built. 

Ms. KILPATRICK. There have been several. 

Mr. KIENITZ. Right. I guess I am not quite current the last week 

or so. 

Ms. KILPATRICK. I should say normally the settlement is closed. 

Mr. KIENITZ. Yes. So I think he has expressed some issues about 

that. I think the financial partnership and the commitment of the 

civic community, the philanthropies, the business community, that, 

I think, is part of what convinced Secretary LaHood that this was: 

(A) a real priority of the community generally; and (B) something 

that a lot of people had their money riding on and would want to 

succeed, and so that that would really create the pressure to make 

it work. 

Ms. KILPATRICK. I see. So that 20 percent partnership to help get 

our 20 percent that is required is okay. The operation of it should 

stay with the public entity whose most of the line required. 

Mr. KIENITZ. As a general matter, I think I should probably leave 

it to Mr. Rogoff who understands the details of those rules better 

than I do. I would not want to speak out of—— 

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LIGHT RAIL

Ms. KILPATRICK. Okay. I would like to speak with him on that. 

Then, finally, in as much as we are late, every other metropolitan 

area in the country has a light rail system of some sort. We are 

trying now to move to rapid rail, which is what the President is 

supporting in the corridor, and we believe that we have that with 

the infrastructure, again, left by the auto industries, and the port, 

and the tunnels, and the bridges and all of that. Mr.—what is his 

name again? 

Mr. KIENITZ. Rogoff. 

Ms. KILPATRICK. Rogoff. Right. I have got to write that down. 

Said that we needed a rail person, people who specialize in this, 

who has helped other areas of the country bring their rail to fruition. What type of person is that? Is that specifically? I agree with 

that, by the way. I totally do. We do not have that initiative, and 

we need to have that. I tell this to the Secretary all the time. Our 

MPO is antiquated and inefficient. There has got to be another way 

to do this. Having a rail person specifically. The MPO is broader. 

I think you need that for the kinds of projects that we are talking 

about. It certainly has become one of the right-of-ways that the 

President is talking. 

Mr. KIENITZ. I will make two points and perhaps let Joe talk 

about this a little bit. Just on the light rail, commuter rail side, 

there are definitely some agencies out there that have become real 

experts in doing project development, like Seattle, and Los Angeles, 

and Salt Lake City and Denver, who have done a lot of it. 

Ms. KILPATRICK. Houston? 

Mr. KIENITZ. For folks who are going into it for the first time, 

we try to help create those partnerships to get the folks who have 

done it in other cities to try to help out. I know on the passenger 

rail side that has also been a little bit of an issue in Michigan, not 

just in the Detroit area. Maybe Joe could speak to that a little bit. 

Ms. KILPATRICK. Come in closer, Joe. 

Mr. SZABO. While I think in your case you are talking about light 

rail, certainly, when we have been talking about high speed rail, 

passenger rail—— 

Ms. KILPATRICK. That was the question, light rail to high speed 

rail. We want high speed rail. 

Mr. SZABO. Sure. 

Ms. KILPATRICK. That is the order of the day. 

Mr. SZABO. I think the key point is that the different DOTs have 

different levels of expertise. It depends on their history and their 

past commitment to rail. Certainly, as rail moves forward as a priority, there is the need to elevate the level of expertise in many 

DOTs. You can go on the internet and look up the rail division of 

one particular state and find about 65 employees assigned to their 

rail division and go take a look at their neighboring state and find 

half the employees assigned to the rail division, and so it kind of 

runs a very wide gamut. A key part of what we are trying to do 

in the preparation of our national rail plan is capacity building. 

Frankly, that is capacity building for all of us. For the FRA, as 

well as for the state DOT. As we look to rebalance our transportation network, it is important that the DOTs also take a look at 

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rebalancing their resources, and how they choose to allocate their 

priorities inside the DOT. So if you want rail to be a priority, sometimes you need to make those adjustments at—— 

Ms. KILPATRICK. That last part you said was most important. 

That first part was University of Michigan 101. I do appreciate it. 

Thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. Mr. LaTourette. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Is it your intention 

to have more than one round? 

Mr. OLVER. Yes. 

BICYCLE AND PEDESTRIAN POLICY

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay. Good. Because I wanted to talk to Administrator Szabo about positive train control and Administrator 

Matsuda about short sea shipping, but I have been sidetracked by 

a news flash and I really got to check it out. There is an article 

today in BNA that indicates, and apparently it is on your FHWA 

blog and the headline is called Fast Lane, I will try and get a subscription, but it says that LaHood declares bicycling, walking, as 

equal to motorized transportation. I got two questions. One, is that 

a typo? Two, if it is not a typo, is there still mandatory drug testing 

at the Department? 

Mr. KIENITZ. I will respond to that. Not a typo. Yes, there is 

mandatory drug testing, and I have had mine. For many years the 

Department has had a document called a bicycle and pedestrian 

policy. That document has been under revision for some months, 

and the revised version was released. The Secretary maintains the 

blog, and so every couple of days there is a new item on there of 

something he has been doing. As you know, this is something he 

is passionate about and so there is a long posting on there about 

that. 

I would say that the import of the document is it is not a regulation and so it is not some mandatory requirement. You know, the 

states are still in charge of expending formula funds in the way 

they have been before. I think it is an expression of his oft stated, 

in front of this committee and certainly many others, view that the 

Federal Government should not take the position that roads and 

trains are real transportation and walking and biking are not. I 

think his view is it is all real transportation and we should consider it based on what benefits it can bring for the amount of 

money we spend. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Well, listen, I totally agree with that position. 

Where I think I am taken aback and sort of breathless today is 

that he declares it equal to those other modes of transportation. So 

today’s hearing is titled Strengthening Intermodal Connections and 

Improving Freight Mobility. So is it his thought that perhaps we 

are going to have like rickshaws carrying cargo from state to state 

or people with backpacks? 

Mr. OLVER. That is what they do in Chicago. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Well, sure. That is why it takes a whole day 

to get through. 

Mr. KIENITZ. That is why the trains take so long to get across 

Chicago. 

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Mr. LATOURETTE. Exactly right. So, I mean, he did not mean 

equal to. He just means that in the mix we are going to consider 

these as alternatives and good things to have, but if we are going 

to spend $1 million on a road, we are not going to have half of it 

go to a bike lane and half of it go to cars. 

Mr. KIENITZ. My interpretation of that would be equal in the 

eyes of policymakers as what is the expenditure you make, what 

is the benefit you get. If the freight project offers the best bang, 

great, but if the bike project offers a good bang, great for them. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Yeah. In terms of what? I mean, that gets back to, you know, you are already stealing $305 million from the trust 

fund for this sustainability, livability initiative, so, and as I look at 

the Secretary’s objectives, the five things that he finds to be important, 40 percent of them, I mean, and you separated them today, 

one is livability and then you have got economic sustainability. I 

was hoping you would only have 20 percent and it would be, you 

know, livability and sustainability. So I do not even understand 

how you get a bang for the buck out of a bicycle project. I mean, 

it is quality of life. I mean, when we are talking about economic 

development and jobs, I mean, what job is going to be created by 

having a bike lane? 

Mr. KIENITZ. I think it is an entirely fair question, but you often 

see the cyclist with the t-shirt that says ‘‘one less’’ car on the back. 

The person who is driving by them thinking ‘‘why are you in my 

way’’ would instead think, ‘‘well, at least you are over to the side 

instead of in front of me in your car.’’ There is some value to that. 

Bicycling, and walking are low cost. They lower family costs. The 

interesting thing about the U.S. transportation system is that the 

great majority of the expenditures are not expenditures that we 

make as governments, it is the expenditures that we make as individuals. 

The car ownership rate in the United States is very high, and 

that is a very high family cost. For people of solid means, it is a 

perfectly affordable thing. There are a lot of people for whom a 

transportation system in which you cannot have a job, you cannot 

get your kids to school, you cannot do shopping unless you own a 

car, or two cars, or three cars, that is actually a hardship for folks. 

Giving them ways to make choices where they can achieve their 

goals without necessarily having to do that, entirely at their own 

choice though, seems reasonable. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Well, and I do not have any problem with the 

philosophy that we should—— 

Mr. KIENITZ. Perhaps our rhetoric is not to your—— 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Well, that is what I am saying. Equal is a bad 

word. Maybe you should say that it should be under consideration 

or we are going to do more of it, but to say equal I think really 

does send it. I mean, it is a little bit like if you own a Toyota, you 

should park it. It is sending the wrong message, would be my observation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Rodriguez. 

TIGER GRANTS

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Thank you very much. Thank you for being here 

with us today. Let me ask you, on the TIGER grants I got kind of 

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366 

mixed understandings. Are we going to have a second round of that 

or what? We are? 

Mr. KIENITZ. The appropriations bill approved by this subcommittee and eventually enacted into law for the current year 

provided $600 million for a second round. So it is a great reduction 

in the amount, but, yes, there will be—— 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Because, you know, and I have verbalized this 

before, in Texas we have a problem south of Dallas along the border. We, you know, really have been treated appropriately by the 

state in the last, you know, so many decades. I know with the 

TIGER grants also went to the north, none to the south. I am in 

San Antonio, seventh largest city in the nation, and yet, you know, 

I would hope that as you look at that criteria and to making those 

determinations, you know, look at those, you know? Okay? 

Mr. KIENITZ. Yes. 

RAIL LINE RELOCATION

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Secondly, on your budget on the rail line relocation improvement program you kind of wiped that out. I was wondering if there are going to be other resources that you are going 

to look at, realignment or improvement projects. We have the 

South Orient project. For Texas, you know, trade comes through 

Mexico a lot and it goes through the inners, you know, and we have 

rail that comes in through the Atlantic and through Mexico and 

north to the center of the country. The South Orient, we are looking at the Pacific side of Mexico coming also through the center, 

you know? It is an area where South Orient needs, actually, it is 

owned by the state and it needs a great deal of improvement. We 

are able to get some resources there. That is why I was, you know, 

really concerned that you seem to be wiping out that category in 

terms of improvements. 

Mr. KIENITZ. I will say I am personally very familiar with that 

program. When I worked in state government we actually took 

great advantage of some of those funds, and you may have as well. 

I know that it has traditionally been a program with strong support in Congress, and administrations past and now current have 

chosen not to request those funds, but obviously, that is an ongoing 

program at the rail administration right now, and the funds are 

provided, we will obviously work with you all to get them to the 

right projects. 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Okay. So what was the rationale for doing away 

with that? 

Mr. KIENITZ. I think it is the same rationale that has previously 

been the case. Every Administration I can think of has not supported that program—just one of the many things that gets cut 

every year to try to have a balanced budget. 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Improvement in safety, and so it is not an issue 

because you also wiped out safety? 

Mr. KIENITZ. I certainly have seen projects that have been very 

valuable funded under that program. 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Okay. Because if we look at probably freight 

that comes into this country, a huge amount comes in through 

Texas. 

Mr. KIENITZ. Yes. 

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Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Any part of that freight system as it goes up to 

the north or anywhere else, if you have got bottlenecks there, it not 

only impacts that area, but everywhere up north like when you 

look at I–35 that goes all the way across the country, it comes out 

of Laredo and San Antonio, and if it bottles up there, you are going 

to have a bottling up, and people forget that it is not just their 

areas but also where it comes from. 

Mr. SZABO. Congressman, if I could say this? I was previously a 

local mayor in the south suburbs of Chicago, and it was a railroad 

town. It had two major freight rail yards in the community, and 

so certainly from that local perspective I can clearly relate to what 

you are talking about. What we chose to do was to focus on more 

flexible funding for larger infrastructure programs where a rail line 

relocation would still potentially be eligible whether it is under the 

TIGER grants or through the proposal for the NIIFF, the infrastructure bank that rail line relocations would be eligible under 

those programs, and so it was not that they were excluded. It is 

just that it is being funded from a broader pot. 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Okay. Is that the $4 billion pot? 

Mr. KIENITZ. Yes, sir. 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Okay. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. Okay. 

Because I know that includes commuter rail and passenger and 

freight intermodal systems. 

Mr. KIENITZ. Yes. 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. The GAO quickly indicated that with limited 

federal funding targeted to intermodal transportation, a well-limited collaboration that exits, limited ability to evaluate the benefit 

of such projects based on GAO. What are you guys doing in that 

area? 

Mr. KIENITZ. First of all, I would say I entirely agree with that 

analysis. I think they are entirely right. To the degree that we now 

have some modest flexible funding, we are trying our darndest to 

do a much better job of that. For example, in the review of the 

flexible funding through the TIGER program, all of these people 

were involved, their staffs were involved. We had staff from each 

of the agencies look at each of the applications. We have really 

tried, both within our department and in the multi-agency partnership with HUD and EPA, to get a wide variety of perspectives. 

That said, the fundamental structure of the department in our 

authorizing statute is stovepiped and divided. That is our operating 

manual, and we have to follow it. There is a certain amount of administrative stuff we can try to do to create a veneer of multimodal 

thinking on top of what are essentially single-mode programs, so 

I think the long-term response to that has to be a change potentially in the authorizing statute to make it more part of our DNA. 

TIGER GRANTS

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. And can I just followup once again on the 

TIGER? Can I get a better perspective? Can we assume that you 

are going to be looking at it a little more broadly in terms of applicants on the TIGER projects, or are you going to be going to the 

same ones who have received it in the past? 

Mr. KIENITZ. I think in particular we will probably almost certainly not go to the same ones that received it in the past, in part 

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because those people are now going to be struggling to get their 

projects completed on time and on budget, so I would hope that we 

could explicitly do what you are saying. 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. Well, on my time just for clarification, the one thing about the $600 million program is that it is an 80/20 program as 

opposed a 100–percent program which is the $1.5 billion that went 

out earlier, so it will require a local match with it along the way, 

but a quick question to you to follow up what Mr. Rodriguez had 

said. Would everybody have to apply de novo, or will you look at 

the list of those which were close to the award in the first place 

and not make them go back all the way through this process? Can 

you give me any sense of how that would go? 

Mr. KIENITZ. There will be an entirely new de novo process. I 

suspect we will see many of the same applications back in. 

Mr. OLVER. With a whole new notebook, but if they had a good 

program, or they have reason to think they are close, can they just 

put it in with very minor changes, is that what you just said? 

Mr. KIENITZ. Yes, although with the caveat that you stated, 

which is that there is now a match requirement. Although, I will 

say I am not sure any of the projects that we granted did not have 

match, the great majority of them because that was a competitive 

factor. If you were willing to offer a match, the project was more 

competitive. 

Mr. OLVER. Yes, but it did not require. 

Mr. KIENITZ. It did not require. 

Mr. OLVER. Did not require. 

Mr. KIENITZ. There may have been a few cases; I think we funded an Indian Reservation project in South Dakota, and the Indian 

Tribe does not have a local match. They are not a state DOT. They 

do not have resources, so I think there was no match required on 

a couple of projects like that. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. Sometimes they have resources, too. 

Mr. KIENITZ. But this was not one of them. 

Mr. OLVER. All right. Continuing with my time, Mr. LaTourette, 

I had not realized how we had missed you when you are not here, 

and as you all know, the Secretary comes from the party of the 

folks on his right, and I think Mr. LaTourette is a very close personal friend of the Secretary. I do not know how many times you 

can make that sort of comment and still be totally friendly with the 

Secretary. In any case, again to my friends on your right, I have 

heard from both of them here and others when they are here decry 

the inadequacy of the infrastructure program of the authorization 

bill that occurred in 2005 and how small it was and how much 

greater the need is. 

FREIGHT

I really think the need at the time was probably close to twice 

that and surely is with inflation now equal to what has been proposed and if you add the kind of need that comes if you take into 

account and appropriate a proportionate roll for freight, which is 

freight, with the movement of freight and its interconnection with 

the problems of overlapping uses of facilities and such that on this 

Subcommittee we probably would agree that we need more than 

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twice what that program was and headed toward three times in 

order to be reaching to our need for infrastructure, so it is very 

large in any case. 

To my ranking member, just a comment, Mr. Kienitz, you listed 

very definitively the order, at least I think it is done for a reason, 

safety, economic competitiveness, state of good repair, livability 

and environmental sustainability. Well, if I look at that, if I had 

a complaint with it, I would think there is a need for expansion of 

facilities, capacity expansion and facilities, which I suppose you 

might argue is included somewhere under economic competitiveness, but it is hidden, and in a transportation role, it is such a 

clear idea to speak of capacity expansion, which we need, as well 

as we need state of good repair. 

At the other end of it, livability and sustainability I will concede 

that some might look at that as the same thing, but when you 

speak of environmental sustainability, it really speaks to the fact 

that we have environmental law, and we have had it for a long 

time, and it is one of the things that slows down the process our 

adherence to environmental considerations and environmental sustainability. That has been there for a long time. 

In very urban areas, this is not going to end up with a question 

at all in this round, but I do need another minute because I have 

gone red, but if you end up trade associations from say the highway advocates and the trucking advocates, the trucking advocates 

basically use the highways, you will hear them say do not spend 

anything on rail, do not spend anything on transit, just build more 

roads. 

Well, you cannot build more roads, or you do not have much livability in major metropolitan areas, so you do not have either environmental sustainability or livability, which leads toward the possibilities of bicycles and walking if we have our jobs and our living 

spaces and our schools and so forth in good shape, but in rural 

areas, it is quite a different calculus that you have to think about, 

so I have no problem if one wants to put those two sort of in the 

same place realizing that there are differences with the different 

types of communities, so I think that you have been quite clear in 

safety being the most important thing in this. I will leave that 

there. That is how I view the matter, and, Mr. Latham. 

Mr. LATHAM. Great question, Mr. Chairman. I think the frustration I have that Mr. LaTourette spoke to also is the fact that if you 

now have an idea that there is equal importance for bike trails and 

all that, we are spending thousands of dollars coming out of the 

trust fund to do a listening tour where we get no response, no proposal, nothing about fixing the problem. We have money being 

taken out of the bridge fund, $36, $37 million, which is supposed 

to go to safety, that is going now to some other new initiative out 

there. 

We are increasing the number of people, and he talked about 

well, the guy the T-shirt with one less case. That is also one less 

person paying into the trust fund, and so there is money there to 

build more bike paths or more roads and bridges to handle the 

safety issues, and that is the frustration I think that we are not 

getting anything. We are punting the ball, basically. The gentleman talked earlier on the TIGER grants that a lot of these decimstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

370 

sions were really tough, so they did not make any decisions, and 

they funded millions and millions of dollars of new bike paths. 

I mean, there are real infrastructure needs out there that are 

being swept aside, and we all want to have a good environment to 

live in. I have got my green tie on for multiple reasons today, but 

that is the frustration. All the things we should be doing do not 

seem to be getting done. There is no proposal for initiatives going 

forward on how to solve the problem, and yet we are moving all 

this money over to other projects here that are somebody’s new initiative, and we have got huge infrastructure problems out there, 

and so I do not know how we rectify that. 

TIGER GRANTS

I was really disappointed on the TIGER grants that you only disclose what grants receive the money under the TIGER competition. 

Left out of it, there is no formula as to how decisions were made, 

what various projects were scored, evaluated, and who applied and 

what applicants were requesting saying you talked about the ones 

you did. Given the Administration’s idea of being totally transparent, are you going to release the information of other requests, 

proposals that were made to go after the TIGER grant funding? Is 

that going to be transparent so we know how everything was 

scored and evaluated? 

Mr. KIENITZ. We are working on that exact matter right now, 

and frankly it was just the press of work up to the deadline for 

doing the release that did not cause that to be done in a contemporaneous way, and so that is our fault. I have been involved in 

a variety of meetings about this exact topic to figure out what exactly can be released. We are trying to have this program be consistent with the way the department has handled other discretionary funding programs in the past through rail and highways 

and other places so that we have a consistent approach to all of it, 

but there will be a coming release. 

Mr. LATHAM. Is there any criteria you could release? 

Mr. KIENITZ. The criteria under which the projects were rated 

were published in the notice of funding availability. We had two 

primary criteria: did it meet the policy objectives, and did it create 

jobs, and secondary criteria of were partners invested, and were 

there innovative things about the project, so the criteria under 

which everything was judged were all published before the grants 

came in. 

Mr. LATHAM. But you can understand that people would be very 

concerned if their project was submitted knowing that criteria, and 

they do not know why it was not accepted. Was it a merit, or was 

it a political consideration, is there some other reason why their 

project was rejected and another one was accepted, and without 

any kind of transparency, nobody knows. 

Mr. KIENITZ. That is a fair point, and we have actually had 

many, many one-on-one discussions with project sponsors and 

members of Congress and others answering those exact questions, 

and we are also trying to put out guidance materials to try to elucidate that point for all past and potential future applicants about 

lessons learned from Step 1, and a lot of times it is really an obvious thing: Match. One person came in with a 50 percent match, 

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and another applicant came in with zero match, and so that was 

published in our criteria, but saying it to someone face to face is 

often more effective. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. I am almost out of time. I will yield back. 

Mr. OLVER. Of course, the ultimate problem was that there was $50 billion worth of requests and only $1.5 billion to do, which 

shows a pent up demand for the sorts of things with the flexibility 

that has been identified, the flexibility which took away the silos 

and could cut across what was going on. That is pretty important. 

Mr. LATHAM. I think that begs the question whether the decision 

is made on merit or were there other considerations? 

Mr. OLVER. Ultimately, we go back here, the people on your 

right, while they raise these questions and want the money, no one 

that I know of on the right has indicated how it is we are going 

to come up with the money that is needed to do what we need to 

do. I just have to editorialize there. Mr. LaTourette. 

RIF PROGRAM

Mr. LATOURETTE. I would just say respectfully, Chairman, that 

I have worked closely with Jim Oberstar for now 16 years, and he 

has had a variety of plans. He had a bill that he put through his 

committee. I support that. He is now working on a bonding proposal. I support that, and so not everybody on our side of the aisle 

is sort of wandering in the wilderness as to how to solve the problem. Administrator Szabo, I want to just ask you a couple of questions. 

When Joe Boardman, now the head of Amtrak, had your job, and 

here I will say something bad about the Bush Administration, you 

talk about the intermodalism, you talk about moving freight, the 

Deputy Secretary talked about the T-shirt that says one less car on 

the road, Norfolk Southern had this great ad. I thought it was the 

best ad in the world, where this giant tree would take a truck off 

the road and put it on a train and so forth and so on, so clearly 

moving freight on the rail system is a good idea. 

I could never get Boardman or the Bush Administration to grant 

anything under the RIF Program, and I am just wondering where 

your Administration is on the RIF Program, and have you given 

any RIF money out? Are you going to give any RIF money out because it is about $4 billion if I remember right. Maybe, I am fuzzy. 

Mr. SZABO. The fund itself? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. The authorization, the bonding authority in 

the RIF Fund. 

Mr. SZABO. I believe it is $35. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Billion? 

Mr. SZABO. Yes, it is substantial. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Yes, it is. So how much have you given out? 

Mr. SZABO. I do not have the exact answer about how much has 

been given out and certainly I can provide that to you, but obviously we consider it a very, very important program, an incredibly 

useful tool. Again, whether we are coming back to issues of rail line 

relocation, positive train control or certainly helping the short line 

industry, which has always been the primary purpose of RRIF, we 

consider it an important program. We continue to get applications, 

and we continue to see them approved. 

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Mr. LATOURETTE. And that is what I want to know. If somebody 

could just cobble together a list of the money that you have shipped 

out the door or you intend to ship out the door because $35 billion 

is not chump change. I mean, it is about what we were spending 

out of the highway trust fund on an annual basis for roads, and 

now roads and bicycle lanes and things like that, so, yes, I would 

like to know. Second, you mentioned positive train control. 

I asked a question of the Secretary when he was here, and he 

said he was going to send somebody over, and we did get an email 

response, and I was on the Transportation Committee when we 

wrote the Railroad Safety Act, and included in there is this mandate for positive train control, and I am a big believer in positive 

train control, but the mandate extends to, and the baseline is supposed to be December 31, 2015. I asked the Secretary how come 

FRA in its rulemaking in January used routes that are in existence 

or are being used today in 2008. 

The email response I got is FRA is not using an old map, but the 

final rule which requires the implementation plans that have to be 

filed by April 16, a couple of weeks from now, do talk about 

changes since 2008, and so the railroads tell me what this rule that 

you all have come out with may cause, and positive train control 

while it is a wonderful innovation, it is expensive, and it does not 

come free, and so the railroads have expressed concern to me that 

by having that baseline either be 2008 or April 2010 that you are 

going to have a requirement that they have PTC on about 8,000 

miles of track that do not need it because there is no TIH chemicals, so what do you think? 

Mr. SZABO. Well, let me say this: First, I need to be a little careful with the answer since there is a pending lawsuit on it, but I 

will say that we believe that the rule that we are proposing, that 

we have adopted, allows sufficient flexibility. In essence, 2008 is 

used as the baseline, but there is a high degree of flexibility that 

carriers can in fact make substantial changes from that. They just 

need to come and justify it, so it is a matter of ensuring that the 

public safety is maintained, that they do not just artificially make 

a change. As long as they can justify it, it is acceptable. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Well, and that is what I want to be clear on 

because nowhere in the Rail Safety Act is 2008 mentioned. I mean, 

that is when it was passed, but it is not mentioned anywhere. 2015 

is mentioned, so if we get to 2015 when they have to actually begin 

to deploy, and a railroad comes to you and says well, I know you 

used the 2008 map, the 2010 map, but I am telling you because of 

traffic patterns, because of decisions we have made, because of 

abandonment, or whatever, but we do not have any TIH stuff going 

on this line. Are you saying, you are still here in 2015, that it is 

your view that the Administration is going to say okay, we will 

work with you, and we will modify that mandate? 

Mr. SZABO. I certainly hope to still be here in 2015. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I do, too. 

Mr. SZABO. Let me say this. Certainly, the intent is to continue 

to work with the industry, and those changes that are appropriate 

and justified will be acceptable. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay. Thank you. 

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MARAD

Mr. OLVER. All right. We have votes that have been called. I 

think we will be able to do maybe four minutes for each of us and 

make another round out of this if that is okay. Very quickly here, 

Mr. Matsuda, as I understand it, 44 of 278 authorized positions at 

the Merchant Marine Academy under your Administration are vacant. Yet, there is quite an increase in the budget here. I am not 

sure that budget is related to filling those positions particularly, 

but let me just ask, do you have the qualified staff to administer 

the funding for MARAD that has been requested in the budget, and 

answer that fairly quickly if you can. 

Mr. MATSUDA. If I could, yes. We are in the process of recruiting 

all of the staff we need to help spend the additional capital monies 

requested in the 2011 budget. 

Mr. OLVER. And what kind of staff are those? 

Mr. MATSUDA. These are engineers and project overseers. 

Mr. OLVER. So that is part of the budget request? 

Mr. MATSUDA. Well, yes. That is part of it. 

Mr. OLVER. We know there are needs there. We know there have 

been problems there. I am just trying to identify whether we are 

getting at the problems and the staffing issue is quite severe. 

Mr. MATSUDA. We certainly are, sir. We are hiring folks this year 

and fiscal year 2010 as well as fiscal year 2011 if the budget request is approved. The Academy, as you know, is one of the few 

places that has a curriculum in transportation and logistics, and it 

really does produce some of the next generation’s transportation 

leaders, and I know the Secretary feels it is an extremely important part of our national system. 

FMCSA BUDGET

Mr. OLVER. Okay. Thank you. That is enough for the moment 

given the time. Now, Ms. Ferro, I want to ask you about your situation because you have a request for quite a sizeable increase for 

staffing for additional positions. It says for an additional 59 FTEs 

that are 118 positions. That sounds like just about 118 half-time 

people. How is that (1) going to help you meet your safety mission, 

and (2) how are we going to get at the rulemaking that has been 

required through the comprehensive safety analysis, the 2010 program? 

Is that clearly related to doing that? We have had some serious 

difficulty. There has been rulemaking in regard to rules that were 

required under the SAFETEA–LU bill, which have been rejected a 

couple of times. Are we going to be able to complete that? Is that 

how we are to get done with that rulemaking or what? Give me 

your best sense here in about a minute or so. 

Ms. FERRO. I will start with the budget question. Our budget request is in fact $20 million over our 2010 baseline or enacted budget of $550 million, and that $20 million is directed specifically to 

our safety mission. We are this year on the eve of rolling out the 

most significant change in the underpinnings of how we interact 

with our regulated populations, the commercial vehicle industry 

and drivers, as well as brokers and others that we credential, as 

well as the underpinnings of the systems and tools we provide to 

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374 

law enforcement and the regulated populations and the public access to motor carrier data. 

The two components are CSA 2010 and Compass, and of the $20 

million, a little less than half of it is directed towards funding the 

additional positions you identified, and by 2012 it would be 118 if 

all goes well. That is correct, 59 positions presuming we hire them 

in the second half of the fiscal year, and that is how we got to that 

number. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. Okay. 

Ms. FERRO. Ninety percent of those positions are in the field specifically related to the workflow, changes that happen under the 

Comprehensive Safety Analysis Program that we are rolling out. 

That CSA 2010 program specifically shifts from a static high-risk 

carrier rating system and a static intervention system to one that 

is very dynamic in providing data and trends to carriers that are 

demonstrating a tendency towards high-risk behavior or are specifically high risk and engaging them in comprehensive corrective 

action plans through our intervention. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. 

Ms. FERRO. You are welcome. 

Mr. OLVER. I am going to move on to Mr. Latham. 

Ms. FERRO. Okay. 

NAFTA

Mr. LATHAM. I am just going to have one question, and we visited about it, I appreciate it very much about the NAFTA mandated cross-border trucking arrangement. 

Ms. FERRO. Thank you. 

Mr. LATHAM. Where are we? What is going on? 

Ms. FERRO. Well, it is no surprise for me to say to this committee 

it is a tough situation that has created some hardships on all sides, 

and so what I can say is that I certainly look forward to meeting 

with the Committee and briefing you on the details of whatever 

program is developed at the appropriate time. 

Mr. LATHAM. What is the appropriate time? 

Ms. FERRO. Well, I will say when we got the tough question, we 

agreed we would look towards Roy. 

Mr. KIENITZ. There is a very active process that we are involved 

in right now that I know Anne is spending personally a lot of time 

on with the Secretary to try to come up with a way to solve this 

problem, which frankly no one has been able to figure out a way 

to solve for quite a long time, and so I think we have recognized 

it as important but hard, but we do not have anything for you yet. 

Mr. LATHAM. No timeline? Nothing? Okay. Obviously, parts of 

the country are being negatively impacted with the tariffs that 

have been going on. I mean, it is all over the country. It is not just 

my district or whatever, but I think with that, Mr. Chairman, I 

will allow time for Mr. LaTourette. 

Mr. OLVER. We still do not have a huge number of people who 

have voted for this one. It has taken a while to gather them. Mr. 

LaTourette. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you. I will still be brief and perhaps the 

answer to the Mexican truck problem is if we made all the border 

crossings bicycle only. Mr. Matsuda, I want to come to you for a 

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375 

minute. If you are talking about intermodalism, moving freight and 

so forth and so on, in my part of the world, the Great Lakes, we 

have had under consideration for a long time short sea shipping, 

which is hard to say fast, but the last time I checked, there was 

only one operation. 

It was up in Detroit, the Gentlelady’s district, and he was taking 

empty containers from Detroit up to Canada and so forth and so 

on, and a couple of things are a problem, figuring out the relationships with Canada, and the Jones Act is a problem, but the harbor 

maintenance tax, and what I could never understand, again I will 

say something bad about the Bush Administration, the OMB under 

the Bush Administration said if we eliminated the harbor maintenance tax for cross-lake shipping in the Great Lakes that it would 

be costing the Treasury money. 

Well, we are not collecting a tax now because there is no shipping, so that is one of the things that I will never understand here, 

so in a nutshell, where is your Administration on short sea shipping, and where is your Administration on the couple of bills that 

have been introduced to eliminate the harbor maintenance tax for 

that purpose? 

Mr. MATSUDA. Thank you for the question, sir. I can tell you that 

at the Maritime Administration short sea shipping, we call it part 

of a larger program called America’s Marine Highway. Like the 

ranking member said, every day we are green at Maritime Administration just because of the efficiencies that can be had by shipping over the water, especially in the Great Lakes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Right. 

Mr. MATSUDA. So we have a lot of things going on in that program. I expect to see a number of announcements this spring and 

summer that would help move that along. The Administration has 

not taken a position with respect to the legislation to remove the 

harbor maintenance tax for these second moves, but I can tell you 

that I have been to maybe 10 of the largest ports around the country, including Cleveland. I was at the Great Lakes Community 

Maritime Day last month. It snowed the entire time, and there was 

a common theme I have heard throughout the country that this is 

perceived as an impediment to starting up some of these services 

and increasing them. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Sure it is. It is not only the harbor maintenance tax, but it is the way with Homeland Security you have the 

notification requirement. If you are going across the bridge in Detroit, you have a compressed notification. If you are going to take 

it on a boat, you have to expand on it. It makes it tough, so anything you can do to sort of break down those barriers would be appreciated because you want me to wear a T-shirt that says one 

more car off the road. 

I mean, sending it 38 miles across the lake from Ohio to Port 

Maitland where they are making cars as opposed to going on the 

bridge in Buffalo or Detroit really makes a lot of sense, and you 

could call it sustainability and livability and all that other stuff, so 

thank you very much. 

Mr. MATSUDA. You are welcome, sir. 

Mr. OLVER. As long as the lake area is deep enough to carry 

those kinds of things. I do not know what we would do to dredge 

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376 

Lake Erie eventually, but that may be far out. That is geologic 

time. We are just about out of time here. We are going to need to 

go. I just want to make one last little comment, and that is that 

if you are dealing with TIGER grants and dealing with port related 

intermodalism, I hope you will take into account that very often we 

can come up with the west coast and the east coast and then the 

Gulf coast, but really it is usually an afterthought as to what it is 

that is happening with the Great Lakes, the ports on the Great 

Lakes, so I think that is often the way it comes out and that needs 

to be thought of. 

Mr. KIENITZ. All right. Yes, sir. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you very much for being here today. 

Mr. KIENITZ. Thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. We would love to have had more time to continue the 

discussion, but be well. 

Mr. KIENITZ. All right. Thank you, sir. 

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(531) 

THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 2010. 

MAINTAINING A SAFE & VIABLE AVIATION SYSTEM (INCLUDING THE FY 2011 BUDGET REQUEST FOR THE 

FAA) 

WITNESSES 

HON. J. RANDOLPH BABBITT, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL AVIATION 

ADMINISTRATION 

HENRY KRAKOWSKI, CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER (ATO), FAA 

VICTORIA COX, VICE PRESIDENT FOR OPERATIONS PLANNING (ATO), 

FAA 

JOHN HICKEY, DEPUTY ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR AVIATION 

SAFETY, FAA 

NANCY LOBUE, DEPUTY ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR AVIATION 

POLICY, FAA 

CHAIRMAN OLVER’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. OLVER. The Subcommittee will come to order. I would like 

to welcome the FAA Administrator, Randy Babbitt to the Subcommittee. Mr. Babbitt, congratulations on surviving your first 

nine months on the job, and having made some significant progress 

in your efforts to reenergize the agency. It is a pleasure to have you 

before the Subcommittee to testify on FAA’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget request and to give us an update on the status of the next generation air transportation system, NextGen. We hear a very great 

deal about that, and the more I know about it the more complex 

it becomes, and it is your job to both implement it and demystify 

it. 

The FAA is requesting $16.5 billion in budgetary resources, an increase of $476 million above Fiscal Year 2010 enacted levels. 

While airline passenger levels have remained low the last few 

years, I believe the proposed budget recognizes that significant improvements to our aging infrastructure are needed to accommodate 

future passenger growth and improve the aviation industry’s performance record. 

First and foremost, I want to emphasize the need to remain committed to FAA’s core safety mission. I am pleased to see that the 

budget request increases funding for aviation safety and proposes 

hiring 82 new positions in order to strengthen oversight of operations. However, the recent story regarding the traffic controller 

bringing children into the JFK tower underscores the need to remain vigilant when it comes to following safety protocol. 

At the same time the FAA is making significant capital investments to modernize the aviation system and replace our outdated 

air traffic control system with a more advanced satellite based system. I look forward to discussing the budget request of $1.14 billion 

for the NextGen aviation system and being updated on the progress 

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532 

of implementing ADS–B in Houston. This multi-year, multi-billiondollar initiative it clearly a complex management undertaking, but 

I believe it is vital to efficiently utilizing our airspace, reducing 

congestion, improving safety, and minimizing aviation’s environmental imprint. 

The key to any success with your agency’s critical safety mission 

and implementation of the NextGen air traffic control system rests 

upon the efforts of a dedicated workforce. Every controller, inspector, supervisor, and senior leader must remain committed to 

achieving aviation safety and the efficiency goals that you and the 

Secretary have set. From the statements you have made publicly 

and those that you have made to me privately, it is clear that you 

believe every employee in the FAA has a role to play in safety oversight, in the development and deployment of new technologies, and 

assessing ongoing facility needs and in the careful stewardship of 

Federal resources. 

Finally, I hope to discuss the development of renewable jet fuels. 

As you know, the aviation industry is responsible for three percent 

of our green house gas emissions. Additionally, fuel costs are one 

of the largest portions of airline operating costs at about 30 percent. Last year, this Subcommittee provided additional funding for 

accelerating the development and the certification of alternative jet 

fuels under the CLEEN program. I hope you can provide us with 

an update on this program and provide a timeline for developing 

a renewable fuel that meets the aviation industry’s unique operating requirements. 

Before I recognize our Ranking Member Tom Latham, I would 

like to acknowledge some of the key members of your leadership 

team who have joined you at the witness table who will be available for questions. Hank Krakowski. Hank Krakowski is your Chief 

Operating Officer, fellow pilot, and was previously a safety executive for United Airlines. Victoria Cox is a Senior Vice President for 

Operations Planning and a veteran of research and development 

programs at DOD and NASA. I think that suggests that you may 

be the firing line for NextGen. 

John Hickey is the Deputy Associate Administrator for Aviation 

Safety and 20-year veteran of the FAA’s Safety Division. And 

Nancy LoBue is a Deputy Assistant Administrator for Aviation Policy Planning and Environment—well, maybe you two women have 

that sort of between you—and has vast experience in the area of 

environmental review, airport financing, and government contracts. 

With that, I will turn to the Ranking Member for his comments. 

Tom. 

RANKING MEMBER LATHAM’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to welcome 

the panel here this morning and certainly Administrator Babbitt 

for the courtesy of coming by a couple times and we have had very, 

very good conversations and I have the greatest respect for you and 

what you are trying to accomplish, I really do. 

Mr. BABBITT. Thank you. 

Mr. LATHAM. The NextGen with all of its bells and whistles and 

public relations campaigning that has gone on over the past few 

years has really yet to make a noticeable impact as far as delays 

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or congestion in our system. Considering we have spent billions of 

dollars on this effort over the past several years, I would say the 

return on investments to this point really is quite low, and we are 

coming up on some very critical years and NextGen and the development of this system. 

Beyond looking at safety, efficiency, and cost savings that 

NextGen could potentially bring, it is important to keep this effort 

on time, on budget, and without constantly evolving requirements, 

not just because of the fiscal constraints that we have here in Congress, but because of our standing in the world as the most innovative and advanced aviation system I think that really is in jeopardy. Countries such as Australia, Canada, China, and our European friends are implementing various different stages of NextGen 

technologies without the bureaucratic kind of hand wringing that 

is occurring it appears within the FAA. 

It is not acceptable to fall back on the excuse that our airspace 

is too complex or that we have too many unique issues. We need 

to move forward on technologies that will actually reduce delays 

and increase safety, and do so with I think a lot more urgency than 

what we have seen in the past several years. The RTCA report that 

was developed last year sends a very strong statement to the FAA 

regarding priorities and what should be done to bring NextGen 

benefits out of the planning offices and into the system. 

The FAA’s written response to these recommendations is a good 

road map for going forward to deliver the benefits in the near term, 

but unfortunately the track record of the FAA is in wholesale concurrence with the Inspector General, the GAO, the National Transportation Safety Board, or Congressional recommendations, and 

then doing the exact opposite is nothing at all is well documented, 

I think we all know what has happened, that the recommendations 

really have not been followed. 

It is my hope that with your leadership the FAA can repair its 

damaged reputation, procurement failures, safety lapses, lax oversight, and cost overruns. It certainly will not be easy, but I think 

with your background and experience, I am very optimistic that 

you can do it. I really am, and that is why I appreciate the kind 

of job you have been doing and look forward to working with you 

in the future. And again, thank you for being here. I will yield back 

my time, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. Mr. Babbitt, your complete statement 

will be included in the record. Please make your summary comments somewhere in the five to six minutes. Since you are the only 

one making the statement, I am going to give a little leeway on 

that. There are important things to be done, as you see, and then 

we will move on to the questions. 

