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PLEASE NOTE: The following transcript is a portion of the official hearing record of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Additional material pertinent to this transcript may be found on the web site of the Committee at [http://www.house.gov/transportation]. Complete hearing records are available for review at the Committee offices and also may be purchased at the U.S. Government Printing Office.
LEGISLATION TO APPROVE THE NATIONAL HIGHWAY SYSTEM (NHS) AND ANCILLARY ISSUES RELATING TO HIGHWAY AND TRANSIT PROGRAMS
THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 1995
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Surface Transportation,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Thomas E. Petri (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. PETRI. The subcommittee will come to order.
The committee is convening today to receive testimony on the designation of the National Highway System. As directed in the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991, acting in cooperation with the States and local officials, the Secretary of Transportation has submitted a proposed 160,000 mile system of our Nation's most important roads, roads linking our population centers, commercial hubs, airports, and other intermodal facilities.
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While comprising only 4 percent of our public roads, the NHS will carry over 40 percent of our Nation's highway traffic and more than 70 percent of our commercial truck traffic. It includes defense roads necessary to mobilize our military forces and equipment in times of emergency.
And, finally, NHS improvements will enhance safety and by some estimates will save up to 3,000 lives a year.
The National Highway System truly will move us beyond the interstate era and into the 21st Century. As I have stated in the past, approval of the National Highway System designation legislation is and will remain the top priority of this subcommittee. It is our intention to fully comply with the September 30, 1995, deadline imposed by ISTEA and avoid the withholding of over $6 billion in needed highway funds from the States.
I would like to welcome our very distinguished witnesses who appear before the subcommittee this morning. I look forward to your testimony and gaining insight from your views and perspective.
I would note that Secretary Pena and Federal Highway Administrator Slater will be testifying at 2:00 o'clock this afternoon. Depending on the length of the presentations of the other hearing witnesses, it may be necessary to recess the subcommittee and then to reconvene at 2:00 o'clock for the Secretary and Mr. Slater. So I would urge all Members to return this afternoon for that presentation.
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I now yield to our colleague from Florida, Mr. Mica, to introduce one of the witnesses at the table, on panel one.
Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I do appreciate this opportunity to welcome all of our panelists and in particular I want to welcome an old friend, Tom Lewis, who is Director of Transportation for Walt Disney World.
I introduce him to you and to our subcommittee, not only is he probably one of the most knowledgeable people dealing with highway transit and tourism, but, again, a personal friend and represents a company that has a great investment in America as far as employees, both in my State and locale, Florida, and California, and throughout the country, a great economic impact to our Nation, and they realize the importance of transportation and our national highway transportation system, and I am pleased to welcome him to our subcommittee and look forward to his testimony and the testimony of all of our panelists.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Mr. Lewis is joined by James E. Zamjahn, who is the Executive Director of Logistics, North American Operations of General Motors; and Michael Dickens, who is the President, Hospitality Franchise, Holiday Inn Corporation.
Gentlemen, welcome, and who would like to proceed first. Mr. Lewis.
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TESTIMONY OF TOM LEWIS, JR., VICE PRESIDENT OF DEVELOPMENT FOR DISNEY DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY; JAMES E. ZAMJAHN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF LOGISTICS, NORTH AMERICAN OPERATIONS, GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION; MICHAEL DICKENS, PRESIDENT, HOSPITALITY PARTNERS, ON BEHALF OF HOLIDAY INN CORPORATION
Mr. LEWIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning, and thank you, Congressman Mica, for those kind words. We are awfully proud of the work that Congressman Mica is doing in this important area of transportation for our area and our State as well.
I am Tom Lewis. I am Vice President of Development for Disney Development Company, the real estate arm of the Walt Disney Company, and appreciate the opportunity speak to you briefly this morning regarding the importance of a National Highway System to the economic viability and the future prosperity of our industry, tourism, resort recreation, and entertainment, as well as to our company.
Nationwide, the domestic travel industry is an approximate $800 billion per year business. It generates more than 10.6 million jobs in the United States. This industry alone comprises almost 12.5 percent of the gross domestic product of the United States. The industry also accounted for over $56 billion of Federal, State, and local taxes in 1993, of which $8 billion was paid by international travelers.
A recent survey indicated that domestic travelers make 1.1 billion automobile-person trips each year, and that that amount grows annually. The majority of those trips, the vast majority of those trips were on facilities proposed for designation as the National Highway System. So there is obviously a major national significance to the proposed NHS to our industry.
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From a more localized perspective, each year nearly 40 million tourists visit the State of Florida, generating an estimated $6 billion in wages. More than half of the State's visitors come to central Florida where the Walt Disney Company operates three theme parks and the world's number one resort vacation destination, the Walt Disney World resort. The central Florida tourism industry directly or indirectly employs 122,000 people, which is 10 percent of the population of the greater Orlando metropolitan area, and its annual wages total $3 billion.
Tourism and its related businesses also account for 30 percent of the central Florida sales tax revenue, $750 million for local government. The travel and tourism industry is a significant part of our national economy. It is a clean industry and employs millions of United States citizens. The ability for automobile travel to and from major tourist destinations, such as central Florida, southern California, and other places in our country, and the ability to deliver much needed supplies necessary to operate these destinations, is critical to the continued success and growth of this vitally important sector of the U.S. economy.
Our company is a Fortune 500 company. In 1994, we had an operating income of some $10 billion. We employ 70,000 people in our company, 55,000 of which are in the United States. At our Florida location at Walt Disney World, our employment totals approximately 35,000. We are the largest employer in the State of Florida. Disneyland, California, employs 12,000 and is the single largest private employer in Orange County, California.
The Walt Disney World resort in Florida is served by several roadways proposed for NHS designation, Interstate 4, State Road 528, U.S. Route 27, and the Florida's turnpike. We estimate that almost 30 percent of our annual attendance arrives at our park in Orlando by personal automobile. Of that total, some 40 percent travel Interstate 75 or Interstate 95 enroute to their central Florida destination.
