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HOW FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION CHALLENGES 

IN URBAN AREAS IMPACT THE NATION 

(113–32) 

FIELD HEARING 

BEFORE THE

PANEL ON 

21st-CENTURY FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JULY 26, 2013 (New York, New York) 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

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

committee.action?chamber=house&committee=transportation 

(II) 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee, 

Vice Chair 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

ERIC A. ‘‘RICK’’ CRAWFORD, Arkansas 

LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana 

BOB GIBBS, Ohio 

PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania 

RICHARD L. HANNA, New York 

DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida 

STEVE SOUTHERLAND, II, Florida 

JEFF DENHAM, California 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

STEVE DAINES, Montana 

TOM RICE, South Carolina 

MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma 

ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas 

TREY RADEL, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois 

MARK SANFORD, South Carolina 

NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York 

MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

ANDRE ́ CARSON, Indiana 

JANICE HAHN, California 

RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota 

ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois 

PANEL ON 21ST-CENTURY FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee, Chairman 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

ERIC A. ‘‘RICK’’ CRAWFORD, Arkansas 

RICHARD L. HANNA, New York 

DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida 

MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

JANICE HAHN, California 

(III) 

CONTENTS Page 

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

TESTIMONY 

Patrick J. Foye, Executive Director, Port Authority of New York and New 

Jersey .................................................................................................................... 4 

William J. Flynn, President and Chief Executive Officer, Atlas Air Worldwide 

Holdings, Inc. ........................................................................................................ 4 

Gerard J. Coyle, Vice President for Environmental and Sustainable Operations, Evans Delivery Company, Inc. ............................................................... 4 

William G.M. Goetz, Resident Vice President for New York City, New Jersey, 

and Philadelphia, CSX Transportation, Inc. ...................................................... 4 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES 

Patrick J. Foye ......................................................................................................... 36 

William J. Flynn ...................................................................................................... 40 

Gerard J. Coyle ........................................................................................................ 47 

William G.M. Goetz ................................................................................................. 58 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

David A. King, Ph.D. & Jonathan R. Peters, Ph.D., written statement; David 

A. King, Ph.D., Jonathan R. Peters, Ph.D. & Cameron E. Gordon, Ph.D., 

Does Road Pricing Affect Port Freight Activity: Recent Evidence From 

the Port of New York and New Jersey (April 26, 2013) ................................... †

†The written statement and report entitled, ‘‘Does Road Pricing Affect Port 

Freight Activity: Recent Evidence From the Port of New York and New 

Jersey’’ can be found online at the Government Printing Office’s Federal 

Digital System (FDsys) at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CPRT113HPRT85538/pdf/CPRT-113HPRT85538.pdf. 

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(1) 

HOW FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION 

CHALLENGES IN URBAN AREAS 

IMPACT THE NATION 

FRIDAY, JULY 26, 2013 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

PANEL ON 21ST-CENTURY FREIGHT TRANSPORTATION, 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, 

Washington, DC. 

The panel met, pursuant to call, at 1:37 p.m., at Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, One Bowling Green, New York, New 

York, Hon. John J. Duncan, Jr. (Chairman of the panel) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Duncan, Hanna, Webster, Mullin, Nadler, Lipinski, Sires, and Hahn. 

Also Present: Representative Grimm. 

Mr. DUNCAN. If everyone will please take their seats, I want to 

first of all welcome everyone to this hearing, this field hearing before the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Panel on 

21st-Century Freight Transportation. 

Before we begin, I would like to ask unanimous consent that 

Representative Michael Grimm be permitted to join the panel for 

today’s hearing. Without objection, that will be so ordered. 

This special panel, as most of you know, was created by Chairman Shuster and Ranking Member Rahall of the Transportation 

and Infrastructure Committee to examine the current state of 

freight transportation in the United States and how improving 

freight transportation can strengthen the United States economy. 

We have been given special cross-panel jurisdiction to cover all the 

different panels of the committee. So we have a real opportunity 

to do something good or some good things with this panel. 

As I have said before, the purpose of the panel is to provide recommendations to the committee on ways to modernize the freight 

network and make the United States competitive in the 21st century. We have been working hard towards this goal, holding multiple hearings and roundtable discussions and visiting critical 

freight facilities in southern California and the Greater Memphis 

area, as well as here in New York and New Jersey. 

We have traveled here today because this region is one of the 

most important trade gateways in the entire country. What goes on 

here in the transportation field is important to everyone in this Nation. There are many facilities in this area that are very critical to 

the efficient movement of goods into, out of and around the Nation. 

The purpose of today’s hearing is to examine freight transportation challenges in urban areas and how those issues resonate 

2 

throughout the Nation’s freight system. Freight transportation 

through urban areas is a complex endeavor and has a dramatic impact on the Nation’s freight system for many reasons: congestion; 

ports and large freight facilities are often located in urban areas; 

the density of the population; the number of governmental entities 

present in each of these regions. 

We have an excellent panel of witnesses before us today. I am 

confident that they will be able to help us understand the unique 

freight transportation challenges facing urban areas and how those 

issues impact the rest of the Nation. 

I will introduce the witnesses in just a few minutes, but I would 

like to first introduce the panel. We have a good cross-section on 

this panel. I have the privilege of serving as the Republican chair. 

The Democratic chair of this committee, the ranking member, is 

Jerrold Nadler from this city, and most of you know him. 

We have Richard Hanna, who represents a district that covers a 

pretty big area in upstate New York, around Syracuse. He represents Binghamton and many areas from upstate New York down 

to the Pennsylvania line. 

We have Congressman Dan Lipinski from Chicago, and we have 

Daniel Webster, who represents a part of Orlando in the suburbs 

of Orlando. 

We have Albio Sires, also from this area, who represents a district just across the Hudson. We have been over there some today. 

He represents Bayonne and part of Jersey City and some other 

places. 

We have Congressman Markwayne Mullin, who is from rural 

Oklahoma, representing a district that throughout history has been 

referred to as Little Dixie and once was the home of Congressman 

Carl Albert, who was the Speaker of the House at one point. 

I haven’t done this intentionally, but we have saved the best for 

last, Janice Hahn, who is from southern California, and we visited 

her district. She represents the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles and has many issues that we deal with in our committee. 

At this time, I would like to call on Congressman Nadler for his 

opening statement or any remarks he wishes to make. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me begin by welcoming everyone to New York, and thank you for holding this hearing in my district, this hearing on how freight transportation challenges in urban areas impact the Nation. 

Urban areas across the country share many common challenges 

such as congestion, limited space, dense population, pressure to 

commercially develop industrial land, and environmental justice 

concerns. But New York is unique in certain respects. New York 

and New Jersey never built a rail freight connection across the 

Hudson River, cutting off all of the population centers on the east 

side from the mainland rail transportation network. As a result, 

New York City, Long Island, Westchester, and southern Connecticut are completely dependent on trucks. 

There is an often-cited statistic that about 43 percent of intercity 

freight moves by rail in the United States. In our region, east of 

the Hudson, that figure is less than 1 percent. That means about 

99 percent of all goods coming into the city come by truck, most 

of that, almost all of that across the George Washington Bridge. 

3 

As we saw on our tour this morning, there is a small percentage 

of rail that travels by barge where we literally float the railcars 

across the harbor between New Jersey and Brooklyn. The rail 

barges provide a valuable service, but they really represent the latest and pinnacle of 19th-century technology. The barges are subject 

to the tides and the weather and are generally insufficient for moving large quantities of freight by rail. Since this is the committee’s 

Panel on 21st-Century Freight Transportation, I think that my colleagues will agree that this is an obvious place to start making improvements. 

Our region’s complete dependence on trucks exacerbates all of 

the normal urban challenges New York City faces such as pollution, a disproportionate impact on low-income and minority communities, and a loss or degradation of underutilized rail transportation assets. But it also creates adverse impacts for the rest of the 

country. This bottleneck between northern New Jersey and New 

York causes congestion all along the I–95 corridor. It increases the 

cost of doing business throughout the global supply chain, and it 

places an artificial lid on economic growth in one of the largest economic centers and consumer regions in the country. 

New York is also somewhat unique in that most freight movement in our region is a bi-state effort. So I am pleased that Port 

Authority Executive Director Pat Foye is here today. I want to 

thank him for the Port Authority’s hospitality in hosting the panel’s tour this week, and I look forward to his testimony. 

The Port Authority, along with FHWA, is currently completing 

the environmental impact statement for the Cross-Harbor Freight 

Movement Project, which is looking at a number of alternatives for 

improving goods movement across New York Harbor. It is no secret 

that I believe the evidence will show that the preferred alternative 

will be to finally build a rail freight tunnel connecting Greenville 

Yard, New Jersey, which we visited this morning, to the Bay Ridge 

line in Brooklyn, a portal which we also visited this morning. 

The Port Authority was created in 1921 specifically for this purpose, so I look forward to Mr. Foye’s update on this centuries-old 

project. We are about 100 years behind schedule, but thanks to the 

Port Authority’s leadership and a strong partnership with the Federal Government, we are finally making progress. 

Of course, the $1 million, or perhaps the $1 billion, or perhaps 

the several hundred billion dollar question, is how do we pay for 

necessary freight improvements. While there are willing private 

partners, it will not be nearly enough to meet the immense needs 

all around the country. State and local governments cannot shoulder the burden alone, nor should they, when interstate commerce 

is inherently a Federal responsibility. We will have to commit Federal funding, or else we will continue to have plans and projects remain on the shelf while our economy sputters. 

It is my hope that through this panel we can offer some solutions 

to address the many freight bottlenecks across the country such as 

that which exists in New York City. Thank you again, Chairman 

Duncan, for holding this hearing today and for bringing the panel 

to New York. I look forward to hearing from the witnesses. Thank 

you. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Nadler. 

4 

It occurred to me that as I was telling everyone about all the districts that are represented here today, that I forgot to tell you that 

I am from Knoxville, Tennessee, a very popular, fast-growing area 

in east Tennessee. 

I did ask for unanimous consent, and it was granted, to allow our 

friend Michael Grimm to sit as a member of the panel today. I did 

not see that he had come in while I was introducing everybody, but 

we are certainly honored and pleased that Congressman Michael 

Grimm, who is from Staten Island, as I remember—is that correct? 

Staten Island is, what, about 80 percent of your district? 

Mr. GRIMM. Two-thirds. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Two-thirds, and the rest in Brooklyn. 

We are certainly pleased to have Congressman Grimm here. 

Does anyone else want to make an opening statement? Anyone 

else at all? 

All right. Well, we will move right on into the hearing. 

We have a very distinguished panel here today, starting with Mr. 

Patrick Foye, who is the executive director of the Port Authority of 

New York and New Jersey. We certainly appreciate the treatment 

that we have been given by the Port Authority during our time 

here. 

We have Mr. Bill Flynn, president and CEO of Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings. 

We have Gerry Coyle, who is the vice president for environmental and sustainable operations of the Evans Delivery Company. 

And we have Mr. Bill Goetz, who is head of the operations for 

CSX for New York City, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, and points 

in-between. 

Certainly, we are pleased to have all of you here today. 

And, Mr. Foye, we will let you begin. 

TESTIMONY OF PATRICK J. FOYE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

PORT AUTHORITY OF NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY; WILLIAM J. FLYNN, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, ATLAS AIR WORLDWIDE HOLDINGS, INC.; GERARD J. 