MR. BABBITT’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. BABBITT. All right, sir. Well, thank you very much, Chairman Olver, Congressman Latham, Members of the Committee. 

Thank you for inviting me and my team, and I appreciate the kind 

introduction that you gave the executive team that I brought here 

to perhaps provide additional insight and when we get into the 

questions. We are going to discuss the Fiscal Year 2011 budget 

with you today for the FAA, and this request supports many of the 

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FAA’s vitally important safety initiatives as well as the transformation of our nation’s aviation system into NextGen. 

On the safety front, since the year 2001, there have been 93 million successful flights of U.S. commercial aircraft. Those aircraft 

safely carried 6.3 billion passengers. And while this record is truly 

remarkable, recent accidents remind us that there is always still 

work to do. We are focused on ways to improve safety through better accountability and a renewed dedication to professionalism 

within our organization and with the employee ranks, the airlines, 

and the people that we work with. 

Last year’s call to action and resulting initiatives have been extremely valuable in that regard. No serious aviation professional 

accepts anything less than demanding the highest standards to ensure safety. Looking forward, approximately 53 percent of our 

budget request for 2011 will be used to maintain and improve the 

agency’s safety programs. Our proposed budget also supports moving forward more aggressively on NextGen, something both the 

government and industry embrace as being crucial to meeting future needs. 

We are particularly grateful for the work of the RTCA NextGen 

Mid-term Implementation Task Force. That task force was composed of more than 300 members of all segments of the aviation 

community, and the Fiscal Year 2011 budget requests some $403 

million across the NextGen portfolio to support the RTCA task 

force recommendations. We believe that it is clear why NextGen 

has such strong support, as I recently told a group of aviation leaders at our FAA Aviation Forecast Conference, NextGen is the 

trifecta of safety, efficiency, and the environment, and many of the 

NextGen projects that we will talk about actually address all three 

of those components at the same time. 

For example, the roll out of the transformational Automatic Dependence Surveillance Broadcast, ADS–B, is already a reality. The 

FAA has deployed ADS–B ground infrastructure and is now providing operational capability across the Gulf of Mexico following 

successful introduction in Louisville. ADS–B will enhance safety, 

increase capacity, and reduce costs. Our work in data communications all but eliminates the potential for misunderstanding by providing direct communication from air traffic control that is then 

uploaded into the aircraft and simply can be accepted by the pilot. 

Fewer misunderstandings translate into improved safety. 

Similarly, the NextGen’s 4–D, or 4 dimension, weather cube 

would increase and enhance decision-making by giving pilots and 

controllers access to real time weather, and thus improving safety 

while also increasing efficiency and reducing aircraft emissions. I 

will say that is a far cry from the days when I was flying as a line 

pilot, that the information regarding weather was outdated as soon 

as I boarded the aircraft. The bottom line is this: NextGen enhances safety, reduces delays, adds capacity, and improves access 

while saving fuel and protecting our precious environment and our 

resources. 

And for these reasons, the FAA has increased its budget request 

for NextGen related programs by 32 percent in Fiscal Year 2011. 

That is a total of $1.14 billion, or $275 million increase. While improved technology is essential as a component in meeting future 

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aviation needs, people are in fact fundamental to making the system work and to keeping the flying public safe. Improving our employee engagement and our overall relationship with our employees 

is a priority of mine, and we have several initiatives underway. 

I am very pleased to have today a new contract in place with our 

air traffic controllers, and I look forward to ushering in the future 

of aviation in full partnership with all of our employees. And finally, this budget supports our plan for hiring controllers and safety staff so that we have the right people in the right place at the 

right time. Mr. Chairman, I have been the FAA Administrator for 

less than a year, but I am constantly impressed by the dedication 

and the excellence of the workforce and their ongoing efforts to 

make our system safer. The Administration’s budget supports both 

the important work that the agency is doing as well as the people 

who are doing it. That concludes my statement, and I and my entire team here would be happy to answer any questions that you 

might have. Thank you. 

[The statement of Mr. Babbitt follows:] 

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NEXTGEN IMPLEMENTATION

Mr. OLVER. Thank you, Mr. Babbitt. I thought I had a quite clear 

set of questions that I might ask, but during the course of what you 

said a whole bunch of new things struck me as remarkable. I view 

this whole NextGen situation as a kind of a multi-layered matrix 

of change with all of those interrelationships being pretty complex. 

And so I guess I am going to delve into that for a bit of time in 

my first round here. Given that we have a relatively small group 

of people here at the moment—there may be a good many others 

coming in—we will have several rounds, I think, in the time that 

is allotted, so we can move on. 

When the Secretary was here earlier this year, if I remember correctly, I would have to go back to look at the actual record, I think 

I laid before him the challenge that it seemed to me that we ought 

to bring NextGen into place within a six- to ten-year period rather 

than—we have been already talking about it for some years, all the 

three years that I have chaired this Committee and before, and as 

my Ranking Member has said, things have been done, but it is 

hard to see exactly what the cumulative result of it is yet, and that 

is partly because it is so complex and comprehensive. 

And when I said that, he instantly replied, ‘‘I agree.’’ I think that 

is in the record, so I look at what is going on here and am willing 

to appropriate the money as long as it is possible with the approval 

of the rest of the Subcommittee the appropriation necessary to accomplish that if we can figure out how to do it in an orderly manner. So I just wanted to let you know that is where I think we 

ought to be going, because the benefits and the needs are pretty 

great. 

The GAO found that the early implementation efforts had been 

hampered by some unclear roles and responsibilities across Federal 

agencies as well as within the FAA. Do you see real progress in defining those roles and responsibilities in the various offices here in 

the period of time that you have been here? And, well, let me let 

you answer that. 

Mr. BABBITT. Sure. I think we had made significant progress in 

defining that, and I want to applaud some of the efforts that were 

made by the RTCA task force. I think that very clearly helped us 

prioritize the order in which we take the various initiatives. And 

if I could step aside for one second, I think your description of 

NextGen is very accurate. NextGen is a complex series of programs, it is not a box somewhere that I just get to turn on when 

we are all ready. It involves very complicated series of interrelated 

initiatives that come together, not unlike a symphony, to make the 

full robust NextGen. 

And we have put money in. I would attribute some of that 

money, not unlike building a house, we spent money with the architect and time, we spent money pouring the foundation. To the 

casual observer, if you went to the building site you would say, 

‘‘Well, I do not see anything yet but a lot of money has been invested.’’ I think we are at the point now, I am very optimistic we 

are going to see the benefits of that time, that architectural design 

of this system. 

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And I think now you are going to see things coming to reality 

which we can talk about, such as NextGen in the Gulf of Mexico 

and Louisville and places that we are going to roll out in complex 

environments, creating additional assurance, I think, for everyone. 

But when all of that is said, I think the pathway is much clearer 

now, and I think we can talk, as you would like whether on the 

air traffic control side, the NextGen implementation side, on specifics as you would like. 

Mr. OLVER. Is RTCA’s Task Force 5 program consistent with this 

concept of maybe bringing this completely on within a ten-year period? Or what have they laid out? 

Mr. BABBITT. Well, I think perhaps if we took a high altitude 

view of what the RTCA was tasked to do and did very well—remembering that they had airlines, airports, manufacturers, both 

component and aircraft, pilots, controllers, everybody was involved—and what they were tasked to do was to take all of the initiatives that need to come about in the implementation of NextGen 

and say, ‘‘Well, in terms of priority do we get a bigger bang for the 

dollar if we were to implement this component ahead of that component?’’ They helped us order the structure and the rate at which 

we put various components in. For example RNP navigation offers 

us a big benefit, more than some other opportunities, and so they 

suggested we put that first. 

Mr. OLVER. I will get a chance to ask them later this afternoon, 

but that was an adroit answer. 

Mr. BABBITT. Okay. 

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Latham. 

EN ROUTE MODERNIZATION PROGRAM (ERAM)

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The En-route Modernization Program, or ERAM I guess the acronym—we need more 

acronyms around here actually. But I am really concerned about 

the progress that we see in that, and disappointed in the program. 

It is about six months behind schedule. I think we spent a couple 

billion dollars already on that, and I do not know how the latest 

schedule to have every site completed by December of 2010 is realistic at this point. You are six months behind in Salt Lake City, 

the money has been expended, it has not been tested yet. And then 

to have the 24 other sites supposedly up and operational by December, is it reasonable to think that that is going to happen, that all 

the sites are going to be up by this December? 

Mr. BABBITT. Well, clearly we have had some implementation 

issues. We are also talking about one of the biggest air traffic 

transformations, how we shift away, and some of the complexities, 

candidly, were bigger obstacles, they have proven to be bigger obstacles than we perhaps forecast. What I would like to do, if you 

would not mind, Hank Krakowski has a fair amount of expertise 

in this area. And, Hank, would you like to? 

Mr. KRAKOWSKI. Good morning, Congressman. As Randy said, 

this is probably one of our largest-scale modernization programs. It 

is actually fundamental to making NextGen happen so we need to 

do it right. Not surprisingly—first of all, let us talk about the 

setup. We decided to do it in Salt Lake first. This is a low traffic 

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area, with not a lot of complex airspace, so we could test drive it 

correctly and work the bugs out of the program. 

We had a good concept and have a good concept going in with 

ERAM and we are very confident. It is up and running in Salt 

Lake as we speak, and it has been, in our view, safely stable since 

we turned it on this last weekend. Since we did start to implement 

ERAM in Salt Lake we have had a couple of hiccups where we 

have had to take the system down to correct software issues and 

interface issues. The interface issue is probably the one that is 

most critical because what we learn in Salt Lake and do there is 

going to be transferrable to all the other facilities. 

This is the first place where we actually put it in a facility, 

turned it on, the interface with the old Host computer system 

which existed and the other adjoining airspace systems for Seattle 

Center, Denver Center, and some of the local TRACONS as well. 

And that is where most of the problem has been, quite frankly. 

And, not surprisingly, because you have not been able to actually 

live test it with these interfaces, you are going to have some 

glitches. 

I can assure you, and I talked to Lockheed Martin this morning, 

in our opinion no safety issues have come up during this. We have 

had some increased workload issues, but we did it, we are doing 

it at midnight typically, turning it on, bringing it up slowly. We 

have extra staff on board in the facility in case we have to fall back 

to the Host system, and we have done that a few times, and we 

have successfully fallen back to the Host system as well. So this 

is iterative. It is the first of 21 of these that we are doing. We do 

not want to turn it on—and the schedule, while it is important to 

us, the schedule is not going to drive us to do anything to deploy 

this before the cake is baked. 

Mr. LATHAM. And I think that is the concern that we may have, 

we do not want to see any system that is not safe, and just the idea 

of meeting a deadline, although it is, what, you are about six 

months behind at Salt Lake City? 

Mr. KRAKOWSKI. About five to six right now, yes. 

Mr. LATHAM. And originally, you are going to have six computer 

programs or software builds, now you have got 18 or something. So 

how about the in-service decision, I mean where are you at that? 

Mr. KRAKOWSKI. Well, we were hoping to have it last December. 

We are kind of looking toward May right now if the current 

progress with the ERAM program proceeds. We have an aggressive 

schedule to try to finish it out by the end of the year. It is at risk. 

I will be up front with that, but hopefully we have got a shot at 

it, we still think, as long as we make the progress we are continuing to make. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. I am about out of time. I will start another 

subject here, Mr. Chairman. So I yield back. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. Mr. Rodriguez. 

NEXTGEN FOR RURAL AIRPORTS

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Thank you very much for being here. I represent 

a district that is both urban and rural, probably the most rural in 

America. And so I have a lot of small airports, and I was just wanting to get your perspective in terms of the future as it deals with 

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rural communities. I also have San Antonio, the seventh largest 

city in the nation, yet we do not have any direct flights, and it is 

a major problem, we have to go through the major hubs. And so 

and I do represent west Texas, you know. And so I wanted to get 

your perspective in terms of the current budget in addressing the 

needs of rural airports in terms of our future. 

Mr. BABBITT. Well, first let me make an observation regarding 

NextGen in the rural environment. I think a lot of people have focused that NextGen is just going to be a solution for our large hub 

airports, and clearly it does provide a wonderful solution, but I constantly remind people that there is a cascade of wonderful benefits 

that fall from all of the NextGen programs that will benefit rural 

airports. For example, we use criteria when we want to make an 

allocation to provide navigational facilities, and an airport has to 

have some level of traffic in order to justify certain components, for 

example an Instrument Landing System or a precision approach 

system of some type. 

With NextGen, all we have to do is design the approach, we do 

not have to put any facilities on the ground. All the aircraft are 

equipped to use these approaches, so it does not matter if 20 flights 

a day or 200 flights or 2,000 flights a day go to an airport, the cost 

of the approach is the same and we have nothing to maintain. So 

I think that is going to be a big benefit to a lot of general aviation 

and rural airports. 

Also, from the safety component, even providing simply a horizontal and vertical guidance to rural airports for VFR operations, 

make sure you are landing at the right airport. We still have pilots 

that, in visual conditions, land at the wrong airport because there 

was no navigational facility to help them find it. And so giving 

them good vertical and horizontal guidance to airports is another 

benefit that I think will help us a lot in that world. 

MINORITY HIRING/STAFFING PLAN

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Let me ask you, one of my concerns, you have 

hired some 7,300 new air traffic controllers the last five years, and 

I had some real concerns in terms of the number of women that 

you have in that category, which is very nil, minorities in that category, and so we have moved also to create a two-year program in 

San Antonio, on our own, and if you do not have the figures now, 

in terms of the 7,300 that were hired, do we know where we stand 

in terms of minority hiring for air controllers? 

Mr. BABBITT. We can. 

[The information follows:] 

FAA’S ANNUAL WORKFORCE DIVERSITY REPORT—UPDATE ON APRIL 5, 2010 

The Workforce Diversity Report has been drafted and is currently in the Executive Coordination and Approval process with the FAA Administrator, DOT, and 

OMB. We plan to deliver that document as soon as that process is complete. 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Could you get a report on that? 

Mr. BABBITT. Yes, sir, we can. We staff according to traffic forecasts and attrition and so forth, and we had unprecedented attrition. The last agreement with the controllers, not the one we have 

now, but the previous agreement, there was a fair amount of labor 

tension, which lead to a lot of retirements, an exceedingly high 

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number of retirements. So we were forced to hire a lot of controllers. 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. I understand that, and you had a disproportional number and a lack of representation in the minority and the 

female category, and I hope, that we have improved on that. 

Mr. BABBITT. We have, yes. 

CYBER SECURITY

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Thirdly, let me ask you, as it deals with the 

NextGen and as we move on that, what are we doing from a cyber 

perspective, since we are moving more into computers and those 

kind of things, to protect, and how much is it in the budget? 

Mr. BABBITT. We have a significant amount. We concern ourselves with cyber security in two areas, our internal communications within the FAA, and then the system itself. I think I might 

let Vicki speak to the cyber-security aspect of maintaining a very 

secure environment, this has a lot of negative potential for us if not 

done right. Vicki? 

Ms. COX. So we are developing a security architecture that will 

encompass all of the NextGen systems and ensure that as we go 

to a broad access, which certainly helps us run the system more efficiently with an Internet-like capability for accessing information, 

that at the same time is a very secure system. And the costs for 

that are actually built into the programs going forward, and overlaid over that will be our overarching monitoring and tracking of 

the overarching security architecture that we are putting in place. 

So certainly this will not be an afterthought, this will be an 

aforethought as we go forward. 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Have you all done any exercises whatsoever to 

check your system? 

Ms. COX. As we put the systems in place we certainly will do 

that. ADS–B carries its own security architecture as part of the 

service provision category going forward, and there have been some 

very specific approaches taken to that limiting the number of entrance gateways into the system and so on. And we are also working with the DOD and the DHS through their air domain awareness and security surveillance processes to be sure that as we 

interface with them, which we naturally have to do, that we maintain their security levels as well. 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. I would just ask you to keep in mind that, because I know we are going through GAO audits and we are asking 

them to assess how you are checking yourself in terms of, you 

know, because I remember a community that had a great system 

and it went down because people started calling on fireworks and 

stuff like that and so and they could not manage the system, so I 

would ask that you look at those exercises that are important, 

okay? 

Mr. BABBITT. If I could, I would also note, we had an unfortunate 

outage recently, which I think the byproduct from that is going to 

be very helpful to what you are raising. I asked for a complete review of our infrastructure for our communications, our system. We 

put a team together that included industry experts in the IT world 

from the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, the White 

House, everyone, and we have taken a very hard scrub. We have 

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the initial report and they are giving us a longer-term report on 

how well we are protected, what redundancies do we have, need, 

lack, and I am looking forward to that report and I would be happy 

to share it with you when we get it. 

[The information follows:] 

FTI REPORT—STATUS UPDATED ON APRIL 5, 2010 

The FAA initiated an independent investigation of the FTI incident in question 

by a Blue Ribbon Panel comprised of government and industry experts. The Panel 

has drafted a report on the FTI incident and it is being coordinated through executive review. A copy will be provided for the record as soon as this process is complete. 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. And the report on the minority representation. 

Mr. BABBITT. Yes, sir, thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. Mr. LaTourette. 

FAA REAUTHORIZATION

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, Mr. 

Administrator. I want to congratulate you and the Secretary and 

your team for reaching that new contract with the air traffic controllers. That was sort of a blight on the system and it became one 

of the two major issues that, in my mind at least, kept FAA reauthorization from moving forward. And it still is not complete, our 

friends in the Senate have not quite gotten to it, and my question 

would be, how is the lack of an adequate FAA reauthorization impacting the agency if at all? 

Mr. BABBITT. Well, we certainly would like to have a clear path 

for our long-term projects. I made a comment in a speech the other 

day, it is awfully difficult to make long-term decisions on shortterm information, and I think that is where we feel ourselves. If 

we have clarity on where we can go and what we can do it certainly helps us for our longer-term projects. 

FEDEX/UPS LABOR PROVISION

Mr. LATOURETTE. I would just interject, Republicans are having 

the same problem with this healthcare discussion, but go ahead. 

The other big issue, at least in my mind having been a former 

transportation guy, was that there was a dustup going on between 

FedEx and UPS, and the House bill came down on the side of UPS, 

and I do not know what the Senate is doing. Are you aware, one, 

of where those discussions are and has the Administration taken 

a position relative to whether or not both entities are going to be 

regarded as airlines or a ground transportation company? 

Mr. BABBITT. To answer your first question, I am aware of the 

discussion. But no, sir, we are not part of those discussions. I think 

the Administration has given some guidance, but not to us. 

AIP GRANTS FOR LIVEABLE AND SUSTAINABLE PROJECTS

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay. The Airport and Airway Trust Fund, I 

do not see any diversions for liveable and sustainable communities. 

Is that an accurate observation, you are not part of that? 

Mr. BABBITT. Yes, sir, I will give a brief overview and then I will 

let Nancy comment further. Our guidance, and, in terms of regulatory direction for us, and legislative direction for us, is to provide 

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inspiration and guidance. We have some programs, they are voluntary. I actually had the opportunity to see one of our small airports actually using that guidance. I was recently in Charleston, 

West Virginia, and I rode in a vehicle that was part of our VALE 

program, which is a low-energy or low-emission vehicle, which is 

part of the program that came from airport improvement funds. 

But, no, we do not have specific directions. But, Nancy would you 

like to? 

Ms. LOBUE. Thank you. This is an area I think we see as increasingly becoming more and more important. While we have no 

specific requirements right now, we are working with industry 

groups, particularly on best practices and sharing those. The standards for what is sustainability and the definition are still evolving, 

and as they become more robust, we are in fact having conversations about looking at performance standards and should we move 

from voluntary to some sort of mandatory requirements. 

But I think at the current time, while we work through what is 

involved in sustainability, we are doing a series of voluntary programs. We have done a pilot program where we are funding certain 

grants, certain airports involved in sustainability projects. As the 

Administrator mentioned, the VALE program is one of those we 

consider as one of the cornerstones of sustainability. And again we 

are doing some guidance and best practices through the Airports 

Cooperative Research Program creating handbooks for how to do 

inventories for greenhouse gasses and things like that. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And are those grants coming out of the Airport 

and Airway Trust Fund? 

Ms. LOBUE. Yes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And do you have a dollar amount? 

Ms. LOBUE. We can get that for you. 

[The information follows:] 

AMOUNT OF AIP GRANTS DEVOTED TO ‘‘SUSTAINABILITY’’ PROJECTS (ARP) 

The FAA has awarded $3.4 million in the current year to Voluntary Airport Low 

Emissions (VALE) projects, bringing the total VALE funding for the past five years 

to $48.4 million. Additionally, we funded two FY09 grants totaling $580,798 for sustainable planning projects, bringing the total of amount of funding to ‘‘sustainability’’ projects to $49.0 million. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

MINORITY HIRING/ADS–B

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. Because Mr. Berry has indicated that he 

would like to listen a little bit before he delves into things, he will 

get his chance in the next round and I will claim the next Democratic position here, so we are basically starting our next round and 

the next person will be Mr. Carter on the other side. I wanted to 

just mention that to follow up on what Mr. Rodriguez said, the 

Subcommittee has asked for and FAA has provided each of the last 

couple of years what the women and minority hiring is among not 

just controllers but inspectors and such. 

And so when he asks for a new report this year, it allows us to 

kind of look at this, it is always hard to look at only one point or 

two points, to begin to see what trends are. But I think you know 

mstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

560 

that in the American population, about two thirds of the whole population is either women—they are over 50 percent—and minority 

males when you take in across the minorities. So one should begin 

to see some significant change in the way those patterns look over 

time. All right, then I want to go back here. Randy mentioned that, 

in commenting on ADS–B, that Houston is now about to be up or 

is up but you mentioned that Louisville was first up. Is Houston 

the second or are there other ADS–Bs now in place? 

Mr. BABBITT. Let me clarify that for you a little bit. We have had 

ADS–B actually in use in a number of places. The Capstone 

project, for example, up in Alaska has been a long time in use. 

Some of that is R&D, some of it we actually use in the operational 

sense. Louisville came up but did not have initial operating capability at that point in time, I think it has now. Same thing with 

the Gulf. 

Mr. OLVER. When you mentioned the Gulf, I thought you mentioned you were getting it from Louisville, but is the Gulf being 

covered by way of Houston? 

Mr. BABBITT. Yes, it is in the Houston Center area. 

Mr. OLVER. What is the next one that is about to come up? 

Mr. BABBITT. Philadelphia. 

Mr. OLVER. Philadelphia. 

Mr. BABBITT. It has IOC. 

Mr. OLVER. I think one almost needs a chart that lets us know 

which of these things is coming up when. 

[The information follows:] 

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Mr. BABBITT. Sure. 

NEXTGEN IMPLEMENTATION/EN-ROUTE CENTERS

Mr. OLVER. There are complications. I see, you must have some 

sort of plan at least in somebody’s mind, I do not know whether 

it is Victoria’s mind or Nancy’s mind, of how these things are going 

to come up in order. I look at airspace design, which we must have 

done some of whether we have done it before we did the Potomac 

TRACON consolidations or the Boston consolidations or the California, the north and southern California, whether that airspace 

design preceded in both cases those things, and I need to understand what is the order of things that must be done and what 

are—these acronyms are systems that put in place, but the airspace design is something which is overarching, it seems to me. 

That is one of the complexities of this matrix that I spoke of earlier. 

And then you speak of, as my Ranking Member Mr. Latham had 

questioned about the En-route Centers, now, for instance Salt Lake 

seems to be the first of those that is in place but I am told there 

are 21 more to be done. We even end up changing the numbers 

from time to time because he thought that we were at 24 and I 

thought I had understood 24 was where we were going to be. And 

I then need to know, when we have NextGen completely in place 

are we going to need 24 still or 21 still, 22 still I guess it would 

be, or is that only an interim kind of a step? I need to get some 

sense of what the context is in which we are likely to be functioning over a period of time here how these things are fitting together. In fact, are we going to need, just quickly, are we going to 

need 22 when NextGen is in full place on the En-route Centers? 

Mr. KRAKOWSKI. The technology would allow us to have, if we 

wanted to, one giant center in the middle of the country or somewhere, the technology would allow that. Other countries have consolidated to that degree. 

Mr. OLVER. But they are smaller. 

Mr. KRAKOWSKI. But they are small countries, correct. 

Mr. OLVER. Except a few. 

Mr. KRAKOWSKI. But we do not know what the end-game answer 

is. It could be 20. Now, and when we are talking, we are not just 

talking the big air traffic control centers, the end-game design is 

to have all the local TRACONS, the radar services at the hub airports, to also come within those, and that is in place in many countries. So we are going to work with our employees. 

Mr. OLVER. We are behind, are not we? 

Mr. KRAKOWSKI. Well, but the technology—— 

Mr. OLVER. But their spaces are smaller and their total capacities are smaller. 

Mr. KRAKOWSKI. Exactly. I think though, to get to the root of 

your question, I look at ADS–B and the NextGen technologies as 

an enabler to do things with airspace we cannot do with the current system. The current system is equivalent to hard-wired telephones in your house. NextGen and ADS–B are the equivalent of 

cell phone technology. 

Mr. OLVER. I am trying to find out whether we are in interim 

stages and whether when we are building TRACONS in various 

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580 

places that we are—well, I will ask that question in the next 

round. 

Mr. KRAKOWSKI. Okay. 

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Carter. 

EQUIPPAGE INCENTIVIZATION FOR NEXTGEN

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank all of you 

for being here today. I would like to ask a question that relates to 

general aviation. Is the FAA doing anything to help general aviation transition into NextGen, and if so how much will it cost general aviation to equip with ADS–B, and what are the incentives 

that would encourage folks to equip? And finally, should the Federal government in some form or fashion assist general aviation in 

the cost? 

Mr. BABBITT. It is an excellent question. I think we have certainly looked at that. I think perhaps before you came in I talked 

about some of the benefits that general aviation receives when we 

have a full robust NextGen system implemented. The ability to 

have approaches, we can provide approaches very inexpensively to 

thousands of more airports than we could today because we simply 

could not afford to put ground equipment and then maintain that 

equipment on the ground justified by four or five approaches a day. 

However, if all we have to do is design the approach and the aircraft has the equipment, it is relatively inexpensive and it has no 

ongoing cost other than just sustain the system with the satellites. 

So it offers a lot of benefit there. The question of equipage has 

come up, and right now I think the Secretary has testified to that 

effect, we are looking at this from the executive level and the Administration on what should we do. There is a case to be made that 

in the system, we talk about best equipped being best served, but 

everybody equipped is everybody best served. 

So there is a tipping point, and if more aircraft are equipped, the 

entire system runs better. So we are looking at ways to try and understand what benefits do people get in this, and clearly the benefits of safety and efficiency, protection of the environment, all those 

are wonderful things, opportunity to have better navigation, situational awareness, weather into the cockpit of general aviation aircraft. You do not fly in many—and when I say real general aviation, we are down into propeller, small propeller, two-four-passenger airplanes—you do not see those with weather radar. So they 

are denied, they just simply cannot afford that cost. NextGen 

brings that right into them with a display. And so that is all under 

consideration. 

Mr. CARTER. And what is the cost? What would the cost be to 

general aviation to do that? 

Mr. BABBITT. Well, on a per aircraft basis, I think one of the 

things that we have always been reluctant to do is give some of 

these cost estimates. If someone said, make me a prototype ADS– 

B in-out system what would that cost, it would be astronomical. If 

I said, make 200,000 of them and put them in every airplane in 

this country, I think it gets a lot more reasonable. So we have not 

had a good number on that. I have seen some aggregate numbers. 

How sophisticated does it have to be to make you compliant? Do 

you need the same thing that a 777 of United Airlines needs to get 

mstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

581 

into Kennedy Airport, do you need that in your NextGen equipped 

light twin? Probably not. So I would be reluctant to give you a hard 

dollar cost, but we are clearly talking in the multiples of billions. 

Mr. CARTER. Do you think the government will be willing to assist the general aviation by some sort of supplement or something 

to assist them? Because it sounds like to me that is going to, no 

matter how many you put out there it is going to be a pretty high 

cost item for a small four-passenger general aviation plane to be 

able to put in. And then would it become a requirement to have 

that? That would also be something I think that pilots would like 

to know. 

Mr. BABBITT. Sure. Well, what we have done in the past—I will 

answer those questions backwards—the requirement issue, there 

are sort of barriers right now that you cannot fly in controlled airspace without certain equipment. And so that is a decision the pilot 

would have to make. I am either going to have this equipment and 

be able to operate in all the airspace or I am going to have a little 

less equipment and operate in some of the airspace. Again, that is 

a level. Going to the willingness, I think what we all need to do, 

both the government, the industry, the users, is to sit down and 

understand what the value is. My personal belief is that there is 

value into getting us to that tipping point with everybody equipped. 

What form that takes, whether that is some loans, some tax credits, things like that, that is on your side of the microphone, not 

mine. 

Mr. CARTER. That is down the road. 

Mr. BABBITT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Berry. 

LABOR RELATIONS WITH CONTROLLERS

Mr. BERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all of you for 

being here today. I think I brought this up at this hearing last 

year. The morale with the air traffic controllers in the two airports 

that I am closest to, that would be Little Rock, Arkansas, and 

Memphis, Tennessee, especially Memphis, is really not good. I do 

not think it is good for people to be working under those circumstances. Has anything been done in the last year to try to improve that? 

Mr. BABBITT. Yes, sir. I think, now I cannot speak for any particular facility and there may be something unique there, but as a 

whole I am genuinely encouraged and delighted to see the progress 

we have made. Number one, we do have a new labor agreement. 

Number two, we have engaged in a number of initiatives for a 

much better dialogue with our controllers, and, for that matter, a 

much better dialogue with all of the employees of the FAA. Thirdly, 

I will refer to them as the lost years, there was a period of time 

when relations were not very good, and that takes time to heal. 

And to that effect we have hired an outside team, you can call it 

what you would like, a marriage counselor, whatever you would 

like, but the bottom line is, we needed some help in facilitating the 

return of good relations. 

I have a background in labor relations, and I understand when 

they get really torn it takes a while to put them back together, and 

mstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

582 

I am quite happy with the progress, and I would applaud the team. 

Hank has worked very hard on a personal basis working with the 

controllers. The new leadership, I would invite you to have direct 

conversation and get their opinion. I could tell you all day long how 

good I think it is, but I think if you talk to the controllers yourself, 

you are going to find that they are very optimistic and are seeing 

the progress. We have worked a number of things out that before 

would have either gone to arbitration or impasse, and today we are 

reaching mutually agreed solutions and I am very happy about 

that, they have a lot to offer us. Hank, do you want to add anything? 

Mr. KRAKOWSKI. Yes. Specific to Memphis with the split that we 

did, which you are aware of, I actually went down there a few 

months ago and talked with the leadership team, and I think 

things are getting better. I think the atmosphere, as the Administrator just talked about, is helping overall, and I think we are 

going to start to accelerate through these issues. 

Mr. OLVER. We are going to be listening to the testimony this 

afternoon and you can ask that one directly because there will be 

a person on the panel from the air controllers, you can check with 

the other side of that one. 

NEXTGEN IMPLEMENTATION

Mr. BERRY. Okay. I would share to the Chairman’s, from your 

answer to his last question, you know, Boon Pickins wrote in his 

last book that any fool with a plan will beat a genius without one. 

That seems to be, I know Boone Pickins may not be considered the 

master of aviation, but I think he makes a basic human behavior 

point, and it makes me nervous when we do not know how many 

of these places we are going to have. Seems to me that we have 

already built up and taken off and now we are going to try to figure out where we are going to go, I think that needs to be a little 

more clearly defined. I would certainly be more comfortable with it 

if it was. 

Mr. BABBITT. If I can expand on that, and I appreciate your comment on Mr. Pickins. I have an autographed book from him and he 

made one of the wisest decisions he ever made, which was to stay 

out of the airline business. 

Mr. BERRY. I would agree with that. 

Mr. BABBITT. One of the things, and I think it is probably, let 

me give sort of a top view, sometimes I think we might not do ourselves service in providing clarity to you on some of the things that 

we are doing. We talk about redesigning airspace, that can be independent with or without ADS–B. We can have ADS–B with or 

without a design of the airspace. We can have one center, 21 centers, eight centers, with ERAM however we construct it. 

So these are different issues, and we completely acknowledge 

that, if you think about where the centers are today, we put the 

centers where we literally had the big radar systems so that they 

could be close to them. Well, they do not need to be there today. 

Today we think about where are gridlines, where are natural faults 

in the earth’s surface, and where are natural disasters going to be 

avoided? You do not want to put them in harm’s way, you do not 

want to put a center right on a known earthquake fault. So we are 

mstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

583 

going to give that some thought, but that is a further out issue and 

not one that needs to be decided here and now as to what ERAM 

is going to look like. That is an independent decision. 

Mr. BERRY. I would like to volunteer my district for the location 

of that one center. 

Mr. OLVER. He has got some big rice fields out there in which 

that would probably do well without any problem. I am not quite 

sure exactly where we are, but I think Mr. LaTourette is in the 

order going next direction. 

GBAS

Mr. LATOURETTE. Well, thanks very much. I want to talk international if I could for just a minute. Everybody has a favorite airline, mine happens to be Continental because they employ thousands of people in Cleveland, Ohio. And, in your testimony you talk 

about aggressively moving forward with NextGen, it is the perception of some in the business that that is not quite measuring up 

and in particular one of their other hubs aside from beautiful 

Cleveland, Ohio, is in Guam. 

They have invested a lot of money, as I assume other airlines 

have in, you know, they are to be commended for buying Boeing 

products, which also employ Americans, and they are buying them 

at a certain cost with the satellite-based tracking system navigation aids already installed. The question that they have is that, so 

they spent all this dough and one of their hubs is in Guam and 

there is not, as they can see it, a plan at the moment for the installation of a GBAS system in Guam, and I just want to know what 

do you have to say about that and when do you think it is going 

to happen and if it is going to happen? 

Mr. BABBITT. Very good question. Actually, we have just spent 

some time recently on this question. GBAS, which is Ground Based 

Augmentation System, for finding the signal of the satellite navigation so you can use it in the approach environment, for us it is a 

research and development project, and I am going to let Vicki talk 

to you a little bit more about that. But Continental, by the way, 

is one of our best partners. This GBAS system is in its research 

and development phase in Newark, and we are very appreciative 

of the feedback we get from them. They utilize it. Actually some 

of their regional feed can utilize it to land on a runway otherwise 

not served by an approach, so it is a good system. 

However, to move it to Guam, we would have to buy the system. 

We have three of them, one of them is fully in test, the other two 

are in facilities where Memphis I believe is the other one, and we 

use it in Newark. The bottom line is, we asked Continental if they 

could, since they are the primary user of the airport, if they would 

perhaps help us with some finances. Their answer, and I do not 

want to put them on the spot, but they came back and said, ‘‘look, 

the weather in Guam is usually pretty good but for typhoons and 

we do not land there when the typhoons are blowing, so we cannot 

cost justify any allocation of funds to it.’’ 

So we have sort of taken the conclusion that if they cannot cost 

justify it, if we cannot provide them increased operational capability by providing GBAS to them, that it would just be another 

R&D site for us. And we at this point in time have concluded that 

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584 

that does not serve the mission too well. Vicki has some information on what we are doing in that testing. 

Ms. COX. So, as Randy said, it is still an R&D project. We are 

making great progress though. We have certified GBAS for Category 1, which is our lowest category of systems, but we are continuing the R&D to get the Category 2 and 3 capability, which I 

know Continental and others are very interested in, and we are 

very hopeful that we will have data to support those decisions and 

actually be able to get that certification in the near future and, at 

that point in time, make a decision about further acquisitions of a 

fully certified Cat 2 or 3 system, at which time airports in the Continental U.S. and also in other locations like Guam would be considered. I can point out that there is an additional complication 

with the location of Guam because of its nearness to the equator 

and potential ionospheric disturbance that would also need to be 

investigated. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. If the FAA makes a decision to move forward 

to the Category 2 and 3 level, what is a reasonable timeframe for 

a commissioning of the first system? 

Ms. COX. We have a decision point in our architecture to make 

a decision about potential future ILS type approaches that is in 

the, I believe it is the 2015 timeframe, that we would make that 

decision. But I can get back to you with that exact date, I may not 

be accurate. 

[The information follows:] 

TIMEFRAME FOR GBAS CATEGORY II AND II APPROACHES—STATUS UPDATED APRIL

5, 2010 

Ground Based Augmentation Systems or GBAS CAT II/III approaches will be 

available beginning in FY2014–2015 and will continue with installations at OEP 

and CAT III airports with an expected completion date of FY2012–2022. 

FOREIGN REPAIR STATIONS

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay, I would appreciate that. And, Mr. 

Krakowski, when you were here last year we had a little discussion 

about repair stations international and domestic, and there was 

some controversy going on between the European Union and the 

treatment of that. Any update on where we are with the repair stations? 

Mr. KRAKOWSKI. I think I’ll throw that over to Mr. Hickey actually. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Oh good, all right, well, you have outsourced 

it since I saw you last. 

Mr. HICKEY. Good morning, sir. We are closely monitoring what 

is going on in the House and the Senate. The House’s reauthorization bill calls for a mandatory two inspections per year. As is well 

known, the problem and challenge with that is it somewhat is contrary to the spirit of a bilateral aviation safety agreement we have 

with the Europeans which would provide for reciprocal acceptance 

of our inspections, meaning repair stations in Europe that hold 

FAA certificates. The Europeans would do the inspections on our 

behalf, and for the repair stations in the U.S. that hold European 

certificates, we would do those inspections. The Senate reauthorization bill, which has passed committee I believe but has not gone 

mstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

585 

to the floor, does provide a provision that would seemingly allow 

for agreements like that. 

But at this point in time, we do not know which way it is going 

to go. I will say that there are many in the U.S. industry, and the 

Europeans in particular have said that if that goes through that 

they will set up a third party organization in the United States and 

conduct two inspections also on the U.S. repair stations. And the 

challenge, of course, with that is the Europeans charge fees for 

their work, and there are approximately three times the amount of 

repair stations in the U.S. than we have in Europe, and as such 

it would be a lot of cost to U.S. repair stations, and several of the 

aviation groups I think have provided various committees with that 

cost. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Got you. Thanks so much. 

AIRSPACE REDESIGN/CONSOLIDATIONS

Mr. OLVER. The answer to your question there sort of gets you 

to why this is so complicated in the U.S., even that one. For those 

who may not be aware, we have about 50 percent of all the air traffic in the world these days, and so the Europeans with their smaller places that can put in place these things in a much more orderly 

manner, it seems to me, with the total amount of traffic that they 

have. 

And this one where we have three times as many repair stations 

as they have leads us into a conflict essentially, which we are trying to for safety reasons think about very carefully, and then you 

get into the conflict of your mutual agreements, your bilateral 

agreements and so on. Anyway, that is a view that may not hold 

up on further scrutiny, but I say it in any case. I want to go back 

to where I was earlier. Did we do the airspace redesigns where the 

big TRACON Potomac and Boston and California Consolidations 

were done? Did we do those with a design first, whoever is in 

charge of that? 

Mr. BABBITT. Again I will let Hank answer that a little better, 

but the difference between consolidation, if we consolidated two approach controls, we are talking about taking the screen that the 

controller would be looking at and moving it to another building, 

the airspace that he controls is unchanged. So there is a difference 

between redesigning the airspace and realigning. 

Mr. OLVER. Does not the redesign of airspace also have something to do with whether or not you are going to make your approaches in steps, which have environment and noise implications, 

as opposed to being able to make those in an incremental way? 

Mr. BABBITT. Yes, sir. 

Mr. OLVER. Which allows you to be on a glide path essentially. 

But does not the redesign of the airspace involve that as well or 

is that a different, totally different kind of a thing? 

Mr. BABBITT. Yes, that is what I am trying to make the distinction. There is a difference between the redesign of the airspace, we 

can leave the TRACON right where it is and redesign the airspace. 

We could combine two TRACONS and never touch the airspace. So 

I just wanted to make that distinction. 

Mr. KRAKOWSKI. That is exactly accurate. I think though, to get 

to your question, what we really want to do is do all of it simultamstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

586 

neously as a concept of operation. So that if we are going to make 

a move and we are going to actually put modernization into these 

facilities, which is one of the drivers for making these physical 

moves of facilities, we would like to take advantage of working the 

airspace at the same time. Now, the Task Force 5 recommendations that we have talked about are starting to drive us toward a 

road map of what are the priorities for industry and the airlines 

on where we should start this work and kind of on what credo. 

Mr. OLVER. What I am trying to look for is some sort of a plan. 