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The Orlando International Airport, through which over half of our annual visitors come, it is one of the fastest growing airports in the Nation. It is directly served by State Road 528, in a direct route to the Walt Disney World resort for that portion of our guests who come by air.
At one location at Walt Disney World we receive 312,000 shipments each year of merchandise, food and other items, weighing over 105,000 tons. The majority of these shipments come by land carrier. Many of these shipments are containerized freight and they are delivered through a national port-to-port system and picked up by land carriers at nearby ports, including Savannah, Jacksonville, and Port Canaveral. I know this port-to-port connection was also an important element of the ISTEA legislation.
In California, Disneyland is served by several roadways proposed for National Highway System designation—the Santa Ana Freeway, Riverside Freeway, Orange County Freeway, and the Garden Grove Freeway.
At Disneyland, we receive 85,000 shipments a year, weighing approximately 30,000 tons.
In another part of our business, we operate 279 Disney stores in the United States, 14 stores in Canada and Puerto Rico. These stores employ 10,000 people. We have a distribution center in Memphis, Tennessee, that every week, operating five days, ships deliveries totaling some 500,000 pounds. During peak seasons, this amount swells to a million pounds of shipments each week. Most of this merchandise is shipped by commercial carriers which travel the United States roadways proposed for designation under the NHS program.
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Mr. Chairman, we very much appreciate the opportunity to speak to you this morning. Our industry and our company have a significant and positive economic impact on the United States every day. Our future ability to successfully maintain current employees, produce new jobs, and account for significant revenues at local, State, and Federal levels depends on a viable National Highway System.
Getting back to the basics of providing a sound nationwide system of major highways is critical to us. Such a system also is crucial to our ability to be competitive in the international market. And to be competitive, we must keep people and freight moving effectively and efficiently across our country.
Our business cannot exist without America's major highways. We urge your support of adoption of the National Highway System to focus scarce surface transportation funds to the country's highest, cost-benefit highway projects.
Thank you very much.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you very much, Mr. Lewis.
Mr. Zamjahn.
Mr. ZAMJAHN. Thank you. Good morning. My name is Jim Zamjahn. I am Executive Director of Logistics for General Motors, North American Operations.
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This logistics group is responsible for providing the transportation services required to support GM's manufacturing operations in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, as well as supporting GM's international shipments.
We appreciate the invitation to register support for timely enactment of the National Highway System designation legislation by explaining how important an efficient roadway system is to GM.
Needless to say, as the largest private sector shipper, GM takes a keen interest in the Nation's transportation system. We expect to spend over $3.5 billion in 1995 on transportation services. Of that amount, nearly $2 billion will be spent with motor carriers. GM has 142 facilities in the U.S. that ship or receive component parts, raw materials, and/or finished vehicles. Keeping these plants competitive in an expanding world market depends in large measure on good access to well maintained highways.
Of the 142 facilities, 24 are car and truck assembly plants located throughout the U.S. A typical assembly plant produces one new vehicle a day, and receives and unloads an average of 120 truckloads of component parts and supplies daily from its approximately 500 suppliers. Our total supply base consists of 5,500 direct material suppliers and 22,500 indirect suppliers located throughout North America. The assembly plants then ship finished vehicles to our network of 9,800 dealers with an average delivery distance of nearly 1,100. Roughly 40 percent of our vehicle production is shipped directly to dealers via hallway trucks. The remaining 60 percent are first loaded on multilevel railcars destined to unloading ramps in major market areas. On arrival, these vehicles are unloaded and likewise delivered by haulaway trucks.
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So in total, approximately 5,800 trucks provide daily support to our 24 assembly plants. We estimate that an additional 7,000 truckloads daily are involved when GM's manufacturing and stamping plants are considered.
Our reliance on highway transportation can be demonstrated by our decisions in locating our facilities. For example, good highway access was a key determinant in the location of our Detroit–Hamtramck Cadillac facilities and the Saturn operations in Spring Hill, Tennessee. Also, at the Lordstown complex in Ohio, a new exit on the Ohio Turnpike gives trucks direct access to the plant, reducing delays and excess transit times which had resulted from the use of secondary roads.
GM's dependence on the roadway system in the manufacturing process has increased substantially during the past decade. In recent years, GM, other motor vehicle manufacturers, and other industries have incorporated quality control and lean manufacturing processes to reduce costs, improve productivity and competitiveness. These processes have resulted in a significant change in the nature of our material delivery network. We now ship many more materials and components just in time to meet very precise production schedules. For GM, just-in-time deliveries have increased from 20 to 25 percent at the beginning of the decade to 90 to 95 percent today.
The overall objective, of course, is lean manufacturing and a just-in-time transportation system is a key enabler of lean manufacturing. As a by-product, smaller, more frequent shipments also serve to reduce in-plant and in-transit inventory. Consistency and reliability of the transportation system are vital factors in this transition to a just-in-time process.
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As an example, a recently concluded just-in-time program between facilities in Ohio and Michigan illustrates this point. JET Express, a motor carrier using specialized, high-cube, drop-frame trailers traveled over 230 miles from Moraine, Ohio, to Pontiac, Michigan, to meet a 15-minute delivery window. Without a single transportation delay, JET Express handled 70 shipments per day to the Michigan plant, a total of 15,362 shipments representing 107,000 vehicles produced. Any highway delay would have caused serious production disruptions at the Pontiac plant.
Generally, any interruption in highway service, such as an incident that causes congestion, severe weather, or equipment shortages, will cause disruption in the manufacturing cycle, resulting in lost production and sales.
GM believes that a good, safe highway transportation system is a cornerstone to the country's economic future and necessary for a successful competitive position. Virtually all American business and industry depend on an efficient highway system. In 1993, the Nation's expenditures for motor carrier freight rose 6.5 percent to $312 billion, accounting for nearly 80 percent of the Nation's total freight bill. This is a clear statement of the importance of the highway system to the U.S. economy and a clear indication of the need for a National Highway System.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be pleased to respond at any time to questions you or the other subcommittee Members may have.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you very much.