COYLE, VICE PRESIDENT FOR ENVIRONMENTAL AND SUSTAINABLE OPERATIONS, EVANS DELIVERY COMPANY, INC.; 

AND WILLIAM G.M. GOETZ, RESIDENT VICE PRESIDENT FOR 

NEW YORK CITY, NEW JERSEY, AND PHILADELPHIA, CSX 

TRANSPORTATION, INC. 

Mr. FOYE. Chairman Duncan, thank you. Chairman Duncan, 

Ranking Member Nadler, and members of the committee, welcome 

to New York and thank you for holding this critical hearing on 

freight transportation challenges. 

My name is Pat Foye, and I am the Executive Director of the 

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Under the leadership 

of our Governors, Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie, the Port Authority operates the most important and diverse multimodal portfolio of any transportation operator in the world. I welcome your 

visit to see firsthand what the Port Authority is doing to support 

the Nation’s economy and its global competitiveness. 

Efficient freight service in the New York City region is critical 

to job creation and retention in our region, and indeed to our country’s sustainable and prosperous future. First, permit me a quick 

5 

profile of the Port Authority and our role in the national freight 

network. 

The Port Authority operates the Nation’s busiest metropolitan 

airport system. Last year, that system handled 109 million passengers, with 1.3 million tons of international air cargo, and threequarters of a million tons of domestic air freight. We are the largest maritime port on the east coast, handling over 5 million containers, which is more than a 60-percent share of the North Atlantic market. Our six international bridges and tunnels handled 14.8 

million truck crossings last year, and nearly half of them used the 

George Washington Bridge, a critical link on the I–95 corridor. 

Other Port Authority facilities include the Nation’s busiest bus 

terminal, the PATH Rapid Transit System, ferry and rail freight 

facilities, as well as the ongoing redevelopment of the 16-acre 

World Trade Center site, including One World Trade Center. 

Let me speak about ports. Our port assets and associated freight 

rail movements are critical to the health of our region and that of 

the Nation. Today, freight passing through our port can reach 20 

percent of the U.S. population or more than 62 million people in 

fewer than 8 hours, and more than 30 percent or over 94 million 

people in fewer than 48 hours. 

All of our facilities play a distinct role in the delivery of goods 

within the region and beyond. For example, the Red Hook container terminal in Brooklyn, in Congressman Nadler’s district, is 

the only international maritime terminal with a direct land connection to Long Island and is uniquely positioned to receive and distribute international cargo to the approximately 11 million residents east of the Hudson River. We work every day to meet the 

needs of the Nation’s largest consumer market. Any slowdown of 

operations can result in an economic blow not just to the regional 

economy but that of the Nation. Studies indicate that a closure of 

our ports for only a day would cost the Nation $1 billion a day. 

At the Port Authority, we recognize the impact our facilities have 

on the efficient movement of freight throughout the region and the 

country. In the past decade, we have made major investments to 

maintain our global competitiveness and ensure that we meet the 

demands of the region. Over the last 10 years alone, the Port Authority and our private-sector partners have invested approximately $2.6 billion to promote efficient movement of freight. Over 

the last decade, we have also provided more than $688 million in 

local matching funds for the harbor deepening project which will 

deepen the main harbor channel to 50 feet to improve navigational 

safety and pave the way for larger cargo vessels. 

Earlier this year, we broke ground on a $1.3 billion project to 

raise the roadway of the Bayonne Bridge in Congressman Sires’ 

district to increase the navigational clearance above the main harbor channel to 215 feet to accommodate the new generation of larger and cleaner cargo vessels. 

We have committed $600 million to the development of our 

ExpressRail intermodal network at our port terminals to support 

expanded on-dock service by long-haul railroad serving inland markets. ExpressRail reaches up to 90 million customers within 24 

hours in markets throughout the Midwest and eastern Canada. 

Through this service, it takes only 10 days to move cargo from 

6 

Hamburg, Germany, to Chicago by vessel and rail combined. Today 

we have the capacity to handle more than 1 million containers at 

our on-dock rail facilities, and by the end of the decade we will 

have increased our capacity to 1.5 million containers. Thanks to 

the support of Governor Cuomo and the tireless efforts of Congressman Nadler, the Port Authority, in partnership with the U.S. Department of Transportation, will expand cross-harbor railcar barge 

service between Jersey City and Brooklyn. I know you have seen 

that on your tour. 

We are modernizing float bridges and barges that will speed the 

service, as well as providing new low-emission locomotives for use 

in both States. But we were interrupted by damage from Super 

Storm Sandy this last October. This operation continues to grow. 

Sixteen-hundred rail cars were carried in the first half of this year 

alone, equivalent to removing more than 6,500 trucks from the 

area’s roads. This represents the volume equal to all of last year. 

In the coming months, the Port Authority will approve a 10-year 

capital program that will invest billions of dollars in our freight infrastructure. In addition to the capital investment we are undertaking to improve the efficient movement of freight, we are implementing measures to ensure that our investments benefit truckers 

who use Staten Island crossings to access the Howland Hook facility, thereby improving the movement of freight at this facility. The 

Port Authority will also invest in an expansion of ExpressRail in 

Staten Island to enhance that facility’s competitiveness. Since 

2000, we have made $375 million in Howland Hook alone. 

The Port Authority is proud to be a leader in multimodal freight 

movement, but there are opportunities at the Federal level to address our Nation’s freight needs. The Port Authority is strongly 

supportive of efforts to redirect revenues from the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund to the harbor operations and maintenance dredging in order to protect our investment in deepened channels. We 

are also strongly supportive of innovative Federal financing and 

competitive grant programs such as TIFIA, RRIF, and TIGER, in 

order to leverage public and private capital investment locally. 

The Port Authority, we are proud to say, has been approved for 

up to $500 million of a low-cost TIFIA loan for the replacement of 

the Goethals Bridge, a $1.5 billion project connecting Staten Island 

and New Jersey. The Port Authority is utilizing an innovative public-private partnership structure for the Goethals, the first cruise 

surface transportation PPP in the northeast region to access private capital. 

We are also working on goods movement improvements at our 

airports. The Port Authority recently completed a joint study of 

JFK cargo activity with the city of New York to zero in on strategies to preserve and expand this globally important cargo center. 

We are also working to address obstacles for efficient truck access, 

as well as to modernize our facilities and better accommodate current industry needs. 

There are many additional challenges to address. As Congressman Nadler said, urban centers like the New York City region will 

be the frontline of any national campaign to implement an effective 

and efficient national freight strategy. Metropolitan areas’ share of 

the Nation’s economic activity is only growing. Most of the Nation’s 

7 

gateway ports, major air cargo centers, and other intermodal hubs 

are in metropolitan areas, where the movement of freight faces obstacles such as chronic congestion, obsolete infrastructure, and 

competing land uses. Any initiative must take into account potential community impacts. 

Finally, this year the Port Authority expects to complete a comprehensive regional goods movement plan for the greater metropolitan region in partnership with the New Jersey and New York 

State Departments of Transportation. Our aim is to coordinate a 

strategic approach to improvements across the region. As we 

progress on this effort, I look forward to working with this committee on a national approach for multimodal freight movement. 

Thank you. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Foye. 

Mr. Flynn? 

Mr. FLYNN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Chairman Duncan, Ranking Member Nadler, and members of the committee’s Panel on 

21st-Century Freight Transportation, thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I too commend you for focusing on freight 

transportation. 

I am testifying today as the CEO of Atlas Air, the world’s largest 

operator of Boeing 747 freighter aircraft. We are a New York-based 

company, and we operate aircraft for the U.S. Department of Defense, DHL, UPS, and major international airlines such as British 

Airways, Qantas and Etihad. 

Holding this hearing in the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Customs 

House I think is quite appropriate. The first Congress, which established the Customs Service in 1798, also faced serious transportation problems. An inadequate waterway system and sectional rivalries created commercial chaos that threatened our Nation. Fortunately, the first Congress and President Washington provided 

the leadership necessary to shape an American waterways policy 

into a potent force serving the public good. We need that kind of 

leadership today. Our national freight networks are not adequate 

to meet the challenges nor the opportunities that we face, which is 

why I believe these hearings are so important. 

In conducting regular flights through major U.S. airports, Atlas 

has faced a number of challenges, particularly in urban areas. In 

looking at these on a systemwide basis, I have identified a number 

of constraints that hinder the ability of Atlas and other cargo providers to efficiently and effectively transport freight, and they fall 

into three categories: physical, informational, and financial. 

Let’s start with physical constraints. When Atlas considers 

worldwide freight networks, a significant constraint is the severe 

congestion that exists in urban hubs, including the New York-New 

Jersey metroplex. This congestion substantially impairs just-intime supply chains and could cause companies to divert their traffic 

flows away from New York and New Jersey. In fact, a recent 

MITRE study confirms that air traffic delays in the New York-New 

Jersey metroplex have a profound ripple effect on the entire air 

traffic network, costing hundreds of millions of dollars every year 

in lost productivity and certainly citizen and shareholder frustration. 

8 

We must address this constraint, and that is why Atlas strongly 

supports the FAA’s NextGen initiative and to focus in the nearterm on improving efficiency by using existing modern technology 

and controller training to reduce airport and air space inefficiencies. 

NextGen also has the added benefit of reducing the industry’s 

carbon footprint, thereby positively impacting the environment. 

From our view, there is no reason to prolong the implementation 

of NextGen. Atlas and many airlines already have the equipment 

and utilize the procedures necessary for NextGen. 

While Atlas fully supports the full implementation and funding 

of NextGen, we hope the U.S. Government will focus in the nearterm on aspects such as performance-based navigation which do 

not require the development of new technologies nor substantial 

monetary investment by the Nation or its airlines but do require 

the regulatory approval of new procedures. In order to accomplish 

this, we need effective leadership which this committee can help 

provide. 

As for informational constraints, a systematic problem that Atlas 

and other carriers have experienced is that of the inefficiencies 

with the U.S. Customs and border protection procedures. Although 

there is no doubt that this process is necessary, Atlas’ global customers depend on on-time arrivals and departures, but they also 

depend on the efficient processing of our aircraft, aircrews, and 

cargo. More needs to be done to modernize and streamline Customs 

and border protection facilities, particularly with the inspection 

and clearing of cargo. 

Atlas strongly supports the TSA’s risk-based approach to transportation security, which we view as the only effective way to address cargo security. The TSA and U.S. Customs joint effort to implement the Advanced Cargo Air Screening Program enables the 

collection of as much shipment information as possible for the Government to identify at-risk cargo. TSA’s approach simultaneously 

addresses efficiency concerns by developing a trusted shipper mechanism to identify and allow for expedited processing of cargo from 

repeat reputable shippers who pose less of a threat than the occasional single shipper. 

Cooperation is critical to the success of the risk-based approach. 

Atlas applauds TSA Administrator Pistole’s commitment to working with industry to identify security and efficiency problems and 

solutions. We look forward to continued Government and industry 

collaboration. 

As I have already explained, our national aviation system is in 

need of modernization. Such improvements are critical to growing 

the U.S. economy, workforce, and global competitiveness. It is imperative that we as a Nation ensure stable and secure financing. 

In doing so, I urge policymakers not to adopt tax policies that 

would contribute to industry instability. 

Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to present 

my views, and I welcome your questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DUNCAN. All right. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Coyle? 