I am not sure whether I am the fool or the genius here, I have to 

think about that from what my distinguished colleague has commented. But I am trying to get a sense whether we are doing air 

en route centers that are near term, midterm, or end term, long 

term, when the whole system is in place. Are we doing things that 

are going to have to be again readjusted farther along the way— 

and then whether we are going to have more or fewer en route centers. 

Looks as if from what Randy has said that you could have many 

fewer but maybe you will have only eight or ten for the whole country at some point, we do not yet know, apparently. But then on 

TRACONS, are we going to have more or fewer in the long term, 

or do you know that? Are we going to have more or fewer towers? 

It seems to me there is not much impact of where you want to have 

the last mile kinds of towers situations, but the last 50 miles of 

TRACON and so forth is quite different sort of a thing, we may 

have many fewer than we have now. 

Mr. KRAKOWSKI. Correct. The enabler is the technology. 

Mr. OLVER. That is why this is all so complicated and why I am 

befuddled a little bit about how we are going to achieve this whole 

thing. 

Mr. BABBITT. Well, I think there are two issues. I think if Hank 

talks to more the facilities side and I think Vicki can talk about 

the longer term, the end. 

Mr. OLVER. We may be better to try to do this in you providing 

me with a seminar at another time. 

Mr. BABBITT. We would be happy to do that, happy to do that. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. Mr. Latham, and since we sort of got confused 

and basically did, we are now starting on our third round truly, 

you will have up to ten minutes if you wish at this point. 

Mr. LATHAM. This will be exciting. 

Mr. CARTER. You are glad you came back. 

CONTROLLER PAY/CONTRACT EFFICIENCIES

Mr. LATHAM. Yes, thank you. Okay, let me just say first I want 

to talk about the air controllers, and I think everyone understands 

the tremendous job that they do and how everyone wants to make 

sure we have the very best people there and to have them be happy 

in what they are doing and enjoy their work, and I think they are 

under incredible stress. And I think, one thing about Members of 

Congress, we fly probably every weekend so we see what happens 

and the kind of nightmare that they have to put up with as far as 

making the system work. 

And, you know, in the last few years there has been a lot said 

about controller pay. The figures that you provide show the top 100 

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controllers make about $229,000 a year, and it is certainly a lot of 

money and I think you can certainly make the case it is well 

earned. And in the contract I think they get a three and a half percent increase each of the next several years, and your figures show 

the 100 highest paid first line supervisors, which is the first level 

of management in the Air Traffic Organization, averaged about 

$220,000 a year this year. Is there anything—and I think everyone 

is concerned obviously with the budget concerns about cost, both 

salaries and otherwise within the organization—are there any efficiencies or anything that we can do to control, contain costs? I 

mean I understand we have a contract, but. 

Mr. BABBITT. I think, well, I will let the controllers defend some 

of those top ends. These are typically cases where very high volume 

of overtime was involved. And the average pay of a controller is 

considerably lower than that and I am sure they will be happy to 

share with you the details. One thing that you should appreciate 

in the new agreement that we have with them, there are a number 

of things that we hope will bring us some efficiencies and benefit. 

We have a number of situations where we are going to work 

through things collaboratively to gain some of these efficiencies. 

But also, the underlying agreement, the agreement before that 

reduced their pay bands by 30 percent. So some of the raises that 

people are talking about are simply a restoration, which is only 

about half of what they had. So yes, they are coming back, but it 

is a restoration of reductions, pretty, dramatic reductions in the 

past agreement. So those top salaries, the other thing with these 

pay bands being lower, those top pay bands and those senior controllers were, I think the term red circled, they were locked in at 

the top. As they retire, then we begin to get the advantage as we 

roll out, the future controllers will be on a more moderated rise. 

And, Hank, did you want to add any? 

Mr. KRAKOWSKI. I mean your costs naturally reduce. We do have 

a significantly older workforce with the air traffic controllers. The 

retirement issue has been a big driver for some of the strain we 

have had on the system. That is going to continue for the next 

probably eight years, where we are going to see a lot of people go 

off the top as they hit the retirement age. They do get replaced by 

lower earning controllers because they are earlier in their career, 

so there is going to be some savings in there. We are always looking for efficiencies wherever we can. 

Mr. LATHAM. Does the projections, do they include or take into 

consideration all the articles of the contracts and the new training, 

the NextGen involvement requirements, or is it just strictly pay? 

I mean because you could get in a situation where you are, maybe 

the equipment is not ready but you have got people there and you 

are going to have to pay them no matter whether they actually 

have a job or not. Do your projections include all that? 

Mr. KRAKOWSKI. Yes, the cost of the contract, the work rules, are 

baked into that as well, so relative to the budget. 

CONTROLLER PLACEMENT ISSUES

Mr. LATHAM. But that takes into consideration all the potential, 

okay. In your testimony, you talked about the fact that you have 

hired over 7,000 I think new air traffic controllers in the past few 

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588 

years, and not one of the controllers were placed in a facility based 

on their ability to perform as a controller, I think which is interesting, even if they are going to some of the most difficult places 

like Atlanta and Chicago and New York. Is it in the contract or 

why cannot you place people because of their merits, it does not 

matter where they are in the class or whatever, it is basically 

where they choose to go is where they go? 

Mr. BABBITT. Well, there are a couple of issues there. We have, 

first off I think we can talk a little bit after I sort of give you the 

overview about some programs we are doing to make some 

changes. But coming out of the period of that last agreement, we 

did suffer a high level of attrition, and we did not have the ability 

necessarily to incentivize experienced controllers to go into these 

complicated level 12 type towers. 

And we did, and not to anybody’s particular benefit I would say, 

put newly hired controllers into those environments. It was not the 

wise thing for us to do. However, when you have a vacancy and no 

one else will fill it, we did not have too many choices, and so we 

exposed people. Today, under this new agreement, I think we have 

a much better ability to incentivize people to go into these. We 

have some other programs, and, Hank, you may want to expand a 

little bit? 

Mr. KRAKOWSKI. Yes, I think one thing that is important to know 

is, only about 10 percent of a controller’s training occurs at the 

academy. The other 90 percent actually occurs with OJT at the facility itself. 

Mr. LATHAM. How long does that take? 

Mr. KRAKOWSKI. Two years typically for a tower local radar controller and terminal controller. About three years for the en route 

centers. And we have been hitting those numbers pretty well actually, even with the newer workforce. So we also, to the extent we 

can, would like to place our students where they want to live, and 

a lot of them would like to live locally. So if they are successful basically at the academy, we would like to put them in their hometown or wherever it is. So I think the new training programs that 

we are doing, some of the things Randy talked about, helps get us 

healthier in that whole environment. 

Mr. LATHAM. But you still cannot tell someone where they, they 

basically go where they choose to go rather than? 

Mr. KRAKOWSKI. We can tell them. We give them preference and 

we try to honor their preference. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. I mean is there any—I would hope not but— 

any real safety concern, I mean when you talk about the highest 

traffic places, whether you talk about Atlanta, New York, Chicago 

or whatever, that you are having these people? 

Mr. KRAKOWSKI. There has been no evidence of any particular 

differentiation of the new workforce having more operational errors 

than the older workforce at all. I will tell you, we have had some 

people, like a new hire off the street, hire in Chicago O’Hare Tower 

who certified in a year. He was like one of these naturals that, you 

know, really impressed everybody and he is extremely, extremely 

good. So, it is interesting, you do not necessarily always have to go 

through a standard apprenticeship. If someone can excel and really 

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prove themselves in the system, we would like to accelerate them 

into the higher facilities. 

Mr. BABBITT. I think it is worth noting too that there is a natural 

protection that, sometimes they do not make it, and we do not turn 

them loose. I mean they are given a period of time and if they cannot—— 

Mr. LATHAM. I hope it is not, you know, my family’s flight or me 

on that plane when they just happen to not make it. 

Mr. BABBITT. No, but they would have a professional controller 

with them at all times, they are not making those decisions independently. 

Mr. LATHAM. Right. 

Mr. BABBITT. And if they are not making the progress, they simply do not get certified and therefore they never get put in that position. So it is unfortunate, we have an investment in them at that 

point in time and that is unfortunate for both of us, but it happens. 

Mr. LATHAM. I mean they do an incredible job. 

Mr. BABBITT. Yes they do. 

Mr. LATHAM. And it is amazing to me when you see the map and 

you see how many planes are in the air at one time in this country, 

and to think that they are being controlled, and they do an outstanding job. I think with that, Mr. Chairman, I will wait until my 

next round, I will not use my whole ten minutes, how is that? 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. Mr. Berry. 

Mr. BERRY. No questions. 

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Carter. 

ARRA JOB CREATION

Mr. CARTER. You stated that through the stimulus package you 

were able to create new jobs, I think that was one of the things 

you pointed out. What kind of jobs did you create? And especially 

in light of at the same time you pointed out you had decreasing air 

traffic, so can you tell me a little bit about the jobs that were created by the stimulus package? 

Mr. BABBITT. Sure. Within the stimulus package we were granted $1.1 billion, [CLERK’S NOTE—Later corrected to ‘‘$1.3 billion,’’] 

which we have allocated every dime, those are out, those projects 

are more than 60 percent completed now. These jobs, I think more 

than 1,000 different projects at 360 different airports around the 

nation, have been everything from increasing runway safety areas, 

aging facilities. Some of that money, some small amount of that 

money, was allocated internally to us for our own facilities, mold 

remediation, older buildings, and older equipment upgrades. So I 

think this money, particularly in the airport environment, has created a substantial amount of new jobs. 

We have an advantage that with our AIP process we have our 

jobs in queue, so they are literally shovel ready. They have already 

had environmental approvals, they have had airport plan approvals, they are very consistent, it is just a matter of when we get the 

money. What we were able to do is take some of our AIP projects 

and say, ‘‘look these are eligible and meet the criteria of the Recovery Act,’’ and we just instead of waiting for the AIP queue we 

pushed them over into the Recovery Act and were able to go very 

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quickly, an advantage that we had the way we are structured within the FAA. 

Mr. CARTER. Are those ongoing, long term jobs or are those like 

contract jobs that you do the work and then it is over? Just curious. 

Mr. BABBITT. Well, there are actually both. Some of them are 

very long term projects, meaning it might take a year or two to 

renovate a runway, to build a new tower, to build a new ramp. 

Others were very short term projects. We had some projects in 

Alaska where you might do something, put a contract out, the 

project was completed within six months. So there is a variation. 

We could certainly get you a report if you would like that would 

lay out those that have, how much time is left, where they were 

by facility and location. 

[The information follows:] 

REPORT ON ARRA-CREATED JOBS—STATUS UPDATED APRIL 5, 2010 

An estimated 6,000 jobs were created as of the quarterly reporting cycle that 

opened in January 2010. The next reports are due April 10, 2010. 

AGENCY BUDGET CUTS

Mr. CARTER. Well, you are very fortunate to have shovel ready 

jobs that were really shovel ready jobs, because we have had things 

that almost were that we are still waiting on some of this. If you 

were required to do a 1 percent budget cut, where would you do 

it? 

Mr. BABBITT. Well, that would be a very difficult question. I 

would certainly want to look over what my options were, but I 

would say we have had a number of initiatives where we have actually been finding savings. We have, through wise consolidations 

and reviews, been streamlining internally where we can. I am very 

pleased that we have several initiatives where we work across lines 

of business now. I am trying to break some of these stove pipes 

down and maximize the efficiency that we have internally. 

I.T. presents a wonderful challenge and an opportunity, because 

we have found areas where over time we have wound up with redundant equipment, we can eliminate some of it, we can eliminate 

the maintenance of it and the acquisition of it. So, you know, I 

would not look forward to that opportunity to find 1 percent, but 

I am sure that we could find ways to not compromise our safety 

nor our workforce, but it would be a challenge, that is for sure. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. Mr. LaTourette. 

BILATERAL AGREEMENTS

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you very much. Aside from the tension 

that may be created by the House bill on repair stations, are there 

any other hotspots in our bilateral agreements? I traveled with the 

Aviation Subcommittee last year and there was some difficulty 

with code share arrangements down in Panama, and I can remember a number of years ago there was a problem with our ability to 

get into Heathrow and get slots at business friendly time—I mean 

you could go there and get there in the middle of the afternoon if 

you wanted to but you could not get there in the morning. And any 

big sticking points in the bilaterals that you are seeing? 

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Mr. BABBITT. Well, the types of things that affect us would not 

fall under some of the things you described, those would be either 

State Department or Department of Transportation issues, how you 

arrange those code share agreements. We actually have a fairly robust arrangement with bilaterals for aviation safety coordination, 

and we have memorandums of understanding with a number of 

countries, countries that we operate in, we inspect, and, John, you 

may want to expand a little bit on some of our international arrangements with our safety partners? 

Mr. HICKEY. Yes, sir. I would actually, say quite contrary, the 

nature of the bilateral agreements is actually quite a tremendous 

benefit for us. The previous question was regarding efficiencies that 

the Administrator mentioned, this provides tremendous efficiencies 

for the FAA when we have a bilateral agreement with, for example, 

Canada or individual countries in Europe or Asia, because we have 

assessed those countries in their capabilities to be the FAA, and we 

have found many of them to be quite adequate. 

In the case of the European agreement, I might add it has been 

signed but it has not been implemented because of the waiting to 

see what happens on the reauthorization. There are tremendous 

benefits to the United States if that agreement goes through. A lot 

of the U.S. companies today, whether it is Boeing or engine companies or many of the smaller companies in Wichita, are currently 

paying significant fees by the Europeans, and an agreement would 

help sort of bring those down to a more reasonable level. 

SAFETY

Mr. LATOURETTE. Right. Well, while we are on safety, coming 

back to the United States, I saw some place that 50 percent of the 

U.S. departures and about a quarter of the traveling public in the 

United States are coming from these low-cost, short-haul airlines, 

and so just since, Mr. Hickey, you appear to be the safety guy, 

something about what if any emphasis you are putting on that. 

And then two, something that was in the news a little while ago 

was laptops in the cockpit, and maybe if you could chat with us 

about that as well? 

Mr. BABBITT. Sure. Well, you are absolutely right, the dropoff in 

traffic has inspired carriers to sort of shift where their carriers operate and where their service goes, and they have, in fact, allocated 

a larger share of where they pick up traffic in smaller communities 

and bringing them into the hubs, they use their bigger machines 

to fly longer range intercontinental. We have, as a result of a tragedy, in the Colgan accident, had a Call to Action and put a lot of 

focus on a number of reforms, including several changes, regulatory 

requirements, peak management which is now undergoing executive review, our flight time and duty rule, that is in executive review today. 

We have had a Call to Action, we had visits to twelve different 

parts of the country, the Secretary and I both participated in those. 

I think we have had a lot of very positive things come out, a renewed focus on professionalism. It is disappointing when shifting 

to the distraction in the cockpit where people did have a couple of 

laptops out, not doing business issues with them but distracted, 

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that was certainly a disappointment to me. It lead to the revocation 

of some pilot certificates. 

So we have a number of initiatives that are out there. I think 

we have gotten a lot of people’s attention, I think every one of our 

carriers now we ask them all to adopt and they have responded for 

the most part. Ninety-nine percent of the people traveling today 

are going to travel on a carrier that has an aviation safety action 

program, a focal program. These are all great data points, safety 

points generated for us. So we are making progress. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I think the one example where the guys, you 

know, kept flying, I understand that their licenses were suspended, 

but is there a rule that you have put in place as a result of that 

in terms of laptops in the cockpit? 

Mr. BABBITT. Well, most of the carriers have policy rules that 

you do not allow newspapers. I mean any of these things would be 

a distraction. Laptops, actually some of them, electronic flight bags, 

are authorized but they are for the purpose of work. We carry electronic flight bags for aircraft manuals, there are a lot of things. 

Some of the carriers rely on a paperless cockpit. John, did you? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Right. 

Mr. HICKEY. Yes, I would like to add to the Administrator’s comments. You know, a broad brush prohibition against all that equipment is probably ill advised. There are many pieces of equipment 

that are used that have very important functions for flight. What 

we did do shortly after the Minneapolis incident is we put out what 

we call a SAFO, it is a Safety Alert For Operations, and we again 

reminded pilots that the only equipment and the only material that 

should be in a cockpit should be flight related equipment. And so 

we want to remind them that this other kinds of stuff that were 

in the news is not appropriate for the cockpit. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you so much. 

COLLECTIVE BARGAINING UNIT EMPLOYEE STAFFING NUMBERS

Mr. OLVER. Very briefly, how many employees do you have who 

come under collective bargaining agreements at the FAA? 

Mr. BABBITT. We have a total of about, round numbers, 48,000 

total employees of which close to 30,000 are covered by 29 different 

collective bargaining agreements. 30,000 employees are covered, 

round numbers, 15,000 are not. 

Mr. OLVER. And what is the rough number for the traffic controllers? 

Mr. BABBITT. About 15,000 air traffic controllers. So they are 

about half. 

Mr. OLVER. I had heard 20,000 somewhere. I had heard 20,000 

somewhere, that is good. What is the next largest one? 

Mr. BABBITT. Well, we have other units. We have obviously our 

inspector corps. 

Mr. OLVER. And how large is that? 

Mr. BABBITT. 6,000. 

Mr. OLVER. Roughly 6,000. What is the next largest? 

Mr. BABBITT. There would be airway specialists, where people 

who take care of the equipment, the radars, the ILS equipment. 

Mr. OLVER. And how many are there there? 

Mr. BABBITT. 4,000. 

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Mr. OLVER. 4,000? 

Mr. BABBITT. About 4,000. 

[The information follows:] 

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Mr. OLVER. All right, maybe you could get that 48,000, give me 

a clear listing. I have got it down as 15, 6, and 4 at least for three 

and then I do not want to go on farther. I want to take on a different matter. A new acronym—we have had I do not know how 

many acronyms, I asked Kate whether we had a catalogue of them 

and she said yes there is a manual of acronyms. The idea that 

there is a manual of acronyms rather than just one page, you 

know, maybe it is just a long page, I do not know. 

TERMINAL AUTOMATION MODERNIZATION REPLACEMENT (TAMR)

I want to take up the Terminal Automation Modernization Replacement Program, which is TAMR, T-A-M-R. Under that program, phase 1 includes the replacement of radar processing equipment displays at 47 of our terminal radar control facilities with 

STARS equipment, with the TRACONs with STARS equipment. 

Phase 2 of that TAMR program replace systems at five additional 

tracons and modernize four large ones, Denver, Chicago, St. Louis, 

and Minneapolis. 

Now, it is my understanding that the current STARS system can 

serve as a platform to implement the RTCA, Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics, task force recommendations for NextGen. 

Phase 3 of TAMR is supposed to update the automation systems 

at 106 lower level facilities that currently operate using what is 

called the Common Arts Platform. What is the FAA’s plan to upgrade the automation systems at the 106 TRACON facilities so 

that they are compatible with ADS–B and NextGen technologies? 

Mr. BABBITT. I am going to let Hank answer this one. 

Mr. KRAKOWSKI. Right. It is a fairly complicated proposition that 

is under discussion right now. I would like to offer a more detailed 

briefing when you would like to have it. We are at a decision point, 

we are aiming to make a decision by the end of this fiscal year to 

figure out whether we are going to replace these hundred plus 

areas with a one for one with TAMR or whether we are going to 

converge them toward the ERAM platforms at our centers as kind 

of the backbone of this thing. So without getting through a lot of 

technical detail on it, that discussion is ongoing right now. I would 

like to give you a status update and I know some of your staff is 

interested in this as well. 

Mr. OLVER. So you are thinking of kind of overrunning the 

TAMR or terminating the TAMR, is what that sounds like, and 

going on to ERAM, that is what it sounds like. My understanding 

is that you put out a request for information to replace all of the 

FAA’s terminal automation system including all the STARS systems, which are relatively new, those were done in phase 1 and 

phase 2, during the timeframe that I have been either the Ranking 

Member or the Chairman of this Subcommittee. 

That is quite a big investment that has gone into phase 1 and 

phase 2, and the RTCA recommendations, it seems to me, say that 

those are adequate certainly in at least the near and midterm operations. So does it make sense to be thinking about replacing all of 

the old ones, which is what, maybe I am incorrect regarding the 

information that was sent out in the request for information to replace all of those facilities, or is that part of the next seminar? 

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Mr. KRAKOWSKI. Well, I think it would be useful to have it there, 

and I also want to throw this over to Vicki here too because one 

of the things that we are trying to avoid is putting some technology 

in place and some expenditures in place now that would then be 

obviated by the newer technologies, the NextGen technologies going 

forward. So we are trying to figure out where that spot is, do we 

make big investments that have not as long a lifespan or do we actually try to converge it into the longer NextGen platforms. 

Ms. COX. So, sir, if you would like for me to try to—— 

Mr. OLVER. This is another level, this is now part of this threedimensional matrix. 

Ms. COX. So there are three potential solutions that are being assessed in TAMR phase 3. Just one of them looks at the potential 

ERAM involvement as a common automation platform, which 

would address future NextGen needs. But STARS is being considered as also the potential automation platform for the terminal environment to assess if it will meet the future NextGen needs down 

the road. And the third option looks at how we can handle the current common ARTS, the two E ARTS, at some of the smallest facilities that we have and what is the best way forward with addressing ADS–B placement on those when future facilities may not require that at all. 

So part of what is being looked at is what is called a backroom 

way of addressing it, where the software is done in a central location but a display is produced at the actual facility, the smaller facility, so you have a common automation system working and feeding these smaller facilities, which is another potential solution. But 

all these are being assessed. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay, Vicki, it is clear that I have stepped in the 

wrong place. I have now got myself into at least two seminars, 

okay? All right, otherwise I will get them interconnected and confused. So, Mr. Latham. 

Mr. LATHAM. After I exit ASAP. 

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Berry. 

Mr. BERRY. No questions. 

Mr. OLVER. I do not know how we are going to schedule these 

things, but I have asked for it. So thank you very, very much for 

being here, thank you for all the work that you do. This is, I think 

everybody can understand, unless I have made it much more complicated than it need be, this is a very complicated process getting 

to the full implementation of NextGen, but I do want to see that 

we get this done within a ten-year period. 

Mr. BABBITT. Yes, sir. If I could offer a suggestion, one of the 

things that we have found, I am going to suggest—— 

Mr. OLVER. Six to ten-year period, excuse me. 

Mr. BABBITT. Well, I am going to suggest that perhaps we could 

arrange for a delegation from this Committee to go up to Atlantic 

City, and I think it would be time well spent if you would, and 

some of our research laboratories up there, you can see where we 

actually are deploying this, we have real live controllers, we have 

the ability to generate artificial traffic and put them in these environments, let you see these displays, let you see this architecture. 

Mr. OLVER. What were the considerations that put that in Atlantic City? 

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Mr. BABBITT. I think it was there when I got here, so. 

Mr. OLVER. I would love to know what was behind that decision. 

Mr. BABBITT. Well, it has been there for decades. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay, we will consider that. 

Mr. BABBITT. It has been there for decades, it is about a 5,000- 

acre facility where we do everything from explosive testing, any 

number of high tech experiments. 

Mr. LATHAM. It was a gamble. 

Mr. OLVER. I was just wondering whether gambling arrived there 

first or whether? 

Ms. COX. Way after. 

Mr. BABBITT. Way after, way after. The alternative is Oklahoma 

City, we could take you there. 

Mr. OLVER. Why did the gamblers end up going—oh, never mind. 

Okay, thank you very much for being here. The hearing is adjourned. 

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(609) 

THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 2010. 

MAINTAINING A SAFE AND VIABLE AVIATION SYSTEM: 

PRIORITIES FROM AVIATION STAKEHOLDERS 

WITNESSES 

GINA MARIE LINDSEY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LOS ANGELES WORLD 

AIRPORTS 

TRISH GILBERT, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, NATIONAL AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS ASSOCIATION 

PETE BUNCE, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, GENERAL 

AVIATION AND MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION 

JAMES C. MAY, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AIR 

TRANSPORT ASSOCIATION 

MARGARET JENNY, PRESIDENT, RTCA 

CHAIRMAN OLVER’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. OLVER. The subcommittee will come to order. There are people who are going to be returning from the vote that was going on 

on the floor. Sometimes the elevators get clogged at that circumstance, but we are going to start. 

This morning we heard testimony from the administrator, Randy 

Babbitt, on the FAA’s fiscal year 2011 budget request. So we are 

now going to hear outside feedback from five experts within the 

aviation industry. We have Gina Marie Lindsey, Executive Director 

of Los Angeles World Airports. 

Trish Gilbert is the Executive Vice President of the National Air 

Traffic Controllers Association, Peter Bunce is the President and 

Chief Executive Officer of the General Aviation Manufacturers Association. Jim May is President and Chief Executive Officer of the 

Air Transport Association. And Margaret Jenny is the President of 

RTCA, which it took me awhile to find out exactly what RTCA was. 

Thank you all for being with us today. I look forward to hearing 

your comments on the FAA’s budget request, as well as the challenges facing our aviation system. As practitioners in the field, you 

have practical insight into FAA’s programs. That is valuable to this 

committee as we perform oversight of the execution of FAA safety 

programs and the implementation of the NextGen aviation system. 

As we have a lot to talk about, I will be short and turn it over 

to my Ranking Member, Tom Latham, for any comments he would 

like to make. 

RANKING MEMBER LATHAM’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I too will be short, 

and welcome the panel. As I said this morning, I am extremely disappointed at the progress the FAA has made on the NextGen, considering the billions of dollars that have been poured into it so far. 

I am very interested in hearing the opinions of our witnesses today 

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to determine how we get away from the past failures and create 

a new NextGen system that will deliver actual quantifiable benefits 

for the future without wasting taxpayer dollars. 

You each bring a unique perspective to the issue to our subcommittee, and I look forward to hearing your statements. And 

with that, I will yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. As a panel, all of your written statements will be 

printed in the record, and I would ask you, because we have five 

people and would like to get to questions, and it looks as if there 

may be an important set of caucuses going on at about 4 o’clock, 

we are going to try to get through some questioning, and maybe 

even be done, by 4:00 or very shortly thereafter. 

So if you could keep your remarks to the five minutes, I am going 

to be fairly strict. That thing starts green, goes to yellow, and then 

to red, and you should be done within 15 or 20 seconds after it goes 

red. 

Thank you. We will start with Gina Marie Lindsey. 

MS. LINDSEY’S OPENING REMARKS

Ms. LINDSEY. Thank you, Chairman Olver, Ranking Member 

Latham, and my own home congresswoman, Ms. Roybal-Allard, 

and the rest of the committee when they come in. I am delighted 

to be here. Thank you for the invitation, and I appreciate it very 

much. I am the Executive Director of Los Angeles World Airports, 

which is a collection of airports, one of which is LAX. 

On a flight back to L.A. last week, I read Tom Friedman’s oped article, and he wrote about his recent visit to LAX. He wrote, 

‘‘Walking through its faded, cramped domestic terminal, I got the 

feeling of a place that once thought of itself as modern, but has had 

one too many facelifts, and simply cannot hide the wrinkles anymore. In some ways LAX is like us. We are the United States of 

deferred maintenance.’’ Mr. Friedman went on to say, ‘‘While others save, invest, and build, we have spent, borrowed, and patched.’’ 

Now as the CEO of LAX, those words struck right to my very 

core. LAX, I have learned in my two and a half years of being 

there, is an extraordinary example of deferred maintenance. What 

was once a cutting edge transportation icon is now reduced to an 

often repeated characterization of an airport with a set of drab, 

dingy terminals connected by a traffic jam. Whereas that might in 

some instances elicit a chuckle, it is all too sadly true. 

I am pleased to say under the leadership of our mayor, Antonio 

Villaraigosa, we have begun to set things in motion to rebuild and 

repair, but we are going to need your help. First, though, a note 

of gratitude for this committee’s action, including AIP funds in the 

airport, or the American Recovery Act, ARRA—this enabled FAA to 

get out an extra $1 billion for airports. And I do need to throw a 

rose to FAA. They did an incredible job evaluating priorities, determining all of those jobs that were shovel-ready and actually getting 

the grants out the door. 

This and the alternative minimum tax holiday, which allowed 

LAX and other airports throughout the nation to save quite a bit 

of money on debt issuance and financing costs—these are all very 

important. 

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However, in Mr. Friedman’s United States of Deferred Maintenance, the needs cannot be fully addressed by a temporary holiday 

in the AMT and $1 billion of AIP grants that were split between 

360 projects. The President’s proposed budget for the FAA makes 

clear his understanding of the realities facing America’s aviation 

system quite literally. Our national economy is dependent on the 

fundamental vitality of the airport facilities, and safe, efficient air 

traffic management. 

In particular, as Ranking Member Latham noted, the President’s 

proposed budget does address the huge and complex near-term 

challenges of NextGen, but we do have to hold FAA’s feet to the 

fire, that the progress made is commensurate with the appropriations that you are able to give. Our air traffic management system, 

once I would say the paragon of innovation and efficiency in the 

world, is slipping behind emerging countries who quickly embrace 

new technologies while we demur, debate, study, and restudy before we embrace and implement the NextGen equipment and processes. 

The budget also includes funding for FAA’s airport safety and infrastructure programs. Currently, there are about 3,400 airports 

and proposed airports that are eligible for AIP grants. Over the 

years, the formula for distributing these grants has morphed to 

favor smaller airports, leaving larger airports scrambling to fend 

for themselves. 

Just as an example, over the last five years, large hub airports, 

which by the way would be the top—the busiest 33 airports in the 

nation—have handled 85 percent of all the air traffic, but received 

only 181⁄2 percent of all of the AIP grants. During times of reliable 

annual increases in passengers and traffic, the scramble for infrastructure dollars, while difficult, was nonetheless achievable. But 

in an era of no to slow growth, scrambling just does not yield what 

it used to. 

While part of our nation’s economic strength is rooted in a broad 

set of aviation capabilities in the air and on the ground—and AIP, 

by the way, has been very critical to that—it is not clear to me that 

the current formulas and priorities for distributing AIP are well 

matched to the infrastructure, repair, and reinvestment needs of 

the future. 

Are we directing AIP monies to the most critical airport infrastructure needs, to the airports that are most pivotal in maintaining the integrity of future air commerce? We need your help in examining the merits, and yes, the demerits, of the current formula 

for distributing AIP dollars. 

Large airports are looking at a confluence of storms. On the one 

hand, taxes collected at their facilities are subsidizing AIP entitlement funding to small low-volume airports. On the other hand, if 

large airports then turn for solace to the PFCs, a discretionary, locally imposed user fee, they run directly into another costly federal 

reality. Although it is locally imposed, it has been federally limited 

to $4.50 per passenger since the year 2000. And if imposed, it requires the airport to relinquish 75 percent of its AIP entitlement 

funding. 

While FAA reauthorization is not in the direct purview of this 

subcommittee, on behalf of the 59 million passengers that will use 

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LAX this year, I hope the bill can come to the floor quickly. I cannot overstate the importance of this action at LAX, an airport with 

over 30 years of deferred maintenance and obsolete facilities. Every 

$1 increase in the PFC translates into $300 million of additional 

capital capacity, which yields 2,400 new jobs, new, good, high-paying construction jobs. 

As large airports look to the days immediately ahead, your help 

will be critical on three fronts. The first is to secure and fully fund 

the airport improvement program. The second is please do not let 

the AMT holiday that you approved in the ARRA expire in December of this year. Thirdly, please add your voice to the bully pulpit 

on behalf of an increased PFC. This increase will be every bit as 

important for large airports as AIP is for small airports. 

Now I do know that these requests—sir. Airports need to do 

what so many Americans are learning to do, and that is do more 

with less. I am confident we can do that with your help in being 

able to have the maximum tools and leveraging our revenue 

stream. Thank you. 

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Mr. OLVER. Thank you. Ms. Gilbert 

MS. GILBERT’S OPENING REMARKS

Ms. GILBERT. Thank you, Chairman Olver, Ranking Member 

Latham, and Congresswoman, for allowing me to be here today and 

testify. I really do appreciate this opportunity. The FAA budget is 

of great interest to the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, 

whose 16,000 members make up the majority of the FAA workforce. These hardworking men and women are dedicated to safety, 

efficiency, and professionalism. 

In October of 2009, a new contract went into effect between 

NATCA and the FAA. One of the major benefits of the new contract is the enhanced collaboration it provides. It establishes collaborative workgroups composed of representatives from the FAA 

and NATCA to address critical issues like NextGen, runway incursion prevention, professional standards, operational air reduction, 

and fatigue. 

The budgetary submission focuses on the expense of the contract 

by highlighting the funds that were set aside to cover the personnel 

costs of the arbitration agreement. But in order to truly understand 

the cost of that contract, you must also understand its value. In addition to the road map to collaboration, the new contract represents 

the restoration of fairness, after what neutral arbitrators referred 

to as economic take-backs in the name of fiscal prudence that constituted unprecedented draconian reductions in compensation bordering on the unconscionable. These take-backs and the animosity 

that accompanied them drove many experienced controllers out of 

the FAA workforce. 

The years under the imposed pay and working conditions saw 

unprecedented retirements and resignations among air traffic controllers. Now attrition has returned to normal rates, giving us the 

opportunity to train those that were hired to make up for the losses 

we incurred. The contract has stabilized the workforce, stability 

that is very much necessary to safely and effectively implement 

NextGen. 

NextGen, as you know, is composed of major modernization 

projects for FY 2011 and beyond. NATCA is supported of the modernization of the national air space system, although we are still 

concerned by the undefined nature of NextGen’s components and 

goals. NextGen should be understood not as a single initiative, but 

as many interconnected projects, each demanding separate scrutiny. 

The success of each of these projects will be dependent on the 

FAA’s willingness to work meaningfully with NATCA and other 

stakeholders before decisions are made, not after. The entire FAA 

team, including the frontline controller workforce, must be on 

board with a sense of ownership in the projects and a complete understanding of its directions and goals. 

Meaningful collaboration from the inception stages through implementation is essential to delivering superior products on time 

and on budget. As the primary users of the air traffic control system, NATCA’s members are uniquely positioned to recognize the 

needs and shortcomings of the current system, suggest solutions, 

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identify potential glitches during the development stages, and recognize the human factors implications of the changes. 

NATCA has a long history of supporting modernization. We 

worked with Administrator Garvey as a part of the team that developed and implemented some of the most successful technological 

innovations in air traffic control. NATCA sincerely believes that we 

can all benefit from that level of collaboration again with Administrator Babbitt. 

Just last week, the FAA named a NATCA national rep to join the 

team on NextGen initiatives. An example, ERAM, which is En 

Route Automatization Modernization, is a major initiative that 

would have been benefitted significantly had NATCA been involved 

on the forefront. It is still contending with several critical flaws 

and a high number of work-arounds, which might otherwise have 

been avoidable with earlier collaboration. 

We are pleased that Administrator Babbitt has reached out to 

NATCA on this issue and look forward to working with the FAA 

and the contractors so that when we deploy the system, it is safe, 

ready, and reliable. 

Unifying the terminal automation platform is another technological priority for NATCA. Right now, terminal facilities use different platforms, each with its own capability and displays. That 

makes training, maintenance, modernization more difficult, complicated, and expensive. We would support upgrading and standardizing the current platforms rather than developing an entirely 

new system, as we believe that this would be a more cost effective 

way to address the issue. 

Lastly, the FAA submission adjusted staffing goals downward, in 

large part because of the recent downturn in air traffic. We are 

concerned that this adjustment may be shortsighted. We can take 

up to three years for a newly hired air traffic controller to complete 

his training and become fully certified. As such, it is impossible to 

quickly increase the size of the workforce when the economy improves and aviation resurges. 

Instead, we must prepare for personnel needs of the national air 

space system the same way that we prepare for technology increases, by building for capacity and safety for the future. It is also 

critically important that the FAA maintains even flow hiring in 

order to avoid another wave of retirements. 

We all share a desire for the national air space system to remain 

safe and the most effective and efficient system in the world. And 

I would like to thank the subcommittee again for giving us the 

means to do that. I look forward to 2011, and hope it is full of innovation and collaboration. Thanks again very much. 

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Mr. OLVER. Thank you. Mr. Bunce. 

MR. BUNCE’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. BUNCE. Chairman Olver, Ranking Member Latham, thank 

you very much for letting me testify in front of you today. We look 

at this fiscal year 2011 budget very positively from a manufacturer’s perspective. The first thing it does for modernization, about a 

30 percent increase for allowing NextGen and move forward, we 

are extremely supportive of that. 

We are hoping, though, that we are able to work with you, with 

the administration, in an industry-government partnership to be 

able to figure out ways to accelerate NextGen because we all know 

if we delay—that has been already mentioned—other countries are 

going to move far forward and far more rapidly than we will on 

being able to have a modernized system. 

There are ways to go and incentivize equipage, which is a key 

element of that, which will allow us to move forward. And there 

are some things that will cost money, and there are other things 

that will not. And I hope we can explore those. But I think it is 

important to note that we all have to change our paradigm somewhat and think about infrastructure not as just being on the 

ground. 

We are moving so much into the aircrafts so our great controllers 

will be able to do their jobs better. And we are all supportive of 

modernization, but we have to think of infrastructure as not only 

being on the ground, but also being in the air. And once we can 

break that paradigm, I think we can really move forward on creative ways that we can be able to go and incentivize equipage and 

get what we need up in the aircraft to be able to accelerate 

NextGen, and keep pace with what is happening, both in Europe 

and in China. 

Another key element in this bill that we are very supportive of 

is the fact that because of the work that this committee has done 

over the last five years from the manufacturer’s perspective, you 

have helped us emphasize the importance of having enough certification engineers employed by the FAA to allow us to get product 

out. 

We get in this long queue to be able to get our programs looked 

at by the FAA, and that directly translates to a lack of our ability 

to hire more people to get product out to market. You have helped 

us over the last five years. The administration listened. They are 

adding 41 certification engineers this year to help us do that, and 

we are extremely supportive. 

Lastly, the environment is very important to all of us. We are all 

looking at creative ways to be able to use NextGen to help us reduce emissions, and we have a tremendous track record in this industry of being able to produce aircraft that are able to fly more 

efficiently with engine and aircraft design. We need NextGen to 

make that move forward. We need help with fuels. We have got a 

lot of great initiatives going with synthetic fuels, with biofuels. But 

on the light end of general aviation, we have been stuck with the 

leaded fuel for quite a few years, and we know we have to transition. It is a very complex problem. 

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The FAA has dedicated $2 million for tech center funding to be 

able to help us convert this industry, and it is very, very important 

to us. So we absolutely support this budget, and absolutely appreciate all of the help that we have received from this committee. 

Thank you. 

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Mr. OLVER. Thank you very much. Mr. May. 

MR. MAY’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. MAY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me get this organized 

here. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you and Mr. 

Latham and the other members of the committee today, and bring 

you up to date on changes in the industry dynamics that we have 

experienced since the year 2000, which is the last time we testified 

before this subcommittee. 

I would like to start on a positive note, that the nation’s passenger and all-cargo airlines run an incredibly complex global business, fueling local, national, and world economies. While not perfect, we are proud of our performances, as we maintain a safety 

record that is second to none, drive nearly 11 million U.S. jobs and 

1.2 trillion in economic activities annually, contribute about 5.2 

percent of GDP, operate 26,000 flights daily, carrying almost 2 million passengers daily, about 45,000 tons of cargo daily, offer domestic fares at 1998 levels. 

We would prefer they not have to go back quite that far, but our 

fares today are equivalent to 1998 levels. That is 10 years at least. 

We have an enviable environmental record, where we have increased fuel efficiency by 110 percent from 1978 to 2008, reduced 

our greenhouse gas emissions significantly, while transporting 17 

percent more passengers than we did in 1978. 

Now there is some unfortunate news. The global recession severely weakened demand for travel. This year—I say this year— 

2009 saw us derive $36 billion less in passenger revenue than we 

did in 2008. Our capacity, which will come as no surprise to all of 

you who are frequent fliers, and you all are, is way down, 1,300 

planes in communities seeing reduced service. 

In 2000, the FAA forecast we are going to hit the 1 billion passenger mark, a great milestone, by 2009. Well, in 2010 that same 

FAA has forecast that we are going to reach that 1 billion passenger mark by 2023. I think that is a far more realistic measure. 

And at the same time, there is no reason to think that demand for 

air travel is going to grow exponentially. This past decade, we have lost about $60 billion. We have been 

unable to recover the cost of capital. Most of our carriers suffer 

poor credit rates. Taxes and fees account for 20 percent of a typical 

round trip of domestic air fare. We are paying on an annualized 

basis a little over $16 billion as an industry to the federal government for taxes and fees. 

Volatile fuel prices have nearly quadrupled from what they were 

10 years ago. The ATC system, which belongs in the Smithsonian 

if it belongs anywhere, costs this economy an estimated $40 billion 

a year in lost time and productivity. And our inability to stabilize 

and reach profitability harms employees and the entire economy. 