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Mr. Dickens.
Mr. DICKENS. I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and this committee for giving me the opportunity to speak here this morning. I am here today to offer testimony on behalf of Holiday Inn Worldwide and the Holiday Inn franchise community about the proposed National Highway System and its economic impact on tourism generally and the hotel business specifically.
My company, Hospitality Partners, owns and/or operates 11 hotels in the Mid–Atlantic region, 6 of which are in Washington, D.C., 3 in Northern Virginia, 1 in Frederick, Maryland, and 1 in downtown Philadelphia. Four of our hotels are Holiday Inns, including the Holiday Inn Capitol. The rest of our hotels are other hotel franchises, the independent hotels, like the Capitol Suites near here.
We are a small to midsize hotel company, like a lot of hotel companies around the country. An economic snapshot of Hospitality Partners would be similar to many of those companies. In 1995, we will have sales of $80 million. From these sales, $27 million in wages and benefits will be paid to our 1,100 full and part-time employees. We will collect and distribute $11,400,000 in sales taxes, and pay $2,500,000 in property taxes. Our hotels, like all hotels, create a relatively large number of jobs and generate significant tax revenues for the communities in which we do business.
The proposed National Highway System is very important to my business and to all hoteliers around the country. The Holiday Inn, as an example, began as a company more than 40 years ago. It grew as the then-new interstate system grew. Today, Holiday Inn Worldwide has grown from that one roadside motel to nearly 2,000 hotels around the world, 1,500 of which are located in the United States. More than 90 percent of those 1,500 U.S. hotels are owned by franchisees like me.
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I believe a National Highway System is the backbone of our Nation's transportation system. Even in the Washington, D.C., area, with its three major airports, our hotels depend on automobiles and buses to bring to us more than 75 percent of our tourism business. Nationwide, I believe that number is more than 80 percent.
As I am sure this committee has heard or will hear, travel and tourism nationwide is one of our biggest businesses and job creators. With $6.2 million direct jobs in the travel and tourism industry, it is the second biggest source of jobs in the country. Additionally, and as importantly, travel and tourism are tremendous sources of new jobs. In fact, our industry produces jobs at more than twice the rate of the rest of the economy.
As I understand it, the National Highway System will increase the number of households within five miles of a quality highway from the current number of 60 percent to 90 percent. That means that 50 percent more families will have easier access to travel for both business and pleasure. That increase will produce significant economic benefit to travel and tourism, the economy as a whole, and improve the quality of life of these families.
Additionally, the National Highway System will further open up this country to international tourism. International tourism today is our Nation's leading export, in 1994 generating $77 billion from 46 million international visitors. It is my belief that the international visitors today coming to this country are increasingly going to be looking to see America beyond the monuments in the big cities. A National Highway System of quality roads will allow them to do that much more easily than they can today. The smaller towns and the tourist attractions that today are not on interstates will benefit from that increased access.
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At some of our hotels in Washington, D.C., more than 30 percent of our guests are international visitors. In my conversations with many of these guests I find it exciting they want to explore America and see our country, however, sometimes I find it depressing that their view of America is often only what they can see from an overcrowded interstate. As an industry and a country, we need to change that.
In summary, I believe the proposed National Highway System will improve the safety of our Nation's highways, improve the economy, create jobs, and encourage tourism. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Rahall, have you any questions of this panel.
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe, Mr. Poshard, did you want this statement submitted at this point in the record, your opening statement?
Mr. POSHARD. Yes, sir, if I could ask unanimous consent to have that.
Mr. PETRI. So ordered.
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. LAUGHLIN. Mr. Chairman, at the same time I have a statement and I would ask unanimous consent it be made a part of the record also.
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Mr. PETRI. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Chairman, if I may ask the panel a couple of questions.
We have been receiving testimony over the course of these previous hearings on so-called regulatory burdens that some contend are plaguing the Federal highway program. Among these we have heard about are Federal requirements relating to maximum speed limits, seat belt laws, and the minimum drinking age.
I want to ask you, Mr. Lewis and Mr. Dickens, do you hear many of your customers complaining about these requirements?
Mr. LEWIS. Congressman, as far as our guests, I do not think we hear, to my knowledge, the complaints from them. Some of our carriers, that carry—I referred to the tens of thousands of tons of shipments that we receive each year in both Disneyland in California and Walt Disney World in Florida, and our carriers are burdened by some of those regulatory constraints.
So I know that that is a concern to the major land carrier industry that does serve us.
Mr. RAHALL. So the carriers are the ones you hear the complaints from?
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Mr. LEWIS. Yes.
Mr. RAHALL. And are those voluminous?
Mr. LEWIS. Congressman, I am not sure. I do know our traffic control people, and I spoke to them before coming up here, that the issue of regulatory burdens is something that they hear, but the frequency of it I am not certain of.
Mr. RAHALL. But you do not hear it from your customers.
Mr. LEWIS. Not to my knowledge.
Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Dickens.
Mr. DICKENS. The kinds of complaints we hear, and we hear them from our customers or guests, are more likely being related to sitting in a car in an overconjested highway three or four hours trying to get to us. The speed issue is really not moving as opposed to moving too fast. We hear it regularly obviously when people are checking into hotels.
Mr. RAHALL. One of the main goals of the NHS is to try to relieve all that congestion.
Mr. DICKENS. I hope so, yes, sir.
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Mr. RAHALL. Okay, that concludes my questioning, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you. Mr. Mica.
Mr. MICA. Mr. Chairman and my colleagues, and also panelists, first, just a couple of points. And, again to Mr. Lewis, who is from my area, central Florida, you talked about the impact on employment of your corporation, Disney Corporation, throughout the United States, but let me focus for a minute on central Florida.