9 

Mr. COYLE. Chairman Duncan, Ranking Member Nadler, and 

panel members, thank you for the opportunity to testify on behalf 

of Evans Delivery Company and the American Trucking Association. Evans Delivery Company is a national provider of trucking 

and transportation services, handling or transporting about 

500,000 containers, intermodal containers per year. The New York 

and New Jersey metropolitan area presents some unique challenges for both motor carriers and shippers. As Congressman Nadler and Congressman Sires know all too well, the New York-New 

Jersey metropolitan area has some of the worst traffic congestion 

in the Nation. Congestion in the region increases freight transportation costs by $2.5 billion and slows the movement and delivery 

of nearly half-a-trillion dollars’ worth of goods. Congestion also imposes significant public health costs due to air pollution caused by 

vehicles sitting in gridlock. 

Map-21 requires DOT to identify the most costly highway freight 

bottlenecks but does not provide separate funding to eliminate 

them. We urge you to support a set-aside of funds to fix these very 

costly barriers to efficient freight transport. 

Tolls are another significant challenge, one that threatens the 

razor-thin profit margins of many trucking companies and puts 

New York ports at a serious competitive disadvantage. In 2011, the 

toll cost for a five-axle truck crossing one of the Port Authority 

bridges was $40. In December 2015, the cost will be $105. This is 

a whopping 163-percent increase. A recent study found that for 

short-haul trucks serving New York port terminals, tolls may represent up to 59 percent of the total cost of delivery. This compares 

with a nationwide average of about 1 percent. Currently, Evans Delivery Company pays $247 in tolls to transport a container from the Port of Philadelphia to Brooklyn. In 2015, 

this cost will be $277. I was pleased to learn, however, that the 

New York Container Terminal has reached an agreement with the 

Port Authority to reduce the tolls at Howland Hook. However, my 

understanding is the tolls will increase once volume threshold is 

reached. And even at the reduced rate, Howland Hook is still at a 

competitive disadvantage in the market. 

One of the tolling strategies being considered by New York City 

is congestion pricing where tolls will vary by time of day or level 

of congestion in order to facilitate the travel mode and time of travel. Congestion pricing will not necessarily work or be effective for 

commercial traffic since shippers, not the trucking companies, determine the pickup and delivery schedules. In addition, many of 

the terminals are generally open between Monday and Friday from 

6 a.m. to 6 p.m. This means the transit companies will not be able 

to take advantage of the lower toll rates during off-peak. 

Increasing toll rates are particularly troubling when revenue is 

used to subsidize projects unrelated to efficient movement of traffic 

on the toll facilities. It is Congress’ responsibility, therefore, to protect the public from unfair and destructive toll-setting practices, as 

Congressman Grimm has proposed. 

Another key issue of concern is efforts by ports to improve air 

quality by outlawing older trucks and incentivizing motor carriers 

to buy newer trucks with lower emissions. In some cases, these efforts have also included new operational mandates. Of particular 

10 

concern was the Port of Los Angeles program which mandated only 

employee drivers and banned owner-operators from the port. Responding to the ATA challenge, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled 

that these requirements are preempted by Federal law. It is important to note, however, that ATA litigation did not in any way challenge the ports’ ability to impose clean truck programs. In fact, 

ATA was a staunch supporter of the Port of New York and New 

Jersey Clean Truck Program. 

We also support a new EPA Port Drayage Truck Initiative under 

the SmartWay Transport Partnership that provides technical assistance, emission assessment tools, and partnership recognition to 

port drayage companies that commit to upgrade their truck fleet. 

As you can see, there are many constructive, industry supported, 

clean port initiatives that will have a real impact on the environment. Efforts to eliminate the owner-operator model will have a decidedly negative impact on the ports and will not necessarily result 

in cleaner air. 

Recently, the container terminals in the Port of New York and 

New Jersey have been experiencing worse than usual truck lines 

and cargo delays. While these delays are somewhat unusual, similar gate-related delays regularly plague this region and many other 

ports around the country. While ports struggle to address these 

problems, Congress can assist by addressing congestion outside the 

gate on highway intermodal connectors that exacerbate poor transportation flows around the Nation’s ports. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you once again for the opportunity to testify. HAA looks forward to working with the committee to craft a 

transportation reauthorization bill that addresses urban freight 

transportation challenges. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Coyle. 

Next we will hear from Mr. William Goetz. 

Mr. GOETZ. Chairman Duncan, Ranking Member Nadler, and 

members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to participate today. My name is William G.M. Goetz, and I am the resident vice president for this area with CSX Transportation. CSX is 

a common carrier freight railroad providing surface transportation 

solutions for our customers. Our 21,000-mile rail network is the 

largest in the eastern United States. 

I am delighted that you included New York City among your visits. The unique character of this area provides excellent examples 

of 21st-century railroading, effective public-private partnerships, 

and success in times of crisis. These projects also surface some 

issues that suggest consideration in future transportation legislation. 

This is a region whose population is very large and growing. New 

York City’s population grew 4 percent in the current century, and 

those people want the same standard of living as the people who 

are already here. In short, they want their stuff. But much of the 

region’s freight transportation activity funnels into specific locations where infrastructure bridges water. It is no accident that the 

time you spent here earlier today, you spent on a boat. These assets are heavily used, operate at capacity for many hours each day, 

and in some cases need replacement. This region simply cannot 

overlook any alternative to more trucks on this infrastructure. 

11 

You have heard from other cities about freight rail’s ability to 

shoulder more of the burden that would otherwise be on the Nation’s interstates. You may have seen or heard that one train can 

carry as many as 280 trucks, while a railroad can carry 1 ton of 

freight nearly 450 miles on a single gallon of fuel. Those are impressive statistics, but here in New York we can animate them 

with actual solutions. I would like to now share two with you. 

The first involves a very basic municipal activity that occurs in 

every community in the United States, trash disposal. As environmental considerations eliminate older methods of waste disposal in 

this area, such as dumping waste in the ocean or into one big hole 

on Staten Island, waste found itself in trucks using those limited 

crossings I just spoke of. Frankly, some of it still does, but much 

less so in recent years. Today, all of the waste collected by New 

York City sanitation on Staten Island is loaded into containers that 

leave the region by train rather than by truck. And rather than 

consume highway capacity on the heavily used Goethals Bridge, 

Staten Island’s waste leaves the island on a train using an adjacent 

railroad bridge that had been unused for many years. Similar solutions are serving the Bronx and portions of Brooklyn. 

A second example involves the region’s seaport and the challenge 

of densely developed regions. A growing trade for the port is the 

movement of containers to and from the North American interior. 

The challenge is that the port is separated from interior markets 

by densely populated northern New Jersey. Constrained highway 

capacity prompted examination of alternatives, and freight rail provided those alternatives and then improved them further. Today, 

vessels calling at New York-New Jersey marine terminals discharge cargo for numerous destinations in North America that are 

loaded on rail cars within the marine terminal complex and leave 

the port on a train. They never see a New Jersey public roadway. 

In April 2013, the New York-New Jersey Port Authority’s 

ExpressRail terminals processed 37,631 containers in this port rail 

system, and 3 years ago the system was improved by confronting 

another barrier, this time a geological one. A railroad route connecting the port to the national rail network had tunnels passing 

underneath the New Jersey Palisades that were too low to accommodate trains that stacked one container on top of another. One 

tunnel, 4,200 feet long, had been dug through solid rock when 

Abraham Lincoln was President. It was enlarged as part of a Federal public-private partnership in less than 1 year. 

Using freight rail as a transportation solution has another benefit that was tested in 2011 and again in 2012, resiliency. In the 

aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, containers destined for the New 

York-New Jersey Seaport were diverted to other ports and promptly became stranded in those ports, with over 7,000 containers in 

Virginia and smaller numbers in Baltimore and Philadelphia. Moving them back here became a monumental challenge. Evacuation 

using special CSX trains brought thousands of containers back into 

this market for distribution here. 

These local successes point to some important public policy 

points. First, it is important to preserve existing freight corridors 

for present and future freight use, and that seems almost like a 

self-evident statement. But this can become complicated when the 

12 

proposed nonfreight uses are popular. One example is inadequately 

funded passenger rail projects. Freight railroads are not opposed to 

the expansion of passenger rail provided that the new passenger 

services are adequately funded and do not come at the expense of 

good freight service, compromise future freight capacity, or impose 

new risk without adequate economic consideration. 

I have two examples where CSX has advanced initiatives where 

passenger rail and freight rail both benefit, instead of one at the 

other’s expense. Master planning in Massachusetts, for example, 

expanded commuter rail service between Worcester and Boston and 

brought a modern freight terminal to the State. In Florida, new 

passenger services are planned in the Orlando market and a modern freight terminal will be developed on a different line in Winter 

Haven. 

The second transportation public policy point deals with reducing 

the time and cost of bringing a project to a state of shovel-readiness. Public transportation investment scrutiny should do two 

things, stop poor projects from advancing and promote good 

projects to completion. These two forces should operate in tandem 

in an atmosphere of shared urgency. Current processes simply take 

too long to weed out bad ideas and too long to approve good ones. 

An approval delayed is an approval denied. 

One of the specific challenges railroads encounter in our publicprivate partnerships is securing approvals from State historic preservation offices. Disconnects can occur when regulators begin to regard railroads as museums. While many railroad assets were well 

designed, are noteworthy, and are worthy of preservation focus, 

care must be taken to avoid freezing every railroad asset into a 

19th-century image. Positive train control provides a current example. As railroads begin the process of permitting antennas and cell 

towers necessary for our PTC communication, certainly we hope 

the FCC approval process, which includes consultation with State 

historic preservation offices, amongst other requirements, can be 

handled expeditiously. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to participate 

today. I am happy to answer any of your questions. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Goetz. 

I want to thank all the witnesses. 

We have the greatest transportation system in the world. But I 

don’t care what your job is or your industry is, if you are not always constantly trying to do more and do better, you are going to 

fall behind. We have more competition from around the world than 

ever before, and many countries, even several that are much poorer 

than ours, seem to realize even more than our Nation today the importance of improvements in transportation and infrastructure. So 

we have got to keep pushing. We have got to keep moving ahead. 

I am going to go first to Mr. Hanna for any comments or questions that he has because he is going to have to leave shortly to 

go to the airport, and certainly he has been a very valuable member of our panel. 

Mr. Hanna, I will recognize you at this time. 

Mr. HANNA. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

Mr. Foye, Greenville Yard, when do you expect to have an agreement between yourself, your organization, and Conrail? And do you 

13 

think, if you have that process underway, do you believe you will 

have it done under the current administration with Mayor 

Bloomberg? 

Mr. FOYE. Congressman, we have been at work in negotiating 

with the city with a private company which has been preselected 

by the city of New York, and with the railroads. We made a great 

deal of progress. A meeting with the railroads is scheduled for next 

week. I think a great deal of progress has been made towards that 

aim. 

We will keep the committee briefed as to how those discussions 

go. I personally am optimistic that an agreement will be reached. 

The city of New York and the mayor are very focused and committed to the project, as is the Port Authority. I am hopeful that 

an agreement can be reached before the end of the Bloomberg administration. 

The other thing I would say is a great deal of work has been 

completed already on a draft environmental impact statement 

which will be ready for release in the fall of 2013. We have done 

that in partnership and consultation with the FHWA, which has 

provided valuable input into that draft EIS, and draft chapters are 

available for review. 

So I am hopeful that before the completion of the Bloomberg administration on December 31st, that we will be able to have an 

agreement in principle with the railroads. 

Mr. HANNA. Without divulging anything that might be in negotiations you won’t want to talk about, what are the obstacles that 

you have up to now and that you see going forward? 