We have cut or lost 30 percent of our workforce in the last 10 

years, 163,000 jobs fewer than in 2001. 

So what can be done to turn the tide? Well, we certainly cannot 

control the weather or the losses that we sustained during the 

storm, which, by the way, that series of storms up and down the 

East Coast and across the South cost us between $150 and $200 

million. But we can have and promote government policies that 

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suggest that the government should do no harm and not inhibit 

economic progress. 

We need to stop talking about modernizing the ATC system and 

actually get it done. NextGen, whether it is ADS–B. RNAV/RNP 

procedures, safety enhancing equipment, cockpit displays and other 

technologies can and will transform the system in a matter of 

years. This is not technology that needs to be developed. This is 

technology that exists today. We need to have the will as a government to make it a national priority. Last year, as I said, we paid $10.3 billion to fund FAA operations 

in the air traffic control system, a total of about 16 billion across 

the board. We need third to control excessive speculation in energy 

markets. Fourth, we cannot impose unnecessary climate change 

costs—I think that is critical. It does not fall immediately within 

the purview, but we have got a very positive alternative for climate 

change that goes well beyond cap and trade. We need to eliminate 

barriers on international business opportunities by using tools that 

can make us stronger, like across border investments, ventures, 

mergers, and acquisitions. 

And finally, a strong U.S. airline industry drives jobs, commerce, 

and competitiveness. And although these challenges appear 

daunting, there are in fact solutions that will restore the industry 

to financial stability. 

We ask for and appreciate your leadership. We support the budget that you have in front of you, and we look forward to the opportunity to answer whatever questions you may have. 

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Mr. OLVER. Thank you very much. Ms. Jenny. 

MS. JENNY’S OPENING REMARKS

Ms. JENNY. Last, but not least. Good afternoon, Chairman Olver 

and Ranking Member Mr. Latham. I want to thank you for inviting 

me here to be at this hearing. I think instead of trying to tell you 

what RTCA stands for, let me just tell you a little bit about what 

we do. We operate as a federal advisory committee for the Federal 

Aviation Administration, and provide a venue to bring industry together and forge consensus, recommendations back to the FAA on 

issues in aviation. 

You asked for my perspective on challenges facing the aviation 

community and FAA and how best to move forward on NextGen. 

In February of 2009, Hank Krakowski, the chief operating officer 

of the air traffic organization of the FAA, and Peggy Gilligan, the 

FAA associate administrator for safety, had the foresight to ask 

RTCA to establish a task force to answer that very question. 

Over 335 individuals from 141 organizations—all of the organizations here, by the way—came together and participated in the task 

force. And on September of last year, RTCA delivered a consensusbased set of recommendations to the FAA on the capabilities to develop between now and the year 2018. It is what the task force 

calls NowGen next. 

I am here to represent the collective voice of the individuals who 

came together on that task force. The essence of the recommendation is first to deliver benefits from the equipment in which the operators have already invested. Beyond that, if resources are provided to help operators equip for the next phase of NextGen, the 

FAA must also complete all of the related work, such as procedures 

and training, that will be required to deliver the full benefits of 

that equipage. 

Absent attention to those details, it is likely that the government 

could spend millions of dollars and not lead to a measurable improvement in the performance of the air transportation system. 

The task force, briefly, made recommendations in seven areas. 

The first was to improve surface traffic at airports, thereby enhancing safety and reducing delays. Second, to increase the runway 

throughput at airports. The third was to increase the capacity and 

efficiency of metroplex areas, where there are multiple airports 

interacting. The fourth was to introduce more things like area 

navigation or RNAV routes in the en route environment. The fifth 

was to enhance low-altitude non-radar air space for general aviation, and to deploy more GPS approaches to general aviation airports. The sixth was implement some near-term digital data communication applications, which would decrease the departure 

delays out of gates and increase the safety and efficiency of the airborne traffic. And finally, to enhance collaboration among the FAA 

and the operators’ operating centers. 

Since September, the FAA has been working with industry 

through the RTCA to analyze the full extent of these recommendations and to understand how they are being integrated into their 

plans. The industry is encouraged by the transparency of this interaction, and is committed to continuing to work with the FAA until 

all of the recommendations have been addressed, and the resulting 

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NextGen implementation plan becomes the sole plan that documents the FAA’s commitments for NextGen. 

So what are the critical next steps for the FAA? First, the FAA 

should agree and needs to agree on an agency-wide set of priorities, 

and then work across their silos to implement NextGen. The industry for its part must speak with one voice when working with the 

FAA to establish the next set of priorities for NextGen. 

Both the FAA and the industry must assign clear responsibility, 

authority, and accountability for implementing the components of 

NextGen. Specifically, the FAA should commit to specific locations 

and dates in their plans. They should manage NextGen with a single plan that enjoys the support of all parts of the FAA. They 

should deliver capabilities that provide equipment that provide 

benefits—I think as you said earlier—to that equipment, using 

some existing capabilities first, like multilateration, RMP, RNAV. 

They should deploy comprehensive solutions where outcomes are 

tied to the delivery of benefits, not simply programmatic milestones. They should launch joint government-industry implementation teams for their specific capabilities, streamline their processes 

for things like getting operations approval for new equipage, again 

assign accountability. It will take top-down direction to usher in 

the necessary cultural changes to implement a successful NextGen. 

Finally, to incentivize equipage, either through operational 

means, or where that is not able to be done until there is a full 

equipage, then through financial means. This is a more complex 

undertaking that delivering individual infrastructure programs, 

and will require a new way of doing business. 

Since some have asked whether the FAA can afford to do both 

implement the task force recommendations as well as the vision for 

NextGen, I think the answer is that we cannot afford not to do 

them. This NowGen next is really a risk mitigation program for 

NextGen. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I will be happy to take 

your questions. 

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Mr. OLVER. Thank you very much. As others return—Ms. RoybalAllard had to go to a specific thing that was occurring at 3 o’clock, 

and she should be back in probably 15 minutes or so. But others 

will return, I think. We will go through rounds of questioning here 

in the usual way, five minutes per person, and back and forth as 

appropriate. 

TASK FORCE FIVE REPORT

Ms. Jenny, you have already said that each of the organizations, 

each was present in your task force. Is this the task force that 

came up with the task force five report? 

Ms. JENNY. Yes. 

Mr. OLVER. What is the five for? 

Ms. JENNY. It is the fifth time that RTCA has had a task force. 

Mr. OLVER. Ah, number five task force. 

Ms. JENNY. And it is the fifth one. 

Mr. OLVER. Now just as a question, would individual airlines 

have been also represented as well as Mr. May for the Transport 

Association? 

Ms. JENNY. Yes, yes. We had representation from ATA as well 

as a number of airlines. 

Mr. OLVER. And did you also have several of the major airports 

represented there? 

Ms. JENNY. Well, actually, we had—Airports Council International was the main representation for the airports. 

Mr. OLVER. Would there have been other employee members who 

are stakeholders, employees of the FAA or just traffic—— 

Ms. JENNY. We had members of the FAA involved in the task 

force, yes. And NATCA was a major participant as well. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. And I do not know what to ask. How many 

of the manufacturers might be in there, as opposed to the trade association as well? You can have a lot of people. 

Ms. JENNY. And for the manufacturers also we had—— 

Mr. OLVER. Individuals and organizations—— 

Ms. JENNY. Yes. 

Mr. OLVER. I think you said 141 organizations, something like 

that. 

Ms. JENNY. It was a lot. 

Mr. OLVER. Well, I would like to ask each of you, in looking at 

that, you have a report, which I take it is at least a consensus report, if not a unanimous report. There may be some people—you 

did not have minority views or anything like that. 

Ms. JENNY. That is right. 

Mr. OLVER. You had a consensus report. 

Ms. JENNY. We had a full consensus, yes. 

Mr. OLVER. I would like to ask—each of you must have a sense 

of what is the most important thing that has to be done here to 

achieve success, and what the largest barrier might be to achieve 

success. And I do not want you all to say that you need a plan, you 

know. I have heard you, Ms. Jenny. That is one of your keys here 

toward the end of your testimony, which was you have to have and 

work from a plan. But the plan is actually very complicated. I use 

the analogy that this was a multilayered sort of three-dimensional 

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matrix of things that have to happen, and I am having a hard time 

figuring out which ones have to happen first. 

If there is something—if it is a sequential thing that there is 

something that has to happen first before you can take the next 

step, you can take a long time getting from the beginning to the 

end. So a lot of things—there are a lot of moving parts, many of 

which have to move together, it seems to me. 

So I do not want you to just all say a plan. So let me see. Let 

me leave it to each of you in turn, and I will turn it around. Since 

you had the last speech, I will let you start out, Gina, as to this. 

What is the most important—in your mind, what do you think is 

the most important to achieve the NextGen agenda, and what is 

your largest barrier. And I will put it that way. 

Ms. LINDSEY. Because I am not a technological expert, I will tell 

you what I think the end result is that we need to see from the 

airport perspective. We need to see the better ability to track and 

understand exactly where the vehicles that are approaching our air 

field are, and where are the vehicles that are on our air field. 

We have a particular problem at LAX with runway incursions. 

You may have heard that airport referenced several times in the 

vernacular of runway incursions. Sometimes those are airplane to 

airplane. Sometimes those are ground vehicles to airplane. 

NEXTGEN

The biggest thing that we think NextGen is in the near term 

going to provide for us from an airport standpoint is much better 

situational awareness as to where all the vehicles that happen to 

want to access an airfield really are. How that can happen—having 

worked a little bit with NextGen, I know just enough to know that 

it is really fuzzy, and the confusion that you confessed, I share 100 

percent. 

I would be asking FAA every year in the budget exactly what— 

if I am going to give you this amount of money for NextGen, what 

are you going to produce for me that is going to use that money, 

and how am I going to know from the committee’s perspective that 

you, FAA, have actually done what you said you were going to do. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. I think I need to let each of you have one 

minute. There are two sides of a coin I have asked for. What do 

you think is the most critical thing that must be in order to achieve 

the results, and then what is the biggest barrier. 

Ms. GILBERT. Can I take my whole minute on the barrier part? 

Mr. OLVER. I do not care. 

Ms. GILBERT. Okay. Thank you very much. In order to get to 

where we need to go with NextGen, or any technological issues we 

have currently in place and trying to deploy, the agency has created the stovepipe, which Margaret Jenny referred to, that does not 

allow them to make any decisions quickly, thoroughly vet things, 

involve stakeholders. They really have struggled with dealing with 

the fact that they have en route as one line of business, and they 

have terminal as another line of business, safety as another, AOV 

as another, and none of them cross over and talk to each other. 

So in order to resolve anything, you have to go all the way to the 

top and get resolution by the administrator. And Administrator 

Babbitt cannot do everything. So until he breaks down those stovemstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

654 

pipes and starts working as one agency, it is going to be very difficult to address a lot of the issues within the FAA. 

Mr. BUNCE. Mr. Chairman, I think that if you really look at it, 

if we figure a way to incentivize equipage—as Mr. May pointed out, 

this is not new technology. It is out there today. And if we can figure out a way—some of it costs money, some of it does not—to be 

able to incentivize people to equip, we will be able to reap the benefits of NextGen sooner. And this is a problem for all us, industry 

and government. How are we going to do it? Is it this infrastructure development bank? Is it thinking about real estate in the cockpit now as leasing some of it, like we lease land to put a radar up? 

Is there something we can do with loans, grants, however we do 

it. 

If there is a way to accelerate it, we will be able to start seeing 

the benefits, because if we wait for the mandatory equipage, time 

lines that are out there then in 2020 we are all going to be asking 

these same types of questions. So I think if we can figure out a way 

to incentivize, there are a lot of other things that we can do in the 

short term then to be able to make this usable, and our controllers 

will be able to do remarkable things at our airports, and our operators will be able to do tremendous things, if we can get this equipment deployed and get it up in the aircraft, because the infrastructure is already planned to be out in the ground to be able to use 

this new satellite based technology. 

Mr. OLVER. I have to infer from your comment that 

incentivization is a very important thing, but that also the barrier 

has to be how to do the incentivization because you did not separate a barrier out, and that comes down to some money somewhere 

along the way. What are going to be those incentives? 

Mr. BUNCE. Yes, sir, absolutely. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. Mr. May. 

Mr. MAY. Thank you, sir. I think the biggest need is to recognize 

that we have to establish as a country, starting at the highest levels of government, all the way down, that NextGen, NowGen, whatever term you want to use, is a national priority, much as Dwight 

David Eisenhower made imposing the interstate highway system a 

national priority back in the 1950s. Put leadership in place to get 

it done. 

There is an old saying about lead or follow or get out of the way, 

and I think you need an understanding that we need leadership 

like that to be able to drive this process, which is terribly technical, 

terribly complicated. It is one of the toughest management jobs in 

the world. That is one of the biggest challenges. Put somebody in 

charge, hold them accountable, and make it a national priority, 

give it the funding that it needs to have. This Congress and this administration gave $10 billion to highspeed rail. High-speed rail will not be with us for 10 or 15 or 20 

years. Let’s take some of that money and put it against a technology that is here today that will create jobs today that will make 

a major difference. We are spending $40 billion a year as an economy putting up with delays caused by an aged air traffic control 

system. Let’s make it a priority and do something about it, and 

provide the leadership to get it done. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. Ms. Jenny. 

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Ms. JENNY. Yes, thank you. I think the biggest need is for us to 

actually deploy things that are going to have a measurable—lead 

to a measurable improvement, resolve some of the congestion and 

delays that we are seeing in the system right now, and to show 

that we can do that with existing capabilities. As Jim said, there 

is a lot out there. We need to show that we can actually deliver 

benefits. There is a history of making investments in new equipage 

and not getting the benefit, and that happens because all of the 

other things do not get done, the training, you know, changing the 

air space, doing the procedures. So I think we need to really tie 

this to delivering benefits and show that we can do that. 

The biggest barrier, I think, to moving on NextGen is the lack 

of trust and confidence that we can do it. And so you cannot get 

the teams. For NextGen to work requires operators, all the stakeholders and the FAA together to make investments, to synchronize 

those investments. So we really need to put—we need to prioritize. 

We need to pick where we are going to go next. If we decide we 

are going to go to New York and fix it, put all the things together 

that we need to do there, put the teams together with all the stakeholders, and get everybody to commit to not walking away from 

that, and actually show that we can do it. 

And I think from the perspective of those who will invest, they 

will be more likely to want to invest in the Next Generation of equipage. 

Mr. OLVER. I have to say to you that I expected you were going 

to say ‘‘confidence,’’ essentially, was going to be the biggest barrier, 

that we really were going to be serious in order to do this. I am 

going to give my ranking member 10 minutes, but I am going to 

take about 30 seconds to just say that when we had Secretary 

LaHood earlier this year, I had made a comment that I have been 

on this committee now for quite a period of time, and either the 

ranking member or chairman for—this is my seventh year, I guess, 

at that level. And we have been talking about this for some time. 

And I said, I do not want to see this being done in 2020 or 2025 

or something like that. This ought to be done within 6 to 10 years, 

and he agreed immediately, without hesitation. Whether it can be 

done in that 6 to 10 years—because it is not very complicated. And 

with that, I will go on to—Mr. Latham, you have 10. I had a question that ended up taking more time. 

Mr. LATHAM. I enjoyed every minute of it. [Laughter.] 

I really did. Does what you just said come out of my time now? 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. OLVER. Start it over again. 

ERAM

Mr. LATHAM. I think we will be very flexible today. It is really 

interesting, in listening to your testimony here. I came up with 

some thoughts that were not in the normal questions here. But 

with the air traffic controller—I was just somewhat shocked and 

appalled. You said that during the ERAM, that you were not involved at all? I mean, this to me just is unbelievable, that a control 

system would not involve the controllers in the development of the 

plan. 

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Ms. GILBERT. We were not. We just recently, January of this 

year, started to get involved in both NextGen and ERAM. So we 

jumped on that moving train because we need to. It is important 

that we deploy safe and reliable systems. So now we have our 

workforce, our first line workforce, working hand in hand with the 

agency. We are having a difficult time getting them to understand 

our concerns and address them, but we are working within the 

agency to try and get that to happen. 

We have critical issues at Salt Lake Center, which is the key 

site. We have seen them at Seattle. And then they also brought a 

Minneapolis center up as a key site, as an alternate because of the 

Olympics, but they have not taken it down, which also concerns us 

because the more facilities they have involved, the more of an impact as to the national air space system. 

Our position is that the FAA has abilities along with the contractor to test the system, either at the tech center in Atlantic City 

or via shadowing the host in the facilities, and they do not need 

to do it on live traffic, and they can work out the bugs that way, 

identify them, take it back to the contractor and fix them, and then 

deploy a system that works. 

As we get further east into the busy facilities, the concern increases with us exponentially. The failures we are seeing in slow 

facilities like Salt Lake and Seattle. So yes, we are starting to get 

involved, but just as—— 

Mr. LATHAM. Would you like to raise your hand and say, maybe 

the controllers should be part of the control system? 

Ms. GILBERT. Absolutely, we did. We actually have been asking 

to be involved for a very long time. And in fact, we were involved 

in the RTCA because we joined them as a member of the RTCA 

and paid our fees like the other ones involved in the group because 

we were kind of shut out for quite a bit of time under the previous 

administration. So that is why we are starting to jump on these 

programs. We definitely wish we had been involved in the development and testing, and not just as they are deploying. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. That is absolutely incredible. To try to get, 

what, 300 stakeholders or whatever together, and you have a total 

unified—I mean, you normally cannot agree whether it is daylight 

or dark outside. 

Ms. JENNY. This is why we have only had five in the 60 or 70 

years we have been around. [Laughter.] 

Mr. LATHAM. Do you have confidence that they are going to—I 

mean, the FAA said they are going to listen to you. They have pretty much ignored you in the past. Do you have that concern again? 

Ms. JENNY. That is a good question. So far, I think, as the—we 

have established, and they asked us to establish, a group afterward, another working group that really is constituted by all of the 

leaders of the task force. And we have been fairly closely with the 

FAA since September. I think the leader of that, Captain Dixon 

from Delta Airlines—the way he puts it is the glass is half full at 

this point. The jury is out. We are still having to stay very close 

and understand exactly how these are getting integrated into their 

plan. And I think until we see—you know, the FAA can take or 

leave some of these recommendations, and we are not saying they 

need to implement everything as said. But there needs to be transmstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

657 

parency in how they are doing that. And what we are really going 

for is understanding specific dates and specific locations. 

The reason that is important is that when we ran the task force, 

we did not allow anybody to even put a candidate operational capability on the table to be a recommendation if it did not even have 

at least one operator who was committed to investing in it at a set 

of locations. And for the operators to close their business case on 

that investment, the pay-back period is very important. So if they 

do not get it implemented by a certain date, we lose that commitment. 

So we are in a kind of a back and forth now, trying to keep this 

to be a very constructive back and forth kind of dialogue. So I think 

we are still watching. We are going to stay in place until at least 

September working with the FAA, and then we will assess it at 

that point. 

FIXING METROPLEX AREAS

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. And you will let us know, if you would, 

please. In your testimony, you talked about fixing the metroplex 

areas like New York and Chicago, major areas, and they seem to 

be very hesitant to work in Chicago and New York, where the air 

space is very complex or most complex, and some of the delays are 

the worst. Should they try to succeed someplace else first, or what 

is your position? 

Ms. JENNY. That is probably the number one question, is where 

to start. So I think the trade-off—— 

Mr. LATHAM. I would have thought the Chairman would have 

asked that then. I am sorry. Go ahead. 

Ms. JENNY. Oops. It is an important question. The trade-off is 

that you get the biggest bang for the buck if you go where the biggest problems are. But you also have the highest risk associated 

with that, some of which are out of the control of the FAA or the 

airlines or the airports. 

I think probably a prudent approach is to start somewhere and 

learn, or to start in several places. And what we are trying to do 

is put together TIGER teams and do several different implementations of the bundles of capabilities, and learn across what we learn 

from one and apply it to the other. So the task force delivered a 

number of cities as their recommendations. And what we are trying 

to do now is find a way to bring everybody together and decide 

jointly with the FAA where do we go next, and what is going to 

be the order. 

Mr. LATHAM. Mr. May, if you would like to respond. 

Mr. MAY. Yeah. This will come as no shock to Margaret because 

we have had some long discussions on this point. The New York 

metroplex counts for about 12 percent of operations in the national 

air space. It counts for 52 to 53 percent of all delays. You have to 

take it on. It is a tough nut to crack. It is rife with local politics 

because of the noise considerations, the environmental lawsuits 

over noise. You have got members of the business community that 

are desperate to have us improve the air space there. And at the 

same time, you have got a lot of politicians in that area that are 

worried about the environmental concerns. 

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So there has to be a redesign of the air space. It has to involve 

our friends the controllers, who know more about that space than 

anyplace else. If you do not redesign the air space first, in our judgment, you are going to be layering new technology on faulty air 

space design. 

You have got Teterboro, you have got Newark, you have got 

LaGuardia, you have got JFK. I think there are a total of 19 towered airports in the air space. So you have to take it on. It may 

take you longer. You may learn some lessons in Philadelphia, 

where you have got a test bed project on ADS–B underway that 

you can apply there. You may decide that you want to have a bestequip-for-serve policy you want to put into a test bed there. 

There are a lot of different issues. But you simply cannot ignore 

New York and say it is too tough. We will learn our lessons in 

some smaller market. If you are going to take on where the delays 

are, the same thing with RNAV/RNP. These are procedures that 

are critically important to Next Generation. If you put them in 

place at small airports around the country, that is terrific. That is 

wonderful. I am glad for it. But putting RNAV/RNP into Boise is 

not nearly as important as putting it into place in a lot of other 

major markets in this country, where it is badly needed to see the 

really measurable changes and improvements that you need. 

Mr. LATHAM. That is very interesting and enlightening. I wonder, 

was there a discussion about where to go and priorities? And you 

mentioned the high concentration, your busiest areas. If we were 

to have done this ten years ago, we probably would have—and a 

couple of place I fly through—St. Louis probably would have been 

pretty busy. Cincinnati would have been really busy. And we have 

seen with the consolidation with the airlines today that, I mean, 

you go to St. Louis today, and I love to fly through there because 

it is direct and it is good for me—and Cincinnati, which now with 

the consolidation of the Northwest, I cannot fly through there anymore. But their traffic is way down. 

You go to St. Louis, and you can shoot a gun down the terminal 

and—not that I would want to, Mr. Chairman. But, you know, you 

would not hit anybody because there is nobody there. 

So, I mean, was there any discussion about what just looking forward, that we are not putting all this money into places that 

maybe will not—you know, no one knows what the market is going 

to do. That is the problem. 

Ms. JENNY. The way that the priorities are put together, where 

we had a large number of airlines and, you know, the Airports 

Council International all involved, and it really was predicated on 

a number of airlines wanting and being willing to step up and invest. 

I think another one of the reasons that New York, aside from the 

fact that it is the biggest problem, and if you fix it, you fix a large 

percentage of the delays that ripple through the system, is that unlike some of the other larger airports where there are one or two 

key carriers that have maybe as a hub, and those change, when 

you look at some of the airports in New York, places like JFK, or 

the whole New York area, there is not one—at that airport, it is 

not, you know—there are a whole lot of airlines there, a small percentage of each airline. 

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So that again gives you another challenge to resolve. And I think 

it is another reason that in the task force report, there was definitely a focus on New York as a place that we have got to put some 

attention to. 

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I see I am out of time. 

Mr. OLVER. Your timing is fine. 

Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. I apologize for having to leave, but there 

are several things going on at the same time. I do want to welcome 

all of the panelists, especially Ms. Lindsey, from Los Angeles. 

NEXTGEN

Ms. Lindsey, Los Angeles International Airport is the world’s 

busiest origin and destination airport. In total traffic, LAX is the 

sixth busiest airport in the world for passengers, and it ranks 13th 

in the world in air cargo tonnage handled. In 2008, the airlines of 

LAX served 59.8 million passengers and handled 1.8 million tons 

of freight and mail. LAX as an annual economic impact of $60 billion. One in 20 jobs in southern California is attributed to LAX operations. 

So clearly, an operation of this magnitude must have special 

needs to meet the demands of commerce and the flying public. My 

question is, how can this committee support your efforts? And if 

there is one issue that this committee could consider to give maximum funding opportunities to large airports, what would it be? 

Ms. LINDSEY. Thank you, Congresswoman. We have spent a good 

deal of the time over the last half an hour talking about NextGen. 

And that is critically important for airports as well as for airlines 

and for the FAA. From our viewpoint on the ground, however, it 

is very important that we have the facilities in place so that the 

airlines and the FAA can take maximum advantage of the technology that will be implemented with NextGen. So it gets a little 

bit mundane in a way, but we actually have to have airfields and 

taxiways laid out in such a way that the NextGen technology can 

be used most efficiently. 

In order to have that, we need to have a reasonable funding 

structure. Now I am not here to say we need more general funds 

because there is a long line of folks that are there to do that. I am 

suggesting that there are a couple of things that Congress and this 

committee could do that will help us be able to leverage our own 

revenue stream. 

From the broad congressional standpoint, increasing or extending 

the holiday on the alternative minimum tax is hugely important to 

us. I will just give you an example. We are going to the market 

next year—next week—we better do it next week because the interest rates are good—with about $900 million of revenue bonds. We 

expect to save about 100 million because of this current AMT holiday. If we can have that extended for a couple of years, that will 

help airports greatly. 

When we get to the purview of this committee in specific, I mentioned the formulas for distribution the AIP grants. Because some 

airports are so behind in actually investing in infrastructure—and 

even though that may sound like it is a parochial issue for an individual airport, it affects the entire system if one very important 

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airport, like LAX, which handles a great deal of traffic, is not capable of handling the NextGen possibilities. 

I believe FAA needs to be instructed to wait in determining how 

the grants are distributed, put a high value on infrastructure repair and reinvestment. Historically, the discretionary money has 

been given out with a very high value to capacity enhancement. I 

do not know that our future looks at a huge growth. We, I think, 

have the challenge of reinvesting in existing facilities, and AIP, if 

it were reconfigured so that that was highly valued in FAA’s distribution formulas, that would be of great benefit. 

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS

Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Gilbert, we have 

been hearing for some time about the wave of retiring air traffic 

controllers. And in response, this committee has appropriated funding to help the FAA meet the challenge of recruiting, hiring, and 

training the replacement of controllers. As vice president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, in your view, are there 

adequate levels of air traffic controllers in our towers and radar facilities across the country, and is there more that the FAA, this 

Congress, and this committee should be doing? 

Ms. GILBERT. Is there enough right now? Our concern is not the 

sheer numbers. It is the amount of air traffic controllers that are 

fully certified to be air traffic controllers. We have—well, if you 

look at Administrator Babbitt’s testimony and his numbers, he 

shows closer to 40 percent of our workforce has less than five years 

in the FAA. 

Our numbers are much lower than that, closer to about 30 percent of our workforce less than five years in the FAA. Being that 

it takes three years to certify, about a quarter of our workforce are 

still in training. Those are our biggest concerns right now. 

However, we have other issues that are of more concern than 

that, and that is the placement of those they are bringing into the 

workforce. Never before they imposed the workers on us did they 

put people that came out of the academy straight into the high 

density facilities and expected them to be successful there. We have 

had great numbers of failures in those areas. There were no training programs set up to take somebody from the academy to full 

performance level, like at LAX or in Atlanta or at Dallas-Fort 

Worth. 

So that is a big issue as well. And secondly, or thirdly, the issue 

with the retirement bubble concerns us because we lost 11,000 controllers in 1981. And 20 to 25 years later, when we saw those eligible retire, and their pay was frozen, they left. We lost about 4,000 

air traffic controllers who were controllers then. That is why you 

see the large number of trainees in the workforce now. 

In order to not see that 20 years from now, we need to continue 

an even-flow hiring to be able to deal with the growing traffic and 

to deal with the retirement bubble that we will forecast to see in 

20 years. 

Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Are you giving me more time? 

Mr. OLVER. Do you—— 

Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. No. If Mr. Latham has other questions—— 

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Mr. OLVER. No. Ms. Lindsey had brought with her testimony, 

which of course people in the audience do not get a chance to see 

when one thinks about what Los Angeles’ problems may be—that 

is why when she talks about intersecting runways and taxiways 

and so forth to deal with traffic. But the other picture, I think, 

really is what lays out why it has to be so complicated there, because Los Angeles is exceedingly constrained in its space, and there 

is no place else that they can go. So they have got to figure out how 

to do it there, or else all the expansion has to go to Ontario and 

John Wayne and other places like that in the peripheral. 

You have only Ontario. Well, Ontario and one other one. What 

other one is it? 

Ms. LINDSEY. Ontario is the only other commercial service airport that we have in our portfolio. We have Van Nuys, which is 

also one of the busiest general aviation airports in the U.S. 

Mr. OLVER. But there are two other relievers of the equivalence 

close to Ontario, are there not? There is one in Orange County? 

Ms. LINDSEY. There is Burbank and there is Orange County. And 

those are not actually—— 

Mr. OLVER. Just called John Wayne? 

Ms. LINDSEY. John Wayne, correct, John Wayne, Orange County. 

Mr. OLVER. Yeah, okay. 

Ms. LINDSEY. Right. And then there is Long Beach, which is a 

little bit south. So there is complicated air space there. 

Mr. OLVER. Some places it is complicated air space. We are all 

friends here, I think, for the moment maybe. Comments by you, 

Mr. May, on this, you are saying going to the air space redesign. 

Well, I thought we had done the air space redesign before we did 

Potomac Tracon. 

Mr. MAY. Not in New York. 

Mr. OLVER. Not in New York. 

Mr. MAY. Let’s put it this way—— 

Mr. OLVER. Obviously not in New York. 

Mr. MAY. It has been underway for 10—— 

Mr. OLVER. No, no. Was it not done in Boston and in—— 

Mr. MAY. Yes, it has been done in other markets. 

Mr. OLVER [continuing]. Potomac? Was it done in northern and 

southern California? 

Mr. MAY. I do not know the answer to that question. 

Mr. OLVER. Before? You do not know. 

Ms. LINDSEY. I do not know the answer to that. I have been 

there two and a half years. It has not been done in the last two 

and a half years. It might have been done five or ten years ago. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. But you are suggesting, in the case of New 

York, you have almost got to do that before you can do other 

things. 

Mr. MAY. Or at least simultaneously. 

Mr. OLVER. Or at least simultaneously. We sort of passed over 

that with Mr. Babbitt earlier today. And it was not clear. This is 

why it gets so very complicated here. 

Mr. MAY. But the point is in working on major markets like LAX, 

I mean, it is critically important to go after NextGen in those large 

markets. And she has an absolute point to be made about the 

ground infrastructure that is of equal or great importance. But we 

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have got to attack the big markets because that is where so much 

of the delays—— 

Mr. OLVER. Is the reason we have not gone after Chicago, which 

must be also a very complicated one, that the Chicago Airport is 

in such a major capital investment program on the ground at the 

present time, before—— 

Mr. MAY. Well, you would have to ask the FAA why they have 

not gone after Chicago. But they just opened a new runway there, 

which has made a huge difference. Now they have to deconflict 

with Midway. 

Mr. OLVER. Yeah. But they have got a whole bunch of other 

things to do. That was only the first phase of at least a threephase—— 

Mr. MAY. Right. 

ADS–B

Mr. OLVER [continuing]. Capital investment program. And then, 

Mr. Bunce, you had made a comment, which I made a note—a comment in your written testimony suggested to me that you thought 

we had to have ADS–B in a lot of places. At what level are we 

going to—how far down the list of airports are we going to have 

ADS–B? Or is it going to be ubiquitous? Everything that has scheduled service? 

Mr. BUNCE. Sir, do not think of this equipment as needing to be 

on the airport. Think of equipment that is about the size of refrigerator deployed on many sites throughout the country that go and 

take a signal from the airplane that says, I know where I am because I am getting all of these satellite signals. 

Mr. OLVER. But we speak of it being deployed at Louisville and 

Houston, and Philadelphia being next, I guess. 

Mr. BUNCE. Yes, sir. So what that means is that—take Louisville. So UPS has put this equipment in their aircraft. They have 

these small ground stations on the ground, and they can now use 

this capability to be extremely efficient in getting in and out of the 

airport. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. We have deployed something at Salt Lake, the 

en route control center process. Let me ask you—it was a question 

I asked at the very end this morning, which was are we going to 

have—they were talking about 22 en route air control centers, air 

traffic control centers. When NextGen is completely deployed, are 

we still going to have 22 of those, or would we expect to have less? 

Anybody want to comment on that? 

Ms. GILBERT. I will take that one if that is okay. We have 20 en 

route air traffic control centers. I worked 21 years at Houston Air 

Traffic Control Center. And with proper technology and equipment 

in place, you certainly can consolidate those facilities. I did hear a 

comment that you could go down to one. I would caution— 

Mr. OLVER. I heard that one. 

Ms. GILBERT. Yes. 

Mr. OLVER. It was suggested that technologically one could go to 

one. 

Ms. GILBERT. Technologically, if things are deployed properly, 

tested properly, and developed the way they should be, you could 

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get—consolidate down to much fewer facilities than we have right 

now. We are not opposed to that. 

Mr. OLVER. When NextGen is completely in place, in your view— 

maybe you, having been sort of the head of the task force with 

Tracon—that next level down, are there going to be 150 of those? 

Or what would you say? 

Ms. JENNY. Yeah. I think it is the same thing that Trish said 

about the en route facilities. So, you know, the en route is what 

controls the traffic when they are at, you know, cruise altitude, and 

then the Tracons take them in and out to get to and from the airports. So you will need those, that kind of capability for the individual airports. 

But in a NextGen environment, the air space could be designed 

differently, and so you would have larger terminal air space. And, 

you know, ultimately I think where we are headed is—where we 

are right now is that in the en route, the cruise part, where there 

is a lot of air space, is where we have all of our structure. And we 

are trying to move to having that be more flexible, and then having 

more structure in the terminal air space to—— 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. But right now, we cause a lot more noise, use 

a lot more fuel, use a lot more miles and approaches and so forth 

by the fact that we go at levels and then down a level and then 

down another level. And if one can go to incremental approach, 

which I think requires air space design—— 

Ms. JENNY. Yeah. That is what—— 

Mr. OLVER. But it must also require all of this equipment in 

place. 

Ms. JENNY. No. We are able to do some of the optimal profiled 

descents now. 

Mr. OLVER. This morning I asked for a seminar from them as to 

just what comes in what order and how would they fit together. 

And I am hearing that there are things that can be done at the 

same time at least. But you are suggesting that you do—— 

Mr. MAY. There is no required sequence. 

Mr. OLVER. Go ahead. 

Ms. JENNY. Right. But the essence of the task force is that right 

now, even before we get to things like automatic dependent surveillance broadcast and some of those technologies, we have technologies in place at some of the airports, the wide area—the 

multilateration, the ASDE–X, or the airport surface detection 

equipment. On top of that, you can put in decision support tools for 

the controllers and those in the ramp towers to help them have situational awareness of where everything is on the surface, and 

manage that traffic better. 

All of that is doable with what we have got today. Then you 

move to the Next Generation. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. Well, I am going to give my Ranking Member 

10 minutes again, and then we will have 10 minutes from Ms. Roybal-Allard, and probably we will be ready to quit, as you wish. 

GROUND DELAYS

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is an interesting discussion. When you talk about congestion—and I think you touched 

on it. There is a lot of concern on the ground, on the surface movmstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

664 

ing around. How much of the delays and the congestion problems 

we have, say in the corridor, are caused by what is going on on the 

ground? When you have Chicago, that has that additional runway 

apparently—I mean, I have flown through there several times since 

they have done that, and there is not nearly—I used to avoid it like 

the plague because you knew you were going to be an hour and a 

half late out of Chicago all the time. 

And now everything I have seen so far, they have been on time 

with—the whole system seems to have loosened up. How much of 

it should be on the ground? I mean, NextGen is great, but would 

it be cheaper, more economical? Would we solve the problem more 

readily if we focused more on the surface right now? Anybody? 

Mr. MAY. I do not think you can limit yourself to the surface 

versus the air space, Congressman. What we are trying to get to 

is a reliance on technology that allows us to work with the controllers and not be required to go from point to point to point to point 

in the air space, and fly more optimized and direct routings, to be 

more fuel efficient, to have continuous descent approaches, which 

are—— 

Mr. LATHAM. Much more efficient. 

Mr. MAY [continuing]. Provide far less noise, and take advantage 

of all of these new technologies. And as Pete says, very accurately, 

some of this is going to be equipment on the ground, some of it is 

going to be equipment in the aircraft. A great part of it is going 

to be having the partnership with the controllers to have the kinds 

of procedures and policies in place that allow that technology to be 

better used. And I am not sure that I could say that delays are 51 

percent as a result of air space and 29 percent of ground. But it 

is a combination of the entire map. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. Ms. Lindsey, I think looking at your map, 

and as pointed out, I think part of—it is even a safety issue because of the noise abatement that you have some airplanes crossing 

runways because they cannot turn or they cannot take off, and 

they have take over on top of the field again. 

Ms. LINDSEY. Yes. You will see on that map there—and the way 

it is shown here, actually north is up. And on the north—there are 

two complexes, the north complex and the south complex. Ah, 

thank you. 

Mr. LATHAM. The audience loves that. 

Ms. LINDSEY. And the communities are very, very close. Part of 

what NextGen is going to provide for us is to be able to much more 

precisely allow the aircraft to approach, both of these airfields, so 

that we minimize the noise impact on the communities that are 

surrounding the airport. 

But also, as you correctly identified, these are runways that are 

very close together. In 1960, that was fine because the wing span 

of the aircraft that were being used was very small. Now we 

have—twice a day we have A380s coming in. These are airfields 

that are not designed for A380s. So the capability in the air and 

technologically to very precisely control those aircraft that are bigger than this airport was designed for is very, very important. 

Mr. LATHAM. Because of L six. Now there are—— 

Ms. LINDSEY. Six left, right. 

Mr. LATHAM. They left. They have to turn left coming off of that. 

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665 

Ms. LINDSEY. Right. 

Mr. LATHAM. So they cannot go off because of the noise, right? 

Ms. LINDSEY. This is actually the take-off runway. The inboard 

runway closest to the terminal—this is the terminal complex. And 

this is arriving runway. So the arriving aircraft—and some of the 

diversions that we have a problem with is that arriving aircraft 

wants to get over here to the terminals as quickly as possible. But 

if you have got an aircraft taking off on that inboard runway—— 

Mr. LATHAM. They have to cross. 

Ms. LINDSEY [continuing]. These guys have to wait. 

Mr. LATHAM. Right. 

Ms. LINDSEY. So it is an issue that requires very precise vehicle 

management. 

Mr. LATHAM. And I think the technology is what some day hopefully will solve a lot of things—— 

Ms. LINDSEY. Yes, it will help a great deal. 

Mr. LATHAM [continuing]. On the ground and in the air. 

Ms. LINDSEY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LATHAM. How much is it going to cost? And what is it going 

to do to private aviation to have to have the kind of equipment onboard the airplanes as you build them? I think you are not going 

to have any small people out there if they have to—— 

Mr. BUNCE. It has to very scalable, and it also has to be commensurate with the type of air space you want to operate in. If you 

want to operate in that complex air space near L.A. or in New 

York, you are going to be needing more equipment. 

Mr. LATHAM. What is it going to cost? 

Mr. BUNCE. It ranges. You can buy a piece of equipment for the 

light end of general aviation for this automated surveillance dependent broadcast—this is the first part of it—that just sends out 

that signal where you are—about $5,000 for the lightest airplane. 

That can scale all the way up to hundreds of thousands of dollars 

if it goes in some of Jim’s aircraft. So it just depends on how complex. Then there is also installation part of it that goes with it. 

Remember, this is just the very first phase. The next phase we 

have is data communications, where our controllers are going to be 

able to send signals to the cockpit over just like an Internet signal, 

like you would get on your iPhone, a text message type of thing. 

So there are all of these technologies that we have a capability 

to use. Each one of those is going to have a cost impact on the operators. And that is why we very much are working closely with the 

FAA to try to phase this right because every time we take an airplane down to have to go and install that, that is lost revenue for 

the operators themselves, in addition to them having to spend the 

money for the installation. 

So we are very concerned that we get this right. But if you look 

at those runways out there, and you think of those closely spaced 

runways, in a traditional approach, you think about a final approach, especially in the weather, that goes out 10 to 20 miles. 

That is why at night you just see all of these airplanes lined up 

out there. 