Central Florida is one of the few areas in the United States that does not have some type of a bypass system around it or some Federal assistance or designation on the NHS map with a bypass and they built an interstate back in the 1950s through our community which has many geographic problems, like 500 lakes to transverse through the community. So you only have one east-west, north-south route which is on the Interstate 4.
Our community is sort of a model that has built 80 miles of toll roads through the community, bonded it at a billion and a half in bonding, so we pay twice at the gas—once with the gas tax and then once I think it costs about five bucks to get around town, which is not even completed at this point. We are missing about five miles to interconnect that. So those people who are coming to our area have no way to get around the community or through the community.
We have closed off NHS and I would like your comments on that, if that should be opened or expanded, particularly to communities who have taken on a burden of their own in the fashion that we have to solve their problem.
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Then you also spoke about the impact of foreign visitors, and I think the figure 31 percent to central Florida are coming from foreign countries. And they get there and they are gridlocked for two or three hours and unable to move around.
What is happening to our foreign visitor population? Can you speak to that? The visits.
Mr. LEWIS. Well, I think in my testimony I spoke to the rather significant percentage of international visitors that make up our annual attendance.
Mr. MICA. Isn't there, in fact, a decline in visitor attendance; and one of the reasons is lack of transportation and the ability to get around when they get there?
Mr. LEWIS. I think our area, the central Florida area and the growth that we have had, our representation from years ago of being able to get around comfortably and easily with a good guest experience, we have lost a lot of that reputation.
Mr. MICA. Isn't there in fact a net decline in annual visitors, foreign tourism?
Mr. LEWIS. Yes.
Mr. MICA. To central Florida in particular?
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Mr. LEWIS. Yes.
Mr. MICA. And what is your opinion on going back and looking—we are discussing pretty much the status quo as far as NHS, not really adding to it. It is basically what we have, as far as I understand. What would your opinion be about expanding it beyond what we have now?
Mr. LEWIS. Well, Congressman Mica, I think that this concept of the National Highway System is, my two colleagues have spoken to it, one of the most, if not the most, critical activities that this committee, this subcommittee will be dealing with. And I think when you deal with it, it is critical to ensure that the segments of our highway system that make up what eventually becomes the National Highway System, that we have adequately included all of the major highways that serve industries like ours completely.
I am not that familiar with areas other than ours, and I think there probably are segments in central Florida there, the central Florida area that ought to be examined for possible inclusion on that system.
Mr. MICA. Finally, what about communities that, say, contribute such an incredible share of resolving a problem? For example, bonding a billion and a half to create what really should be a Federal obligation, a bypass, interstate bypass? Do you think they should get any break in the process? Softball question.
Mr. LEWIS. Yes, sir, I do.
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Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is all we need to hear.
Mr. PETRI. Very good. Mr. Laughlin.
Mr. LAUGHLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have no questions of this panel. Thank all of you for being here.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Poshard.
Mr. POSHARD. I have no questions, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Let's see, Ms. Collins. Mr. Horn.
Mr. HORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have one question for Mr. Zamjahn, especially since you are from General Motors.
I remember those ads, two decades, three decades ago where you have the happy family sitting around playing cards in the cars as it goes along an automated highway. How close are we to that vision? Whatever happened to that? Right now the kids sit around looking for ruts and shoulders for the car to fall off and this kind of thing.
Mr. ZAMJAHN. How close are we to that? I can't answer that directly. Our research and development people have been working with the, I know the Federal Highway Administration, on an intelligent highway system, intelligent vehicle highway system, and I believe there is some opportunity to develop that concept. But it is certainly not this decade, in my mind.
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Now, the opportunity is there perhaps within 10 to 15 years for that concept to become a reality. We can certainly prototype it. The technology exists, and it could conceivably increase the capacity of today's highway systems as well. So it is a viable option I believe for the future.
Mr. HORN. I think, Mr. Chairman, on that thought, we would hope the National Highway System, if it requires a certain dimension one way or the other, in terms of handling that type of automation and intelligent vehicle, if you will, that it would be built to partly recognize that, unless we are planning to leave it totally to interstate freeway traffic.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you. Mr. Mineta—oh, he is not here. Mr. Blute.
Mr. BLUTE. I have no questions, Mr. Chairman, just thank the witnesses for coming.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Martini.
Well, thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate your testimony very much.
Representative Greg Laughlin would like to introduce our next witness, making up panel two, Mr. William G. Burnett.
Mr. LAUGHLIN. Well, Mr. Chairman, I am sure the gentlelady from Dallas, the other Texan on this committee, the Honorable Eddie Bernice Johnson, joins me in welcoming William G. Burnett, our Executive Director and Chief Administrative Officer of the Texas Department of Transportation, who is also appearing on behalf of the Association of State Highway and Transit Officials.
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Although, Mr. Burnett is new to this high prestigious office of responsibility in our State, he has a long distinguished career in working for the Texas Department of Transportation and has served primarily in the western part of our State in two different positions of responsibility within the region. And now he has the entire State's responsibilities, and I am sure as the years go by, we will see him represent our State transportation department with the same distinction as previous engineering directors have, making our transportation department one of the models for State transportation planning.
And as we learned in the last Congress, the Texas Department of Transportation has developed a transportation system for our State, and I think it is a model for all States, to do planning. And, in fact, many writers of political comment in big city papers have accused our committee, and I might say wrongfully accused, but they have accused it of pork barrel projects. Not one in my State, the State that Ms. Johnson and I represent, have been accused of pork barrel for the reason every project in the transportation plan came from the leadership of our Department of Transportation and commissioners who had been appointed under a number of Governors.
So it is with great Texas pride that Congresswoman Johnson and I recognize and welcome our Executive Director to this committee.
Mr. PETRI. Please proceed.
TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM G. BURNETT, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, AND VICE PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF STATE HIGHWAY AND TRANSPORTATION OFFICIALS (AASHTO)
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Mr. BURNETT. Mr. Chairman and Members of the committee, it is a pleasure to be here to testify before you today on the National Highway System.