Mr. FOYE. Well, Congressman, there are a couple. It is probably 

not going to surprise you that one of the obstacles is funding and 

financial. I have made a proposal to the city and, through my colleagues, to the railroads, and I am hopeful that we will be able to 

reach agreement on that. There are also technical and logistical 

issues on the New Jersey side related to the layout of the track in 

Greenville that is a very precious and limited resource. And there 

is also a private company, Tropicana, which has an interest, and 

we have to make sure that their legitimate commercial interests 

aren’t compromised. 

So it is a combination, Congressman, of financial and funding 

issues and logistical and what I will call railroad real estate issues 

which are in the process of being worked out. 

Mr. HANNA. And CSX has similar concerns in the same yard, I 

understand. 

Mr. FOYE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. HANNA. Thank you for that. I appreciate it very much. 

Mr. Coyle, hours of service. One of the things is that you are 

about to come under a new rule, right? You are aware of that, the 

new hours-of-service rule? 

Mr. COYLE. Yes. That started July 1st. 

Mr. HANNA. Right. And one of the interesting things about that 

rule, as I understand it, it was initiated or put in place before the 

study was complete. 

Mr. COYLE. Yes. 

Mr. HANNA. Which I take tremendous exception to. But in terms 

of what you spoke about earlier, with the delays at some of these 

14 

ports, which are understandable in so many ways—we need to do 

what we can to change that—would you give me some idea of how 

the hours-of-service rules, under the new rule, affect your profitability and how they affect your drivers and just generally break 

that down for me? 

Mr. COYLE. Well, the 30-minute rule requires a driver to take a 

30-minute break. It requires him to go park the truck somewhere. 

So he can’t take his break while he is unloading or while he is on 

duty in any way. So basically, it adds another half-hour to their 

day. If they are waiting in line, they can’t take their break. 

Mr. HANNA. So they can be resting, waiting in line, watching the 

traffic go nowhere, and yet using up their time, you are paying for 

the truck, paying for everything that goes into that. 

Mr. COYLE. Yes. 

Mr. HANNA. And then the person has to pull off someplace and 

rest again based on—these are mostly local deliveries. Not all of 

them, of course, but a lot of them are just moving from a very short 

distance. 

Mr. COYLE. Yes. 

Mr. HANNA. So maybe you can give me an idea what that costs 

you. 

Mr. COYLE. We have 2,000 drivers, so the cost could be significant in terms of what it will cost them per day, per driver. I don’t 

have an estimate, but I know it would be significant. 

Mr. HANNA. Any idea, if you could do something immediately to 

change that, what would you do? 

Mr. COYLE. Well, I think one of the issues that we had was the 

34-hour restart after 5 days. What I have seen is that this has affected now customers who occasionally need weekend service. You 

need to keep your drivers in the cycle. So what this does, it gets 

them out of cycle, and I just really had to say to a customer if you 

want to do weekend service, you have to do it every weekend. You 

can’t do it this weekend and not next, because the drivers get out 

of sync, and then they have no available hours. 

Mr. HANNA. Thank you. My time has expired. 

Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Congressman Nadler? 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you. 

Mr. Coyle, you state in your testimony that, ‘‘It is important to 

note that the ATA litigation did not at any time challenge the 

ports’ ability to impose clean truck program mandates.’’ Yet, the 

Federal preemption statute is very broad, and I believe that it 

could be read to tie the hands of local jurisdictions from remedying 

the public health and safety concerns created by port trucking operations. 

That is why I have introduced legislation in the past, and plan 

to again this Congress, to ensure that ports can adopt clean truck 

programs without running afoul of Federal law. Do you agree that 

without a change in Federal law, polluting truck bans could be successfully challenged in court, although the ATA has not yet chosen 

to challenge them? 

Mr. COYLE. Our feeling is that the most effective programs would 

be voluntary programs, that we would get stakeholders to agree to 

programs, as has been done in other ports. It has been done in VirVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:00 Dec 05, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00022 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\113\PANELO~1\7-26-1~1\82218.TXT JEAN
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ginia; it has been done in Savannah, in Charleston, to help clean 

up the drayage trucks. So we do not believe—— 

Mr. NADLER. You may prefer a voluntary program, but the question is do you agree that without a change in Federal law, polluting 

truck bans could be successfully challenged in court? 

Mr. COYLE. They could be. 

Mr. NADLER. They could be. So, you agree with that. 

Mr. COYLE. Yes. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you. Now, last month the Supreme Court 

ruled that certain enforcement provisions of the Port of Los Angeles clean truck program were preempted by Federal law, including 

a requirement that trucks have off-street parking. The Court declined to comment on the authority of the ports to use concession 

agreements to enforce provisions of the program that remain in 

place. The ATS previously testified before the Transportation Committee that concession agreement requirements are unnecessary 

and anti-competitive. 

Do you agree that without a change in Federal law, polluting 

truck bans have very little teeth? 

Mr. COYLE. I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that last part. 

Mr. NADLER. Do you agree that without a change in Federal law, 

polluting truck bans have very little teeth? 

Mr. COYLE. Only from an enforcement standpoint, not from a voluntary standpoint. 

Mr. NADLER. Well, very little teeth means they cannot be enforced, and obviously you don’t have to enforce them if they are voluntary. 

Mr. COYLE. Yes. 

Mr. NADLER. OK. Under current law, in what ways can a port 

enforce regulations to remedy public health and safety concerns 

created by port trucking operations without affecting the price, 

route, or service of a motor carrier, which is the Federal standard 

at present? 

Mr. COYLE. I don’t know the answer to that. 

Mr. NADLER. OK, which is consistent with what you said a moment ago, because you said that really they probably couldn’t. So, 

let me ask you one final question. 

Would you oppose—I know you prefer voluntary compliance, but 

not everybody is—a lot of trucking companies, all kinds of operations, sometimes voluntary isn’t sufficient. Would you oppose legislation to allow ports to impose requirements, in effect to get the 

Federal Government out of the way of preemption? To loosen the 

Federal preemption. 

Mr. COYLE. Yes. 

Mr. NADLER. You would oppose it. 

Mr. COYLE. Yes. 

Mr. NADLER. Why? 

Mr. COYLE. The Federal laws were enacted for a reason, and to 

abandon those I don’t think would be productive. I think Federal 

laws were enacted to create a uniform system throughout the Nation, and I don’t believe that by letting a mechanism by which each 

port could decide what rules and regulations they were going to 

have would be productive. I think it needs to be—if you wanted to 

do something—— 

16 

Mr. NADLER. It wouldn’t be productive to let each port decide 

that because it would interfere with something? In what way? 

Mr. COYLE. For example, we have trucks in most ports, and we 

would not like to see different rules and regulations in each one of 

the different ports. I think it interferes with interstate commerce. 

Mr. NADLER. Because the same trucks would have to have different standards at the beginning and end of the trip? 

Mr. COYLE. Correct. 

Mr. NADLER. OK. Thank you. 

Mr. Foye, what is the status of the Cross Harbor Project EIS 

now? 

Mr. FOYE. Congressman, draft chapters have been prepared. 

They are being reviewed internally by the Port Authority and 

FHWA. A great deal of progress has been made. I think we have 

tried our best to keep your office informed, and there should be a 

draft EIS later this fall into the winter. 

Mr. NADLER. I’m sorry? 

Mr. FOYE. Later this fall into the winter months. 

Mr. NADLER. Into the winter. Thank you. 

And what kind of infrastructure improvements in New York and 

New Jersey would you think are needed to make the Cross Harbor 

Freight Project a viable reconnection of the Southern Rail Gateway 

for freight transport? 

Mr. FOYE. Well, I think, Congressman, many of you saw the 

barge. The barge is a fairly fully depreciated piece of property. I 

will say it that way. Obviously, Super Storm Sandy exacted significant damage on the Greenville facility. So I think that infrastructure, both in Brooklyn on the Bay Ridge line, as well as new, more 

efficient, energy-efficient barges, as well as infrastructure on the 

Greenville side, would be helpful in terms of maximizing this opportunity. 

As I noted, in the first 6 months of this year, we have already 

carried 1,600 railcars, which is equivalent to volume for the entire 

year last year, which takes into account the period after Super 

Storm Sandy when, frankly, the facility was not operating. 

So there will be a significant amount of infrastructure investment on both sides of the Hudson that will be required. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you. My last question is, if you had a say, 

what are the biggest challenges and obstacles to making the Cross 

Harbor Freight Project a truly successful freight transport option 

in this multilayered, multi-island, multimodal urban environment? 

Mr. FOYE. Well, Congressman, I think first the Port Authority 

has made a significant financial investment. Obviously, we are 

thankful for your efforts in terms of the $100 million Federal commitment. We have tried to be wise custodians of that. Getting to 

the volumes that we think are possible over a period of years—and 

that number would be 45,000 to 55,000, years out—will require—— 

Mr. NADLER. 45,000 years out? 

Mr. FOYE. No, 45,000 to 55,000 containers, years out. 

Mr. NADLER. Oh. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. FOYE. That is what I would expect the EIS—it is a long 

time—— 

[Laughter.] 

17 

Mr. FOYE [continuing]. What I expect the EIS, the draft EIS will 

indicate. A significant amount of money is going to be required for 

that. I think, frankly, this is a project that is regional in nature. 

I think it should be supported by the Federal Government. I think 

it is an example of the States of New York and New Jersey, and 

the Governor of New York and the Governor of New Jersey, working together on this project, and I think that the regional focus that 

USDOT has taken on other projects like the Alameda Corridor, et 

cetera, is being replicated in the Cross Harbor situation, and I 

would hope that USDOT would take that into account as it makes 

funding reviews and funding decisions going forward. 

Mr. NADLER. Thank you. I just might add that hopefully we will 

have in the next bill, as we did in the last, although it wasn’t funded, I hope in the next bill we will have a funded version of the 

Projects of National and Regional Significance section that might 

impact that. 

Thank you. My time has more than expired. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Webster? 

Mr. WEBSTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, presenters, for giving us good insight on what is 

going on here. 

I had a question for Mr. Foye, because we have, as we have gone 

around and had different hearings in other places, and also in 

Washington, one of the things we have discussed is the fact that 

we are working on sort of a national freight movement program, 

and yet many of us do not want to interfere with the fact that 

there are local communities and their NPOs, and they build programs for transportation in their State, and then their State adopts 

a program, and that is normally the case, and yet freight lines go 

beyond that and go multistate. 

You are in a particular situation which is unusual, that I have 

not seen, in that not only do you do airport but seaport, and it is 

multistate, and certainly multicity. When we were in Los Angeles, 

there is the Los Angeles Port Authority owned by the city, and 

then right next to it is the Long Beach Port Authority, and they 

are both big, and they do work together, but they are not combined. 

I guess my first question is, how many NPOs do you work with? 

Mr. FOYE. Congressman, basically two, one on the New York 

side, one on the New Jersey side. 

Mr. WEBSTER. And you have Governors, you have multijurisdictional areas in that seaport and airport. How does that all work? 

Mr. FOYE. Sometimes, Congressman, it doesn’t, but often it does. 

New York, for instance, is a home rule State. The primary jurisdiction that we deal with on the New York side is, obviously, the city 

of New York, but also the port district extends beyond the city. On 

the New Jersey side, obviously with the New Jersey Governor’s Office, the New Jersey Department of Transportation, and a series of 

cities on the western side of the Hudson. 