These new approaches that we have on board will take you from 

altitude where you are not burning much fuel—you are able to pull 

the power back so you are not burning fuel coming down, and you 

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666 

are not putting the emission in the air, and also you are not making noise. What the chairman talked about when you do that stair 

step—every time you put the power up, you make noise. 

So now we can draw these curved type of approaches that go 

rightly. They put airplanes over houses that do not traditionally 

have them on these very long approaches. But they are not going 

to be making the same amount of noise. And with NextGen, we are 

going to have between 10 and 15 percent fuel savings—that is direct emission savings, so that is dollar savings. And because we 

have got the equipment up in the airplanes, that infrastructure in 

the airplanes, the FAA can start divesting from the long maintenance tail of all of these different things on the ground that are out 

there, en route fixes and what is called VORs, some of these complex instrument landing system approaches that cost a lot of 

money. 

So we can integrate these approaches that we already know how 

to build. If we can get capability to streamline environmental impact studies to be able to go and instead of overlaying this new 

type of approaches over existing ones, we actually draw these new 

approaches—if we can do that and figure out a way to streamline 

the environmental process so that we can use this capability, we 

can reduce emissions, save gas, save everybody money, and really 

get the system going. 

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. Very good. I like one thing that you said 

again, Ms. Gilbert. And we talked about it a little bit this morning, 

which I was interested in their responses this morning. But you 

mentioned about where the new controllers coming out of their 

training, where they go—some of them are going into the busiest, 

most complex control systems. And you do not think that is what 

they should be doing. You are saying it causes many of them to fail 

where they would not because they are put into that type of environment. 

Now they said this morning that that is where they honor people’s request. They do not want them to move. What do we need 

to do? 

Ms. GILBERT. I am a people person. I represent the workforce 

and their quality of work life. So I admire that. What is happening, 

though, is you are getting people that are not taking the job and 

turning it down two and three and four times until they get the 

place they want, which is a resource drain on the FAA. Second, you 

are getting people going to places that they did not test high 

enough to go to. 

When I went through 20 years ago to the Oklahoma City Academy, the higher test scores went into the higher density facilities. 

They have a much better chance of success testing higher, doing 

better. And then the lower test scores went into your lower level 

facilities. It might not be exactly where that person wants to go, 

but at some point, you have to decide what is best of the air space, 

what is best for the system. And I think they have gone away from 

that. 

mstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

667 

I believe they are looking at readdressing that. We have actually 

advocated putting a joint work group together to look at placement 

out of the academy. 

Mr. LATHAM. And it is interesting because I thought it may be 

that at your request that that is the way they were doing—honoring the wishes of the people. But you are saying that you are 

more concerned about the safety and getting the right people in the 

right places. 

Ms. GILBERT. Absolutely, because it affects the whole workforce. 

It affects the whole system. If somebody gets put into a facility that 

they just are not capable of being successful at, that is starting 

them out in a new profession as a negative. They fail, and now 

they have started their career in that kind of mode. It is not positive. It affects the rest of the work environment, those that train 

them. And in some cases, it can be unsafe. 

Mr. LATHAM. I do not want my controller to be unhappy that day. 

I just really do not. [Laughter.] 

Anyway, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. Ms. Roybal-Allard. 

Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have to say, 

as someone who flies in and out of LAX almost twice a week, I always get more information than what I wish I had. [Laughter.] 

Ms. LINDSEY. I am sorry. 

Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Mr. Latham just asked the follow-up question I had with regards to placement. So I want to ask Ms. 

Lindsey, you described the use of the airport improvement program 

as a more effective funding tool for smaller airports. Could you explain why it is not more attractive to airports such as the size of 

LAX? And do you have any specific recommendations or proposals 

for this committee beyond what you described in your previous answer? 

Ms. LINDSEY. Yes. The reason it has become not a very important 

funding tool for larger airports is that in order to implement the 

passenger facility charge, which is another user fee that the airports needed to have access to in order to finance projects, airports 

had to give up 75 percent of what otherwise would have been their 

entitlements money. 

So if that had not been the case, LAX would have entitlement 

funds under AIP of around 50 million a year. But because we have 

imposed a passenger facility charge of $4.50, which will gain us 

more money than the AIP entitlement monies—but we had to walk 

away from 75 percent of our AIP entitlement money so that now 

we get $12 or $13 million a year. 

So if you look at the full menu of improvements that have to be 

done on LAX, and you are looking at about $13 million a year coming from a reduced entitlement source because of the requirement 

to give up other entitlements, it becomes much less of an important 

tool for airports. And, of course, it is used primarily on the airfield, 

which I think is fine. 

I think there is a potential fix for that. It would be very easy for 

me to sit here and say, well, just restore that 75 percent of entitlement money back to the airports. But there are useful projects at 

small airports. 

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668 

What I would suggest instead is to increase the amount of 

money, of discretionary money, that the FAA is able to award in 

grants. And historically, a lot of that discretionary money went to 

safety projects and to capacity projects. Clearly, there should be no 

diminution in the importance of safety projects. Those always have 

to be number one. 

But I am suggesting for the committee’s consideration that we 

make infrastructure repair and rehabilitation just as important as 

capacity projects, which have been the mantra that FAA has used 

in awarding letters of intent and awarding discretionary funds in 

the past. We have such decaying infrastructure that—and this is 

not unique to LAX. This is a countrywide problem. It is a 

multimodal problem. I of course am just speaking from the airport 

standpoint. Having AIP be able to value those kinds of projects I 

think is very important for our future. 

Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. Well, I could go on with other questions, but it does 

turn out that at least the two of us that are Democratic members 

have a caucus going on. I am not quite sure, but I am sure that 

Mr. Latham has other things that he would like to do as well. So 

I think we will let you go. 

Mr. LATHAM. Tell Mr. Hoyer to put me down as a maybe. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Great. That is progress. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you very, very much for being with us today. 

Thank you for your thoughts. I may have to get back to you, at 

least for my own information. But I think we will not be back to 

you for anything more directly for the record. Okay? Thank you. 

Have a good day, and thank you for being with us. 

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(669) 

TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 2010. 

INTERCITY AND COMMUTER PASSENGER RAIL: MOVING 

PEOPLE SAFELY AND EFFICIENTLY (INCLUDING 

FY2011 BUDGET REQUESTS FOR FTA, FRA AND AMTRAK) 

WITNESSES 

PETER ROGOFF, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL TRANSIT ADMINISTRATION 

JOSEPH SZABO, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION 

JOSEPH BOARDMAN, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF AMTRAK 

CHAIRMAN OLVER’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. OLVER. We will be in order. We are competing today with the 

White House, as you know, and I really did not want to give my 

Ranking Member the whole morning off. So I decided we would 

carry on and do hearings. 

But actually, I know quite a number of the Appropriations Committees are doing hearings this morning, as it turns out. So a couple of my members, who are our members here, who are the Chairs 

of their own Committees, will not be here because of that, or they 

are going to be at the White House. 

So anyway, I want to welcome Administrator Peter Rogoff and 

Administrator Joe Szabo, and President of Amtrak, Joe Boardman, 

to the subcommittee. Gentlemen, thank you for coming before us 

today to testify on the respective fiscal year 2011 budget request 

for the FTA, the Federal Railroad Administration, and Amtrak. 

Rail presents great opportunities to expand transportation options and reduce highway congestion. Therefore, over the last year, 

this Congress and this Administration, your Administration, our 

Administration, have made unprecedented investments in our Nation’s passenger rail infrastructure. 

First and foremost, I want to emphasize the need to remain committed to the safety of our passengers in commuter rail systems as 

we invest and expand this infrastructure. 

Earlier in the month this subcommittee held two hearings on 

intermodal freight movement, which highlighted the important role 

rail plays in the transportation of freight. Given that the U.S. 

freight and passengers typically operate within the same rights-ofway, as these sectors expand, we must develop methods to minimize conflict and ensure the safety of all users. 

In order to address this, the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 

2008 mandated the installation of positive train control on all lines 

that jointly operate passenger and freight traffic. 

Last year Congress appropriated $50 million for grants to install 

equipment that improves safety operations and reduces the likelimstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

670 

hood of future train collisions. Given that the FRA did not continue 

funding for this program in the 2011 request, I will be curious to 

know how the FRA intends to work with stakeholders to ensure 

that they are able to meet their estimated multi-billion-dollar safety obligations by the 2015 deadline. Furthermore, I look forward to discussing FTA’s $24 million proposal for the Transit Safety Oversight Program. It is my understanding that this request is intended to support the Administration’s legislative proposal to establish FTA’s safety oversight authority over rail transit systems. 

Recent accidents, including last year’s Metro tragedy, have highlighted the weakness of the current regulatory system and the need 

for cohesive standards. 

In addition to safety, I want to reinforce the continued need by 

both this subcommittee and the Department to remain vigilant on 

providing strong program oversight. In January, the FRA awarded 

almost $8 billion to projects that expand passenger rail operations, 

and establish high-speed rail. 

I am pleased that FRA’s budget proposes supporting oversight of 

this program, with 31 new FTEs in order to ensure local authorities deliver quality projects on time and without waste. That said, I am disappointed that the budget only requests $1 

billion for high-speed rail in 2011. While I understand that when 

the President promised to provide $5 billion over five years, it was 

a strong statement of his commitment; but in light of the $2.5 billion the subcommittee provided in the fiscal year 2010 bill, and the 

$57 billion in applications submitted for Recovery Act funds, I believe the current request is inadequate to maintain the momentum 

that we have developed in the last year. 

Last, I want to strongly encourage Amtrak to work with the Administration and Congress to take the necessary steps to ensure 

that the Northeast Corridor can fully access future high-speed rail 

funds. The Northeast Corridor is our nation’s premiere passenger 

route, by total passengers served, and has opportunities to significantly reduce travel times and improve service quality along this 

heavily traveled corridor. 

With that, I will turn to Mr. Latham for his comments. 

RANKING MEMBER LATHAM’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. LATHAM. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do not think 

I am going to lose any of my members probably down to the White 

House this morning. And I will be very brief; they have got a statement here for me. 

But I guess my concern, and I hear it all the time from home, 

that the one size does not fit all. We have got transportation systems throughout my district and through the state that rely on 

buses. They have got buses that are really old, dangerous, do not 

serve the needs. They are environmentally not friendly. And I am 

very concerned about any policy that goes forward with not realizing the challenges that are in place today, and do not meet those 

challenges. 

And when you have massive increase in funding for other things, 

it is a real concern. And Iowans do not get back anywhere close to 

the taxes paid in to address what are most of their problems. 

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And so it is not a one-size-fits-all situation, where obviously, with 

the budget today at $1.6 trillion deficit, 44 cents of every dollar 

being spent this year is borrowed money. And so I think we have 

to be very, very conscious of where the money goes that is well 

spent, and actually fills needs, rather than some ideal that is out 

there in the future. 

And just a realistic look at what the current situation is in many, 

many states across the country, and whether the new transportation plan really addresses what are actual real concerns of a lot 

of our constituents today. 

So with that, I yield back. Thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. Your complete statements will be included in the record. And I will provide some flexibility here, we 

are going to have lots of time for questions afterward, especially if 

the Ranking Member and I are the only ones here. Once we get 

into the question period, we really have an opportunity to examine 

and see where we are on some issues. So I will give you more than 

five minutes, if you need it. 

So go ahead, Mr. Rogoff. 

MR. ROGOFF’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. ROGOFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will try not to need it. 

So thank you, and thank you, Mr. Latham, for the opportunity to 

discuss President Obama’s fiscal year 2011 budget for $10.8 billion 

for the Federal Transit Administration. 

Importantly for 2011, FTA has restructured its programs and its 

accounts to better reflect how FTA’s many programs fit into the 

Administration’s priorities for public transportation. As such, there 

is a lot we can discuss this morning; but for the purposes of this 

oral statement, I really just want to focus on four issues. 

First and foremost, the funding required for our new safety initiative, as the Chairman made mention of. Second, our request for 

significantly increased funds to address the state of good repair of 

the transit industry. And I would point out, Mr. Latham, our vision 

of the importance of state of good repair very much includes the 

bus universe; it is not just about rail programs. 

Third, I would like to discuss our very successful interagency efforts with HUD and EPA to promote livable and sustainable communities, both in the urban and rural context. And fourth, our 

need for additional resources to support our core grant making and 

oversight functions. 

As the Chairman pointed out, the Metro Rail crash in Washington this past summer was a horrific event. But even before this 

accident the FTA was focused on a number of very serious safety 

lapses. Those included lapses at the Chicago Transit Authority, the 

MUNI System in San Francisco, the T in Boston, and elsewhere. 

In fact, just this past week we have had two grade-crossing incidents involving the light rail system in Salt Lake, including a fatal 

incident. 

I want to emphasize, the transit industry is safe, but the Administration believes that it is critical that additional measures be 

taken to make sure that it remains safe, as our transit infrastructure ages, and as the experienced transit workers who know how 

mstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

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to operate and maintain these systems retire in increasing numbers. 

Unfortunately, the FTA has been prohibited by law from issuing 

safety regulations of any kind since the founding of the Agency in 

1964. Instead, the oversight of rail safety has been left to 27 separate understaffed and underfunded state safety oversight agencies. 

These agencies do not have the expertise, staffing, or enforcement tools necessary to compel the cooperation of the transit systems that they are supposed to oversee. There are also, quite frankly, some conflict-of-interest concerns in that some of these safety 

agencies actually are funded by the transit operators that they are 

supposed to oversee. This is a conflict of interest we do not allow 

in other areas of transportation safety. 

The Administration found this weak and ineffective safety regime for rail transit to be inadequate and unacceptable; and as 

such, back on December 7 of last year, Secretary LaHood formally 

transmitted President Obama’s legislative proposal for transit safety reforms to the Speaker of the House and the President of the 

Senate. 

We urge Congress to move forward with our Transit Safety Reform bill now, and we ask the collected Members here for any help 

they could provide in moving that bill forward to the President’s 

desk. 

In our budget request for 2011, we have fully accounted for the startup costs of this initiative. We are seeking $24.1 million for a 

new rail transit safety oversight program, and an additional $5.5 

million to fund 30 FTEs in FTA’s new and expanded Office of Safety at Headquarters. 

A critical part of the challenge of maintaining transit safety is 

ensuring that there is an adequate investment in maintaining the 

state of good repair of our transit agencies. 

Last April, FTA transmitted a report to Congress that identified a $50 billion maintenance backlog of assets at just the seven largest and oldest rail systems. But importantly, on the bus side, preliminary results from a follow-on study showed that 41 percent of 

bus assets nationwide are in marginal or poor condition. 

Both studies show that over the long term, funding from federal, 

state, and local sources needs to be increased to ensure that transit 

services continue to be reliable and safe. To address this challenge, 

our budget proposal merges and expands the Bus and Bus Facilities and the Fixed Guideway Modernization programs, and provides $2.9 billion, an 8 percent increase over the combined programs 2010 level. 

I am particularly pleased that in a transit budget that calls for 

growth of less than 1 percent on the whole, we succeeded in fully 

funding the startup costs of the Transit Safety bill, as well as an 

8 percent funding boost for the state of good repair, both rail and 

bus. 

On the topic of livability, Secretary LaHood has partnered with 

the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and the Administrator of the EPA to form an interagency partnership for sustainable communities. And Mr. Chairman, I want to particularly thank 

you for jump-starting this effort by requiring HUD and FTA to 

start working together on this issue even before this Administramstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

673 

tion took office. I will admit, when I was in my prior capacity working for the Senate Appropriations Committee, I reviewed the language that you sent over. I did not fully understand it then, but 

I understand it now. 

FTA’s livability budget proposal for 2011 includes $306.9 million 

for grants under three existing programs to better link communities to affordable housing, increased pedestrian access, improved 

connections between where people live, work, shop, go to school, socialize, and, importantly, receive healthcare services. 

In addition, FTA is currently evaluating more than 65 applications totalling over $1.1 billion for urban circulator systems that 

support the Department’s livability initiatives. We are also separately evaluating more than 250 applications, totaling more than 

$2 billion, for bus and bus facility proposals that embody our livability goals. 

Under our initial notice of funding availability for these two efforts, we announced that we would allocate at least $280 million 

to these applications. It is possible that we will augment that 

amount with some discretionary funds that you graciously provided 

to us in the regular 2010 Appropriations Act, as we review those 

applications. 

Importantly, HUD reviewed and edited our Federal Register Notice when we put out the full solicitation for both of these initiatives. And they added a lot of value in addressing the whole housing aspect of these grants. 

And now the DOT is also reviewing the grant guidance that 

HUD will be using for the funding of their livability grants. 

So this has been a truly functional and effective interagency 

partnership that works. It will yield projects that will be more costeffective for the taxpayer, projects that will enable the public to 

make one comprehensive investment in a community, investments 

that address the transportation and housing needs simultaneously. 

And this way we will only need to make one public investment, and 

we will, frankly, only need to tear up the streets once. 

Finally, I would like to call attention to a small but important 

request that is contained in our budget, to address the staffing 

needs associated with our core grantmaking and oversight function. 

Our 2011 budget seeks funding for an additional 40 positions and 

20 FTE to address these needs. FTA has not seen its staffing level 

increase by even one body in seven years. Yet over those seven 

years, the number of programs and grants that the Agency is 

charged with overseeing has grown dramatically. 

As a result, I am sorry to have to say that out in the cities and 

the states, the initials of our acronym, FTA, has sometimes been 

referred to as Failure To Appear. Too often, FTA has lacked the 

staff in headquarters or the regions to attend meetings held by cities and communities and MPOs that want to know how they can 

consider and develop a transit alternative. 

In order to truly partner with these communities, and in order 

to do appropriate oversight of the thousands of grants we allocate 

every year, FTA frankly needs more staff, and there is funding for 

more staff in the budget. 

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So I thank you for hearing these many requests. I am happy to 

answer questions when that time comes. And I will leave it to my 

next witness. Thank you. 

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Mr. OLVER. Thank you. Mr. Szabo. 

MR. SZABO’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. SZABO. Chairman Olver, Ranking Member Latham, and 

Members of the Committee: Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) Fiscal Year 2011 budget request. Our request, which totals $2.9 billion, is unprecedented in the 

history of FRA and reflects the Administration’s commitment toward keeping the Nation’s rail transportation safe, secure, and efficient. This request also continues our support of the Administration’s strategic investments in high speed rail. 

Over the past 2 years, FRA’s mission has expanded greatly. The 

entire organization was focused not only on the implementation of 

the Rail Safety Improvement Act (RSIA) and the Passenger Rail 

Improvement and Investment Act (PRIIA), but on the requirements 

of the landmark Recovery Act. Our seasoned and dedicated staff is 

doing an outstanding job implementing this ambitious agenda and 

this Committee’s support has been invaluable. 

In developing our FY 2011 budget, we re-examined our programs 

in light of recent legislation, established new priorities, and built 

our budget accordingly. I’d like to share with you a few of our 

FY2011 budget priorities: 

FRA’s chief mission continues to be safety. For FY 2011, we are 

proposing to establish a new account that will allow FRA to be 

more precise in its reporting and accountability and that directly 

supports the Administration’s transparency initiatives. Under this 

new Railroad Safety account, $49.5 million is requested to carry 

out FRA’s mission critical railroad safety functions and activities. 

The safety of our passenger and freight rail systems is of critical 

importance to me and my colleagues. 

In re-evaluating where FRA needs to go in the coming years, we 

also looked at our staffing needs. As such, for FY 2011, we are requesting a total of $153.8 million and 979 positions to support our 

mission responsibilities. Included in this request are 62 new positions that will allow FRA to tackle our newfound responsibilities, 

including a focus on high-speed rail. 

The High-Speed Rail initiative is central to the President’s efforts to provide the American people with high-quality transportation alternatives. The program will create jobs, reduce congestion 

and offer numerous environmental benefits. We are proud to continue our work in this arena, which began with an $8 billion down 

payment enacted under the Recovery Act. 

Our FY 2011 budget includes a second round of funding as part 

of the President’s initiative that complements this down payment. 

Included in the $1 billion request is $50 million for program administration and oversight activities, $50 million for planning grants 

and activities, and $30 million for high-speed rail research and development activities. We will continue to work with every state and 

region that is interested in developing a robust passenger rail system. 

The agency will also continue its work on a National Rail Plan, 

so that our efforts to upgrade our nation’s passenger rail capacity 

can be undertaken in concert with work to ensure that our freight 

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rail system remains the best in the world. We’ve met with more 

than a thousand of your constituents across the country to craft 

this document and look forward to presenting our vision later this 

next year. 

This vision will certainly include Amtrak. FRA and Amtrak 

share a strong partnership and the FY 2011 budget request for 

Amtrak, which totals $1.637 billion, is a reflection of this Administration’s continuing support of this partnership. We very much recognize Amtrak’s unique and important role in America’s future 

transportation landscape. 

The past 18 months have been filled with exciting challenges for 

FRA. We have continued to enhance the safety of our citizens and 

communities that live and use the nation’s freight and passenger 

rail systems, while designing the policies, programs, and infrastructure necessary to advance the vision of high-speed rails across 

our country. 

We appreciate your consideration of our request, and I am happy 

to answer any questions that you might have. 

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Mr. OLVER. Thank you, Mr. Szabo. Mr. Boardman. 

MR. BOARDMAN’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. BOARDMAN. Mr. Olver, Mr. Latham, Mr. LaTourette, I have 

a package on your desk of slides that I will refer to. It has got my 

name there toward the bottom, Steve, just in case you are looking. 

This has been a landmark year for intercity passenger rail. In 

the wake of the Administration’s decisions to fund the High-Speed 

and Intercity Passenger Rail Program, Amtrak stands ready to fulfill the mission assigned by the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of developing high-speed passenger rail on the national system. 

To meet this mandate, we need to have the tools in place to accomplish the job, and we are moving to create them. We are working with the states, FRA, and a High-Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail grant program, and the corridor equipment planning 

and procurement process. 

We have just completed the first phase of the Northeast Corridor 

master planning process, and are beginning to plan for the next 

generation of high-speed equipment for the Northeast Corridor. 

Amtrak is creating a department to oversee high-speed rail development. We have created a plan to replace our aging and hardrun fleet with the modern equipment we need to provide these 

services. And we provided it to the committee on February 1. 

The Administration has laid out a strong and clear plan, with 

significant initial funding for the development of high-speed and 

intercity passenger rail, and we are working to make that plan a 

reality. For 2011, Amtrak initially requested a total of $2.2 billion, con- sistent with the preauthorization. About $592 million of that total 

was intended for operating support, and $1.02 billion will cover our 

capital needs, while a total of $305 million will go for debt and 

debt-retirement opportunities. About $281 million will be needed 

for ADA. 

On Monday we submitted a supplemental request to Congress for an additional $446 million to address our most urgent, unfunded 

need: replacement of our aging fleet. This will raise our total 2011 

request to about $2.6 billion. 

Our plan calls for the replacement of the entire fleet between 

now and 2040. And it is on this issue that I would like to focus the 

remainder of my statement, because it is that important. 

This plan, which is the product of nearly a year of concentrated 

work, is a well-thought-out and comprehensive statement of our 

total need. It is designed to accomplish the replacement of equipment, not in large blocks, but in regular, annual purchases, which 

will allow us to break in new equipment gradually, correcting 

issues early in the run before they simply become large and insoluble permanent conditions that we must learn to live with. 

And as you will see on the first slide, our plan provides the enduring demand that will develop and support a domestic manufacturing base. If you see two high yellow spikes on that slide, that 

is when the Acelas get replaced. 

This supports the Administration’s stated intent to develop a domestic rail-manufacturing capability. And we do so by projecting 

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long-term, large-scale procurement streams that will nurture and 

sustain suppliers. 

It also provides an affordable means for states to add to our purchases on our own, with unit cost savings for everyone. 

We are currently partnering with 15 states to provide service, 

and demand on existing routes will continue to grow. 

It is also an opportunity for us to work with the FRA and the 

states to implement the latest standards and practices to ensure 

this equipment has long-term utility. We will do this through the 

corridor equipment pool committee process. 

It is, however, vitally important that we begin the process of 

seeding the industry, and replacing obsolescent equipment now. 

And the best way to start that process and to advance the vision 

for high-speed and intercity passenger rail is to fund our plan. 

Between 2002 and 2008, Amtrak increased its ridership by 32 

percent, without buying a single piece of new rolling stock. That is 

a remarkable accomplishment, but one that cannot be sustained indefinitely. 

A new round of procurement is an absolute necessity since the 

average age of our passenger cars is at an all-time high, 24 years, 

and it will continue to rise in the time that it takes us to order and 

build and have new equipment delivered. 

As you will see in the next slide, this is the Amtrak car fleet. It 

is the hardest-run passenger fleet in the country. On the far right 

end of this, you will see the blued-out section. These are the annual 

number of average annual miles. And you will see the transit operators along the side, and how many fewer miles that it takes to run 

a transit operation. That is not to cast aspersion on transit; it is 

only to say that utilization of the heavy-duty intercity fleet is critical. 

To get some idea of that mileage and the work we get out of 

these cars, I would point you to the backbone of our Northeast Regional Service: the Amfleet I cars. They were built in the late seventies. 

Now, imagine you bought a Chevy El Camino back in 1977. It 

would be worth a lot of money today, frankly, if it was an El Camino. [Laughter.] 

But you proceeded to drive it from D.C. to New York and back 

again every single day since then, with a day and a half off every 

month for maintenance. That is how hard we run these Amfleets. 

And they are neither the oldest or the hardest-run equipment in 

the fleet. 

As you will see in the third slide, these are the locomotive fleet. 

And it is in a similar situation. And I would point out to you, on 

the far right, a backbone of our locomotive fleet, the P–42 diesels, 

are run almost twice as much as the major freight line, BNSF. We 

put almost twice as many miles on our locomotives every year than 

BNSF does. 

As a preliminary step, we initiated the bidding process last year 

to buy new equipment to address our most critical needs, the Heritage cars, some of which have been in service for 60 years—I think 

there is one even 61, my age—and the hard-run electric locomotives that power our Northeast Corridor services. 

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The $446 million will fund the procurement of American-made 

equipment that will replace these obsolete cars and worn-out locomotives. 

On the last slide you will see a perfect picture of our need. This 

is the Silver Star service. The very first round of purchases will replace the AEM–7 that is hauling this train, the electric locomotive, 

and the Heritage baggage car and diners that are still in daily 

service. And it probably is not by any mistake that the train number is 911. [Laughter.] 

Thank you for listening. 

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Mr. OLVER. You mean it was not deliberate that you used 911? 

Mr. BOARDMAN. It was very deliberate, Mr. Chairman. [Laughter.] 

Mr. OLVER. This is a set of data that I have not seen. No one 

is speaking for Amtrak; never in the last years that I have been 

Chairman or Ranking Member of this subcommittee have I seen 

someone put these data together. 

And I am wondering if you required the assembly of this data. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. I required a fleet plan, a fleet strategy. Something that you and I had discussed in the past. 

The data that was assembled as a part of that, this is part of 

that. That is the provision of this. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. Was there any shock when you saw these 

data? When you saw—— 

Mr. BOARDMAN. It was very eye-opening to us, let us say that. 

Yes, it was shocking for a lot of us, to really sit down and think 

about what has really happened here. 

Because one of the things we discovered here was nobody in the 

world today is building heavy-duty-enough equipment to deliver 

this kind of service over the period of time that they have been delivering it, 60 years. 

And the discussion included what is the commercial life, and 

then what is the useful life of equipment, and how often do we 

have to rebuild it. And you will see in the study, which I have here 

and you all received this in February, that we really thought about 

that. I know I am going a little bit long on the answer. But we cannot keep buying equipment in the huge number of pieces of equipment that we get in very small windows, and expect an industry 

to be able to support passenger rail for the future. We have to 

spread it out. 

Mr. OLVER. Look, in this chart, it is too bad, we really should 

have these on so the general audience can see these. We should 

have these in large form up for people. I wish I had known that 

we were—— 

Mr. BOARDMAN. They did hand them out, Mr. Chairman, as we 

came in. 

Mr. OLVER. Oh, you did. So everyone does have it. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. They should have. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. But they were afraid to put it up as a slide this 

year; I spent too much time last year at that. 

Mr. OLVER. The yellows are the cars. And you have indicated in 

your written testimony that the average age of the cars is, is 24 

years. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. Yes. 

Mr. OLVER. What is the average age of the locomotives? The reds 

or the—— 

Mr. BOARDMAN. It is a little better than that. The average age 

of the electric locomotives is much higher. I do not have it right in 

my head right this minute. 

Mr. OLVER. But it is that when you say better, do you mean more 

than that? They are all—— 

Mr. BOARDMAN. They are a little younger. They are a little 

younger. 

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Mr. OLVER. The locomotives or the—— 

Mr. BOARDMAN. The locomotives, yes. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. I am getting completely diverted, but I am 

sure my colleagues will bring me back to some point of reference. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. The AEM–7s, and they just handed it to me, 

that was what you saw, the 911 in the picture, are from 21 to 29 

years old. They are our oldest. 

Mr. OLVER. I think the thing that you are bringing out in your 

testimony, to me the most important thing is the question of who 

makes the equipment. You are talking about heavy rail. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. Yes. 

DOMESTIC MANUFACTURING

Mr. OLVER. Now, there is a whole lot of stuff that is light rail 

and bus in nature. And there must be some gradation of, I do not 

know, maybe I am going to engage Mr. Rogoff on the light rail side. 

Because we are talking largely about heavy rail, commuter rail, 

and, and long-distance passenger rail for Amtrak, and certainly for 

you, Mr. Szabo. 

The lighter rail——do we have all the equipment that we need 

for light rail and for bus facilities? Do we have enough of that 

being built here in America? Or are we having to depend heavily 

on others? 

Mr. ROGOFF. Well, our view is no, we do not have the kind of domestic content that we would still like to see. In fact, this past 

summer, Secretary LaHood hosted a session down at the Department where we brought in rail car manufacturers. This was largely 

built around the new high-speed rail initiative. But there was also 

an important transit nexus here, because in many cases they are 

the same manufacturers. 

The Buy-America content for transit rail cars is lower than some 

of the Buy-America requirements that are in other programs. And 

we would frankly like to do a whole lot better than the 60 percent 

that is currently in law and regulation. 

Secretary LaHood’s message at that session was, through the 

high-speed rail initiative and through subsequent funds that either 

in the Recovery Act or in future transit initiatives, we want to see 

greater domestic content. It is very much part of the Vice President’s effort to build up the manufacturing base again in this country. 

Just the other day, in fact, one of the rail car manufacturers, 

Talgo, announced that it is opening a plant in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in part on the back of Wisconsin Buy, in part on what they 

see as the opportunities for high-speed rail there. But it is something that we would like to see more of, both in the heavy rail 

space, but also in light rail. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. My impression is that we are not creating 

much of the heavy rail equipment in this country, and we need to 

try to correct that. I do not have as clear an impression, and it is 

partly, throughout this program to expand public transportation, 

particularly for the rail positions, that that comes to the fore. 

At the light rail level, I think what we are seeing from the equipment point of view somewhere between two and three times the 

mileage is going per year on the heavy rail equipment than on the 

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transit authorities. That is, I think, the brief summary of what that 

chart shows. 

Mr. ROGOFF. It is a reflection of the nature of the trips they take. 

Mr. OLVER. Yes. 

Mr. ROGOFF. I mean, if you are doing intercity, you are certainly 

going to put in more mileage. 

Mr. OLVER. But I do not even know whether we are building all 

of the light rail equipment that goes into these systems or not. Are 

we to a large measure, or not? 

Mr. ROGOFF. Well, in order to comply with Buy America, it all 

lies behind what you mean by the word ‘‘build.’’ Because the way 

a lot of the manufacturers get to the 60 percent content requirement is through purchasing components, plus the added value of 

assembly. 

Mr. OLVER. Is assembly done here? 

Mr. ROGOFF. Assembly is done, commonly done here. So what 

often happens, for example—and this goes back a number of 

years—in some of the cars that Bombardier manufactured in Canada, it would then be pulled to Barre, Vermont, or they are now 

pulled for final assembly to upstate New York. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. Plattsburg. 

Mr. ROGOFF. Excuse me? 

Mr. BOARDMAN. Plattsburg, yes. 

Mr. ROGOFF. Plattsburg, New York. And that is where, that is 

how they get the assembly done in the United States. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. But I do think, Peter, you have Kawasaki bending metal in Nebraska, and putting it together in Yonkers, New 

York. So there is some of that. 

But we have gone out and we do have conversations going on 

with some of the major manufacturers of what it is that they need 

to begin to build here in this country, the very heavy. 

And I think Peter was very responsive in terms of how Talgo— 

Talgo will accommodate this kind of traffic. They are a very heavyduty train. 

Mr. OLVER. One of the key things that we heard when we had 

the Domestic Manufacturers Summit the Secretary called was for 

the manufacturers to invest domestically in the plant and equipment that they need for heavy rail equipment, is to see a smoothness of the contract order. That we really needed to get beyond 

these huge peaks and these valleys that would better allow them 

to manage—— 

Mr. BOARDMAN. We would see this as a base, Mr. Chairman. If 

you look back in the late twenties, thirties, you had 65,000 passenger cars in this country that were heavy-duty. By the late forties, you had about 30,000 passenger cars. Now you have what we 

have. 

And if you are really going to grow the, the passenger rail and 

intercity rail, which I think is going to happen, you are going to 

have to have a domestic manufacturing base. This starts it. The 

states can add to this, but we have to have, we have to get started. 

Mr. OLVER. Well, one thing that is clear is that the mileages that 

you are going at the heavy rail line, even compared with your passenger versus the freights, as is also shown in those, is that the 

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mileages get up, into the two million miles very quickly, and beyond. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. OLVER. Anyway, we are going to do 10-minute sessions for 

each of my colleagues. Mr. Latham. 

Mr. LATHAM. Mr. LaTourette has got a little time problem, so I 

yield. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I thank you very much for the courtesy. It is 

nice to see all of you again. And Mr. Rogoff, we have not had the 

pleasure, but it is nice to see you before the committee. Your name 

was thrown around a lot last week during our hearing, so it is nice 

to actually see someone connected with the, with the name. 

POSITIVE TRAIN CONTROL

Administrator Szabo, I wanted to come back to you just real 

quickly on something that continues to vex me, and that is the Passenger Rail Improvement and Investment Act (PRIIA). And at the 

last hearing, I talked to the Secretary, and then you and I had a 

chat at the last hearing about what lines will be designated for 

positive train control. 

And I, quite frankly, loved your answer. Because I understood it 

to say that the effective date in the bill is 2015; and when we get 

to 2015, if the planning and mapping that you have done, if a Class 

I railroad can come in and indicate that that is not the traffic anymore, and TIH vehicles are not being used, that you would make 

some accommodation. 

But I had a conversation with a couple of them. And I said you 

know, this is really great news. And they tell me, however—and I 

guess you could either respond now or maybe have somebody come 

see me later—they indicate that they can only come see you to be 

relieved of the burden of positive train control on a line after something, an analysis of a residual risk. But that residual risk is not 

defined in your regulation. 

And so their first question, and my question to you, is, do you 

believe someplace in your regulation that I could go and find the 

definition of residual risk? 

Mr. SZABO. Well, let me tell you this, Mr. Congressman. You 

know, it limits my ability to give you much of a detailed answer. 

But I think echoing what I said last week, that we do believe that 

there is sufficient flexibility in the rule that as traffic patterns 

change, that there is the ability to adjust accordingly, but they 

have to come to us and document why. 

And frankly, it is all about ensuring safety, the safety of the community. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Listen, I helped write the bill, and I am all 

about safety. But let me just say this, that whatever litigation is 

going on, that prevents you from telling me whether or not residual 

risk is defined in your regulation that you issued in January? 

Mr. SZABO. It limits me from going into any detail. But again, 

we can—— 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay. 

Mr. SZABO [continuing]. Schedule sometime to come sit down and 

talk. We would be happy to. 

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Mr. LATOURETTE. I would like that very much. And just so we 

are clear, I do not believe residual risk is identified. 

And the other thing that causes me some problems is that even 

if a railroad can figure out what residual risk is, and makes an application to be relieved of PTC on a particular line, it can still be 

required under special circumstances. 

Now, special circumstances is, in fact, defined. And one of the 

definitions of special circumstances is increased traffic. 

Now, I do not know of any business in the world that does not 

hope to have an increase in business. So, but it is not increase in 

TIH traffic; it is just increased traffic. 

So again, I get you are in the middle of a lawsuit, but if somebody could come see me, I would appreciate it. Because this continues to cause me some difficulty. 

Mr. Boardman, it is lovely to see you again. And you indicated 

that your initial request was $2.1 billion, and I think just last week 

you asked for another 400-and-some million dollars, for a total for 

the year of about $2.5 billion. 

What has the Administration proposed in their budget? I apologize for not knowing, but what has the Administration proposed for 

Amtrak in their budget? 

Mr. BOARDMAN. What is it, $1.6 billion. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And what was appropriated last year for Amtrak, do you know? 

Mr. BOARDMAN. Just about $1.6 billion. 

AMTRAK BUDGET REQUEST

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay. I guess, is this in your bailiwick, Mr. 

Szabo? Are you in charge of making the budget submission on behalf of the Administration for Amtrak? 

Mr. SZABO. I am here to testify on behalf of that. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay. Well, how come they are asking for $2.5 

billion, and you are only ponying up $1.6 billion? 

Mr. SZABO. Well, let me say this. I mean, first off, obviously in 

the budgeting process there are a lot of negotiations that take 

place, there are a lot of difficult choices that have to be made. It 

is a matter of trying to balance priorities. 

Of course, the most important thing is the fact that the supplemental that has been put in for the fleet plan is new, and has come 

subsequent to the preparation of the President’s 2011 budget. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Right. 

Mr. SZABO. So you know, obviously we have an obligation to work 

with Amtrak to try and find a means to fund that. But for the 

record, I support our budget submission. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Well, and even without the increased 400-andsome million dollars to replace this rolling stock—and this is a 

pretty impressive picture, Mr. Boardman, I have got to tell you— 

that you are still half a billion dollars short in your original. So I 

get tough budget requests, and so forth and so on. 

But you know, I can remember the Bush Administration one 

time said zero. And it became very difficult. And I was not on the 

committee at the time, but I had to work with the Chairman, Mr. 

Olver, and we had to pirate money. And this subcommittee does 

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701 

not have that ability any more, because now it is just THUD. 

[Laughter.] 

In the old days, the way we satisfied that shortfall and sort of 

frustrated the wishes of those that were in the charge at the 

time—I think that was pre-Boardman. We took money out of the 

Public Buildings Fund, which was sitting fat and happy at $7 billion. 

We cannot do that any more on this subcommittee. So, Mr. 

Boardman, you are short half a billion dollars, not even getting 

your rolling stock request. So what does that mean to you? If you 

are at appropriations $1.63 billion, and I guess you are going to 

have to be a good soldier, but if you are at appropriation $1.63 billion, you have asked for $2.1 billion, I assume you did not just 

make up the number. I mean, what are you going to do? 

Mr. BOARDMAN. I think what we have been trying to address in 

the overall, not just the fleet, for example, there is $281 million in 

there to try to address the ADA legislation that was placed on us. 

And the continuing backlog that we have on the, the infrastructure 

that we own in the Northeast Corridor, something that is near and 

dear to your heart, the positive train control that we are planning 

to get implemented on the Northeast Corridor. 

So to us, it means that we fall behind again. We fall behind more 

if we do not find a way to do this. 

I see this as a responsibility of Amtrak is to place this on the 

table wherever we can put it, whether it is here to this Committee, 

or whether it is investigating the opportunity of financing privately 

or publicly, or whatever we would be looking for. We have to find 

a solution, because this is America’s railroad. And I think it needs 

better care. 

In the Northeast alone we had, in the last 10 years, $56 billion 

that went for capital in the highway side. And it was a consistent 

kind of capital. Now we do not have that with this, this program. 

We are $5 billion behind, maybe a little more than that, on our 

infrastructure. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Does the $1.63 billion, or your budget request 

of $2.1 billion, I know that there was some, some labor strife that 

has been settled recently. And my understanding of that is that the 

settlement of those labor agreements called for the back pay in 

some instances, and I do not remember the figure as I am sitting 

here. 

But have all of those obligations been satisfied? And if not, can 

they be satisfied if you are stuck at $1.63 billion? 

Mr. BOARDMAN. We have satisfied them all. The back pay issues 

are complete. 

TRANSIT SAFETY

Mr. LATOURETTE. Right, super. Mr. Rogoff, to you, this American 

component thing is something that has really bothered me for a 

long time. I think, I think the first time I became involved in it, 

it was transit, but it was the ticket machines; it really was not, it 

was not the cars that we were talking about. 

And what we found was that all the parts were made overseas, 

but you know, somebody rented a garage over here and they put 

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the ticket machine together. And they got enough credit to satisfy 

the requirements. 