As the Congressman graciously introduced me, my name is Bill Burnett. I am the Executive Director of the Texas Department of Transportation and also serve in the role of Vice President of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and as I stated, it is a pleasure to be able to speak to you about the National Highway System.
I think all of you are all very much aware that AASHTO has been very involved in the development of the NHS concept even before the creation of the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991. And we have got to this point by close cooperation between the 52 member departments of AASHTO in the U.S. DOT.
I think it is of utmost importance to us that the National Highway System be adopted before the deadline established by ISTEA of December 30 of this year. The NHS is vital to the continued economic recovery and prosperity of our Nation, and transportation is the key ingredient to the success, commerce, and international trade and the lifeblood of the world's economy.
All Americans depend upon efficient and accessibility of the Nation's highways and other transportation systems in their everyday life. The designation of the NHS will provide a key impetus to enhance transportation planning and development across the United States, enabling the member departments of AASHTO to move forward with their plans to improve conditions and management of our systems.
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I would like to point out to you today that America does not have a good highway system because America is rich; it is because people like yourself and your predecessors, you had the vision, you had the support, and you adopted the vision to build good highways. That is what has made America be the nation that it is today.
I would like to point out that I don't believe that designation of a NHS system means the creation of a whole new set of highways. The bulk of the NHS system as proposed by Secretary Pena of the U.S. DOT is already on the ground and already carrying traffic on it. By designating the National Highway System, the 104th Congress will instead direct a predominant focus of the Federal Government on 160,000 miles of highway that together contribute to our national transportation goals of better access, enhanced mobility, and increased efficiency in our transportation system across the Nation. I think it also compliments and supports our national defense system and also their strategy of rapid deployment.
AASHTO has been very involved over the years and has passed numerous resolutions in support of the National Highway System, which I have previously submitted with my written testimony, and of utmost importance, our most recent position on the National Highway System was adopted by the board of directors in November of 1994 at our annual meeting and it is our Policy Resolution–2–94, which I think directly covers our position, but also points out that we feel that when you get to the issue of design standards for the National Highway System that this is something that should be left up to the individual States and that we do not have a set of design standards imposed upon the States which make it burdensome to produce the National Highway System.
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We also include in our policy resolution statements our position on the set-aside of NHS funds for maintenance and intermodal projects, suballocation of NHS funds to large metropolitan planning areas, the MPOs, and AASHTO believes that the existing NHS program adequately addresses the concerns raised in these issues. And, furthermore, the spirit of flexibility, cooperative planning, and intermodalism embodied in ISTEA encompasses each of these issues.
Designation of the National Highway System is important to the future of this Nation, but that future cannot be realized without adequate transportation funding. And I think that is something that we need to consider when we look at the creation of the National Highway System. We know that Congress is concerned about deficit spending because of the controls inherited in the highway trust fund. There cannot be deficit spending in our highway program.
I think one thing we need to look at is the strategy that created the Eisenhower interstate system, that established user based fees and funds to build this system.
And I guess in closing I would point out to you that it is a pleasure to be here to talk to you about the National Highway System. It is very important to the 52 members of AASHTO, it is very important to our State, and I urge you to quickly designate this vital transportation network, and if there is anything, any questions that I can answer for the committee, I would be glad to answer those questions.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you very much, Mr. Burnett.
We have a vote but before we go over there, I think our Representatives from Texas did have a question or two, and I would yield my time to Representative Laughlin and Ms. Johnson.
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Mr. LAUGHLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Burnett, when you were testifying you mentioned the National Highway System addresses national defense issues, but I want to focus a little closer to, and I think it rightfully should, but we have the implementation of several trade agreements, and there has been more focus on infrastructure needs at both the Canadian and Mexican border from more States than just the one you and I live.
Additionally, I come from the part of the State where no lanes of highways have been added to the coastal area for evacuation purposes in the event of hurricanes, and in fact we have the same number of lanes as I like to say since we joined the Union the second time, but in reality since we started putting down concrete and asphalt, no lanes of traffic for evacuation purposes have been added.
Can you tell us whether the National Highway System that you and AASHTO are here supporting addresses both the areas that I have mentioned in my inquiry?
Mr. BURNETT. Yes, sir, Congressman. I can tell you that, yes, the system that AASHTO supports and also that our State supports, the National Highway System does address concerns of international trade, NAFTA trade. I know it also addressed the concerns of evacuation routes along our coast.
I think that you have to look at it as a complete system. Just like with border trade, we have 27 international crossings in Texas, all bridges, and the border trade does not stop and start right there at the bridge. It is an extension of the system through the State, through your district, and then into Houston and further north up into the other States in the Midwest.
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I think hurricane evacuation routes are the same. Our commission has just created a hurricane—our commission just adopted two programs in the State of Texas. One is a hurricane evacuation route system; the other is in our State funding we have created a NAFTA funding system to address the needs for projects of those types.
I think those two programs are greatly complemented and aided by National Highway System adoption.
Mr. LAUGHLIN. Very quickly, and the last question I have, Mr. Chairman, addresses the Metroplex in the Rio Grande Valley, the third fastest growing area in our State, the ninth fastest growing area in our country, where there are four ports of entry from Mexico, yet much of that is served by two-lane roads.
And you have previously mentioned in your testimony the high density corridor previously included in the legislation by this committee. But specific to either Highway 77 or Highway 281, if those were included in the National Highway System, would it improve the interconnectivity of the infrastructure for trade from and to Mexico?
Mr. BURNETT. Yes, Congressman, I think, as you are well aware and others, we have 750,000 Texans that live in the valley. We are approximately 130 miles of that area of the State from its nearest interstate. I think that designation on the National Highway System of U.S. 281 and U.S. 77 will greatly enhance that.