I have to say that between the States and the State Departments 

of Transportation, there has been a great deal of collaboration and 

cooperation. One of the issues that I think frustrates many who are 

focused on Federal infrastructure issues and building and replacing 

infrastructure—and obviously, in this part of the country, the priVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:00 Dec 05, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00025 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\113\PANELO~1\7-26-1~1\82218.TXT JEAN
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mary focus is on rebuilding, maintaining, and replacing existing infrastructure—is that the current permitting process at all levels of 

Government is slower than it should be, that it is unduly expensive 

and uncertain, and especially with projects that involve, for instance, replacement of existing infrastructure. Surely, there must 

be a way in which the legitimate interests that are so important 

to all of us of protecting the environment can be balanced in an appropriate way with economic growth and job creation and retention. 

Mr. WEBSTER. Do you have any suggestions on what may be done 

to streamline that? 

Mr. FOYE. Well, I do, Congressman. One thing I will note that 

was important to the Port Authority on the Bayonne Bridge project 

was President Obama’s announcement of a Federal Dashboard 

with respect to certain important infrastructure projects around 

the country. The Port Authority, I am proud to say, was the first 

agency in the country to file for treatment under the Dashboard on 

the Bayonne Bridge, and we were granted that treatment by 

USDOT, and I think it helped accelerate the project. 

I will also note that Governor Cuomo achieved similar expedited 

treatment with respect to the Tappan Zee Bridge. I will note that 

both the Tappan Zee Bridge and the Bayonne are replacements of 

existing infrastructure assets, and I think that type of expedited 

approach is something that, frankly, ought to be applied to important infrastructure projects around the country, especially given 

the uncertain economy that we live in and the levels of unemployment that are unacceptable to all of us. 

Mr. WEBSTER. Would that be for new and replacement projects? 

Mr. FOYE. Congressman, I would submit yes. I think the case is 

clearer on a project in Bayonne, and let me just take a couple of 

seconds to tell you about the Bayonne Bridge. On the Bayonne 

Bridge, we are not building a new bridge. We are not knocking a 

bridge down. We are raising the roadway of the Bayonne Bridge to 

allow larger container ships to access the harbor following the completion of the Panama Canal. Given the fact that we are not building a bridge or knocking a bridge down, it seems to me the environmental impacts are relatively limited. I think the President took 

that into account in including the Bayonne Bridge project on the 

Federal Dashboard. 

There is infrastructure around the country that needs to be replaced, updated, modernized, et cetera, and I think a more streamlined approach that took that reality into account, along with the 

fact that the state of the Nation’s infrastructure is currently a 

drag, a burden on economic activity and job creation, and lifting 

that burden would not only expedite projects but I also believe 

would result in increases in employment and economic activity. 

Mr. WEBSTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Lipinski? 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is good to be here in 

Congressman Nadler’s district. I certainly look up to Congressman 

Nadler, and we share maybe not the same exact types of projects 

but, coming from the Chicago area, there are a lot of things that 

19 

we have in common because our areas share some of the same 

issues when it comes to transportation. 

I have to say also, when thinking about coming here, good luck 

to the Yankees with Alfonso Soriano. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. LIPINSKI. And please, Yankees, please send Joe Girardi back 

in 2015 to Chicago so he can manage the Cubs in the World Series. 

But moving on, Chicago, about 1.5 million tons of freight moves 

through Chicago annually. About 5 percent of that either comes 

into or comes from this area. We certainly have great transportation needs there to move freight. We have the Chicago Regional 

Environmental Transportation Efficiency Program, or CREATE, 

which is updating from the 19th century the rail lines in the Chicago area. It is a public-private partnership, and that is one question before I move on. 

Mr. Foye, is there private investment involved with the tunnel 

project? 

Mr. FOYE. With the tunnel project, Congressman? 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Yes. 

Mr. FOYE. Let me begin—— 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Well, I was just wondering, just quickly. 

Mr. FOYE. Well, the tunnel project is an option that is going to 

be studied in the Cross Harbor EIS. Certainly, private capital is 

something that ought to be considered. As I mentioned, we are 

using private capital on the Goethals Bridge, and I think it would 

be premature to comment on the availability of private capital. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Yes, I was just wondering. It is great to see, after 

hearing Mr. Nadler talk about it for a number of years, it is great 

to see where this would go. But I just wanted to really raise what 

Mr. Nadler had there at the end of his questions about the Projects 

of National and Regional Significance. In SAFETEA–LU in 2005, I was able to get $100 million for 

CREATE out of that pot of money. Unfortunately, in MAP–21 it 

was authorized for 1 year and not appropriated any funding. I 

want to get you on record, Mr. Foye, as saying this is something 

that you certainly do support for these mega-projects. 

Mr. FOYE. Congressman, enthusiastically, yes. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Very good. It is very difficult to move forward with 

any of these projects that are really of national and regional significance without having the Federal Government involved there, and 

I think that is one of the things I want to make sure comes out 

of this freight panel. 

I wanted to ask Mr. Goetz—actually, let me move on to Mr. 

Flynn. Let me ask Mr. Flynn a question here. 

Something that we have heard in a couple of these hearings but 

we don’t hear as much about his NextGen. I certainly think that 

is critical for air transportation systems. We hear about it mostly 

for passenger transportation, but it is also significant for freight 

movement. 

Are your aircraft equipped for NextGen? 

Mr. FLYNN. Thank you, Congressman. Yes, our aircraft indeed 

are, and we are using performance-based navigation, a feature of 

NextGen, already. Working jointly with the FAA and with UPS and 

FedEx, we were able to develop the procedures to use performanceVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:00 Dec 05, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\113\PANELO~1\7-26-1~1\82218.TXT JEAN
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based navigation into Anchorage. We also use it here depending on 

time of day and conditions in New York into JFK, and we think 

that, based on what we have seen in Los Angeles and the successes 

we have had with performance-based navigation there, that there 

are real successes, a real basis to expand, and we think airports 

like Miami and Cincinnati and indeed Chicago would be good candidates to move performance-based navigation forward. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Do you have any studies or could you give us any 

sense of the difference that it would make in terms of the way that 

freight is moved, how it would ease congestion and other modes of 

freight transportation? 

Mr. FLYNN. Sure. So, performance-based navigation, as you 

pointed out earlier, or NextGen, benefits passenger and air freight 

alike, and cargo alike, and I think there are three areas of benefits. 

First, it will increase capacity. So where we have limited airspace 

or limited ground space, such as in JFK for landings and takeoffs, 

performance-based navigation will increase capacity without having to pour more cement and develop infrastructure. When we 

think about budgetary constraints, that should be compelling. 

Performance-based navigation also limits the communication 

that is required between the airplane and the tower, and that goes 

to limiting what could be communication congestion. 

And then finally, performance-based navigation will allow us to 

reduce fuel burn. Not only does that save operating costs, but when 

you think about the environmental impact of just simply burning 

less fuel to arrive at the airport, it is significant. For a smaller 

company like Atlas—we have 100 to 120 international arrivals a 

week into the United States—the impact of PBN across the network we fly probably would save something on the order of 10 million tons of carbon when measured from carbon emissions. When 

you think of 100 or 120 arrivals for just Atlas, magnify that again 

by UPS and FedEx, and then across our domestic passenger airlines, it is a very significant environmental impact. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you. 

Mr. FLYNN. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Mullin? 

Mr. MULLIN. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you for allowing me 

to be here. As you can tell, I am from rural Oklahoma, and I would 

have put a suit on but I had a wardrobe malfunction this morning, 

meaning I didn’t pack a suit. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. MULLIN. I still think it is an honor to serve here and an 

honor to have such a great opportunity to be in your city. But as 

I hear people talk, coming from the business world, my biggest 

headache was Federal regulation. It was the biggest competition I 

had in business, period, and trying to adjust for the new Federal 

regulations that were coming into our company, it was constantly 

causing us challenges. I looked around one day and I figured out, 

you know, the biggest threat to my business is Federal regs and 

trying to compete at the same time and trying to grow causes conflict. 

Mr. Foye, you had heard the same testimony that Mr. Coyle had 

mentioned about the charges for the trucks that are coming 

21 

through the tunnels going from $40 to $105. Where is that good for 

the local economy? When you think about it—I have a trucking 

company too, and what I basically do every time a new reg hits me 

is I don’t have a choice but to pass it on to my customers. And 

knowing the state of the economy, knowing how everybody is just 

literally scratching at the bottom of all of our pockets trying to get 

by, and we are taking charges from $40 to $105, which at least the 

trucking industry in a way can pass it on to their customers, but 

at the same time it is the cars that are passing through there, the 

commuters, how do their costs grow? 

Mr. FOYE. Well, Congressman, the tolls that are generated from 

the Port Authority’s bridges and tunnels, primarily the George 

Washington Bridge, are dedicated to the Port Authority’s Interstate 

Transportation Network, and the Interstate Transportation Network is comprised of the George Washington Bridge, the Lincoln 

and Holland Tunnels, and the three Staten Island crossings that 

Congressman Grimm is very familiar with, as well as PATH, which 

is a commuter rail system between New York and New Jersey. 

Mr. MULLIN. I am well aware. The Port Authority has done just 

a wonderful job taking us around and showing us, and I am grateful for it. But I am still floored by the fact that since 2005, just 

trucks alone has raised from $40 to $105, and I am still trying to 

figure out how that is good. I understand the infrastructure needs. 

I understand the investment that is needed, and I understand the 

tremendous task that you guys have. But the end result is that it 

is the consumer that is paying for that. It is everybody that goes 

and picks up a bottle of water, everybody that goes to Starbucks 

and buys their coffee. They are the ones that are having to pay for 

this. 

Mr. FOYE. Well, Congressman, that is correct. The reason I mentioned PATH, for instance, is it is part of the Interstate Transportation Network. Like most mass transit, frankly, around the world, 

but certainly mass transit in the United States, PATH loses $300 

million a year from operations because there is a subsidy for commuter riders, just as there is at the MTA and every mass transit 

system in the United States. That is one. 

Two, the tolls, the revenue from bridges and tunnels is the basis 

for the reinvestment. I mentioned that we are investing $1.5 billion 

in the Goethals Bridge. 

Mr. MULLIN. I understand that. So the cost has risen that much? 

I mean, it has tripled basically, to keep up with the infrastructure 

needs? Because your tolls have gone up that much. What you are 

charging people has gone up that much. Or is it because of the cost 

of doing business, because you have to comply with all these different Federal agencies out there? 

Mr. FOYE. Well, certainly, Congressman, the cost of compliance 

and regulatory issues has increased. 

Mr. MULLIN. So what do you think you are spending on that? In 

your all’s budget, just roughly, what do you think you are spending 

to comply with the Federal Government? 

Mr. FOYE. Congressman, I don’t have a number. I will say this. 

I think the cost of compliance with regulation at the Federal level 

is a significant cost. 

22 

Mr. MULLIN. Does it outweigh actually the costs you are spending for actual infrastructure needs? 

Mr. FOYE. No, sir, but it is a significant amount of money. I don’t 

want to make a number up. I would be happy to come back to the 

committee with a number. 

Mr. MULLIN. I would be curious to see what you are spending to 

comply with Federal Government regs and local regs versus what 

you are actually even spending on payroll. 

Mr. FOYE. Congressman, I will make a note and come back to 

you and the committee with that number. It is a significant number. I think, frankly, it is for any governmental or public sector or 

private sector employer or company. 

Mr. MULLIN. Any business owner. 

Mr. Flynn, I know you know what I am talking about, too, and 

the other companies that are here. That is a challenge we all face. 

The point that I am trying to make is we are continuously passing 

this on, one after the next, and we are costing the economy money 

when we have true infrastructure needs. It is not just New York. 