As you move forward with safety, is signage part of where you 

think you are going to go in the future? And let me ask you specifically. I am concerned that when the power goes off on an electrified 

system, that luminescent signs, for instance, I think would be a 

swell idea, if that technology exists. 

And so is signage that glows in the dark part of the future for 

what you are looking for? 

Mr. ROGOFF. It could be, but I would not want to say that 

dispositively. 

What we have done, Mr. LaTourette, is establish a Rail Safety 

Advisory Committee. We do not need new statutory authority to do 

that. The Secretary has begun standing that up. We have now just 

closed the period for nominations to be on that. It will include a 

broad representation of rail safety experts, management, and labor. 

And our whole regulatory regime for rail safety in transit will be 

led by what that advisory committee advises us are the highestrisk issues. We obviously want to knock down the highest-risk 

issues first, because we are starting with nothing right now. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Will that committee, when it is stood up, accept suggestions? 

Mr. ROGOFF. Absolutely. The idea to do this advisory committee 

was inspired largely by the RSAC and the FRA, where they do take 

external suggestions. And I am sure we will, too. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. When that event occurs, like the shop is open 

for suggestions, could you have somebody just—— 

Mr. ROGOFF. Absolutely. We hope to be announcing our slate of 

participants in the next couple months. And once that is up and 

we have a chairman, maybe I could bring that person to your office 

and we could talk about that. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you very much. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. Mr. Latham. 

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And Mr. Boardman, I 

think the thing that a lot of people obviously look at Amtrak is the 

fact that I think 41 out of 44 of the lines are losing money, subsidized at the rate of about $34 per passenger. 

And I understand that you are serving a lot of areas with lower 

population, like when you cross southern Iowa and Amtrak does 

not even go through a populated part of the state. I mean, which 

always amazed me that, where people would actually get on Amtrak, there is nobody that lives there. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. But we have to get from one state to the next, 

so we do go through Iowa. 

Mr. LATHAM. I know, but there are people in Iowa, too. [Laughter.] 

Mr. BOARDMAN. I know people in Iowa. 

Mr. LATHAM. You do not have to purposely go around them. 

You know, on the positive side, there are, you know, the Acela 

line is making about $41 per passenger, but the Sunset Limited 

continues to lose about $462 per passenger. And even the popular 

Northeast Corridor loses about $5 dollars per passenger. 

What happens if you do not get what your request is, you continue to lose money? You know, the utilization obviously is much 

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heavier on the East Coast, but the rest of the country is paying for 

it. And how do you address that? 

Mr. BOARDMAN. I think that one of the things that I found at 

Amtrak, even before I got at Amtrak, is there are a lot of statistics, 

and there are a lot of averages. And there are a lot of things that 

people can point at. 

But I think what needs to be understood is this is the most efficient railroad in the United States, period. We cover 80 percent of 

our costs in this railroad. There are no transit systems in this 

country that cover that kind of expense. And I do not think that 

there are probably any in the world. 

And so what happens is, we are very large. We operate all over 

the country. And so that the focus becomes on the very rural areas 

of the country. And if the same focus was placed on in Iowa—and 

I happen to be raised on a dairy farm, have family in Clarinda, 

Iowa, and worked in Audubon County, Iowa. 

But if the focus today was on the electrical power supply and 

where it goes in this country, then there would be the argument 

that we should not take it to the places where there is no population. 

I think what we do with, one of the strengths that Amtrak has 

is it connects this country together, coast to coast, border to border. 

And one of the other things that is discoverable, as the Chairman 

pointed out, we discovered really what the facts were when we 

looked at the fleet, we are finding the facts on what we have as 

an efficient railroad truly exist. 

And when you are out, on our system as I was out in Chicago 

about two weeks ago at what we call a town hall meeting, what 

we hear is that our prices are very high. And they are. We charge 

a lot of money to ride the railroad. And people want it to be better. 

And one of the things that is preventing us from making it better 

is this aging-out of the equipment that we really have. 

I think today we do not generally understand—and I am not 

pointing fingers at other modes when I say this, because I have 

been a state transportation commissioner. I know the difficulties 

that the highway guys have. I know the difficulties that aviation 

has. 

But there has been a regular investment going into the highways, going into the airports, going into the transit systems that 

have not existed for America’s railroad, for Amtrak. 

And so instead, we get distracted by the high cost for a particular section of one route that does not deliver what the country 

would expect to be delivered. But when you look at the overall, and 

the connectivity for this country, you have a very good deal with 

Amtrak. 

Mr. LATHAM. How do you—even the Northeast Corridor, you are 

losing five dollars per passenger. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. We are actually making 121 percent of our cost 

above the rail, so the non-capital cost, on the Acela service in the 

Northeast Corridor. 

Mr. LATHAM. Acela. But that is not all of the Northeast Corridor. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. And the Regional, when you add to it and you 

put it all together, we do not do as well. It is because business— 

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704 

and it is primarily businesspeople that ride the Acela, because time 

is money. And other folks do go by the Regional operation. 

We see more and more of the service on the Northeast Corridor. 

We need to get to two hours between New York and Washington, 

and three hours between Washington and Boston. 

And we are working today, I talked in my testimony about creating a high-speed rail group, division. It will have two focuses. 

One is in the area that has already been identified by somebody 

else with a vision, like California and Florida, and we want to be 

the operator of those. And the other is the Northeast Corridor, and 

how we can make it faster. 

Even sometimes, Congressman, people do not understand the difference between miles per hour and kilometers per hour. And the 

Europeans talk about over 200 kilometers per hour or 240 kilometers per hour; 240 is 150 miles an hour, and that is what we 

operate. 

But we operate every day at over 200 kilometers per hour, and 

we could do it with more trains if we did not have, as in the last 

photo shows, the Heritage cars, where we cannot go any more than 

110, which is 160 plus whatever, 16. So it is ’76. I will be stretching my conversion factor here. 

We deliver better mobility in the Northeast Corridor. We have 40 

million people within 40 miles of that corridor. It is the best corridor to run high-speed rail in the United States. 

Mr. LATHAM. Can I ask each of you, I guess, a question? And I 

think you are doing a great job, myself. I mean, in a really difficult 

situation. 

Mr. ROGOFF. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. LATHAM. I really do, I appreciate it. It must be that Iowa 

touch. [Laughter.] 

Mr. LATHAM. Can I ask each of you, though, who is right? I 

mean, should the money—you have got a total of what, about $14 

billion over time, you are talking about for new high-speed, new 

stuff, new, shiny stuff? And you are dying because you have got old 

equipment that is falling off the track. Where is the priority? Who 

is right? 

You have got him asking for an additional billion dollars more 

than what you are going to give him, because he has got desperate 

needs. And here we are spending all this additional money on new, 

shiny stuff. I mean, and maybe that is great, I do not know. 

Mr. SZABO. Well, I think there is two parts to that answer. I 

mean, first, when it comes to Amtrak’s general budget request, 

again, we have to make some very, very difficult decisions, as anybody does when they are proposing a budget. 

But when it comes to the high-speed rail program, literally the 

Northeast Corridor is eligible as a recipient of those grants. And 

it kind of comes back to what Joe was talking about in getting his 

Northeast Corridor Committee set up, under PRIIA. We are moving 

forward, the Secretary is, with getting the Northeast Corridor Commission set up to start planning the steps that it is going to take 

to bring the Corridor to the next level. And it is clearly part of our 

vision. 

Mr. LATHAM. Yes? 

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STATE OF GOOD REPAIR

Mr. ROGOFF. I think in trying to bring this to a transit context, 

Mr. Latham, I think you have put your finger on an issue that we 

wrestle with every day, and are wrestling with increasingly. And 

that is the tension between the desire for people to have new systems, and the challenge in having enough money to maintain the 

systems they have. 

And we are, at the FTA, taking a hard look at this. You know, 

a lot of the attention our agency gets actually is not where the bulk 

of our money is; a lot of it is on the brand-new systems we are 

building. And as I am sure you can appreciate as an elected Member, there was a lot of enthusiasm by the electeds, both federal, 

state, and local, when you are providing a new service to a community. 

But the state of good repair of existing systems is also an emerging high priority for the whole Department, under Secretary 

LaHood. And it is not just transit; it also has to do with the condition of our highways, the condition of our runways. It is going to 

be one of our emerging strategic goals. 

And we have to take a hard look. We have got a situation right 

now in a number of cities that are simultaneous trying to build 

new new-starts, which is to say expand their footprint, when they 

are really struggling to put adequate funding into maintaining 

their existing footprint. And we have to make a difficult call as to 

whether we are going to let some of those projects go forward. 

So you are on to a very telling issue, and that is, how do we balance, in an area of scarce resources, the issue of what we can afford 

to build out new. This Administration wants more transit service; 

we want to provide more transit opportunities to more communities. 

But we also know that if we under-invest in the existing service, 

and that service becomes unreliable or, worse still, unsafe, we are 

going to lose transit riders on the existing service. 

So if you look at the FTA budget, I mentioned before we have 

an 8 percent increase for our state-of-good-repair efforts, both rail 

and bus. But the overall budget increases only 1 percent, while 

there are reductions elsewhere in our budget. 

One of the areas is our new starts budget, which goes down $200 

million from what you provided us in 2010. That was a difficult 

tradeoff, but we felt that the state of good repair was critically important. 

Mr. LATHAM. I do not know if you have any comments. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. Well, I guess the only thing I would say is that 

it is a very difficult question. It is like the question of what is more 

important, your hands or your feet, your eyes. 

And I would say that it is critical that we have connectivity with 

Peter’s transit systems in order to make intercity passenger rail 

work. 

We are not falling off the rails. We have, as one of the greatest 

strengths, not only that we connect border to border and coast to 

coast, is we have a workforce that understands how to get the job 

done. So we have tremendous ability. 

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And one final thing. We have a great workforce that has a memory that said, and they passed it to me, that the original 1971 plan 

was for Amtrak to go through southern Iowa simply because this 

is part of the state that was so underserved by other modes. So I 

just thought I would give you the reason why we are down where 

we are, in Iowa. 

Mr. LATHAM. It is probably because there are no people there. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BOARDMAN. Just trying to be responsive, Congressman. That 

was the 1971 plan, when they were put together. 

Mr. LATHAM. 1971 plan. Oh, you would use that one. I thought 

it was because it was the end of the old Northern Pacific, or probably the old Northern Pacific that went that route. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. It might be that, too. 

Mr. LATHAM. It is 50 miles away from any populated center. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. Yes. 

Mr. OLVER. All of those years ago, before anyone decided that 

they would—some of us would remember where they grew up in 

Des Moines as the center city of Iowa. Anyway. 

What we have just had, this has been a very good conversation. 

What we have just had is really passionate statements by Mr. 

Boardman, and very, very cerebral statements being made by Mr. 

Rogoff. The other end of the line and in between—— 

Mr. SZABO. And I am right in the middle. [Laughter.] 

Mr. OLVER. All I can do in this is to generalize, to assert that 

we are really very, very far behind in our capital investment programs, across the board essentially. And that goes to the authorization. I think that our subcommittee members would generally agree 

with that. 

How we are going to pay for them in order to make the balance, 

the right balance, is a different question. What they agree with is 

we have really serious needs in a capital program, whether for 

state of good repair or for expansion, both of them. 

Mr. LATHAM. Just if we are having a conversation, and not on 

anybody’s time here, but that is why—and I said last year, I think 

we missed a huge opportunity in the Stimulus to take a bunch of 

that money that is being spent on God knows what, it is not going 

to have any long-lasting benefit. 

And we have got these tremendous infrastructure needs. And we 

should be doing these things. And that is where the money should 

be spent. 

I mean, you could take care of 700-and-whatever, $87 billion if 

you just took 10 percent of that. Think what you could do for infrastructure, for high-speed rail, for Amtrak, for new system. I mean, 

that is where the investment should be, rather than all the new 

other things that do not produce anything. 

Mr. OLVER. At the same time, there had been such a deficit over 

a period of time that people really did not have the plans ready to 

go, or the designs ready to go, to spend a lot more of that money 

at that time. And so many of the parts of the Stimulus Plan were 

intended to spend out more quickly. 

Mr. LATHAM. Right, right. 

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Mr. OLVER. Whereas much of what is in the transportation infrastructure side requires some lead time to be able to get there. So 

we probably could, now. 

Mr. LATHAM. We never will get there—— 

Mr. OLVER. If we keep up the momentum, we probably could 

produce more in the future. We have clearly those examples every 

time the $50 billion, for which we had $8 billion to go out, another 

$50 billion for the TIGER grants. Mr. Rogoff just tells us in his testimony that they had at least 10, between 10 and 20 times the 

amount of money requested for your two little hundred, 120, 150 

million-dollar NOFAs that you are going to be giving out in June, 

in a couple months. You had at least 10 on the one, and 20 times 

on the other, the requests for those funds. 

Mr. ROGOFF. Yes, TIGER was $60 billion for one—— 

Mr. OLVER. Goes to show the kind of deficit. You mentioned, Mr. 

Boardman, that you had $5 billion—I do not like to hear that we 

want to get to two hours from New York to Washington, and three 

hours from New York to Boston. They should be darn close. They 

should be within half an hour, at least. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. We will make them both two and a half. [Laughter.] 

Mr. OLVER. Yes, well, all right. But if the next time you make 

that comparison you use two and a half, I will still bitch. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. I understand. [Laughter.] 

Mr. ROGOFF. Mr. Chairman, I am all for you bitching at Joe, but 

I think—— 

Mr. BOARDMAN. Thanks, Peter. 

Mr. ROGOFF. There is an issue here that I think you need to recognize. We have worked very hard to get Boston down to three 

hours from four and a half, when we originally electrified New 

Haven to Boston. This was in the nineties. 

There are some real infrastructure issues about the curvature of 

that track that will really undermine your ability to get down to 

two hours. But—— 

Mr. OLVER. There are longer stretches from New York to Washington that go quite straight. 

Mr. ROGOFF. Right. 

Mr. OLVER. And on the whole, probably less environmental 

issues. 

Mr. ROGOFF. Absolutely, especially on the seashore. 

Mr. OLVER. I am willing, if in my lifetime I could see two and 

a half hours from Boston, and two hours from Washington to get 

to New York, I would be pretty happy. 

Mr. ROGOFF. Well, if you do not, it is Boardman’s fault. [Laughter.] 

Mr. OLVER. Well, yes. By the way, I was sort of using my own 

time here, my 10 minutes or whatever, in order to give Mr. Berry 

a chance to come in. If you guys do not mind, I will go to Mr. Berry 

next. Okay. Would you like to take your time? You can have as 

much as 10 minutes, if you have as many things to say as our 

other Members have had. 

Mr. BERRY. Well, a lot of the discussion is about how we need 

to expand our infrastructure. And I support that. And it sounds 

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708 

like what we need is a Stimulus bill every year, which would be 

real popular. 

And I support these things. I apologize for missing your discussion in the beginning of the meeting. I just want to raise one issue 

with you. 

In the district that I represent, one of the, if not the, greatest 

problem we have with the railroads is the way they treat their 

neighbors and the communities that they go through. 

And in many cases, with total disregard for the law, whether it 

be state, federal, local, or whatever that might be. And it is a really 

difficult thing to get their attention. And even when you do get 

their attention, the first, second, and third answer is always no, we 

are not going to do that, hope it works out for you, and pretty much 

ends there most of the time. Because few people have the resources 

to try to engage them in a meaningful way. 

And I would ask for your help in trying to work through. These 

are generally very minor situations, but their impact on a small 

group of people is major. And when you take all a man has got, 

it does not matter whether it is a little bit or a lot, it is all he had. 

And that is what we are dealing with sometimes, that they cause 

that kind of harm to a small landowner or an individual that is not 

necessarily well off. 

And I would ask your help to do that. 

Mr. SZABO. Congressman, I will be happy to help. We will make 

a point to come by and see you and discuss issues. And obviously, 

where we have a regulation, we will enforce it; where we do not, 

we will use the power of the bully pulpit. 

Mr. BERRY. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I 

yield back. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. I am going to go to Mr. Latham. 

Mr. LATHAM. I am just curious. You said earlier that you recover 

about 80 percent of your costs. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. Operating costs. 

Mr. LATHAM. Operating costs. And that for some lines now today, 

that some of the fares are too expensive to begin with. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. That is what we hear from our customers. 

Mr. LATHAM. And so we are going to be expanding the system 

dramatically. Is the expectation going to be, from one of you, that, 

with all this new investment in high-speed rail, and it sounds good 

and everything, that we are going to do any better? 

Mr. BOARDMAN. Yes. Let me address that. First of all, for the 

fleet that we are talking about here, this is not an expansion. 

Mr. LATHAM. I realize that. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. It is a replacement. 

Mr. LATHAM. But it is a model of, you are saying the fares are 

already too high, and we are going to be building this whole new 

system again. And you are talking about not even recovering capital expenditures. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. Well, capital expenditures in terms—yes. You 

cannot cover all your capital, just like you cannot in any of the 

other modes. So setting capital aside, what I want to address is 

your question about whether this gets paid for in the future, and 

how do we deal with this. 

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709 

And that is that when you really look at how do we, how should 

Amtrak go forward, the Northeast Corridor is one piece of Amtrak. 

It has the national system, which connects coast-to-coast, borderto-border. And it is just a requirement here, just like the interstate 

highway system is you cannot stop it at the border, you have to 

have it go through. 

Commuter rail systems need to stand on their own. They are 

funded often by Peter, but they need to stand on their own when 

they deal with Amtrak, and they have to pay for themselves. So 

Amtrak looks at that as part of a business proposition for Amtrak, 

not a subsidy proposition for Amtrak. So there should be money 

coming in the door. 

And Congress has made that very clear to us in the past, that 

it is important on the commuter side of things that Amtrak make 

money with that. 

It is the same in the high-speed rail that is being proposed for 

Amtrak. Amtrak looks at those, we want to operate the high-speed 

rail, but Amtrak has to be paid for that by those that are funding 

the high-speed rail. And the expectation by them, the estimates, 

the decisions that they make, are the decisions that pay whoever 

the operator is to run that. 

So Amtrak is looking like a business, Congressman, to deliver 

the product at a lower cost to Congress for the future. That we 

have less subsidy, that we cover more of our costs, because we are 

finding more business opportunities to do that. 

Mr. SZABO. The high-speed rail program essentially is a state 

driven program for the capital needs that are federally funded. So 

ultimately it is the states that have to assume responsibility for the 

operations, should there be any deficit. 

But the model that you actually want to compare it to is the 

Acela service. You know, where, again, from an operating standpoint, they are covering operations, and perhaps a little bit above, 

but the capital is provided. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. Let me—and Joe, you brought up the right 

thing, and I did not say it. When we estimated the new Lynchburg 

Service that started last year here in Virginia, what the cost would 

be, we picked up enough ridership that there was no necessity for 

a subsidy by the State of Virginia for that service here just recently. 

So there is a backlog of demand that is out there, that I do not 

think is well understood, in the country, of the services that are 

being desired. 

Mr. SZABO. Yes. The bottom line is that when you have the frequency of service, the quality of service, it generates ridership. You 

have a very, very strong opportunity to, at a minimum, cover your 

operating costs. 

FUNDING TRANSIT AGENCIES

Mr. LATHAM. Are not a lot of the local transit organizations asking the federal government for operating funds this year? 

Mr. ROGOFF. There is a lot of focus on the desire for operating 

funds, because we have service cutbacks going on, and layoffs going 

on at a number of transit agencies really, coast to coast. And that 

comes even after we have boosted our agency’s funding of those 

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710 

agencies, some 84 percent in a single year, through the Recovery 

Act. 

The vast majority of that money was for capital expenses. There 

was some additional flexibility granted to allow that to be used for, 

about 10 percent of each large agency’s grant could use it for operating expenses. 

But the reality is, between the loss of sales tax revenue, especially transit agencies that are dependent on sales tax revenue, 

those revenues went down so fast that they are really struggling 

to keep services and employment levels constant. 

We even have some transit agencies that are dependent on property transfer tax revenues. So you can imagine what happened to 

those in the real estate bust. 

So yes, there has been increased focus. We heard a lot of it last 

week, when the transit agencies and the unions were in town. And 

we are looking at some, in some states, some really quite dire cuts. 

Mr. LATHAM. Does the plan take that into consideration long 

term? Or does your budget this year allow for funding for operations at the local level? 

Mr. ROGOFF. Our budget does not have increased flexibility specifically for operations. There already is flexibility in the law that 

allows capital funds for some operating-type costs—this whole debate really pertains to agencies in cities of 200,000 or more. They 

are the ones that must use their funds solely for capital expenses. 

But our definition of capital expenses also includes preventive 

maintenance. That is, in many cases, an operating-type expense. 

But here, you go right of the tension that we talked about before; 

and that is the tension between operating costs and the tension of 

putting enough money in the state of good repair on the capital 

side to keep things up and running. 

And the Secretary has said that he has an open mind, and is interested in having a dialogue with Congress as to whether operating costs should be, at least on a temporary basis, recognizing the 

current economic reality, a permissible expense. 

But we do not propose anything in the budget that expands that 

opportunity at present. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. And I have run over, Mr. Chairman. Thank 

you. 

FTA NOTICE OF FUNDING AVAILABILITY

Mr. OLVER. I think you are trying to get us back to five-minute 

sessions here, but that is perfectly all right. We can go back and 

forth. 

I would like to explore a little bit the program that I mentioned, 

the two NOFAs that you have out that you have worked on. 

Have you found, in those that have been assessed by now, you 

have got all the applications are now in. You know you have how 

many, there are 65 applications in the one case, and in the other 

case, 150 or whatever it is. 

All those applications are now in and under assessment, I take 

it. 

Mr. ROGOFF. They are under assessment. They are not all completely assessed. 

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Mr. OLVER. Do you find them to be cookie cutter kinds of applications? 

Mr. ROGOFF. No. We are actually finding a very broad diversity, 

both under the urban circulator and the bus livability programs, 

some urban, some rural, some suburb, and some coming at the livability challenge, fulfilling two or three or four of the five principles 

that we articulated in the NOFA. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. In the case of the, well, the TIGER grants 

were being covered and being assessed by all of you, I take it. 

Mr. ROGOFF. Correct. 

Mr. OLVER. Or at least, I do not know whether you were involved 

in the assessment. 

Mr. ROGOFF. No. 

Mr. OLVER. But at least the two Administrators here were involved in TIGER grants. 

Mr. ROGOFF. As was highways and—— 

Mr. OLVER. Along with MARAD and so on. Did you, in those that 

you have seen or know about, were they one size fits all in any 

way? 

Mr. ROGOFF. No. Especially because the TIGER eligibility was so 

broad, we had everything from freight rail projects, including port 

projects. This was, I think, one of the great opportunities that we 

fulfilled in the actual awards. We had some true intermodal 

projects that combined highway improvements and the transit improvements in one grant. 

Mr. OLVER. In the rail items, in the high-speed rail items, under 

the High-Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail Program, that $8 billion program, were they one size fits all? 

Mr. SZABO. Oh, no. On the contrary. 

LIVABILITY

Mr. OLVER. All right. That was my impression. And it seems to 

me all of these things that you are talking about, and some of them 

have to do with the livability and sustainability issue, they are almost certainly, the sustainability and livability, the very definitions 

of those vary whether you are in an urban area, or a suburban 

area, or in a rural area. 

Mr. ROGOFF. Correct. 

Mr. OLVER. And what we are looking for is options, transportation options, that also meet the concepts in all of their glory of 

what sustainability and livability may be. That is my sense of this. 

So I am sorry, the Ranking Member earlier on made a comment 

about one, he is very worried about one size fits all. But I think 

what we have been doing is very much in contravention, direct contravention of one size fits all, it seems to me, in the transportation 

programs that we have been functioning in. 

Mr. ROGOFF. Yes. And there are some enduring themes, but they 

are principally built around how you enable people to be mobile 

who either do not have a car or want to get out of their car or basically choose to use public transportation, to go to the community 

around them. So, let me give you an example that is an important 

livability challenge for us because it is an important emerging need 

for the whole nation: the elderly, especially the isolated elderly, 

and how do we allow the isolated elderly to age in place. I go up 

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to northern Michigan every summer and in a lot of those communities, a lot of jobs have left and the people that are remaining in 

those communities are elderly. They need to go farther and farther 

to their healthcare services, whether it is the VA hospital or just 

to be part of the community and actually be able to go to the community center and get to the center of their town to get to shopping, to get to church. And not all of those elderly are on the road 

and not all of them should be on the road. That is a livability challenge. 

Mr. OLVER. Let me get some comment—— 

Mr. ROGOFF. I am sorry. 

Mr. OLVER [continuing]. From Mr. Szabo. I agree with you totally. 

Mr. SZABO. I just wanted to say whether you are talking about 

the TIGER grant program or whether you are talking about the 

high-speed rail program, the strength of them is the fact that it allowed DOT to shape the applications based on what their needs 

were and that there was absolute flexibility to meet state and local 

needs in favor of those applications. Or it was far from a cookie 

cutter; on the contrary, the exact opposite. 

Mr. ROGOFF. It actually made it very challenging to have one application compete against another because of the diversity between 

them. 

Mr. OLVER. At the same time, one cannot have things that have 

to serve a national plan essentially and not have things that simply 

do not connect with each other. So—— 

Mr. ROGOFF. Well, the applications, while flexible had to 

achieve—— 

Mr. OLVER [continuing]. Which is why we have high-speed rail 

corridors that we are trying to achieve a certain national kind of 

program—— 

Mr. ROGOFF. The applications have to be broader—— 

Mr. OLVER [continuing]. At the same time that sections of it 

might be quite different. 

Mr. SZABO. Yes. 

Mr. OLVER. Right, have quite diversity. 

Mr. SZABO. Have to be part of the Administration’s goals. 

Mr. OLVER. Whose turn is it here anyway? Mr. Berry. You are 

going to pass? You are going to pass. All right. Mr. Latham. 

REPLACING BUS FLEETS

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to go back to 

when we first opened up the hearing today talking about transit, 

you know, bus transportation systems, transit systems. In a State 

like Iowa, where we put in about 62 million dollars here, we get 

back about 38.8 million and we have the—it is kind of like Amtrak. 

We have got these really, really old buses sitting there that are not 

efficient, environmentally not very friendly. What can we do to address that? I mean, my communities are just having a real problem 

with all of this money going elsewhere and there are real problems 

at home. Can you help me? 

Mr. ROGOFF. Yes, I can and I think we are helping and this is 

how. When you look at the Recovery Act, 11 out of the 12 grants 

that went for transit in Iowa were used to purchase vehicles. In 

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fact, there are some 249 new vehicles that have been ordered with 

Recovery Act dollars in Iowa. And what I am told is that between 

the Recovery Act resource and the regular 5307 formula dollars 

that Iowa gets, over the last few years with these purchases, the 

percentage of your fleet that will be over-age will go down very rapidly, from about 60 percent to 40 percent. 

But that said, if you remember from my opening statement, I 

said that one of the things we are concerned about is that 40 percent of the bus fleet is over-age, which is to say these funds have 

now brought Iowa to the national average. So, 40 percent, I would 

argue, is not good enough. 

We talked a lot this morning about the Bus Livability NOFA and 

what that was, was discretionary bus funds that we put out as a 

competition for livability principles. But in 2010, you also have generously granted us probably a historic high in unearmarked discretionary bus dollars and we plan to put that out for competition, too. 

And our focus for a large chunk of that money will, in fact, be State 

of Good Repair, to address things like not only the aging fleet, but 

aging facilities. So, that competition is upcoming. I will make sure 

that our region in Kansas City that deals with the Iowa folks everyday makes sure that everyone gets the full information they 

need to compete under that program because, as we said, we have 

made huge strides with the Recovery Act to deal with the aging of 

bus fleet, but we can do more. 

Mr. LATHAM. One concern I have, a lot of the buses did not replace the oldest buses in the State, if that makes sense, because 

a lot of the systems we have, they have some of the oldest buses, 

did not get funding. 

Mr. ROGOFF. But a lot of the systems, in a State like Iowa, are 

funded through the statewide grant and it is up to the Iowa DOT 

to allocate those funds based on need. Also, Iowa has had a statewide earmark from time to time for bus purchases. So, I think 

there is maybe some work to do. It is called an earmark. It is hard 

given my history to deride them, so I am just saying it like it is. 

But, it is important. Perhaps a conversation also needs to happen 

with DOT more about how that gets allocated. 

Mr. LATHAM. In your testimony, you talked about creating two 

new programs out of the bus and bus facilities discretionary dollars 

that were not earmarked, one for 130 million for the Urban Circular Systems Program, another for 150 million for the Livability 

Program. In a place like Iowa, we do not have a lot of the urban 

districts and like we talked about have some of the oldest buses. 

I am just wondering if we are going to get—in the formula get— 

I hate to discriminate against, but the discretionary programs are 

not going to be able to fund rural transit systems. Where the new 

emphasis is, is away from places like where I live. 

Mr. ROGOFF. Well, I will agree. Obviously, the Urban Circular 

Program is a hard one to bring into a rural context. I think you 

will see some rural grants coming out of the livability initiative. 

But importantly, we will put an even larger chunk of money on the 

street for the State of Good Repair Program, and that is one which 

I expect especially systems with aging facilities and their aging 

fleet will do well. 

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I think what you may be referring to is in our budget proposal. 

If we merge the bus program into a formularized the State of Good 

Repair Program, will it recognize bus needs. And it is our expectation that it will fully recognize bus needs and buses will get—you 

know, the majority of my operators are soley bus operators. While 

rail gets a lot of attention, the reality is not only the majority of 

our operators, but the majority of transit trips are taken by bus 

and we have not lost sight of that. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. I see I am out of time, Mr. Chairman. 

TIGER GRANTS

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. For the two of you, who are involved in 

the TIGER grant assessments earlier, do you expect to be equally 

involved in the TIGER grant assessments for the 2010 monies, 600 

million dollars that are out there? 

Mr. ROGOFF. I believe it is our expectation that it will be standing up the same interagency teams to evaluate those grants. 

Mr. OLVER. Are you aware, if you want to sort of confer and 

agree on what the timetable is likely to be on when those are ready 

to be out? 

Mr. ROGOFF. I think the goal is to—— 

Mr. OLVER. That would be up to the Secretary, I suppose. 

Mr. ROGOFF. Yes. I mean, I am quite sure the goal is to complete 

that process through the summer to get awards out in the fall and 

we have just not been given a hard schedule yet. 

Mr. OLVER. Well, given the job situation, the earlier the better, 

of course, on those things from my point of view. 

Mr. ROGOFF. And we are taking the same approach with our discretionary transit dollars. The Recovery Office very much wants us 

to get that on the street as soon as we can. 

NEW STARTS CRITERIA

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Rogoff, on New Starts, the Secretary announced 

earlier that you were going to now be evaluating equally all the criteria when considering projects for the New Starts Program. Exactly what does that mean? 

Mr. ROGOFF. Well, it was a major change. As you may be aware, 

Mr. Chairman, in the statute for evaluating New Starts projects, 

there are designated areas which we are supposed to evaluate 

projects and they include mobility benefits, economic development 

benefits, land use, and how that land use planning fits into the 

value of that project, and environmental benefits. In 2005, that 

whole process got done away with and the only criteria to get funding in the President’s budget was the cost effectiveness index, a 

very narrow criterion. And what we found is that criterion was actually working against our livability goals because it was resulting 

in some very perverse effects on which projects got funding and 

which projects did not. And some of the very reasons why projects 

were running afoul of the cost effectiveness index were things that 

we wanted to promote. There were even some projects that wanted 

to have added safety equipment and had to take that safety equipment out because of the added cost. So, the Secretary announced 

that we would do away with that single criterion and go back to 

the approach that is in the law. 

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Mr. OLVER. Does that mean that there is going to be sort of a 

scoring mechanism whereby each of three or five categories of considerations have equal weight in the scoring? How does that function? 

Mr. ROGOFF. Well, the SAFETEA—— 

Mr. OLVER. How does the concept of equally evaluate all the criteria—— 

Mr. ROGOFF. The SAFETEA–LU Technical Corrections Act included language to require us to weight them all equally. What 

they were trying to get at was to get around that single criterion 

focused on cost effectiveness. We now have language that tells us 

to weight them equally. I will tell you this, we are going to put an 

ANPRM on the street shortly soliciting input from all stakeholders 

to ask them how they think we should evaluate these projects 

going forward. So, we are taking a fresh look at this whole issue 

with the input of the public. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. And so what kinds of projects are really going 

to benefit from this change? 

Mr. ROGOFF. Well, I think the kind of projects that will benefit 

are those that, in some ways, embody the livability principles and 

that they have very, very good land use planning, even if they may 

have expensive right-of-way that they need to procure. Let me give 

you one example because that is the most concrete example we 

have. We have a project that was going to fail, potentially fail the 

cost effectiveness index and now because of the change, we can do 

better things with it. That is the light rail system between Minneapolis and St. Paul. In order to not run afoul of the cost effectiveness index, the Met Council is going to build, instead of three stations in the heart of the African American and Asian community 

in Ramsey County, only foundations for the stations, but not the 

stations themselves. This change has allowed us to partner with 

them to build those three stations, which we think is a laudable 

and important goal. 

SMALL STARTS

Mr. OLVER. Okay. Let us see here, I had one other thing I wanted to ask you. I notice in your testimony, you speak of new starts 

and small starts. What has happened here to the very small starts? 

There is no reference to the very small starts, only the lowest category in the reference and, also, it seems to me, in the budget, 

itself. Has it just simply been subsumed in the—— 

Mr. ROGOFF. Yes. The small starts. It is a parlance issue. The 

request that we have for the Small Starts Program embodies both 

the small starts and the very small starts. We do have different criteria for each. We do not generally have a—— 

Mr. OLVER. That is no more than 75 million in the small starts 

and no more than 250—— 

Mr. ROGOFF. Two-hundred-and-fifty, right. 

Mr. OLVER [continuing]. Million total investment in the program, 

whereas the very small starts are generally viewed as 80 

percenters and the 50 million maximum for the project. 

Mr. ROGOFF. And we do not generally include an explicit dollar 

requests for very small starts and, therefore, it is not exclusion by 

design. It is just sort of how we have handled it in the past. 

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HIGH-SPEED INTERCITY PASSENGER RAIL

Mr. OLVER. To Mr. Szabo, I think you have done a wonderful 

thing in managing the way we have gotten out the program thus 

far because we did throw in the ARRA funding a year ago and a 

lot of stuff at the agencies, particularly the FRA. They are something quite unexpected for anybody who had been watching a 

month before it had happened. Can you give me an update as to 

just how you have been doing on the adding of personnel that come 

out of the needs for—let us see here—writing for the 2011 budget, 

where you have asked for some additional personnel. So, it is in the 

2010 budget. How are we doing on the development—on the filling 

of those positions that you are allocated in the 2010 budget? 

Mr. SZABO. Well, extremely well. We have been working diligently at getting new personnel hired. We have several of them on 

board. Mark, we have an actual total of how many in so far? Yes, 

five on hand so far, but continue to do the interviews. Very happy 

with the caliber of the personnel that we are getting. We feel good 

about the future and the staffing that we are getting on board. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. I am going to ask more specific questions of 

you in that area later. 

Mr. SZABO. Okay. 

Mr. OLVER. From my point, I do not want to make my ranking 

member too annoyed at me. I would like to know, how are we doing 

on the awarding of the announced $8 billion in the high-speed rail 

grants? Where are we on the process of the award, the actual 

award of those because that means contracts and such. 

Mr. SZABO. Exactly. What we have done, we put into effect a fast 

track process. We are working with the State DOTs and helping 

them prioritize their projects, to determine which ones clearly are 

the most ready to go. And essentially, what we are doing is setting 

up a process where it is almost like your faucet, where you turn 

the water on and it just steadily continues to flow out. And so by 

getting those projects that are most ready to go out the door right 

now, as we continue to help the States further develop those, it just 

made a little bit more work. And continue to work on those, it 

made quite a bit more work, we get this steady progression. 

Mr. OLVER. That is perfectly reasonable, it would seem to me. 

Have any been awarded now, actually awarded? 

Mr. SZABO. No. 

Mr. OLVER. When are we going to begin to see that faucet begin 

to open? 

Mr. SZABO. I would say about—— 

Mr. OLVER. That is where the jobs are. When they are awarded, 

then they can begin to move on them. 

Mr. SZABO. Yeah. I would say about the next 60 days. 

Mr. OLVER. Sixty days. And those awards, do you expect those 

to be all awarded by the end of this year, by the end of this fiscal 

year? 

Mr. SZABO. Yeah. There will be some letters of—some cooperative 

agreements, some letters of intent. You know, it is a little bit again 

like there is not the one size fits all, where everything will be a 

fixed agreement. 

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Mr. OLVER. I sort of mixed up the argument. The argument I 

made was in the ARRA fund, which the actual announcements 

were made back in January. 

Mr. SZABO. Right. 

Mr. OLVER. The 2010 monies, the $2.5 billion for that, are they 

going to be following the same sort of a grant process? 

Mr. SZABO. What we will be doing, actually, there will be a couple of NOFAs coming out. By the end of March, we will have our 

notice of funds available out for the planning money that comes out 

of the $2.5 billion. And also for the—— 

Mr. OLVER. Which was how much? Remind me? 

Mr. SZABO. $50 million for the planning money. 

Mr. OLVER. $50 million for the planning money. 

Mr. SZABO. And the NOFA will be out by the end of this month, 

by the end of March on that. And then also the remaining balance 

on the 2009, the 50-50 project money, we are going to circle that 

back out around—— 

Mr. OLVER. So, you are still working on 2009 money? 

Mr. SZABO. Yes. There was a little bit of 2000—some loose 

change I would call it. It was 50-50 project money. It was track 

four under the last round that was put out. And, first, because 

there was 100 percent money available under ARRA, not too many 

folks applied for the 50-50 money. And, so now, we have the States 

coming back, they are saying, you know, now that awardees have 

been selected, would you put that out for another round of applications? 

Mr. OLVER. The $2.5 billion is match money. 

Mr. SZABO. The $2.5 billion, we will have the NOFA out on that 

by the end of the spring and that is match money at the 80 percent 

federal with the 20 percent state or local match. And, again, the 

goal is to have that awarded by the end of this fiscal year, by the 

end of September. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. 

Mr. BOARDMAN. I think all the Administrators put 50–50. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. OLVER. What I now have is my ranking member has another 

question. I should shut up and then we will be able to go. Mr. 

Latham. 

Mr. LATHAM. No, I am just curious what has gone out. I mean, 

there is no contracts—— 

Mr. ROGOFF. You are talking about on the eight billion? 

Mr. LATHAM. Right. 

Mr. SZABO. Again, the announcement was just made 60 days ago. 

We are in the process of working with the States and in the next 

30 to 60 days, we will see some initial awards made. 

Mr. SZABO. It is probably worth remembering, I mean, the idea 

of the stimulus was—— 

Mr. OLVER. More of the high-speed rail. We put $8 billion out, 

but we still could not get any working. 

Mr. LATHAM. I know. But, you are not going to be able to plan 

long term if there is not a commitment. And my point is that we 

should be putting a hell of a lot more money into this than we 

should in spending on other programs that have no long-term benefit. And, obviously, this is not having a stimulus effect now either 

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718 

because there are no contracts that are let. The money is not going 

to go out of the door probably for a year or more at least before 

anything actually happens. So, I mean if the idea of a stimulus was 

to stimulate the economy, it is not working. 

Mr. SZABO. But if you recall when the stimulus bill was passed, 

there was a third—— 

Mr. LATHAM. I remember. 

Mr. SZABO [continuing]. An exception was made for the high- speed rail program that gave us until 2012 to obligate the $8 billion. And an important part of this, you know, is getting the States 

prepared. The States have had 80 years of experience in executing 

road and highway projects. They are very experienced. They have, 

you know, instead of plans on a shelf, but as soon as funding becomes available, they have their next project that they are ready 

to move forward. In most cases, the same was not true in States 

when it comes to rail. So, it is a matter of partnership, working together. 

Mr. LATHAM. I think you are making my point, is that they will 

never have long-term plans if there is not a funding source out 

there. And rather than spend money on a bunch of other things 

that will not do anything besides grow more government, we 

should actually have this commitment out there, so that they can 

plan for the future. This is where we have been. He is starving 

over here and you are saying that you have $8 billion sitting there 

that you are not going to get out of the door, he can spend tomorrow, right? Could he not spend it tomorrow? Does not he have a 

need for it? 

Mr. BOARDMAN. I would take a good shot at it. [Laughter.] 