Also, I think as you look at trade from Mexico coming in there, the distance from Monterey to the valley is a shorter distance than the distance from Monterey to Laredo. I think by having dual routes out of Monterey and into our State and then across our Nation, they complement the corridor 20 and corridor 18 studies which are the I–69 studies that were asked for in the ISTEA. I think it complements intermodal connections with the Port of Corpus Christi, the Port of Houston, and other such areas.
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Mr. PETRI. Thank you very much. If you could make yourself available we will be back in about 10 minutes.
Mr. LAUGHLIN. Mr. Chairman, not as a question but just as an additional comment that the Director told me earlier today, the State of Texas recognizes the importance of one of these two roads because of not only the population but the commerce from the American sides of the border and has committed State funds for studies of improving one of the two routes, if not both.
Mr. BURNETT. Like the Congressman addressed, we have expanded the study with State funds to address these concerns.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Mr. LAUGHLIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will return after my other commitment.
Mr. PETRI. Mrs. Johnson.
Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON. I have questions but I will come back.
Mr. PETRI. Great. You will be first. This hearing is adjourned for 10 minutes.
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[Brief Recess.]
Mr. PETRI. The hearing will resume and we will recognize Mrs. Johnson.
Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for being here, Mr. Burnett. I don't think we have had an opportunity to visit since you have been in office.
I read in your written statement that you submitted to the committee that you specifically mentioned the Dallas–Fort Worth Airport and the need to transfer to other transportation modes from DFW.
What effects would failure to designate the National Highway System have on communities like Dallas?
Mr. BURNETT. Congresswoman, your question was what effects would the failure—
Ms. JOHNSON. Yes.
Mr. BURNETT. The effects on the Dallas–Fort Worth area and other large urbanized areas in not adopting an NHS system would be in the areas that it would make it difficult to make connections between various modes of transportation, the DFW Airport, the alliance airports, and similar things like that. It would also make it very tough to have connectivity between other parts of the State to bring people into the Dallas–Fort Worth area, to bring goods and products in and do distribution without such a system. It would just make it more complex.
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I think in the State of Texas, as you are well aware, 85 percent of our people live in our metropolitan areas, and we need the National Highway System to be able to improve—or to continue to provide transportation in those areas.
Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you.
In what specific ways has the North American Free Trade Agreement impacted transportation needs for Texas and other border States?
Mr. BURNETT. The passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in our State, and I think you could say the same for all the States that border either Mexico or Canada, those in the Northeast and the Northwest, is that, number one, we have a great increase in truck traffic coming across. We have a great concern, and I think all States have a concern, as to the weights of those trucks. I think you are all probably familiar that one 18-wheeler, at 80,000 pounds, does the same damage to the highway system as 9,600 cars do. I think you also know that when a truck weighs 100,000 pounds instead of 80,000 pounds, you have a lot of infrastructure damage and it is more proportional than just simple division.
The other thing is providing congestion, and we have to be able to have facilities and not just congestion at the border, but it provides congestion in your district as those vehicles go through your district.
Ms. JOHNSON. Yes.
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Mr. BURNETT. So it has had a great impact.
Ms. JOHNSON. Now, I have, along with our Chairman and our Ranking Member, and many other Members, cosponsored the protection of the trust funds from the Federal budget as relates to the new transportation needs. Is this important to and do you see an advantage for Texas?
Mr. BURNETT. Yes, ma'am, I think it is very important, not just to Texas but to all the States that the trust funds be protected and used for the intent that they were developed for 40 years ago, and that is to be user based and to be plowed back into transportation systems. So I think it is paramount to the State of Texas and all 50 other States and our other two members, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico that these funds be protected.
Ms. JOHNSON. Has Texas been able to do any better in recouping some of the funds they are due?
Mr. BURNETT. We have been pretty successful in being able in our State to try to get every dollar we can get. I could tell you we would like to be more successful and we would like to try to get some more, but probably one concern that we have, and we have had conversations with Secretary Pena and also with Administrator Slater, is that when you look at projects of national significance, and this is probably where our disappointment is, projects that have to do with trade with the Pacific Rim or trade with NAFTA, is that those are national issues. Those are not Texas issues or those are not Montana issues or Vermont issues or Michigan issues, California issues. There needs to be some assistance to the border States.
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Most trucks that come through our State do not end up in our State, they are going to the Northwest or Northeast or Midwest.
Ms. JOHNSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you, Representative Johnson.
Representative Clinger, do you have any questions.
Mr. CLINGER. No, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Representative Brewster. Representative Cramer.
Mr. CRAMER. If I might quickly, Mr. Burnett. Thank you for your testimony here today.
I am from Alabama and we are at least a smaller coastal State than the State of Texas there, but in referring to the National Highway System we are supposed to have, it represents the primary highway network in the Nation. You have some evacuations, some emergency weather problems that you have there. Could you comment, please, on how you see this highway system working?
And I guess I am bringing up the broader question of that highway system working to accommodate local needs. In your position you have to sit on top and look at everything. How you would see the National Highway System working?
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Mr. BURNETT. I would be glad to, Congressman.
I had the pleasure of being in your State two weeks ago to attend your State transportation conference and really did enjoy the hospitality that we received.
I think that when you look at things as trade, and I think you have international trade in Alabama; I think you also have coastal evacuation problems just like any of the coastal States do, and what you have to do as the administrative officers of the DOT and you sit down and try to balance this and figure out where you get the biggest bang for your buck and you are trying to keep all these balls up in the air at the same time, you have to make tough decisions as to human safety, you have to make decisions as to movement of goods. I think you also have to be able to go in there and balance personal rights, the right to travel in our country as you can and flow freely across your State. So it makes it very difficult.
I think where the National Highway System will help State make this easier, is that the National Highway System, with enough flexibility in it, creates a system, and not specific deals, and it has interconnectivity between different modes, between coasts, between ports, between States. It connects you with your neighbor Georgia, your neighbor Florida, it connects you with Mississippi. And I think that it makes everyone work together to provide a system so it should make DOT administrators' jobs easier.