It is not just this area that we have infrastructure issues. It is all 

across the United States, and we need to start showing this, because everybody else is having to pay for it. 

But I thank you for your time. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much. 

Some people in the audience might be interested to know that 42 

percent of the House is new, in the last 21⁄2 years, the last two elections. That is the greatest turnover in history, and Mr. Mullin is 

a representative of the freshman class, but he is kind enough to be 

joining us today on his birthday. So, we are pleased to have him 

with us at any time. 

Mr. MULLIN. I am 25. I am finally old enough to serve, by the 

way. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. MULLIN. I am kidding. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Sires? 

Mr. SIRES. Happy birthday, Congressman. I noticed you had a 

New York hotdog for your birthday. 

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for bringing us all together 

to New York, and I thank all the Members for being here. 

Mr. Goetz, I know you have been very quiet there in the corner, 

so I have a question for you. I know that your company, CSX, has 

received a TIGER grant for your National Gateway Project. 

Mr. GOETZ. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. SIRES. I just wonder if you can talk a little bit about your 

experience with TIGER grants and the project you have undertaken. Can you talk a little bit about what appropriate role the 

Federal Government should be in the freight investment business? 

Mr. GOETZ. I would be happy to. It is correct that we did receive 

a TIGER grant for our National Gateway Project, which basically 

replicates a couple of hundred miles south of here what is already 

in place here in the New York-New Jersey area, a full doublestack-compatible rail network into waterfront ports. We already 

have that here in New York and New Jersey, and it is running 

right now as we speak. But in some of the ports south of here such 

as Baltimore and Hampton Roads, shippers do not have that douVerDate Aug 31 2005 15:00 Dec 05, 2013 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 P:\HEARINGS\113\PANELO~1\7-26-1~1\82218.TXT JEAN
23 

ble-stack option. That money is being used to bore out tunnels, 

build new terminals, do the things that a 21st-century freight network requires. 

To answer your question, what we find is that when Federal 

money, either through TIGER or through a Project of National and 

Regional Significance, is applied, it definitely ramps up the administrative process that goes with that, and it definitely takes a lot 

more time. I mentioned in my testimony that it immediately triggers NEPA, and ultimately it triggers—because railroad assets 

tend to be old, it triggers activity from State historic preservation 

organizations. 

Not that any of that is bad, but it is slow, and oftentimes there 

isn’t a specific mandated timetable for these processes to be completed. So, Congressman, they can drag on forever, and I can give 

you an example in your own district with the tunnel that I spoke 

of, boring that out. That had a very thorough review by the State 

historic preservation office. One aspect that took time, which 

seemed rather incomprehensible to us, was the color of the bricks 

inside the tunnel. This is a tunnel that is not open to the public, 

is unlighted, and is pitch dark. 

Mr. SIRES. It is cultural. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. GOETZ. So the answer to the story is we picked the right 

color, and I am glad we did. But the question is, is that really a 

good use of time? 

Mr. SIRES. I certainly agree with you. I make fun of it, but I certainly agree with you, having served in local office and having to 

deal with some of the EPA and other agencies. 

Mr. Foye, let me just preface this. Sometimes in Washington, 

people question the money for dredging and some of the money 

that is spent in this region because they think it is too local. And 

I know you talked about a little bit the impact nationally. Can you 

just elaborate on the impact nationally when we do a dredging and 

the Federal Government gives us $70 million or $80 million to do 

the dredging per year? What is the national impact? 

Mr. FOYE. Well, Congressman, the dredging is something that 

has been done in this harbor, frankly, going back to revolutionary 

days. It is critical to maintaining the competitive posture of this 

harbor. The Harbor Maintenance Tax in 2012 in this region generated $192 million. And shockingly, Congressman, only 6 percent 

of that was spent in the harbor in 2012, about $14 million. 

The dredging, Congressman, is a little bit like painting the 

George Washington Bridge, which is when you get to the end, you 

have to start all over again because there is silt and there is material that has accumulated over a period of years. 

One of the things, Congressman, that I think is critical is that 

ports around the Nation be allowed access for proper investment 

and dredging, but also maintenance of wharves and harbors, et 

cetera, and that more of the harbor maintenance user fee, which 

is really what it is—it is paid by the beneficial owners, beneficial 

freight owners—be reinvested not only in the New York-New Jersey Harbor but harbors around the country. 

To answer your question directly about the national impact, the 

Federal economy is about $16 trillion, and fully $1 trillion of that 

24 

economic activity is attributable to the New York-New Jersey region. Our ports on both sides of the Hudson account for about 

500,000 direct and indirect jobs, many of them high-paying union 

jobs, the ILA, et cetera. And continued investment in dredging and 

other uses of the harbor maintenance user fee I think is critical, 

Congressman. 

Mr. SIRES. Thank you. 

And for anyone who wants to answer this, do you think that 

freight planning would benefit from a mandate that States develop 

State freight plans, rather than the incentivized approach taken by 

MAP–21? I know that New Jersey and New York, they do a great 

deal of freight planning. But do you think it should be mandated, 

that each State have their own freight planning? 

Mr. FOYE. Congressman, I will speak to that. I think that a national freight policy, given the importance of freight issues to the 

national economy, is something that is critical. Clearly, that policy 

should be developed in consultation with States across the country; 

agencies, frankly, like my own, which is a bi-state agency. But the 

absence of a national freight policy I think contributes to the current burden that inadequacies, inefficiencies and congestion, and 

infrastructure of all types currently impose on the national economy. 

Mr. FLYNN. And if I could just build on your last theme there, 

Patrick, I had the opportunity to review some of the testimony 

from other folks who have testified in Los Angeles and Memphis 

and DC, and I think the next step beyond the national freight policy is that integrated look, that intermodal look at how the modes 

come together and how we remove constraints or impediments for 

that intermodal connectivity. I think Mr. Abney from UPS talked 

to that at some length. I think Fred Smith did as well, and certainly that was discussed in California. Thinking about the Los Angeles metroplex is really an example of what could be done, but 

also what needs to be done. I think that is national freight policy. 

Mr. SIRES. Mr. Coyle? 

Mr. COYLE. I think that if you look around the country, there are 

many, many NPOs engaged in freight planning. There are many 

State organizations. I think what is most important is that there 

is coordination between them to make sure that you are developing 

a uniform policy across all the States. I think that would be important. 

Mr. SIRES. What is the issue with trucking that you can drive in 

New Jersey during the day, you can’t drive in New York during the 

night, or vice versa? Are you aware of that, something like that? 

Mr. COYLE. A number of the cities, particularly New York metro 

in particular, have developed congestion plans which mandate that 

deliveries are conducted at night. Don’t put the trucks into traffic 

at rush hour. Get them in there at 1 a.m. Get them to be out of 

the city by rush hour. And it is one of the things that we were confounded with in the FMCSA hours-of-service regulations, because 

what that does with the restart provisions, it puts the trucks into 

rush hour. It stops fleets from engaging in delivering during the 

night. So it was really counterproductive. 

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

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you very much. 

25 

Ms. Hahn? 

Ms. HAHN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to also add 

my thanks to our chairman and Ranking Member Nadler for holding these hearings all across our country. It is really eye-opening, 

I think, for all of us, and I am loving being in New York and New 

Jersey. We learned a lot today. 

May I say I was a big fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Sorry, 

Brooklyn. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. HAHN. We took the Dodgers 50-some years ago, but we love 

them, we have loved them. 

I do represent the Port of Los Angeles and have for about 12 

years, first when I was a member of the City Council in Los Angeles, and now as a congresswoman, and I am one of the new ones. 

I just passed my 2-year anniversary in Congress. 

And one of the first things I did was to form a bipartisan PORTS 

Caucus. So it is kind of the first time in the history of Congress 

that we have a caucus that is solely dedicated to our Nation’s ports, 

and we are about 90 Members strong, both Republican and Democrats, and we are hoping to focus on issues surrounding the ports, 

raise awareness with the rest of our colleagues in Congress about 

how important our ports really are to the Nation’s economy, really 

to the global economy, to job creation, security issues. I really feel 

like it is a great vehicle to bring a lot of these issues forward in 

Congress. 

I know we Democrats are considered tax and spend folks, and I 

will tell you one tax I think we should spend is the Harbor Maintenance Tax. I have been a big proponent and would like to hear the 

panel’s take on this. We have about an $8 billion or $9 billion surplus in our Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund. We have ports in this 

country that still haven’t even been dredged to their authorized 

level. 

Three principles that I am pushing is, one, we should fully utilize 

our Harbor Maintenance Tax; two, I think I would like to see a 

guaranteed minimum of that tax going back to the ports where it 

is collected; and three, if the ports have already finished their authorized dredging levels, would you be in favor of seeing an expanded use of that tax as it related to goods movement, speaking 

to Mr. Flynn’s idea that the biggest reason for diverting cargo is 

landside congestion. So we are hearing a lot about the last mile 

that comes into our ports, and if the ports have used that money 

properly for dredging, would there be a feeling that we could use 

some of that tax to, again, just improve the infrastructure for moving these goods. I would like to hear your feelings on if that ought 

to be something that we really put forward as a part of our national freight policy, that that fund, the tax be used for the purpose 

for which it was collected. 

Mr. FOYE. Well, Congresswoman, let me start by saying that I 

have no official position today on either the Cubs, the White Sox, 

or the Dodgers. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. FOYE. I want to make that clear. 

With respect to the harbor maintenance, I characterize it as a 

user fee because it is paid by beneficial owners of freight, and it 

26 

is really a charge for their use of the harbor, whether on the east 

coast or the west coast or throughout the country, and for the vast 

amounts of money that governments or agencies like the Port Authority have to invest to maintain the safety of navigational channels working with the Coast Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers. 

As I mentioned earlier, the harbor maintenance user fee in the 

New York-New Jersey port harbor raised $192 million in 2012, and 

only $14 million, about 6 percent of that, was dedicated to dredging 

by the Army Corps. I can’t speak with respect to other ports 

around the country, but I know my own port. And with respect to 

the port of New York and New Jersey, there are clear, legitimate, 

and appropriate uses for the entire amount of that harbor maintenance user fee in the Port of New York-New Jersey. The amounts 

that are going to be required for dredging on an annual basis, year 

in and year out, are going to be substantial. Beyond that, there are 

investments that have to be made on both sides of the Hudson, and 

I think that on an annual basis, that user fee could be appropriately used. 

My own opinion, if this was a suggestion for other areas of infrastructure, and given the fact that beneficial cargo owners have paid 

it, I believe it would be inappropriate. But surely we owe it to the 

men and women who are employed in the Port of New York and 

New Jersey and to the container terminal operators that have invested literally billions of dollars in those operations, as well as 

agencies like the Port Authority, that that user fee, which is paid, 

frankly, by beneficial cargo owners throughout the entire world, 

ought to be dedicated to appropriate uses in our harbor. 

Mr. FLYNN. If I could just add, I work in aviation now but spent 

23 years in the container shipping industry, and so I have a background and a perspective. But I would like to come back to something that the chairman mentioned in his opening remarks. The 

lack of adequate investment in our infrastructure from a global 

perspective does put us at a competitive disadvantage. 

So whether it is the funds that exist in the Harbor Maintenance 

Tax, and whether they get reinvested or not in infrastructure, or 

other funds that exist for rail or truck or aviation, the failure to 

have a policy and to invest does create competitive disadvantage. 