Mr. LATHAM. No. But this would actually create maybe some jobs 

right away if he had that money here today, rather than—— 

Mr. SZABO. Obviously, there is a challenge with the high-speed 

rail program because you are balancing sometimes conflicting 

goals, which is the immediate job creation, but the transitional—— 

Mr. LATHAM. It is a stimulus package. The idea was to stimulate 

the economy. 

Mr. ROGOFF. Well, just to weigh in, I just want to remind you, 

since we are talking specifically in the rail context. When you look 

at our other surface transportation initiatives, my agency’s stimulus money, $8.4 billion dollars, is 100 percent obligated and 25 

percent disbursed. Highway is not very far behind me. Money is 

getting into the ground. Albeit, we did recognize, when I was in a 

different capacity, when we put in the high-speed rail money, that 

it would need a longer obligation deadline because a lot of these 

projects were starting without a lot of experience. 

Mr. SZABO. We are setting up a brand new program. But, we feel 

good about the progress that has, in fact, already been made and 

feel good about the direction that we are heading. 

Mr. LATHAM. I wish I could feel better with you. That is my only 

question, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. With that, I think you may actually agree with me that the $1 billion, which is a continuation for the next year, which 

is in my original comments, if that seems not enough to keep the 

momentum, to give people the sense that we were really serious 

about this—— 

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Mr. LATHAM. We just had testimony they cannot spend it now. 

Mr. OLVER. Well, I will explore that a little bit further, now that 

you had that opportunity. Mr. Szabo, on the Northeast Corridor, 

you said earlier in the very beginning, it was an answer to your 

question, I think, rather than in your testimony, that Amtrak was 

eligible for high-speed rail money. 

Mr. SZABO. The Northeast Corridor. 

Mr. OLVER. The Corridor, the Corridor. 

Mr. SZABO. It would be a matter of the States applying—— 

Mr. OLVER. The States applying—— 

Mr. SZABO [continuing]. The appropriate—— 

Mr. OLVER. But now, in order for the States to apply, a plan is 

under creation, is it not? How close is that plan ready to fly essentially? How close is that plan ready to fly, so that they may apply 

because you have a plan coming from the States. 

Mr. SZABO. This Committee has just been set up. 

Mr. OLVER. Just set up? 

Mr. SZABO. This Committee has just been set up and we are just 

now standing up the mission. We are directed to stand it up under 

PRIIA, the development of—you know, what is truly the big bold 

vision, there continues to be isolated projects—— 

Mr. OLVER. Yes. 

Mr. SZABO [continuing]. That are eligible for funding—— 

Mr. OLVER. Yes, if they are ready. 

Mr. SZABO [continuing]. Immediately on the Corridor. This is 

really that vision that truly takes the Corridor to the next level. 

Mr. OLVER. Well, okay. But, are not those projects all designed 

and ready to go, so that if, according to Mr. Latham’s idea, you 

could just give them the money, that they can start building at the 

moment. 

Mr. SZABO. Not for the big bold vision. The State of Good Repair 

Projects—— 

Mr. OLVER. Ah, okay. 

Mr. SZABO [continuing]. Definitely. 

Mr. OLVER. The State of Good Repair. 

Mr. SZABO. The big bold vision, no. 

Mr. OLVER. Well, we have been getting a lot of stuff out of the 

FTA, as Mr. Rogoff points out, and maybe particularly—well, certainly on the bus transit issues and State of Good Repair. But also 

in the rail modernization, the 5309 funds, those get out there and 

that was what drove the House to put a sizable amount of money 

into the rail modernization issue, into the 5309 issue, in the job 

bill, which we passed back in December. The time begins to flow, 

which is also in the black hole on the other side of the Capitol. So, 

we have lots of opportunities here for the use, good use of monies, 

if we have the monies. 

Mr. ROGOFF. And I would just chime in. Rail modernization funding is a great stimulus program because it is one of the best opportunities to get money in the ground quickly. It generally does not 

require complex environmental work, does not require extensive 

design, and it puts a lot of people to work. I am not going to comment about the black hole on the other side of the Capitol. 

Mr. OLVER. The State of Good Repair rarely requires—it may become an emergency, in which case you absolutely put aside all enmstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

720 

vironmental concerns. But, usually, because it is all on the rightof-way that is already in use for the State of Good Repair, go ahead 

with it. That is what we did it that way for. 

Anyway, I thank you very, very much. This has been a good discussion. I wish there was a lot more members that were here today 

to take part of it. They would get their answers along with the four 

of us who were here for the event. Thank you and we will have further discussions. 

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(727) 

THURSDAY, MARCH 25, 2010. 

HIGHWAY SAFETY—THE FY 2011 BUDGET REQUEST FOR 

THE NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATION 

WITNESS 

DAVID L. STRICKLAND, ADMINISTRATOR OF THE NATIONAL HIGHWAY 

TRAFFIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATION 

CHAIRMAN OLVER’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. OLVER. The subcommittee will come to order. 

I want to welcome the administrator of the National Highway 

Traffic Safety Administration, David Strickland to the subcommittee. 

Mr. Strickland, you have been on the job for slightly less than 

three months. By all accounts, three eventful months. I thank you 

for coming before this subcommittee today with NHTSA’s 2011 

Year budget request. Your budget is small enough that I think I 

can understand it. 

At its core, NHTSA is tasked with improving the safety of passenger travel on our highway system and has played a significant 

role in the steady reduction of fatalities per vehicle mile traveled. 

It is estimated that fatalities in 2009 dropped to under 34,000, the 

lowest on record since 1954. However, as the economy recovers and 

people begin to travel again, NHTSA will need to remain focused 

on continued safety improvements across our transportation network. 

The 2011 budget proposal before us today requests a total of $877 million for the programs within NHTSA. In particular, I am 

interested in the $50 million proposal for a new Distracted Driver 

Initiative. The explosion of wireless devices and in-vehicle entertainment systems presents significant safety concerns offering multiple opportunities to distract drivers’ attention from the road. I am 

interested to hear how this initiative will use learned lessons from 

past campaigns to change driver behavior. 

In addition, I look forward to discussing the Agency’s request for 

33 additional FTEs. The recent investigation into Toyota and 

NHTSA’s response to safety complaints have raised questions 

about the Agency’s technical capacity to critically assess the advanced electronic components within modern vehicles. In light of 

these investigations, I am interested in better understanding how 

the requested FTEs are proposed to be allocated and how many are 

slated to expand vehicle safety oversight activities. 

Administrator Strickland, by its nature NHTSA has the unfortunate burden of making news only when mistakes are made and 

tragedy occurs. Moving forward this subcommittee is committed to 

working with you to strengthen the Agency’s oversight capabilities 

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728 

and ensure that every effort is made to achieve optimal safety on 

the highways and roads. 

Before we hear from you I would like to recognize our Ranking 

Member for any remarks that he wishes to make. 

RANKING MEMBER LATHAM’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, Administrator Strickland, here. I just personally thank you 

for coming by and having a chance to visit. I appreciate that very, 

very much. It is very, very helpful. 

Looking across the entire jurisdiction of this subcommittee, 

NHTSA really stands out as one of the most important modal administrations within the Department, and while the key statistical 

measurements for fatalities are going in the right direction—for instance, traffic fatalities down 8.9 percent in 2008—the fact that 

still 33,963 fatalities occurred in 2009 shows there is still a lot of 

work to be done—— 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LATHAM [continuing]. And we can not let up at all on safety. 

Much has been said about NHTSA and the way it conducts investigations and recalls over the past couple months. Many Members 

on both sides of the aisle have criticized the Department and 

NHTSA over staffing, funding levels and oversight. 

Like many of the challenges that we face here in the federal government, simply throwing more money towards the problem and 

crossing your fingers and hoping for the best is not the answer. The 

challenges facing NHTSA are complex and multifaceted, and I look 

forward to the opportunity to delve into those issues during our 

questioning and answer here today, so welcome. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LATHAM. And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. Administrator Strickland, the floor is 

yours. Your complete written statement will be included in the 

record. If you could keep your oral comments to somewhere in the 

five, six minutes that would be fine. 

MR. STRICKLAND’S OPENING REMARKS

Mr. STRICKLAND. I will be happy to do that, Mr. Chairman. 

Thank you so much for your kind invitation to present the 2011 

budget for NHTSA. 

Chairman Olver, Ranking Member Latham and distinguished 

Members of the subcommittee, I thank you for this opportunity to 

appear before you today to discuss the President’s fiscal year 2011 

budget request of $877.6 million for the Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. 

Transportation safety is the Department’s highest priority. 

NHTSA’s safety programs are an integral part of addressing those 

priorities. NHTSA’s programs work and they work well. Three 

weeks ago the Secretary released numbers that show a continuing 

dramatic reduction in overall number of highway deaths. Our analysis projects that traffic fatalities have declined for the fifteenth 

consecutive quarter and will be 33,963 in 2009, the lowest annual 

level since 1954. 

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In terms of lives lost per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, the 

number of deaths dropped to 1.16, again the lowest level on record. 

This was almost a 9 percent drop in fatalities in one year, and this 

followed a 10 percent drop the year before. 

Your ongoing support of this Agency and its important safety 

mission over the years is paying off for the American public. I want 

to thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member and Members 

of this committee, for your unwavering support of NHTSA’s budget 

request made over the years. 

Are we winning the battle in terms of highway traffic fatalities? 

Not yet. The loss of more than 33,000 people in traffic-related 

crashes in a single year represents a serious public health problem 

to our nation. We will not rest until that number is zero. We cannot and will not relent in any one area, and we must remain flexible and capable of rising quickly to meet new challenges. 

In short, we must do more, so once again we ask for your support. The fiscal year 2011 budget proposed by the President is a 

good budget that allows us to continue moving forward in our mission in a responsible and thoughtful manner. The request before 

you adds 66 more employees to NHTSA. We will target these positions to meet our program needs. 

Mr. Chairman, our budget does not sacrifice safety in any manner and fully continues the programs and activities that have been 

responsible for the remarkable reductions in fatalities over the past 

few years that I referenced. Because of funding anomalies during 

the past few years, it may appear that we are cutting spending in 

some areas and increasing it in others. We are allocating and 

tracking that money carefully and wisely in order to maintain our 

program flexibility and effectiveness. 

That flexibility is part and parcel of this Agency’s success. We 

are delivering on our mission. For example, we are working with 

the Environmental Protection Agency, and we will deliver on President Obama’s call for a strong and coordinated national policy for 

fuel economy and greenhouse gas emission standards for motor vehicles, and we will do so in a way that does not compromise safety. 

We expect to issue the final rule on CAFE on April 1. 

We are also on track to rule on our enhanced five star safety rating system for model year 2011 vehicles. For the new ratings, we 

made changes to the existing front and side crash rating programs. 

We also added a family of crash test dummies and a side impact 

pole test to increase occupant safety. 

We established an overall safety score that will combine the star 

ratings from the front, side and rollover programs. Finally, the 

Agency also implemented a program that we hope will encourage 

the demand for and the advance and the use of advanced crash 

avoidance technologies. 

Another programmatic success is our early fatality analysis reporting system, FastFARS, which is a relatively new program that 

this subcommittee provided the funds to initiate. FastFARS allows 

us to make fatality projections much earlier and more accurately, 

which aids us in reacting to trends. 

During my tenure I want to work with the Secretary and the 

Congress to strengthen and improve NHTSA so that it can conmstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

730 

tinue to achieve its mission in saving lives, preventing injuries and 

reducing economic costs due to road traffic crashes. 

We will remain accountable to the President, the Congress, the 

Secretary of Transportation and the American public whom we all 

proudly serve. Thank you. I look forward to answering your questions. 

[The information follows:] 

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Mr. OLVER. That was wonderfully done within the right time. We 

will be fairly flexible about time here. Though I think I am going 

to try and be a good boy and stick close to the five minute allowances, so we can get back and forth and hear from both sides a little bit more often. 

DISTRACTED DRIVING

As we all know, Secretary LaHood has been extremely focused on 

the issue of distracted driving, and I would say really quite justifiably, and so not surprisingly the President’s budget proposes a $50 

million initiative to deal with that issue of distracted driving, 

which the distractions are just multiplying—— 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir. 

Mr. OLVER [continuing] On a daily basis almost. Now, this subcommittee took some criticism a year and a half or so ago for approving a simple $1.5 million reprogramming of money as a reduction in the Office of Safety Defects Investigation. You can see probably why we might get some criticism for that, but here we have 

a $50 million reduction from the account that deals with seatbelt 

problems and programs that develop seatbelt usage. 

So first of all I would like to know how you intend to use these 

resources if the Congress goes ahead and provides, as has been proposed, the dollars asked for in the budget for the distracted driving 

program. How will you allocate those dollars, and how will those 

be used in dealing with that issue? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Chairman, the distracted driving grant program will be similar to what we do in impaired driving and in 

belts, which is to create incentives for states to pass laws to decrease the amount of distraction, whether it is a texting ban or 

hands free devices. 

We have provided a sample law for states in order for them to 

follow a model which would increase safety and decrease the distraction risks on the road. So the $50 million will be a program 

that is patterned after the very successful programs that we have 

had in impaired driving and in primary belts. 

Mr. OLVER. Can you give me a sense of what the experience is 

in the states up until now? You have already created the model 

law, and I read now and then something about what one state or 

another is doing. What is the present status? How many states are 

dealing with this and how comprehensively? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Well, at this point we have approximately 20 

states that have passed distracted driving laws, including six states 

that have full bans. 

We have a tremendous amount of activity at the state-level with 

several dozen bills that have been placed upon the states’ legislative calendars. The hope is that this distracted driving grant program would be the additional incentive to get those states over the 

top, which is clearly what we have always done in the impaired 

driving and primary belt programs. 

We want to try to give the states that additional incentive, and 

especially in this area of distraction where there is momentum. 

There is a lot of attention. There is a lot of activity, but there is 

always the issue with those that believe that is not a proper role 

for the states to be placing new laws upon drivers and all these 

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issues that we have dealt with and the similar sort of push back 

that we faced in impaired driving and in belts. 

We believe from our contact and our work in the states that this 

incentive will be the tipping point to move many more states into 

passing laws regarding texting and overall distraction. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. You have 20 states that have done something, 

and you said a handful—you did not use the word handful—— 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Multiple. 

Mr. OLVER [continuing]. But several that have—— 

Mr. STRICKLAND. There are several states. 

Mr. OLVER [continuing]. Comprehensive bans. There must be 

new things that have come up every day—— 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir. 

Mr. OLVER [continuing]. So whatever there is today, within a few 

months there will be something else that comes out. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. There is a variety of legislative proposals. Some 

of them are texting bans. Some of them have age parameters. Some 

of them have different concepts. Our goal is to try to move all the 

states to the best, most protective laws possible. 

Yes, you are absolutely right, Mr. Chairman. There are new 

threats and there are new distractions and there are technology 

issues every day. The goal is to try to provide a foundation of these 

laws for the states that is not following the tail of new technology, 

but creates a template so that as new threats arise, the states are 

better able to have programs to enforce and protect. 

Mr. OLVER. Tell me how we can feel comfortable if we move that 

$50 million out of the seatbelt program, reducing the seatbelt program and creating this one, how we can be comfortable that we will 

not have left the seatbelt program short? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. You can be very comfortable, Mr. Chairman. 

From our analysis of the primary belt program, that money is used 

to incentivize states to move to a front initial to a first line enforcement program. 

The states that have an opportunity of passing a belt program 

and collecting those grant funds is nowhere near the amount allocated. We are probably expecting only two to three states to pass 

primary belt laws, so we may be expending approximately only $30 

million or $40 million, so we would be leaving $100 million on the 

table that would not be utilized. 

The distracted driving program, on the other hand, is an area 

that is an emerging risk. States are very active, and it does move 

the goal of safety forward. You will not be compromising the primary belt program in any way if the decision by this subcommittee 

is to allocate those funds in this particular way. 

Mr. OLVER. All right. Thank you very much. Mr. Latham, you 

have at least six minutes. I believe that I have gotten both questions answered in that time. 

Mr. LATHAM. You are not alone in that disbelief. All kidding 

aside, I want to continue on the same subject of diverting the $50 

million from the seatbelt enforcement grants to this project. 

There is really in your testimony and the budget there is really 

very scarce justification as far as what you actually are intending 

to do and how these incentives will force states to make the kind 

of changes. 

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Kind of getting to the Chairman’s point, are you talking about 

just banning cell phones? Texting specifically? What about hands 

free devices? Are you getting down to that? What is your recommendation? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Well, the sample law is a texting ban, which we 

find at this point from the research is that the physical manipulation risk is the most apparent, which is where the driver is taking 

their eyes off the road, handling a phone, dialing, reaching. 

When the eye comes off the ground line and down below the 

dash, that is where you really have what we believe to be the most 

emergent risk. We need further research in the hands free technologies, which we are currently doing, and I know that there is 

lots of work underway in taking a look at other types of distraction. 

So the template of the model law, which is dealing with texting, 

we believe to be the most efficacious of safety at this point. We will 

be doing more research. We will be making new recommendations. 

As we move forward in developing the program we will definitely 

communicate with this committee and with the authorizing committees, as we do with the impaired driving program and the belt 

program, to properly align the criteria for the states to qualify for 

that money. 

Mr. LATHAM. And I guess on the research, I mean, are you using 

human research or is it just all data driven? What type of research 

are you doing? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. NHTSA has actually done a great deal of research in this area already, but there is lots of human factors research that still needs to be done. 

For example, we will be undertaking a naturalistic driving study 

called SHRP 2 in the future. We have a distracted driving plan 

that is in process right now that we will be presenting to the Secretary very soon, and once that is done we will be coming and presenting to the Congress as well and talking about our research 

plan not only from the SHRP 2 work, but all the other research we 

are planning to undertake in this area. 

Mr. LATHAM. States’ budgets are strapped today, and maybe just 

as a question have they been using seatbelt enforcement grants to 

keep highway patrolmen on the road? Are we going to get a lot of 

push back from the states saying that those are dollars that we 

use. We are having to cut troopers as it is. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. No, sir. Once they have qualified for the grant, 

that money is expended and given to the states so that money will 

not be cut. 

The issue in question is whether or not there is enough money 

from the belt program for a state that actually passes a primary 

law within the time period. We will have the funds necessary. The 

states that are close to passing primary, the money will be available to them so we will not have an issue there. 

In terms of how states utilize the funds, they are allowed to use 

those funds for anything related to highway traffic safety. Part of 

it may be used for enforcement and for high visibility checkpoints, 

things of that nature. They also have the flexibility to use these 

funds for highway traffic safety-related infrastructure changes as 

well. There is an opportunity to flex those funds. 

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740 

But the request that is being made, the $50 million, will not impact a state directly in terms of funds that they would receive from 

a grant that has been actually liquidated and provided to the state. 

Mr. LATHAM. Do you have a lot of push back from the states? I 

mean, do we have to spend $50 million? I do not know of any state 

that is not looking at distracted driving as far as legislation. I 

mean, you have a model legislation supposedly, but I always wonder about putting money into something that people would have 

done anyway. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. From our work, we feel that there are several 

states that do need that additional incentive. As you know, sir—— 

Mr. LATHAM. Can you name them? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. I can get back to you with the specific names 

in terms of the states that we have contacted, but speaking generally, the legislative process, as you know, is very difficult not only 

for the purposes of safety, and we hope the policy goal would be 

enough to move them. 

Providing that additional grant money may be the tipping point. 

As opposed to a couple of states passing a law, we can maybe have 

10 or 12 states passing a law, which is always the goal. 

Mr. LATHAM. This is a carrot, but any conversations about withholding funds if states do not do it? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. The Department of Transportation supports 

both sanctions and incentives. They both work. In this particular 

policy we believe that states would be more effectively moved by an 

incentive program. 

However, I know there are several conversations in other pieces 

of legislation regarding distraction which also has possible sanctions, but we believe that the incentive program is the best way to 

move states in this particular time. 

Mr. LATHAM. What would those sanctions be? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. There is one bill I believe that is—— 

Mr. LATHAM. What are you recommending? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. We recommend the policy as placed forward in 

the budget, sir, which is an incentive program. States normally do 

not take to sanctions very well. 

Mr. LATHAM. Boy. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. We believe that the incentive program, after 

having conversations with the states and the stakeholders, is the 

proper incentive to move the needle. I think at this point that the 

policy as presented would be the most effective. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. I see the red light is on, Mr. Chairman. I will 

yield back. 

Mr. OLVER. Six minutes goes quickly, does it not? Ten minutes 

takes longer. 

Just as a finish to that before I go on, I have heard several anecdotal stories of texting. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir. 

Mr. OLVER. The most dramatic one that I have heard of is someone who was weaving, crossing lane boundaries and so forth, 

slowed down and was sort of weaving and then finally stopped 

right in the middle of the travelway—— 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Wow. 

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Mr. OLVER [continuing]. And blocked traffic while finishing the 

texting that was going on. You know, this is really serious stuff I 

think. 

MOTORCYCLE SAFETY

Anyway, let me move on to talk about motorcycles. SAFETEA– 

LU authorized a program of incentive grants to encourage states 

to adopt and implement programs to reduce the number of crashes 

involving motorcyclists, yet despite the funding that this grant program has had, $6 million or $7 million per year since 2005, motorcycle fatalities have continued. 

In fact, they have more than doubled over the last 10 years from 

about 2,300 in 1998 to almost 5,300 in the year 2008. I would call 

that a pretty dramatic rise. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir. 

Mr. OLVER. Now, is your budget proposal for this year’s program 

for continuation of the $6 million to $7 million range? What is your 

proposal? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir. It is a continuation of the SAFETEA– 

LU program. 

Mr. OLVER. Would more money be valuable there? Why are these 

fatalities continuing to rise, and with that much of a rise why is 

that happening? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. The reason why we are seeing a rise in fatalities is because there are more riders that do not wear helmets. The 

thing that the Department has found, that NHTSA has found, in 

the data is that the one thing that can most effectively move the 

needle in protecting motorcyclists’ lives is for them to wear a helmet. 

The education that is underway as part of the grant programs 

is important—teaching riders proper riding etiquette, trying to 

communicate to drivers of automobiles to be mindful of riders on 

the road—but the core is trying to get riders to wear helmets, and 

that has been a long on-going issue for NHTSA and the Congress 

for some time. 

In fact, NHTSA is limited in how we can even communicate with 

states across the entire spectrum of our programs because of the 

efforts several years ago in trying to incentivize helmet programs 

for the states. So the reason the numbers are moving up is because 

we have fewer riders wearing helmets, and the only way we are 

going to get those numbers moved down is to try to find a way to 

get those folks to wear helmets. 

Mr. OLVER. All right. Now, with what my Ranking Member said 

here earlier, states clearly do not like penalties, but maybe this is 

a place where there needs to be some penalty. I am not sure exactly how one applies it to the states if people are not wearing the 

helmets—but obviously something else is needed. Something new is 

needed here. 

I do not know whether it is going to cost more money or not, but 

do you have any idea how you are going to have the impact that 

is clearly necessary? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. We are underway in trying to find new strategies to communicate with the states in finding new ways to get ridmstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

742 

ers to wear helmets. We will be happy to discuss those plans in 

more detail as we finalize them. 

Anything that the Congress does that would support the movement of riders into helmets would be efficacious of safety. We 

would be happy to discuss with you, Mr. Chairman and the Members of this committee, ways that we can help move riders into a 

safer posture. 

Mr. OLVER. What the committee has done in the recent past, in 

the last couple of years, is we have kept an administrative provision in the Appropriations Act that gave the Secretary or his designee authority to work with states to consider proposals, to work 

with, cooperate with, collaborate with something on proposals that 

relate to the reduction of motorcycle fatalities. 

We have continued that language, and you propose continuing it. 

You have not suggested taking it out or anything, but we are obviously not having much success with it. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. There is more to do, sir. I agree with Mr. 

Chairman. We have to do more. The long term question, and it is 

not only the trying to get riders to wear helmets. NHTSA is in an 

ongoing dialogue with states that are actually trying to—the states 

that have mandatory helmet laws. We have lost some of those 

states. They have actually rescinded those laws in some areas. 

So in a lot of places, sir, frankly we are going backwards, and 

we need to redouble our efforts in this area in order to try to reverse this trend in motorcycle fatalities. 

Mr. OLVER. Well, it is a safety statistic that is alarming, actually. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir, it is. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. Mr. Latham. 

VEHICLE SAFETY

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. In your budget you are talking about vehicle 

safety and the complaints that you get. You think about Toyota 

and all that. How many people do you have actually screening 

those? 

I know last year you averaged about 3,100 complaints per month. 

I think just since February you have already had over 15,000, so 

the workload has gone way up obviously. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir, it has. We still have the same number 

of screeners. We aim to try and get all complaints reviewed within 

one business day. That has taken a little bit longer now. Our folks 

are very adept at the work that they do and they are working very 

quickly. 

Mr. LATHAM. How many do you have? It is like 15, is it not, that 

do the screening? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LATHAM. And then they make recommendations to the 22 investigators? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. That is correct. 

Mr. LATHAM. With that many complaints, that really—— 

Mr. STRICKLAND. They are very efficient at their job. It is one of 

recognizing trends and sort of knowing what to look for. They are 

very good at what they do, very efficient, and have been very effective in processing those 30,000 complaints a year. 

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Yes, because of the attention that Toyota has created we have 

gotten more consumer complaints. The staff is working diligently, 

and, yes, their workload has increased, but they are managing it. 

Mr. LATHAM. The complaints, and we have so much information 

or publicity obviously with the Toyota situation, but the complaints 

that you were getting before. Just as far as the acceleration and 

the electrical system issues and all that, was that just Toyota? 

Were there other cars that were getting complaints on the same 

thing? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Sudden acceleration is an issue that is across 

the fleet in terms of complaints. We take each of those complaints 

very seriously and we look at those investigations individually. 

Toyota, in terms of the overall complaints since 2000 was probably in the mid range of total number of complaints in terms of 

sudden, unintended acceleration. Ford was I think the one with the 

most complaints during that time period. 

So those complaints affect the entire fleet, and we look at each 

of those complaints seriously with regard to which manufacturer 

actually has the complaint lodged against it. 

Mr. LATHAM. I am sure there has been some criticism that you 

did not catch this earlier, but, as the numbers would say, there was 

no reason that Toyota stood out from everybody else? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. NHTSA is a data analysis agency. We look for 

the—— 

Mr. LATHAM. I thought you were a safety agency. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Well, we are a safety agency that finds our 

work through data. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Folks tend to think that we go out and we look 

at every car in America that has a complaint. That is not true. 

What we do is we look for anomalies in the safety data, and when 

we find those anomalies we then take further action. 

From the work on Toyota and any other manufacturer, when we 

find those anomalies that create an unreasonable risk to safety we 

have acted and took action. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. So what kind of staffing model do you have 

as far as your request, because I am very concerned about being 

able to do this job the way it should be and maybe something could 

have been caught earlier. I do not know. Probably not if they did 

not stand out as far as the complaints. 

Do you need people with expertise today with electronics that 

you do not have on staff? I mean, are you contracting that part of 

it out or what? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. A couple of answers to that, Ranking Member 

Latham. NHTSA had the proper experience on board to deal with 

these issues. Our electrical engineers, our folks out in East Liberty, 

Ohio, are fantastic automotive engineers and electrical engineers to 

deal with these issues. 

Can we be stronger in this area? Of course. NHTSA can always 

be stronger, and the President’s request asks for 66 new employees 

and so we will be allocating them across NHTSA to move the safety 

mission, which includes more resources and more folks in the Office of Defects Investigation. We are in the process of hiring an additional electrical engineer, and we are reviewing our work, our 

mstockstill on DSKH9S0YB1PROD with HEARINGS

744 

load, and our expertise to try to find the best way to buttress our 

experience. 

In addition, we will be undertaking a comprehensive study of 

electronic throttle control systems and electromagnetic interference 

where we will be not only leveraging our own internal expertise, 

but bringing in outside experts and independent experts to take a 

look at not only Toyota, but systems throughout the fleet and our 

process in looking at them. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. Mr. LaTourette. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Mr. Administrator. It is good to see you. 

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Before I talk to you about NHTSA, I want to, 

Mr. Chairman, sort of rise to a point of personal privilege. 

We had a hearing and we had a whole array of Administration 

folks here talking about a variety of subjects. An article appeared 

on March 17 in something called the Courthouse News Service, 

which I was not aware existed until this article came to my attention. The article is written by a fellow by the name of Nick Wilson. 

I just want to read the first paragraph and see if it comports with 

other Members’ recollection of the hearing. 

BIKE LANES

The heading is Republicans Ridicule Bike Lanes, and it says: Republicans heaped ridicule on Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood 

at a Wednesday hearing after LaHood suggested that bicycling and 

walking are just as good ways to get around as cars. To laughter, 

Republican House Members suggested LaHood was taking drugs, 

dismissed the very idea of bike lanes and derided any change to a 

car dependent society. 

That does not comport with my recollection of what I said. I 

think it is scurrilous, to tell you the truth. Just so the record is 

clear, I have used every highway bill since I have gotten here to 

fund bike lanes, love bike lanes, love people to ride bicycles. My objection was the Secretary’s apparent observation that half the highway trust fund should be utilized for that type of transportation 

and half for cars and other things. 

I do not know anybody that would agree with that, but unfortunately it is now making the way around the bicycle stores in my 

district. I have to go home over the recess and meet with a lot of 

people in spandex pants and tell them that I was not serious. 

Okay. Mr. Administrator, welcome to you. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Thank you, Mr. LaTourette. 

REAUTHORIZATION

Mr. LATOURETTE. The subject here has come up a couple of times 

about the lack of a reauthorization of the highway bill. In 

SAFETEA–LU, the last iteration in 2005, NHTSA received a 132 

percent increase for your safety related programs, and the question 

is is there any impact upon the Agency or your work in safety as 

a result of flat funding now and no reauthorization? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. No, sir. The programs that were funded under 

SAFETEA–LU have been very successful, as noted earlier in my 

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745 

testimony about the projected fatality numbers of 33,963, which is 

a marked decrease from last year. The work ongoing, if the budget 

is approved, would enable NHTSA to provide grant funding to the 

states to continue the incentives which have been so effective. 

Now that we have the extension until the end of this year, it allows not only NHTSA but the states, to be able to plan more 

thoughtfully for the rest of the year. The one issue that I think was 

troubling to the states was the short-term extensions and not being 

able to plan their highway safety programs and the grant programs 

funded by NHTSA. Now there is consistency, which is very good in 

allowing us and the rest of the Department of Transportation to 

provide a reauthorization proposal to the Congress. 

CARBON POLLUTION

Mr. LATOURETTE. Secondly, in front of another subcommittee, 

Ms. Jackson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection 

Agency, came and talked a little bit about that agency’s 

endangerment finding on CO2, among other greenhouse gases. 

And my question is basically based upon reports from the U.S. 

refining industry that our refining industry will freeze investment 

beyond maintaining operations if the EPA moves to regulate carbon 

pollution, I guess the question for NHTSA is from your perspective 

how will you make sure? 

I mean, one of the ways is making littler cars, lighter cars, 

things of that nature, and so what all are you doing at NHTSA to 

make sure that as the EPA moves forward with its greenhouse gas 

endangerment finding that we are not somehow losing safety? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. In addition to the EPA’s authority from Massachusetts vs. EPA and the Clean Air Act, NHTSA’s responsibility 

under CAFE since 1975 has been to regulate fuel economy and to 

have safety as a consideration in the setting of those rules, not only 

from the basic foundation CAFE law. 

The CAFE reforms that were passed in the Emergency Independence and Security Act of 2007 created a reformed CAFE, which created a curve, if you will, for the entire nationwide fleet. The impact 

of that reform forces technology to be the driver of increasing fuel 

economy and not downweighting, so we believe the reformed CAFE 

will address a number of the anomalies that the old CAFE might 

have had in terms of impacting safety. 

Also, the work that we have done in preparation for the promulgation of the final rule is that while there are going to be other 

technologies and new materials to be used to achieve those fuel 

economy numbers, our projections are that if there is some notion 

of downweighting it would be in the very heaviest parts of the fleet. 

It will be the largest SUVs and not downweighting the smaller or 

midsized cars. 

So actually if the CAFE reform works as we anticipate it will, 

CAFE will actually improve safety for the entire fleet in the long 

term, so we at NHTSA are very confident that the new fuel economy regulations as implemented through 2016 will not only move 

the ball forward for fuel economy along with EPA working with us 

on greenhouse gases, but will also have not only a cleaner fleet, but 

a safer fleet in the long term. 

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Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you, Mr. LaTourette. Now, Mr. Strickland, 

you made a comment here earlier that you look for anomalies in 

safety data. I am always looking for anomalies in data. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir. 

VOLUNTARY VEHICLE RECALL

Mr. OLVER. Sometimes I get way off in the weeds when I do that. 

I am curious to follow up on the comments that Mr. Latham was 

making earlier. The process whereby in your defects investigation 

program you get to the point of voluntary recalls. In your written 

testimony you speak of how many million vehicles have been recalled voluntarily somewhere along the way. 

It must start obviously with a single complaint, the isolated or 

the random complaint. When does that rise? At what point does 

that rise? At what level of repetition does that then trigger your 

investigation? You really cannot go after an individual complaint 

very effectively. You have to go after those that you are getting 

considerable repetition. 

At what point do you have serious communication with the auto 

company and so forth? What kind of resistance do you get there? 

When do they finally voluntarily get to the point and with what 

stick do you have to force them there? Will you give us sort of a 

rundown of how that occurs? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Chairman, I would be more than happy to. 

In terms of your question of what is the tipping point for the Office 

of Defects Investigation to open up a preliminary evaluation, a PE, 

or an investigation, it varies. There is no set number that you have 

to have this many complaints of this severity in order for us to 

open an investigation. 

There have been times when given the severity of the issue, we 

have opened an investigation with as few as five complaints. Sometimes it could be as many as over a thousand particular complaints. There is a notion of not only frequency and similarity of 

complaints, but the severity of it. 

If there is a fatality that accompanies that particular complaint, 

we pay very close attention to it because we do not want a situation where we are looking for more incidents of a certain type before we act because that could mean more lives lost. So it varies 

in terms of severity and the frequency. 

In terms of how the process works and the sticks that we have 

to influence recalls and investigations, we have a formalized process where we can force a mandatory recall where there are several 

ultimately public hearings and show cause procedures and ultimately the decision comes to me as administrator. If the staff presents me a mandatory recall request, I review the evidence and I 

can ultimately force that recall. 

Mr. OLVER. You have not, I take it, triggered that in the three 

months of your tenure? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. I have not found that pen yet, but it is close 

at hand. 

Mr. OLVER. I see. 

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Mr. STRICKLAND. But in terms of that, the auto maker has a 

right to then challenge that mandatory recall order in Court de 

novo, which means that the entire record that the Agency made to 

force that mandatory recall goes away. The Federal District Court 

looks at it as a brand new case. 

So the process, if we went through a full mandatory recall process, could take well over a year to a year and a half internally for 

the Agency, and then if the auto maker chooses to challenge us in 

Court it can be even longer than that. 

Mr. OLVER. Do you know how many times NHTSA has actually 

triggered that full process if it takes more than a year? I do not 

remember it getting to the level that requires that. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. No. It is incredibly rare. 

Mr. OLVER. That would be a major conflagration in the press. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. It would be, and that is one of the reasons why 

NHTSA has been so successful in influencing recalls. We present 

evidence to the auto maker that we believe is an unreasonable risk 

to safety in this particular defect, and we will go forward with the 

process if they do not do so voluntarily. 

That is where I think, Mr. Olver, you made comment about the 

negotiation process and how much pushback happens. Auto makers 

will challenge us because a recall can run into the billions of dollars for a particular manufacturer so it is a very serious issue for 

them, but if they feel that we do have evidence of a defect that is 

a reasonable risk, the public scrutiny of fighting NHTSA over 

whether or not they should or should not execute a recall would be 

way more damaging to them. 

Mr. OLVER. Do you have any recollection or institutional knowledge somewhere in the Agency of it actually going to that level? 

Have we gone through that in the last say five years that I have 

been Ranking Member or Chair of this committee? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. There has been no—— 

Mr. OLVER. There have been none? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. There have been no mandatory recalls. 

Mr. OLVER. I see some shaking of heads. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. There have been no mandatory recalls in the 

period that you have served on the subcommittee, sir, as Chairman. The issue, though, is that there are some auto makers that 

are more reactive than others to our requests. That was the issue. 

Mr. OLVER. More responsive than others? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. More responsive. Absolutely. 

Mr. OLVER. All right. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. That was one of the issues that we had with 

Toyota, that they were one of the slower manufacturers to respond 

to our requests and they often fought us longer and harder, which 

is the reason why the Agency before I took office took some extraordinary steps and then once I came into office took the extraordinary steps once again regarding the sticky pedals. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you very much. Mr. Latham. 

INTERLOCK

Mr. LATHAM. Thank you. You know, one of the biggest problems 

we have is people driving impaired and the interlock ignition 

standards. What are you doing? Where are we? Is there standards 

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across to the states now, or is there any push to get states to adopt 

an interlock? Tell me what we are doing. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Well, actually that is one where we have a tremendous amount of research underway in terms of interlock or 

whether it is the current interlock technology or future interlock 

technology, and that is a long-term research project that we are underlying right now. 

In terms of incentives for the states, there was grant funding 

provided to encourage the use of interlocks in SAFETEA–LU not 

for primary first offense, so you get caught driving impaired once. 

Oftentimes you have to have multiple offenses before you have an 

interlock device placed on your car. 

NHTSA and several safety advocates agree that a primary offense interlock is one policy that the states could adopt that would 

be incredibly effective and improve safety on the roads for impaired 

driving, and we are working very hard with our partners in the 

states to hopefully encourage those issues. 

That is something that we would like to work with this committee and the rest of the Congress. As we think about the next 

highway authorization, how can we better move the ball forward in 

terms of the usage of interlocks and interlock technology for impaired driving offenses. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. But you do not have an ‘‘approved’’ technology. Are you talking about also you have a model legislation 

supposedly with texting and all this. Are you talking about doing 

that? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. No. No, sir. It is a performance standard, and 

I think NHTSA always tries to work through performance standards and not try to lock in particular technologies. 

Current interlock technology works. It is very effective, but there 

can also be ways to use interlock technologies in the future that 

could be better integrated into the automotive systems that could 

also prove to be very effective and less invasive, and that is the 

work that we are undertaking right now. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. I represent quite a rural district, and there 

is kind of certainly an unacceptable number of fatalities that happen on the rural roads, whether it is unsafe road conditions, maybe 

people more apt not to wear their seatbelts out in the country and 

impaired driving, again getting back to your point. 

Are you doing anything to better identify exactly what we can do 

in the rural parts of the country rather than just the urban areas? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Oh, yes, sir. Our programs reach every state 

and the District of Columbia and the territories, and we have to 

recognize the differences in those states in terms of urban density, 

in terms of driving patterns, in terms of needs of those particular 

states. We are very flexible in working with those states and dealing with their particular issues. For example, in states with large 

rural areas another component of this is emergency medical service, which is incredibly important because you do not have the 

urban centers where you have quick ambulance response. 

The one thing that NHTSA does and works very hard on—I am 

the chairman of the Federal interagency task force dealing with 

emergency medical services—for example, is to try to find a way to 

deploy emergency services better in rural areas so that when you 

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do have an accident those citizens have the same ability and the 

same access to emergency care than folks that live in the cities. 

That is the goal. 

Mr. LATHAM. Did you deal with signage? I mean, if you are out 

in Franklin County, Iowa, at night and there are railroad crossings 

out there. There are no lights at the crossbuck. Do you deal with 

that at all? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. No, sir. That is Federal Highways Administration. That is Administrator Mendez. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. That is not a safety issue. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. It is a safety issue, but we deal with the 

car—— 

Mr. LATHAM. Yes. 

Mr. STRICKLAND [continuing]. And the behavior of those driving 

the car. Signage and other roadway issues are Federal Highways. 

Mr. LATHAM. Now, the extension on the highway bill. Are you 

going to have proposals for your Agency to be included in the reauthorization? Is anything tangible there today, or are we going to 

wait until March next year to get your input? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. No. No. Secretary LaHood would not be very 

happy if I did not have a draft proposal ready to go. We have several principles that we are working on throughout the Department 

and within NHTSA, and our goal is to have a proposal to the Congress within the period of the extension. 

Mr. LATHAM. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. Mr. LaTourette. 

SAFETY ENFORCEMENT

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You mentioned 

when I was talking to you before the CAFE rulemaking. It is my 

understanding that I think prior to your arrival that funds were 

transferred from—reprogrammed from—vehicle safety enforcement 

to rulemaking for that purpose. Is it correct that NHTSA has not 

asked for the safety enforcement budget to be restored? If that is 

correct, why? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Actually in terms of the money needed for 

CAFE and the money for rulemaking and enforcement, those funds 

were actually adequate. Basically the flexibility that we used took 

care of those sort of emergent issues as we were working through 

that. 