Mr. CRAMER. I can just see that happening already.
Mr. BURNETT. Yes, sir. I think ISTEA had wanted that. I think ISTEA made us better planners. And the cooperation between the 50 States, in adopting the National Highway System, has got it and now I am implementing it after you all approve it.
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Mr. CRAMER. It forces you to set priorities and do the long-range planning you have not been able to do?
Mr. BURNETT. Yes, sir. It has made an easier job of setting long-range plans.
Mr. PETRI. Are there other questions for this witness?
If not, thank you very much, Mr. Burnett.
Mr. BURNETT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Because of a scheduling problem, with the permission of the committee, we will move panel five forward and ask Mr. Ron Carey, the General President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters—would that be all right, if he would be willing to step forward and, sir, thank you very much for being here and we look forward to your testimony.
TESTIMONY OF RON CAREY, GENERAL PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD OF TEAMSTERS
Mr. CAREY. Thank you very much. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and Members of the subcommittee. I am Ron Carey, General President of the 1.4 million teamster members. I am here and I am pleased to have this opportunity to testify on behalf of the more than half a million teamsters who work in the transportation industry, over 70,000 members who work in the construction industry and the rest of our members, who like every other American, are affected by the laws and regulations that govern surface transportation policy.
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The Teamsters Union strongly supports your efforts to designate a National Highway System. It is plain common sense that this country cannot maintain a strong economy without a major investment in highway transportation. Over 78 percent of the value of all freight is transported over road by truck. Over 75 percent of all cities and towns in America rely exclusively on trucks for freight delivery. Highways are also central to public safety and tourism, which contributes over $350 billion to our economy.
Unfortunately, our highway system is falling apart. Teamster drivers alone could fill several hearing rooms with stories about the sorry state of our highways. They will tell you about the interstates, the connecting roads that they will not drive on because of the safety risk, or the likelihood of delays and costly damage to their equipment. When they have to drive on roads like that, there is no choice and they risk their health, their equipment, and goods are damaged. Deliveries do not make it on time and everyone loses on that basis.
The development of the National Highway System will help reverse the situation. We will be able to haul more freight with fewer delays; we will create more good jobs; we will make highways safer for all Americans, whether they are driving for business or for pleasure.
The development of the NHS is an investment in America's future that is long overdue. It is certainly an investment that will also not prevent us from putting real balance in the Federal budget. The NHS will be financed from the National Highway Trust Fund, from trucking companies, from truck drivers, from motorists who contribute as much as $19 to $20 billion annually to this fund through highway user fees.
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The trust fund has a balance of over $19 billion, but it is not being spent, it is being hoarded for accounting reasons, or, worse yet, so that some Members of Congress can use it for nonhighway purposes. We owe it to the people who use the highways, who pay the user fees to spend their tax dollars for the purpose for which it was collected. The NHS is not a budget buster, it is simply a matter of living up to the contract that Congress has already made with those who travel America's highways.
Before I close, I would also urge this committee to consider two matters which would undercut the purposes of NHS.
First, I encourage you to link the development of NHS with the strengthening of highway safety and enforcement efforts. The Teamsters Union prides itself on safe driving records of our members, but changes in the trucking industry have opened the door to many drivers who are not well trained and who are driving poorly maintained trucks. Other professional drivers committed to safety are being pushed to the limit just to make a decent wage.
We are committed to working with you to develop programs that will reduce the number of unsafe drivers on NHS and America's highways in general.
My second recommendation is to avoid undermining the very purpose of NHS by considering fundamental changes in the Davis-Bacon Act and of other labor standards. Davis-Bacon was adopted to prevent taxpayer dollars from being misspent. It ensures that taxpayers get the most bang for their buck by using professional work forces that will complete Federal highway and other construction projects on budget, on time, and without the need for costly repairs or modifications.
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The beneficial economic impact of NHS will be significantly reduced if alterations are made to the Davis–Bacon act. That is why the Teamsters Union would be forced to oppose NHS on behalf of our members and other working families if such changes are made, and we are hopeful that this will not happen.
I want to close by congratulating this subcommittee for your commitment to designing the NHS. We look forward to working with you in developing a modern and safe highway system necessary to take our country into the 21st Century.
Thank you very much.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you very much, Mr. Carey.
Representative Rahall.
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carey, welcome to the subcommittee. Appreciate very much your excellent testimony and certainly agree with the contents therein.
I want to commend you for the emphasis that you have placed upon enactment of the National Highway System and the goals and the investment that that legislation means for our future.
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You are a very important part, your membership is an important part of transportation policy in this country, and it is upon your members' backs that rest the burden of transporting goods and services that allows our economy to survive and allows individuals to raise their families in their homes.
Recently, the National Transportation Safety Board issued their report on driver fatigue. If you are familiar with that report, do you agree with its conclusions?
Mr. CAREY. We had some questions with respect to that report, but pushing the drivers who have decent jobs and work for good companies with good equipment is an issue that we have taken up with many of those employers.
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you very much again for your testimony.
Mr. CAREY. You are welcome.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you. Mr. Baker.
Mr. BAKER. Thank you very much, and thank you, Mr. Carey, for being here. I appreciate your frankness and your point of view. I don't agree with some of it, but I appreciate that you are here and honestly telling us.
I am one of four authors of 108–11 in California, and that was the 9 cent gas tax increase to build road and rail, and I am a conservative Republican. The reason I did it was for the same reason you just spoke, the infrastructure was curling up and we had done nothing for about 10 years. We reached into the pockets of the workers of California and took 9 cents a gallon more because we wanted competitive bidding, we wanted to go out to the marketplace and get those highways built at the best possible rate.
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You folks were unwilling to allow us to change the labor laws that fixed the prices, so you were no help to us, but the economy was. We had a tremendous recession and we went out to bidders and got bids at 40 percent off engineers' estimates. So we were able to build, in essence, 40 percent more rail and roads with that same amount of dollars, $20 billion. Twenty percent of that $20 billion comes from truckers, independent owners, big firms, you guys, all of you, through weight fees, and through the gas tax we paid a full 20 percent of that.