In the 1990s, I was working for Sea-Land Service. I was their head 

of Asia based in Hong Kong, but worked on a number of projects 

in China in joint infrastructure developments around ports and 

marine terminals. That is what we did. If you look at the sheer 

number of airports, with extensive freight facilities that are being 

built in Asia, in China today, there is a strategic prioritization for 

logistics, freight, and infrastructure, and investments therein, and 

that is why the panel exists. 

How do we move forward, and how do we catch up? I think all 

the modes have made, I would hope, compelling arguments that 

help shape the policy recommendations that you will come up with. 

Ms. HAHN. Thank you. Being in the Customs House here today, 

I also, Mr. Chairman, think we ought to take a look at using a percentage of the customs fees that are collected. I know in Los Angeles, we collected $14 billion last year just in customs fees. And 

again, that is based on commerce. But I think for every container 

that comes into these ports and harbors, that also represents risk. 

27 

It represents risk to our infrastructure, risks to our security, risks 

to our environment, and I think a percentage of that could also be 

redirected towards investing in our infrastructure. 

I know I am over my time but, Mr. Coyle, just based on the comments of congestion and the new rules on service hours, I champion 

the off-peak movement at Long Beach and Los Angeles called 

PierPASS. I wonder, if we had to look at that while we are coming 

up with a national freight policy, would that be an advantage if we 

had our gates opened off-peak hours for our truckers? 

Mr. COYLE. I think that if the structure made sense. And I know 

there are all sorts of labor considerations and those kinds of things. 

But most of the cargo owners have structured their operations to 

deal with the current situation. Generally speaking, the terminals 

are open about 30 percent of the time. 

Ms. HAHN. Yes, it is crazy. 

Mr. COYLE. So it is not good utilization of assets, billions and billions of dollars of assets, and you are only open 30 percent of the 

available time. So an approach to looking at the traffic flow and 

looking at how cargo owners are receiving that, it is not going to 

do any good to have a truck leave the Port of New York at 3 a.m. 

and you can’t deliver into Dayton, New Jersey, until 7. 

So it would make sense to get all the stakeholders involved and 

look at designing a system, maybe something similar to PierPASS 

in California, and look and see how that would work in this area. 

Ms. HAHN. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DUNCAN. All right. Thank you very much. Very good suggestions, Ms. Hahn. 

I am especially pleased that Mr. Grimm is here with us because 

he is not a member of the panel and he is going above and beyond 

the call of duty to be here today with all the demands that he has 

on his time. So I would like to call on him for any comments or 

questions that he has at this time. 

Mr. GRIMM. Thank you very much, and I want to thank the 

chairman, Chairman Duncan, for having me, and the panel for 

having me. I also want to thank those testifying today. 

Mr. Foye, to follow up on my colleague, Mr. Mullin asked you— 

I guess he couldn’t fathom a $105 toll for a five-axle truck, and he 

was saying why is it so expensive, and you mentioned the PATH 

train and infrastructure and so on. But today in the Post, there 

was an article that the Port Authority, your agency, may have 

spent as much as $80 million on insurance that it didn’t need. The 

FIA recently had fined the Port Authority and wants you to bifurcate your fire department and your police department for failing to 

properly document various things, including training. That could 

cost almost $60 million. And then you have the World Trade Center project and other real estate projects that are grossly over 

budget. I think the World Trade Center at this point is almost $9 

billion over budget. 

Isn’t it true that all of these things, these excesses, the mismanagement and the over budget, are major factors to raising tolls 

also? 

Mr. FOYE. Congressman, in short, no. The insurance matter that 

you referred to occurred in 2009–2010. When I learned about it last 

28 

year, I fired those involved. We did an Inspector General review of 

that, and that has been discussed with our board. 

Mr. GRIMM. So it won’t cost the Port Authority any money? 

Mr. FOYE. It will cost the Port Authority money. 

Mr. GRIMM. But that doesn’t affect, then, the revenue of the Port 

Authority? 

Mr. FOYE. No. 

Mr. GRIMM. It is an expenditure. 

Mr. FOYE. It is an expense item, of course. The reason tolls were 

raised is because, one, we have an Interstate Transportation Network which includes the PATH and the Port Authority Bus Terminal. We lose $300 million a year on PATH. That is a published 

number. We lose $100 million on the Port Authority Bus Terminal. 

Those are each critical pieces of moving people and goods back and 

forth—— 

Mr. GRIMM. I have very limited time. I have very limited time. 

Let me ask you this. 

Mr. FOYE. Hang on, Congressman. With all due respect, there is 

another item which I think is critical. As I mentioned in my remarks, the Port Authority board is, in the next month or two, going 

to approve, I expect, a 10-year capital plan which will be pretty 

near $30 billion. That is going to be funded with respect to the 

bridges and tunnels, $1.5 billion for the Goethals, $1.2 billion for 

the Bayonne, $1 billion for the suspender ropes on the George 

Washington Bridge, on and on. It is going to be funded in large 

part by bridge and tunnel tolls. 

The other thing I ought to say is Congressman Nadler noted that 

the Port Authority was created in 1921. Many of our facilities are 

50 and 60 and 70 and 80 years old, have decades of wear and tear; 

and, frankly, I will note that we do not—— 

Mr. GRIMM. OK, I have limited time, I have limited time. 

Mr. FOYE [continuing]. We do not receive any Federal aid with 

respect to operations—— 

Mr. GRIMM. But there are port authorities and agencies throughout this country—— 

Mr. FOYE [continuing]. Or taxpayer aid—— 

Mr. GRIMM. If I could reclaim my time. 

Mr. FOYE. Yes, Congressman. 

Mr. GRIMM. There are port authorities and other agencies similar 

to yours throughout this country and they don’t have tolls that are 

$105. So I want to ask you a question, because you do have significant real estate holdings, and a lot of them do lose money. 

Does any of the toll revenue go towards those real estate holdings like construction of the World Trade Center, either directly or 

indirectly through financing the debt? Yes or no? 

Mr. FOYE. No. Toll revenue goes—— 

Mr. GRIMM. So when you raise money, you float bonds, you float 

bonds for capital money to invest in the World Trade Center. 

Mr. FOYE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. GRIMM. The toll revenue does not go to service that debt at 

all? 

Mr. FOYE. Toll revenue goes to the Interstate Transportation 

Network, bridges, tunnels—— 

29 

Mr. GRIMM. So it does not service the debt? It doesn’t pay to 

service the debt? 

Mr. FOYE. Bridge and tunnel revenue—— 

Mr. GRIMM. It is a yes or no question. Does it service the debt 

or not? 

Mr. FOYE. Bridge and tunnel revenue is dedicated to the bridges 

and tunnels, the PATH, and the Port Authority Bus Terminal, period, full stop. 

Mr. GRIMM. So the answer is it does not service—that revenue 

does not go to service the debt that funds all these other projects. 

Mr. FOYE. Congressman, the Interstate Transportation Network, 

which is the bridges, the tunnels, the PATH, and the Port Authority Bus Terminal, operates on a deficit. It does not generate funds 

that go to other parts of the Port Authority. 

Mr. GRIMM. So where does the money come from to service your 

debt? You have half-a-billion dollars a year in debt. I went through 

your financials, your 2012 financials and your other financials. You 

are running at a loss. If you take toll revenue out, there is no 

money to service your debt. Where does that half-a-billion dollars 

come from? 

Mr. FOYE. Well, Congressman, with all due respect, the Port Authority is a AA credit. The Fitch rating agency earlier this week 

reaffirmed our credit. In the world that we live in, where so many 

institutions have been downgraded, we are financially strong. We 

are a AA credit, without a doubt. 

Mr. GRIMM. That was not my question. I know you are credit 

worthy. I am asking you how you actually pay the interest on that 

debt if you are not using the revenue from your tolls. Where does 

it come from? 

Mr. FOYE. Well, Congressman, as I noted, we run airports, we 

run other—— 

Mr. GRIMM. And I added them all up in your financials, and they 

do not add up to enough to service your debt. 

Mr. FOYE. Well, Congressman, I can assure you, the AA credit 

and the Fitch affirmation of our rating this week speak to our financial stability and strength. 

Mr. GRIMM. OK. So you are saying that toll revenue does not go 

to service any debt for the Port Authority. 

Mr. FOYE. Toll revenue from the bridges and tunnels and the 

Interstate Transportation Network is dedicated to the operation 

and maintenance and investment in those assets, period. 

Mr. GRIMM. And that doesn’t include debt service. 

Mr. NADLER. Will the gentleman yield for a moment? 

Mr. GRIMM. I don’t have much time. 

Mr. NADLER. Just to clear up a little ambiguity, because you are 

talking past each other. 

I think what Mr. Foye is saying is that revenue from these tolls 

do go to service debt, but only debt for the transportation facilities 

and not for the other things like the World Trade Center. 

Is that correct? 

Mr. FOYE. Yes, sir. 

Mr. NADLER. OK. I just wanted to clear that up. 

Mr. GRIMM. OK. Moving on, because I am just about out of time, 

my last part of the question is you mentioned in your opening 

30 

statement how you are very concerned, how important your role is, 

the Port Authority’s role with job creation and the economy. 

In Staten Island, New York, after you announced the massive 

toll hike, never before seen such a massive toll hike, the New York 

Container Terminal lost one of its largest customers. Then after it 

was implemented, they lost two of their other customers. Fiftyseven percent of their business was gone. They are right now down 

to approximately 25 percent of the business they once did. They are 

on life support, basically. They are on life support. And they are 

the third largest employer in my district. 

You say you are coming out with a toll relief plan that is the best 

thing since sliced bread, but it limits them at almost half of their 

capacity. Why is there a cap on the toll relief based on their capacity? Why at 350,000 lifts when they can do almost 700,000 lifts? 

And it is the tolls that put them on life support in the first place. 

Mr. FOYE. So, Congressman, let me do this. Let me read a letter 

from Jim Devine to customers in the New York Container Terminal. 

Mr. GRIMM. I am going to reclaim my time. I have read the letter, so I am going to reclaim my time. 

Mr. FOYE. No, but you raised an important question, and I think 

it is important. Let me just quote Jim Devine very briefly. 

Mr. GRIMM. I am going to ask you not to do that because then 

I am going to have to be honest and tell this panel what I believe 

really happened. Would you rather me do that, Mr. Foye? I was 

trying to be nice. But the truth is I have done a thorough investigation of the involvement between the Port Authority and the container terminal, and as a former FBI agent I can tell you as a fact, 

there is no question in my mind that the container terminal is on 

life support. 

Mr. FOYE. I don’t agree. 

Mr. GRIMM. They are down to 25 percent of the business they 

used to do. They would not get their lease extended and they 

wouldn’t get any help if they didn’t acquiesce and button their lips. 

They couldn’t speak to their elected officials, and they were told not 

to say anything adverse to the press or the deal wouldn’t go 

through. When someone is on life support, when basically they 

have a gun to their head, they are going to say whatever you need 

them to say. And as someone who investigated the Gambino crime 

family and the Mafia, I can tell you I know what mob tactics are, 

what gangster tactics are, and I don’t appreciate it, and neither did 

they. 

Mr. FOYE. Well, Congressman, if you have evidence of wrongdoing, you should go to the D.A., please. 

Mr. GRIMM. No, not like that. You know what I am saying. It is 

very simple. If a private company is on life support and you say 

to them we are going to play hardball so that you go out of business or you take this deal and shut your lip, that is what they are 

going to do. 

Mr. FOYE. So, Congressman—— 

Mr. GRIMM. So the letter doesn’t mean much to me. And lastly, 

let me say this. That is why they are not here today, Mr. Foye. 