So there has been no diminution of funds in terms of what we 

do in enforcement and in CAFE. We are very close to finalizing the 

rule in CAFE in April, and we are beginning work on the medium 

duty and heavy duty rule, but we have proper resources in the fiscal year 2011 budget to take care of all of those issues. 

TOYOTA

Mr. LATOURETTE. Great. The Chairman and the Ranking Member have talked a little bit about Toyota, and I want to talk to you 

about another aspect of it, but first of all are you involved, your 

Agency involved, at all with the guy that said he could not stop his 

Prius on the freeway? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. I hate to say it this way. There are several investigations I guess and press reports about Priuses. There was 

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one in Harrison, New York. There was one in San Diego, California. I am not sure which one you are alluding to, but we investigated both of those Prius incidents. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I do not know which one I am referring to either. Just when I flip on the news there is some guy. Some people 

are saying he is a liar. Some people say—— 

Mr. STRICKLAND. We are a ‘‘just the facts’’ agency. We do not look 

at the driver’s motives. We look at whether the car has a defect 

that poses a reasonable risk of safety. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Staying on the Toyota theme, has NHTSA received any reports or complaints that a rival car company is sending out mailings that are marked Important: Toyota Recall Information and offer a bonus if you buy their car as opposed to a Toyota? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. I am not aware of that. I will definitely ask the 

staff, and I will definitely get back to you about that. If that is an 

issue, the question there is that is a fraudulent, deceptive advertising technique which probably would fall under the Federal Trade 

Commission’s jurisdiction, I would surmise, sort of putting on my 

hat from a former life and sort of dealing with that agency. 

I know that the auto makers are sharp elbow competitors and 

they will fully take advantage of an opportunity if they see one and 

we are definitely seeing that in the marketing across the board. 

But if there is deceptive advertising when we are having recall 

notices posing as advertisements, that is a serious issue and definitely we will take a look at that from our perspective and our authority, but we will definitely ask our sister consumer protection 

agency, the Federal Trade Commission, to look into it as well. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I would appreciate that. When you are talking 

about a former life, you are talking about work in another agency 

and not reincarnation? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. I was a staffer for the Senate Commerce Committee for eight years, and not only I dealt with NHTSA, but with 

Federal Trade Commission as well. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. On the issue you were talking to the Chairman 

about, recall, do you from your opinion think that NHTSA has sufficient recall authority? If not, what would you change? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. We are taking a top to bottom look at all of our 

authorities, not only on the behavioral side, but in the vehicle safety side. 

Our base authorities are several decades old, the Motor Vehicle 

Safety Act of 1966, and current amendments are the changes in the 

1970s. I think it is always the right thing to do as an agency is 

to look at its authority and to see if it can be improved, made more 

efficient, and we are undertaking that task as we speak. 

When we have recommendations we will be more than happy to 

present to this subcommittee and the rest of the Congress hopefully 

our recommendations for changes that we may think may be necessary to improve us. 

FATALITY RATES

Mr. LATOURETTE. I appreciate that. I just want to congratulate 

your agency. I know it has a lot to do with vehicle miles traveled, 

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751 

but it is my understanding that we had the lowest fatality rate 

since 1954—— 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LATOURETTE [continuing]. Which is the year I was born, a 

9 percent drop from last year. Aside from vehicle miles traveled, is 

there anything else you can point to that is a big factor in that 

drop? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Well, there are several. In addition to the significant drop that we have seen in our preliminary data for last 

year, we have been seeing decreases in fatalities for 15 consecutive 

quarters, so that was well before the economic downturn. 

So, yes, while clearly the amount of discretionary driving has decreased because of the economy, NHTSA’s programs have worked. 

Our impaired driving programs to eliminate impaired driving have 

worked. Our primary belt programs have worked. Our education 

and outreach have worked. 

We ask for this subcommittee to support the 2011 budget so we 

can continue that work, and we are looking forward to working 

with the subcommittee as well on the long-term reauthorization 

where we hope to take on more changes to improve our authorities 

in this area. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. Am I correct that the actual fatalities per 

million miles traveled and so forth has gone down in this period? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir, it has. Actually it is fatalities per 100 

vehicle miles traveled, and that has dropped to 1.16. And that is 

a controlled number that is independent of economics, that is a real 

number. 

Mr. OLVER. Right, within this two-year period where there has 

been a 10 and then a 9 percent drop, what has been the drop in 

that statistic? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. That has dropped—give me one second, I 

know—— 

Mr. OLVER. I was quickly looking for the table to see what it 

said. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes. 

Mr. OLVER. Now, there is a considerable drop in that as well, 

close to 10 percent, which is probably more remarkable. But maybe 

not, maybe that is just because if there is that much less driving 

going on the traffic on the road is considerably less congested and 

less travel within congested time periods and so forth. Maybe there 

is less anger going on because of waiting around and so forth. 

There have to be some reasons that go into it, but it is interesting 

that not only have the fatalities gone down dramatically but also, 

in the same percentage range, that particular measure has gone 

down as well. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Now, Mr. Chairman, that number was 1.3, so 

it dropped from 1.3 to 1.16. That was the drop in the period. 

Mr. OLVER. In the two-year period. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir, that you were asking about. 

Mr. OLVER. Which is about 10 percent per year. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. 

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Mr. STRICKLAND. We would like to think hopefully not only education but more harmonious driving on the road and better citizens 

is always a good thing and if we can encourage that, we will definitely do that. 

Mr. OLVER. Well, I hope that it can stay down there. As traffic 

comes back my concern is, and I do not know how you can stop it 

if traffic comes back because our road systems are not growing or 

getting that much better maintained, when the traffic goes up a 

slot we are probably going to see it slip upward. It should be your 

job to make sure it does not slip very far upward. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman, we understand that 

when the economy improves that we will see more discretionary 

driving and there will be more risk on the road and it will be a 

hard task for us to maintain the gains that we have seen over this 

two-year period in addition to trying to make advances getting that 

number below the 33,000. It will be a very difficult task and 

NHTSA is up to it and we will continue to work very hard in that 

area. 

Mr. OLVER. Let me take up something else. I am sorry that Mr. 

Latham had to leave, because he and I heard testimony yesterday 

in a hearing where the HUD agencies involved with housing on the 

Indian reservations and the DOT agencies involved with transportation on the Indian reservations were discussed. What we heard, 

ultimately was that there are over three times the national average 

of traffic fatalities on Native American lands, on the Indian reservations, in Indian country, than the national average. Now that 

is a pretty dramatic kind of a number. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir. 

INDIAN RESERVATION CONDITIONS

Mr. OLVER. The suggestion was that there are unsafe road conditions. I would say from looking at pictures, they do not look as if 

the roads were designed, most of them are unpaved as well, that 

there is low seat belt usage and alcohol impairment, those were the 

things that generally were cited. You have had very good campaigns on seat belt usage and drinking. We have obviously improved the roads steadily, or tried to except for periods when we 

are without reauthorization of our surface transportation systems 

which clearly we are in danger of losing the quality of the road surfaces if we do not get going on that kind of thing. First of all, do 

you have authority to have impact on there, and exactly what are 

your programs like on the Indian reservations? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Our programs are the same programs that we 

use for the states. The relationship in the funding is different. The 

Congress provides $4.5 million in Section 402 funds every year to 

the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and that $4.5 million managed by the 

Bureau of Indian Affairs, they act like a state highway grant. 

Mr. OLVER. It goes through BIA? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. It goes through BIA, and that money is for the 

incentive programs for all 600 Native American tribes. So just from 

a funding standpoint, $4.5 million to deal with all the Native 

American tribes, I can see that probably being one issue there. In 

terms of how we interact with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, we 

treat them as any other state highway safety program, and we will 

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in terms of offering our assistance. In terms of providing guidance 

and education and the support of our advertising programs, we are 

definitely looking at new opportunities and new ways to create better operational efficiencies in working with BIA on this front because, just as in motorcycles, we agree that number is way too high 

and we need to do more work in that area. 

Mr. OLVER. Well, the $4.5 million is not a number that should 

be proportionally compared with your whole budget, but that is 

half of 1 percent of your budget. And the population on the Indian 

reservations is probably not much more than half of 1 percent of 

the population. It is a little bit more than half of 1 percent. But 

the statistical evidence really calls for something to be done, and 

I would like you to. We may even write something into our legislation this year, but I would like you to think seriously maybe with 

some further contact with the Subcommittee about how those programs work. 

When you mentioned that it goes through the BIA, I have the 

feeling, from serving on the Interior Committee where the BIA and 

Indian Health Services dealt with and all the things that that entails, and the horror stories are horrendous it seems to me, along 

with chairing this Subcommittee where we do housing and transportation, that there is one awful lot of sand that gets in the gears 

in the process of how our agencies work with Indian people on the 

reservations. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Olver, we will be happy to communicate 

with the Subcommittee and our staff will work very closely with 

your staff in trying to find ways to improve the numbers in Native 

American tribes. You are absolutely right, the numbers are statistically off the charts in terms of the population and the risk, and 

we need to do a much better job and we are looking forward to 

working with you on that. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you, thank you. Mr. LaTourette. 

SECTION 130

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Administrator, 

one of the greatest safety features of the highway reauthorization 

in my opinion is the Section 130 program which provides funds to 

upgrade at-grade railroad crossing. And you can make railroad 

crossings impenetrable and some clown is still going to try to beat 

the train. Are you involved in the implementation of that, do you 

make suggestions at all, your agency? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. That is, again that is Federal highways that 

deals with grade crossings and I guess the Federal Railroad Administration probably deals with that as well. We deal with the 

education parts of just in terms of safe driving generally, speed 

control issues, aggressive driving, and part of that is challenging 

the grade crossings or trying to beat the train is definitely part of 

our efforts in terms of our general teaching about safe driving and 

all of those efforts, and we definitely will work with our other Administrations to help improve overall safety around grade crossings. But the actual physical grade crossings themselves, that is 

Federal Highways. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Federal Highways, so you do not get involved 

or make suggestions about design modifications? 

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Mr. STRICKLAND. No, sir, we do not. 

SAFETY

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay. One of the difficulties with some of the 

proposals, you talked about how much, when you were talking to 

Mr. Olver about the motorcycles, seatbelts, air bags, and so on, one 

of the big dilemmas has always been during the reauthorization of 

the Highway Program whether you use a carrot or stick approach 

and what the impact is. And on the helmet issue I can remember 

pretty vividly during the reauthorization of not only of ICE TEA 

but then T–21 which became SAFETEA–LU, that there were proposals that you would withhold—not you—but that funds would be 

withheld from states that did not enact mandatory helmet laws. 

What would happen historically is that we would have a hearing 

on it and a lot of large gentlemen with body art and hair would, 

you know, fill the back and sort of cross their arms and scowl at 

you, you know. So it is a tough thing, and, you know, some could 

make the argument that unlike seatbelts and other things that are 

designed into a passenger vehicle that if you want to ride your motorcycle without your helmet and that is you understand that it 

may cause your death and you feel like doing it anyway, which is 

their argument I guess. If you were the king and you could use either the carrot or the stick as we approach this reauthorization, 

what would be, I assume helmets would be on your list, is there 

anything else that would be on your list that you would either give 

a state more highway funds if they did it or take them away if they 

did not that would satisfy some of the things that you are working 

on? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. We would be happy to talk to you about our 

overall safety program in terms of what would be the most effective 

way to sort of to move the needle. Motorcycles is one that I am very 

concerned about because of all the trend data that we have been 

seeing and we have provided to the Subcommittee, that trend is 

going in the wrong direction, it has been going in the wrong direction for a very long time. But of those deaths, there is 33,000 people, over 33,000 people that lost their lives. 

So we need to be stronger and more effective in impaired driving, 

we need to be stronger and more effective in belts, we need to be 

stronger and more effective in aggressive driving and in speed control. All of these issues play into the safety matrix that NHTSA 

deals with, and any policy that would help move the safety needle 

forward, we would be happy to have ongoing suggestions and conversations with this Subcommittee and with the rest of the Congress in doing that. 

MOTORCYCLE SAFETY

Mr. LATOURETTE. I would appreciate that very much. And just 

on the subject of motorcycles, I know you mentioned that helmets 

is the biggest cause in your mind of fatalities, but my observation 

as I drive down the road is that there are a lot of people driving 

motorcycles that have no business driving motorcycles, they have 

not had the education and the training. I mean I cannot ride a motorcycle, I would never ride a motorcycle just like I am not going 

to ride a horse, I do not know how to do it. Is that anywhere in 

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the data that you have looked at? So you have got helmets number 

one, how about the fact that you have got people that do not know 

what they are doing? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. The current grant programs deal with education, rider education and the education of drivers around them. 

In terms of the licensing, that is a state issue and we encourage 

the states to put together more fulsome licensing programs and 

training programs for riders. Even with proper training there is 

also human behavioral elements that are at play here. The one 

thing that the data has shown that the popularity of motorcycles 

has risen over the years, it is that the riders are getting older and 

their response times are slower, which is another factor that goes 

into the number of accidents and fatalities as well. 

So there is a combination of issues with motorcycles that we 

have to address, it is not simply wearing a helmet is the best thing 

that you can do to keep a person alive if they have an accident. 

Proper training is very much an element, and especially recognizing your own limitations in riding the motorcycle is an element 

as well, and I am sure there are several others. We will be happy 

to discuss those in more detail. My staff is very knowledgeable on 

this issue on motorcycles and all the data around it, we are happy 

to have ongoing discussions with your office about that. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. Mr. LaTourette, I cannot help but comment, as you 

were starting your comments there I was seeing a fairly large gentleman with a fair amount of hair and imagining whether there 

might be body art if you wanted to show it to us. Mr. Berry, thank 

you for joining us today. You always bring color and substance to 

our hearings. 

Mr. BERRY. You all have given enough material for a 30-minute 

standup act. When Steve was talking about all the things he cannot ride, I am not going to list all the things that I cannot ride, 

but I can see a lot of opportunities for comments about that. And 

I appreciate the gentleman from Ohio’s bringing that issue up because it seems like it has been around way too long now and we 

still do some things that are not very helpful. The thing that has 

always bothered me the most about applying the necessary safety 

protection in any kind of transportation is that people that get hurt 

are not the ones that pay the bill, it is usually the public that ends 

up taking care of those folks for the rest of their days many times 

if they did not use necessary safety equipment. And I really do not 

have anything to add, I thank you for being here this morning and 

doing this. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. BERRY. But I would just like to associate myself with the remarks that the Chairman made about the Native American reservations and the way they get treated by Transportation in general. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BERRY. And I would encourage you to do anything you can 

do to try to improve that. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir, Mr. Berry. We will definitely be happy 

to talk to your office as well. We are seeing more lives lost and that 

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is an upward trend that has to be a top level agenda item for this 

agency and it will be one. 

Mr. BERRY. Thank you very much. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. On that point, we will make certain that all Members of the Subcommittee because there is interest on the part of 

several of the Members if not all, of whatever we might, whatever 

communication we might have on that issue. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir. 

STAFFING

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Strickland, I am very impressed by the fact that 

you are finding within your budget the places to do more, and finding places where more is not needed and you can actually take out 

a little bit and so forth, and move around to be able to accomplish 

what is needed. I was at first quite surprised that you were going 

to get 66 new positions. My first calculations said that would be 

more money just for the salaries. You know, what is a budget that 

is only $5 million, or less than $5 million, increased over the past 

year? Then I realized that it was 33 full time equivalents, and I 

take it that that means is assuming a half-year hiring essentially 

for this. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir. 

Mr. OLVER. On average some will come on more quickly and 

some will not during the fiscal year, so that is not unreasonable if 

you just put $100,000 down as the salary for the type of positions 

the personnel costs and such with doing that. But I am curious if 

you can give us an idea how you make the allocation as to what 

places those are going to be needed. Can you describe for us how 

that significant addition in staffing, which I believe you need, is 

going to go to the various programs? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Well, it actually will be across the entire agency, not only on the behavioral grants side, the traffic injury control 

side, but also the vehicle safety side as well and NHTSA’s office 

there. In terms of there will be folks, I believe that we are looking 

at additions and enforcement generally which includes the Office of 

Defect Investigation, increases in our rule making office where we 

have several rules underway, we will need additional support not 

only from the engineering and analysis side but the legal support 

in getting those rules out. 

We also will need additional help and assistance in our Office of 

Chief Counsel where they support the entire mission on both sides 

of the house, the behavioral side and on the vehicle safety side as 

well. So in terms of the allocations, one thing that I have learned 

in my three months on the job is that NHTSA’s priorities have to 

recognize what the risks and the efforts that are out there. 

So when we presented the President’s budget to you, that was 

prior to what we now know about our ongoing work on the vehicle 

safety side with Toyota. So I believe that we originally were allocating eight or nine employees for that area, we may make a decision to allocate more people in that effort because of the long term 

research goals that we have in other areas, and we will definitely 

communicate with you those recommendations that we have and as 

we make those final decisions going forward. 

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Mr. OLVER. How many of those FTEs are necessary for the distracted driving program? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. In the behavioral side of the house, there is approximately about 15 or 16 of those folks and they support several 

areas. They support not only distraction but impaired driving, the 

belt programs, and pedestrian and bicycling safety. They do a number of different tasks within traffic injury control. So there is not 

still going to be individuals specifically allocated for distraction, 

there will be folks that will be supporting the entire grant mission 

that we undertake. 

Mr. OLVER. And how many do you think are going to be assigned 

to the office or maybe cubbyhole for Indian reservation consideration? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. We will definitely take a look at that effort, we 

will be happy to talk to you about that. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay, I will go back on a second round here. And, 

Mr. Carter, do you want to be? 

Mr. CARTER. I think I had better listen, Mr. Chairman. I am 

sorry I am late. 

Mr. OLVER. Well, it is good to have you. You always offer good 

things when you are here. So I will go back to Mr. LaTourette. We 

will go through one more round here and then let Mr. Strickland 

go back. With all the people here I do not know how many are from 

the agency but I am wondering if we have badly slowed down the 

good works that you can do by this hearing. Mr. LaTourette. 

CASH FOR CLUNKERS

Mr. LATOURETTE. Perhaps if they had worn helmets it would be 

different. Did NHTSA have a role in the Cash for Clunkers program? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. NHTSA actually managed and ran the Cash for 

Clunkers program. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. That is what I thought. Just, any stories from 

that experience that would be a benefit? Good experience, not so 

good experience? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. I have a very strong, experienced, and intelligent staff that if I were Administrator during that time period I 

think I probably would have fallen over half dead, but this same 

group of people that worked on Cash for Clunkers are the same 

folks that do all of the agency’s missions and work, and they have 

handled Cash for Clunkers with incredible aplomb and great success, and I could not be more proud to be their Administrator. 

The lessons learned are many in terms of not only from NHTSA 

as an individual administration or the Department of Transportation as an entire department or the executive branch as a whole, 

that the ability to be incredibly flexible, to be able to leverage not 

only your own staff but the staff in the entire Department of 

Transportation to get a program like that off the ground from bedrock in 30 days is an achievement which I cannot think of in terms 

of from a rule making and a program implementation that we have 

probably seen in the Federal government in a very long time, if 

ever, possibly. 

There were 700,000 cars that were purchased, the fuel economy 

of cars was incredible. I know there was an expectation that a lot 

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of those vehicles would have been exchanging older SUVs for newer 

SUVs, but the incentive of $4,500 got people out of larger more inefficient SUVs into passenger cars which are better on fuel. We are 

still trying to get all the data together but I will make an educated 

guess that we have probably greatly improved the safety as well, 

because we got older cars with lesser safety systems off the road 

and people buying new cars with airbags and other more advanced 

safety systems as well. It was a complete success on a lot of fronts, 

and the agency is very proud of that accomplishment. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And I think you should be. There was some 

criticism from auto dealers that the forms were a little long, 21 

pages or some such thing, but, you know, I think you are to be 

commended or the Department is to be commended for the work 

that you did. I would just make mention of the fact that it was a 

$3 billion program and imagine if it was hundreds of billions and 

healthcare that we were talking about, getting that program up. 

That is a different day. I want to talk about pedestrian safety, 

which is important. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And you have said in your testimony that, and 

I think that you are developing educational enforcement based programs to reduce the incidents of crashes involving impaired individuals, but just like I love people that ride bicycles I love pedestrians and encourage people to walk wherever they can. So what 

are you talking about doing and what are you doing? And just, 

there is a bill that I am aware of that is being pushed by several 

of the blind organizations that talk about minimum standards for 

the noise a car has to make and other things. So what types of 

things are you working on? 

VEHICLE NOISE STANDARDS

Mr. STRICKLAND. There are several issues, Mr. LaTourette, that 

we are undertaking on pedestrian safety. And the reason for my 

particular focus on this issue is, as described by Secretary LaHood, 

the effort for level of communities where we are going to be encouraging more people to walk and to ride bicycles. Individual mobility 

is not going away. We are going to be having cars having to interact with increased pedestrian traffic and we need to find better 

ways to make sure that we do not create higher risks from this in 

this transition. 

We are talking about enforcement programs very similar to what 

we are doing in impaired driving where there is zero tolerance on 

the part of local police departments in terms of jaywalking and 

proper utilization of pathways to making drivers more aware, not 

blocking the box, all of the things which some police departments 

may think of as de minimis are actually can really move the needle 

in terms of safety for pedestrians. 

In addition to that, education programs for drivers and pedestrians very similar to the work that we undertake in impaired driving and in belts, and we are looking at integrating that in a system 

that we are working on in impaired driving that has proven to be 

very successful from an organizational standpoint. And to also to 

respond to your final point in terms of silent cars, the one thing 

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ards that we will promulgate on April 1st and the continued electrification of the fleet. 

As you know, electric cars do not have anywhere close to the 

same type of sound signature that a regular internal combustion 

engine has, and we are seeing that already with the hybrid cars, 

the Priuses and the hybrids that are out on the fleet. It is not just 

those that are sight impaired, we have found in parking lots that 

folks are not aware of a hybrid car behind them and if the person 

driving the hybrid is not aware of everything around them we are 

also seeing impacts and issues there. So we are undertaking several research projects in dealing with this issue, hopefully to make 

us much smarter about those impacts, and if we are finding that 

there is an emerging risk that where we may need to undertake 

rule making there to deal with this sound issue, we will do so. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay. Thanks so much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. OLVER. I assume the tires still squeal? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Actually, the interesting thing that we found in 

the data is the tire noise is probably one of the main signature 

sounds that once you get to a certain speed you hear not only the 

engine but the tire noise. But we have to try to find a voluntary 

set of standards that the industry is going to undertake or if it goes 

to a more permanent rule making posture, we do not want to overcorrect, because the one goal for the entire fleet has been to try to 

make cars quieter because we are having noise impact in densely 

populated urban areas and you do not want to end up exchanging 

one problem for the other. So we have to be very careful in trying 

to find the right balance there in the safer car issue. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you, you are ready with answers to anything, 

even if they were not intended. That was just a side comment, 

thank you. Mr. Berry. 

Mr. BERRY. I have no further questions. 

Mr. OLVER. No further questions. Mr. Carter, it comes round to 

you. 

Mr. CARTER. Well, I did hear something I have had experience 

with; not by choice but by mandate. And it really is kind of a solution because they do not make any noise, and even the driver 

sometimes can forget that that car will go forward if you step on 

the gas, because it does not make any noise. And especially backing 

up in a parking lot at the grocery store, you could easily run over 

somebody, because they are walking behind your car and they are 

listening for that engine running, and you put that little electric 

motor in gear and it makes no noise at all. The question is going 

to be, I know that a friend of mine has got a Toyota pickup that 

has got a little voice that yells out, get out of the way we are backing up. Are we going to be going to that kind of thing? Because I 

think you may have to see that. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. I know that for each manufacturer that produces hybrids and electric vehicles, they are looking at sound profiles to help give warnings. In the instance of larger trucks and delivery trucks, they have the backup beeping sound to help with 

that. And the question again, Mr. Carter, is trying to find the right 

warning, the right sound profile to assist not only pedestrians 

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around the car, but to also make the driver, I mean it is also driver 

awareness. 

Also one rule underway at NHTSA is the Cameron Gulbransen 

Kids Traffic Safety Act, and one of the components of that is rearward visibility of the driver, trying to create performance standards 

to make sure that drivers can actually see what is in back of them 

when they are backing up, whether it is a camera or better mirrors. We are working toward that performance standard when we 

will get that rule out on time. But the question, Mr. Carter, I think 

is not only a valid one but it is very pertinent to how the fleet is 

evolving, how we can empower drivers to be better about what they 

see behind them, but how we can empower pedestrians to actually 

protect themselves. 

Mr. CARTER. And I am not an advocate of the government intruding in people’s lives, but if you have ever been to Great Britain, 

and you have all experienced stepping off the curb because the traffic is coming from the wrong direction, and we are, whether we like 

it or not, we are Pavlovian responses over our experiences in life 

and most people do not expect cars to back up when they are not 

making noise or go forward when they are not making noise. And 

so we are going to have to come up with a solution, just make a 

motor noise is probably just the easiest way to do it. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir. 

Mr. CARTER. Rather than some guy screaming, watch out I am 

backing up. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir, Mr. Carter. 

Mr. CARTER. Thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. Maybe it just has to have something that beeps when 

it is backing up or something like that at very low speed. I am curious, Mr. Carter, you made the comment that you were driving a 

hybrid by mandate. Whose mandate was that? 

Mr. CARTER. They—just gave me a hybrid. But the reality was 

I think the Speaker said we had to get that hybrid. 

Mr. OLVER. The Speaker said? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. No, it was not the Speaker, it is the rules of 

the House. 

Mr. OLVER. The rules of the House that if you are having a 

leased car it must be? 

Mr. CARTER. It was recommended we buy a hybrid car. 

Mr. OLVER. Okay. 

Mr. CARTER. I got it by accident and my dealer said, well you 

know what, you are a Congressman. I got a really good deal on it. 

Mr. OLVER. Well thank you for the clarification. I was imagining 

a different kind of a mandate. Let’s see, I am just about prepared 

to close. Actually I have one question, and I will let you have a 

comment and then we will just have closing. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thanks. 

CAFE

Mr. OLVER. I just wanted to go back to the EPA standard issue 

for the CAFE standards issue. The EPA has the authority to deal 

with greenhouse gases, you have the authority to deal with fuel efficiency per se. And you have twice said that we are going to meet 

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the 1st of April deadline, that rule is going to be promulgated at 

that time. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes, sir. 

Mr. OLVER. So it is happening, and you have called it a joint 

rule. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Yes. 

Mr. OLVER. So it is a joint rule under both of those, and I take 

it, what is the form of the joint rule, are there things that relate 

only to EPA or how does that look? How often, have you done joint 

rule making before? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. This is the first time that we have done a joint 

fuel economy greenhouse gas rule making because up until this 

time there was no greenhouse gas authority. 

Mr. OLVER. Has NHTSA done other joint rules? 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Actually I do not know that, I would have to 

get back to you on that particular question. But in terms of the 

work between the Environmental Protection Agency and NHTSA in 

promulgating this rule, the rule is a good rule and it is going to 

be a very strong rule. Even though we are each fulfilling our legal 

obligations, ours is statutory and theirs is by a Supreme Court decision, there are actually areas that the Environmental Protection 

Agency can regulate and we have limitations that we cannot. 

For example, air conditioning systems, we can only regulate a 

system that impacts fuel economy, actually moving the car a certain distance using a certain amount of fuel. An air conditioner is 

parasitic, it definitely impacts usage of gas and fuel economy and 

increase to greenhouse gases, but it has nothing to do with moving 

the car. So CAFE can actually reach to regulate air conditioning 

systems, but since it is a greenhouse gas issue the Environmental 

Protection Agency can regulate air conditioning systems and will 

undertake regulating that in this rule. So that is one particular instance where the joint rule making not only covers the statutory 

mandates it actually makes it a stronger more effective rule on behalf of both NHTSA and EPA and overall greenhouse gas impact. 

Mr. OLVER. Well I just happen to think that the breaking down 

of these silos can be nothing but a good thing. Every one of us I 

think can imagine places where the collaboration between agencies 

will lead to smoother workings rather than the kinds of difficulties 

that you run into when that is not done at all, as it has typically 

been done in the past, my impression at least. Mr. LaTourette, 

anything? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Just one observation, and just a parochial 

thing. I have in my district something that most of the Members 

probably do not, I have a lot of Amish. So one of the big problems 

we have are motor vehicle buggy collisions. When we were running 

up to the reauthorization of SAFETEA–LU I had a guy come in 

and try to sell me on some proposal, you know, right now most of 

them just have that big reflector that you have on farm wagons on 

the back, but he was saying, boy could you get me a grant to do 

what Carter was talking about, you know, like, look out there is 

a buggy ahead. Is NHTSA working on anything, is that a big problem that is on your radar screen or is it just I have got to do something in Geauga County, Ohio? 

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Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. LaTourette, we will be happy to talk to you 

about that. I guess that is probably similar to the pedestrian automobile interface issue that we just talked about. But I know not 

only in your community, but other communities in Pennsylvania 

have very similar problems and I definitely would like to have to 

come back and have an opportunity to talk to you about that. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And I would love to talk to you, and I thank 

you, you did a great job this morning. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Thank you, sir, I appreciate that. 

Mr. OLVER. Well if you want to you can even try in Ontario on 

the last point, there are a lot of Amish up in Ontario. So thank you 

very much, this has been a very good hearing, I have enjoyed it 

very much, and thank you very much for your testimony. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Olver, it is a pleasure, thank you. 

Mr. OLVER. Good luck with your continuing activities. 

Mr. STRICKLAND. Thank you very much. 

Mr. OLVER. Thank you. 

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I N D E X 

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Page 

Airline Drug and Alcohol Abuse Prevention ......................................................... 19 

Airline Safety............................................................................................................ 22, 23 

Airports ..................................................................................................................... 33 

Environmental Issues .............................................................................................. 20, 38 

High Speed Rail ........................................................................................... 21, 24, 26, 29 

Highway Trust Fund ............................................................................................... 14, 17 

Infrastructure Fund ................................................................................................. 30, 34 

Livable Communities ............................................................................................... 12, 34 

Motor Carriers.......................................................................................................... 26, 39 

New Starts Program ................................................................................................ 15 

NextGen .................................................................................................................... 36 

Opening Remarks, Chairman John W. Olver ........................................................ 1 

Opening Remarks, Hon. Ray LaHood, Secretary of Transportation ................... 4 

Opening Remarks, Ranking Member Tom Latham .............................................. 3 

Rail Safety ................................................................................................................ 17, 19 

Reauthorization ........................................................................................................ 31 

Saint Lawrence Seaway .......................................................................................... 28 

TIGER Grants .................................................................................................... 17, 23, 37 

Toyota Recall Response ........................................................................................... 13 

Transit ...................................................................................................................... 39 

Written Statement, Hon. Ray LaHood, Secretary of Transportation .................. 7 

STRENGTHENING INTERMODAL CONNECTIONS AND IMPROVING 

FREIGHT MOBILITY 

CSX ........................................................................................................................... 331 

Freight Fund ............................................................................................................ 337 

Fuel Costs ................................................................................................................. 327 

Fuel Efficiency ......................................................................................................... 327 

Global Competition .................................................................................................. 325 

Hazardous Materials ............................................................................................... 343 

Highway Trust Fund ........................................................................................... 323, 325 

Infrastructure Maintenance .................................................................................... 326 

Intermodal Efforts................................................................................................ 328, 335 

Intermodal vs. Multimodal ..................................................................................... 328 

Linking Rail and Ports ............................................................................................ 331 

National Freight Policy........................................................................................ 336, 339 

National Transportation Strategy .......................................................................... 329 

Opening Remarks, Chairman John W. Olver ........................................................ 265 

Opening Remarks, Ranking Member Tom Latham .............................................. 266 

Opening Remarks, Mr. John Wolfe, Executive Director—Port of Tacoma ......... 277 

Opening Remarks, Mr. Richard Timmons, President—American Short Line 

and Regional Railroad Association ..................................................................... 287 


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Opening Remarks, Mr. Timothy Lynch, Senior Vice President—American 

Trucking Association ............................................................................................ 311 

Opening Remarks, Mr. Wayne Johnson, Director of Logistics—American Gypsum ........................................................................................................................ 298

Opening Remarks, Ms. Beverly Swaim-Staley, Secretary—MD Department 

of Transportation ................................................................................................. 267 

Passenger Rail ......................................................................................................... 341 

Port Investments ..................................................................................................... 332 

TIGER Grants .......................................................................................................... 342 

Trucking Weight Limits .......................................................................................... 324 

Written Statement, Mr. John Wolfe, Executive Director—Port of Tacoma ........ 279 

Written Statement, Mr. Richard Timmons, President—American Short Line 

and Regional Railroad Association ..................................................................... 290 

Written Statement, Mr. Timothy Lynch, Senior Vice President—American 

Trucking Association ............................................................................................ 313 

Written Statement, Mr. Wayne Johnson, Director of Logistics—American 

Gypsum ................................................................................................................. 301 

Written Statement, Ms. Beverly Swaim-Staley, Secretary—MD Department 

of Transportation ................................................................................................. 270 

STRENGTHENING INTERMODAL CONNECTIONS AND FISCAL YEAR 

2011 BUDGET REQUESTS 

Bicycle and Pedestrian Policy ................................................................................. 364 

FMCSA Budget ........................................................................................................ 373 

Freight ...................................................................................................................... 368 

Highway Trust Fund Reauthorization ................................................................... 359 

Light Rail ................................................................................................................. 363

MARAD ..................................................................................................................... 373 

NAFTA ...................................................................................................................... 374

Opening Remarks, Chairman John W. Olver ........................................................ 345 

Opening Remarks, Hon. Roy Kienitz, Under Secretary for Policy, Department 

of Transportation ................................................................................................. 346 

Opening Remarks, Ranking Member Tom Latham .............................................. 346 

Rail Line Relocation ................................................................................................ 366 

RIF Program ............................................................................................................ 371 

TIGER Grants.............................................................................. 358, 361, 365, 367, 370 

Written Testimony, Hon. Roy Kienitz, Under Secretary for Policy, Department 

of Transportation ................................................................................................. 350 

FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION FISCAL YEAR 2011 BUDGET 

Agency Budget Cuts ................................................................................................ 590 

AIP Grants for Livable and Sustainable Projects ................................................. 558 

Airspace Redesign/Consolidations .......................................................................... 585 

ARRA Job Creation ................................................................................................. 589 

Bilateral Agreements ............................................................................................... 590 

Collective Bargaining Unit Employee Staffing Numbers ..................................... 592 

Controller Pay/Contract Efficiencies ...................................................................... 586 

Controller Placement Issues ................................................................................... 587 

Cyber-Security ......................................................................................................... 557 

En-route Modernization Program (ERAM) ............................................................ 554 

Equipage Incentives for NextGen ........................................................................... 580 

FAA Reauthorization ............................................................................................... 558 

FedEx/UPS Labor Provision ................................................................................... 558 

Foreign Repair Stations .......................................................................................... 584 


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Ground Based Augmentation System (GBAS) ...................................................... 583 

Labor Relations with Controllers ........................................................................... 581 

Minority Hiring/ADS–B .......................................................................................... 559 

Minority Hiring Staffing Plan ................................................................................ 556 

NextGen for Rural Airports .................................................................................... 555 

NextGen Implementation .................................................................................... 553, 582 

NextGen Implementation/En Route Centers ......................................................... 579 

Opening Remarks, Chairman John W. Olver ........................................................ 531 

Opening Remarks, Hon. J. Randolph Babbitt, Administrator—Federal Aviation Administration .............................................................................................. 533 

Opening Remarks, Ranking Member Tom Latham .............................................. 532 

Safety ........................................................................................................................ 591 

Terminal Automation Modernization Replacement Program (TAMR) ................ 596 

Written Statement, Hon. J. Randolph Babbitt, Administrator—Federal Aviation Administration .............................................................................................. 536 

MAINTAINING A SAFE AND VIABLE AVIATION SYSTEM: PRIORITIES 

FROM AVIATION STAKEHOLDERS 

ADS–B ...................................................................................................................... 662

Air Traffic Controllers ......................................................................................... 660, 666 

ERAM ....................................................................................................................... 655

Fixing Metroplex Areas ........................................................................................... 657 

Ground Delays ......................................................................................................... 663 

NextGen ................................................................................................................ 653, 659

Opening Remarks, Chairman John W. Olver ........................................................ 609 

Opening Remarks, Mr. James May, President and Chief Executive Officer— 

Air Transport Association .................................................................................... 634 

Opening Remarks, Mr. Pete Bunce, President and Chief Executive Officer— 

General Aviation and Manufacturers Association ............................................. 627 

Opening Remarks, Ms. Gina Marie Lindsey, Executive Director—Los Angeles 

World Airports ...................................................................................................... 610 

Opening Remarks, Ms. Margaret Jenny, President—RTCA ................................ 639 

Opening Remarks, Ms. Patricia Gilbert, Executive Vice President—National 

Air Traffic Controllers Association ..................................................................... 617 

Opening Remarks, Ranking Member Tom Latham .............................................. 609 

Task Force Five Report ........................................................................................... 652 

Written Testimony, Mr. James May, President and Chief Executive Officer— 

Air Transport Association .................................................................................... 636 

Written Testimony, Mr. Pete Bunce, President and Chief Executive Officer— 

General Aviation and Manufacturers Association ............................................. 629 

Written Testimony, Ms. Gina Marie Lindsey, Executive Director—Los Angeles 

World Airports ...................................................................................................... 613 

Written Testimony, Ms. Margaret Jenny, President—RTCA .............................. 641 

Written Testimony, Ms. Patricia Gilbert, Executive Vice President—National 

Air Traffic Controllers Association ..................................................................... 619 

INTERCITY AND COMMUTER PASSENGER RAIL, AND AMTRAK 

AMTRAK Budget Request ...................................................................................... 700 

Domestic Manufacturing ......................................................................................... 697 

FTA Notice of Funding Availability ....................................................................... 710 

Funding Transit Agencies ....................................................................................... 709 

High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail ..................................................................... 716 

Livability .................................................................................................................. 711 

New Starts Criteria ................................................................................................. 714 


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Opening Remarks, Chairman John W. Olver ........................................................ 669 

Opening Remarks, Mr. Peter Rogoff, Administrator—Federal Transit Administration ................................................................................................................. 671 

Opening Remarks, Mr. Joseph Bordman, President and CEO of AMTRAK ...... 688 

Opening Remarks, Mr. Joseph Szabo, Administrator—Federal Railroad Administration .......................................................................................................... 682 

Opening Remarks, Ranking Member Tom Latham .............................................. 670 

Positive Train Control ............................................................................................. 699 

Replacing Bus Fleets ............................................................................................... 712 

Small Starts ............................................................................................................. 715 

State of Good Repair ............................................................................................... 705 

TIGER Grants .......................................................................................................... 714 

Transit Safety .......................................................................................................... 701 

Written Testimony, Mr. Peter Rogoff, Administrator—Federal Transit Administration ................................................................................................................. 675 

Written Testimony, Mr. Joseph Bordman, President and CEO of AMTRAK ..... 691 

Written Testimony, Mr. Joseph Szabo, Administrator—Federal Railroad Administrator ............................................................................................................ 684 

NATIONAL HIGHWAY TRAFFIC SAFETY ADMINISTRATION 

Bike Lanes ................................................................................................................ 744 

CAFE ........................................................................................................................ 760 

Carbon Pollution ...................................................................................................... 745 

Cash for Clunkers .................................................................................................... 757 

Distracted Driving ................................................................................................... 737 

Fatality Rates .......................................................................................................... 750 

Indian Reservation Conditions ............................................................................... 752 

Interlock ................................................................................................................... 747 

Motorcycle Safety ................................................................................................. 741, 754 

Opening Remarks, Chairman John W. Olver ........................................................ 727 

Opening Remarks, Mr. David Strickland, Administrator—National Highway 

Traffic Safety Administration ............................................................................. 728 

Opening Remarks, Ranking Member Tom Latham .............................................. 728 

Reauthorization ........................................................................................................ 744 

Safety ........................................................................................................................ 754 

Safety Enforcement ................................................................................................. 749 

Section 130 ............................................................................................................... 753 

Staffing ..................................................................................................................... 756 

Toyota ....................................................................................................................... 749 

Written Testimony, Mr. David Strickland, Administrator—National Highway 

Traffic Safety Administration ............................................................................. 731 

Vehicle Noise Standards ......................................................................................... 758 

Vehicle Safety .......................................................................................................... 742 

Voluntary Vehicle Recall ......................................................................................... 746 

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