They are not here to testify today when they originally were going 

31 

to come because they didn’t want to have to lie to Congress or have 

to sit there and say no comment. That is why they are not here. 

Mr. FOYE. Well, Congressman, that company is controlled by a 

$130 billion Canadian pension plan, which is the largest single professional pension plan in Canada. That company paid $2.6 billion 

in 2006 for the New York Container Terminal, for Global on the 

Jersey side, and for a facility in Vancouver, near Vancouver. That 

company cannot be pushed around. That $130 billion pension plan 

cannot be pushed around. And Jim Devine and the people at New 

York Container Terminal have told their customers that they are 

extremely pleased by the deal that has been made. 

We think it is a fair deal. I believe it is a literal lifeline for the 

survival of New York Container Terminal. 

Mr. GRIMM. Why do they need the lifeline in the first place? And 

again, I am going to yield back my time. I totally disagree. They 

made millions of dollars of investments, and if they couldn’t recoup 

those investments, the people who own that container terminal had 

to answer to those pension funds, and that is why they had no 

choice but to acquiesce, and they were put in a position where they 

had a gun to their head, and it is a despicable act, in my opinion. 

I yield back. 

Mr. DUNCAN. All right, and thank you very much, Mr. Grimm. 

Thank you for being here. 

Let me get back to some questions that may not be quite as exciting. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Foye, let me ask you this. The most recent 

study by the Texas Transportation Institute of congestion of 498 

cities around the country said that congestion is costing this Nation 

six times more than it did 30 years ago, and that is an inflationadjusted figure. What is the Port Authority doing to prepare, since 

you operate in one of the most congested areas in the country, what 

are you doing or what do you need to do to keep that from getting 

worse in the future? 

Mr. FOYE. Chairman, that is an important issue. Let me also 

note that that same study said that the economic cost of congestion 

in this region is $12 billion a year. About $2.5 billion of that is related to truck congestion issues alone. 

Here is a short answer, Chairman. We are working with the 

States of New York and New Jersey, the Departments of Transportation in both States, as well as the New York City DOT, to come 

up with a regional freight plan. As I mentioned briefly in my testimony, that is going to include issues like access to the Van Wyck, 

which I know is important to Mr. Flynn’s business because Atlas 

operates at JFK. The congestion on the Van Wyck is a current burden on the economy. 

We believe that there are a number of regulatory steps that can 

be taken without significant amounts of capital that can, in the 

short term, in the relatively short term, address this. Beyond that, 

Chairman, there is going to be a need for infrastructure at JFK, 

at Newark Airport, at the ports on both sides of the Hudson. Part 

of it is going to be continued investments like the Port Authority 

has made in ExpressRail. 

32 

As I noted in my testimony, the Port Authority over the last decade has spent $600 million on ExpressRail both in Staten Island 

and New Jersey. Each container that is carried by ExpressRail is 

a container that doesn’t have to transit the highways of New York 

or New Jersey. 

I think that the Cross Harbor Project that you saw in the last 

day or two will provide an answer. The draft environmental impact 

statement—I am going to be very careful to make sure I state this 

right this time. The draft environmental impact statement will suggest that over a period of 10 or 20 years out, that between 45,000 

to 55,000 containers could be carried by the Cross Harbor Project. 

So, Chairman, it is a combination of raising awareness on the 

issue, taking administrative and other steps, and also investments, 

hopefully by Federal partners as well as State and private partners 

on both sides of the Hudson. 

Mr. DUNCAN. All right. Thank you very much. I want to get to 

some other topics as well. 

Mr. Flynn, we have 6-year limits on the Republican side on 

chairmanships. I chaired the Aviation Subcommittee for 6 years, 

from January of 1995 to January of 2001, and fortunately I got out 

9 months before 9/11. But back then, there was talk—the Clinton 

administration had put forth a proposal on an air traffic control 

corporation, a Government corporation, and then we even had some 

discussions about totally privatizing the air traffic control system 

such as in New Zealand and a few other places. And, of course, now 

we have been working on the so-called NextGen, which seems to 

have some promise. 

But what do you see for the future of aviation, let’s say over 

these next 5 or 10 years? Where do you see us going, and what do 

you see as the main problems or challenges? 

Mr. FLYNN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to, in fact, 

go back to the discussion we had been having about NextGen and 

how do we take NextGen forward, because at one level NextGen requires a very substantial investment by all parties, by the Government, by the airlines themselves in new equipment and new technology, as well as fairly substantial process changes both in the 

tower and potentially in the cockpit. 

We have been talking about NextGen for some time, and when 

looking at the magnitude of what may ultimately be required, I 

think we are not moving forward because they are developing a 

cost-benefit analysis and developing a clear line of sight of what 

the outcomes are going to be. It is challenging. 

The Inspector General of the DOT testified at Mr. LoBiondo’s 

committee just, I think, last week or the week before and talked 

about NextGen, and the recommendations that he was holding 

forth are the same recommendations that Atlas endorses, and I 

would believe that my colleagues in cargo and freight, as well as 

the passenger airlines, would endorse as well. 

There are things we can do now. There are things we can do now 

in performance-based navigation that have real bottom-line benefits in terms of cost, have real benefits in increasing capacity where 

we are congested, have environmental benefits by reducing the 

amount of fuel that is consumed. For the flying public, to step away 

33 

from cargo, for the flying public it should result in more on-time 

arrivals and more on-time departures. 

To implement performance-based navigation in most airports, not 

all but in most, it is really about changing processes and procedures and doesn’t require substantial dollar investments to go forward. If we can act on those regulatory processes and move forward on that, I think then we have real tangible, bottom-line dollar 

benefits that all stakeholders—the policymakers, the FAA and 

DOT, the airlines themselves, and the communities and airports 

themselves—can see, which would create, I believe, the momentum 

and a bias for action for the larger investments that are going to 

be required moving downstream. 

We are working today with air traffic control from the 1960s. We 

have more technology in the GPS in your car than we are effectively using today. And as we fast-forward, using what we have 

today, I think we really create bias for action, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DUNCAN. All of these things, unfortunately, take much more 

time for discussion than we have. I want to get to the other two 

witnesses as well in a little different areas. 

Mr. Coyle, Fred Smith from FedEx earlier testified in front of our 

panel early on, and they have made a request—you know, one of 

the most controversial issues that we deal with in our committee 

is the issue of truck weights and sizes. He has requested on behalf 

of FedEx Ground that we don’t increase the weight limits but at 

least let them increase—I am sure he would like an increase in 

weight limits, but he has requested that we at least allow an increase in the links without increasing the weights. What do you 

think about that? Would that help your company in any way? What 

would be your position on that? 

Mr. COYLE. It would not do anything with respect to the intermodal containers. They are 20 foot, 40 foot. There are some exceptions to that. You may see some 45-footers. But generally speaking, 

the vast majority come in those two increments. So basically, that 

wouldn’t really have any impact. 

Where it may have some impact is in the rail trailers, which generally are 53-foot rail trailers. I don’t know if, with regard to the 

railroad—Bill might be able to answer that—if you increase the 

length of the trailer, will that still work on current railroad equipment. So it is difficult to say until you have looked at that piece. 

But generally speaking, for what we do, I don’t see it as having a 

big impact. 

Mr. DUNCAN. What is the average load or the average weight 

limit, the weight in your trucking company on the things that you 

carry? 

Mr. COYLE. The 40-foot container, the maximum that I think we 

can do is about is 42,000, maybe 43,000. 

Mr. DUNCAN. I am not talking about what is the maximum you 

do. I am talking about in your trucks, I am sure some trucks are 

filled to the limit with very heavy material, but probably other 

trucks don’t carry materials that are quite as heavy as some 

trucks. Do you have an average weight? Are 90 percent of your 

trucks under such and such a weight? What would be the information on that? 

34 

Mr. COYLE. I would say that with respect to our particular business, the ocean containers tend to be a little on the heavier side, 

where you may look at a domestic carrier, over-the-road trucks, 

their average weight might be 25,000 pounds. But on the container 

side, particularly when containers are being loaded in other countries, they will load them up as much as they can. So you do see 

those weights. 

On average, if I had to sort of pick a number, I would say probably 40-foot containers are in the upper 30s. 

Mr. DUNCAN. How many trucks do you have? 

Mr. COYLE. We operate about 2,000 tractors. 

Mr. DUNCAN. 2,000 tractors? 

Mr. Goetz, I have heard a lot about this positive train control, 

and I have heard that the cost-benefit is probably 20, maybe as 

high as 25 to 1. How much has CSX spent on that thus far, and 

what do you think about that? Do you think the costs far outweigh 

the potential benefits? 

Mr. GOETZ. Well, it is a mandate, so we have to do it, and it has 

a very firm deadline. I can tell you that for our company and for 

this industry, this represents probably one of the largest technology 

and economic challenges that we have, for a couple of reasons. 

This technology for us is brand new. So we are faced with a situation where we have to invent something, test it, install it and 

make it work, in a very time-definite period. It also means that 

these components, these electronic components need to be manufactured, and there needs to be manufacturing capability to create all 

these units, and we need to buy them and get them installed. 

We need to train and hire installers to do this work. Again, we 

are layering on technology onto various levels of signaling systems 

and train control systems that vary throughout our network. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Let me ask you something else. Freight rail is already a heavily regulated industry. Are there any other regulations 

that you feel are particularly burdensome? And also, in MAP–21 

we tried to emphasize environmental streamlining because we had 

such long delays on these projects in all the areas that we deal 

with in our committee. Do you think it would be helpful if we could 

have more environmental streamlining on rail projects as well? 

Mr. GOETZ. Yes, I do, sir. Again, for example, with positive train 

control, that is a cellular-based technology. That means cell towers. 

People don’t like cell towers. Communities can voice strong opinions about that. And that is an example where, again, put into the 

actual devil in the details of permitting these out, we are very concerned that we may get held up with environmental concerns with 

the basic installation of new technology. 

Mr. DUNCAN. We all have some planes to catch, so we have to 

bring this hearing to a close. But I wanted to call on Mr. Nadler 

for any closing comments you wish to make at this time. 

Mr. NADLER. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will simply say 

that it has been a very informative hearing, a very informative 

tour, and I want to thank the chairman for bringing this hearing 

here, and I want to thank the Port Authority for hosting us, and 

all the witnesses for participating. 

I would invite the witnesses, if they have any further suggestions 

for us, to let us know. We are going to be preparing, as I think the 

35 

chairman mentioned in the beginning, preparing a report to the Judiciary—excuse me—to the Transportation Committee. 

Maybe to them, too. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. NADLER. To the Transportation Committee in a few months 

as the freight recommendations. If anyone has some brilliant ideas 

as to funding what we have come up with or anything else, please 

let us hear from you, and thank you all for participating. 

Mr. DUNCAN. We had Wick Moorman, the CEO of Norfolk Southern, and many of his top officers on the train with us on the way 

up yesterday. We appreciated that. That was sort of a combination 

of a briefing and an enjoyable ride as well. And then, of course, we 

met with several officials last night and today, too, as well, in addition, of course, to the very informative testimony that all of you 

have given. 

So, as Mr. Nadler has said, we appreciate everyone being here 

today, especially the witnesses. We are looking for very specific 

suggestions, and that means that suggestions can come even from 

people who are in the audience, as well as what we have heard 

from the witnesses today. 

We thank you very much, and that will conclude this hearing. 

[Whereupon, at 3:29 p.m., the panel was adjourned.] 

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