So I strongly appreciate your opinions on how to make the roads safer, how to make sure that drivers are not fatigued, all of that I agree with. But as far as your comments on Davis–Bacon, it is over. We have got to maximize the dollars.
Government is the only branch of the economy that has not downsized, that has not become more efficient, and we are going to. We are the IBM of 10 years ago and we have to stop being Big Blue and start being smarter, so I would hope when the debate starts you don't just sit there like Mount Rushmore but you come with the idea that the 1931 laws need updating, and we will depend on you to present your point of view, because we certainly have ours and we do not have all the answers. So we are going to have to negotiate as to how to make these bids more competitive at the same time get the quality that you appreciate.
So we will be looking forward to you—otherwise, conservative Republicans are going to have no alternative other than go back to our Mount Rushmore position, which is no new taxes. Have you heard that before, once or twice? Read my lips?
So the next time we need a gas tax increase to build more roads, as we do, we are not going to be there with you and you are going to need us. So I want to say it is a two-way street and we need your opinion, we need your viewpoint.
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Lastly, on the NHS, we absolutely agree with you. Mr. Rahall is glaring at me because he is your number one standard bearer on this committee, and I have heard his position on Davis–Bacon until I can repeat it by heart, and I appreciate his viewpoint and solidarity.
The Senate killed the NHS last year. We put a bill out to put $3 billion more into the highway system, and they sat on it like a chicken. We would like you to work with the Senators so we can have joint hearings because the people we invited are the people you will see on our panels, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in my area, Mr. Dahms, the State highway transportation executives.
We did not pork out. It was not the Bill Baker Underpass that was being built. It was the next highest priority on the list, taking the money that, for some reason, did not get appropriated but got recycled and spun back out. We have to work with the Senate to make sure that that bill gets out.
And, lastly, you are absolutely right, and I hope you will support us in trying to release all of the money that is tied up to balance the budget. We have over $13 billion trapped in the Federal Government that we could put out tomorrow in road projects if we could get the administration to release it. It is not a Democrat problem or a Republican problem. We have been through 10 Presidents and they sat on it, too. So we have to get that money out and build some roads.
You know what will happen to this economy if we do? More people will go to work and more revenue will come to the Federal Government. So we need your help on that also. And then there will be a last issue, separating the gas tax revenues out from the general funds so that cannot happen in the future.
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Pleasure to have you here, Mr. Carey.
Mr. CAREY. Thank you.
May I have an opportunity to respond? I just wanted to say that I am delighted to hear you are on board with respect to NHS. From a Mount Rushmore—is that the way you put it—position, I would like to say, as you well know, that we did take a position and we will not be Mount Rushmore. The fact of the matter is, we are trying to retain good jobs, to have the kind of experts that we need to do the kinds of jobs on these Federal highways, and that is what is important to this country, good jobs, with good pay, where we get the kind of expertise we need for freight to be delivered, for tourism. Those are all important parts for the American people.
Mr. BAKER. I agree with that position. But can you justify in California that a flagman gets $25 an hour? Is that a safety issue?
Mr. CAREY. I am not sure I heard the question.
Mr. BAKER. You do have to be alert, but you do not need a Ph.D. The wage rates in the Davis–Bacon act—is my time up?
Mr. PETRI. Yes.
Mr. BAKER. I would like to say good-bye, Mr. Carey. Thanks a lot for your being here.
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Mr. PETRI. Mr. Mineta.
Mr. MINETA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would be willing to yield some time to my friend from California.
Mr. Carey, I really appreciate your being here and I apologize for not being here when you gave your testimony. But in looking at your statement, and you do have a very good statement, especially as it relates to the safety part of it, I was just wondering if you have any thoughts about triples and the safety consideration.
Mr. CAREY. I think what we have to do is look about what impact that would have on good jobs. I don't believe there is enough testimony and enough information and data on that in order to make a decision about that. We are still looking that over and, obviously, it is of concern to us.
Mr. MINETA. Also, I was wondering, just down the hall, and following up my friend from California, talking about Davis–Bacon, the Education and Labor Committee—I can't think of the name of it now—Economic and Educational Opportunities, I believe just voted to repeal Davis–Bacon outright.
And so I am wondering, since you said you would oppose the NHS if the Davis–Bacon were altered, if we could get the trust funds off budget, would your position change on the support of the NHS bill?
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Mr. CAREY. I don't believe so. I think it is wrong to have Davis–Bacon repealed. I do not think it is right and I know that is not the basis of my testimony, so my answer to that question would be no.
Mr. MINETA. Very well. Thank you very much. I agree with you also. Thank you very much, Mr. Carey.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Mica, have you any questions?
Mr. MICA. I would rather not spark the flames at this time. I will yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Horn. The other side of the Davis–Bacon act.
Mr. HORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Carey, delighted to hear your testimony. I have admired the reform administration that you have brought to the Teamsters and appreciate what you are doing. I also happen to be a Republican who supported the Davis–Bacon act since the 1950s, when I was assistant to Secretary of Labor, Mr. Mitchell, under President Eisenhower. So it is not new.
If there is something wrong with Davis–Bacon, let us change some of the wage determinations, perhaps, that they are sometimes escalated from urban areas to the rural areas. But as was said by Mr. Mineta and you, we should not be giving up good jobs that are paying a decent wage. That was the whole reason in 1931, two reasons, put Davis–Bacon on the books. And the theory is still valid in the 1990s, as far as I am concerned.
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So we will have an interesting discussion of that on the Floor.
What I want to ask you is, in terms of the safety issue, at the time NAFTA was considered, there was great concern by trucking interests in California, be they large Teamster-organized interests or the individual trucker that we would have a lot of problems with the Mexican trucker coming into California, leaving off a load in one of the ports, and I represent both Los Angeles and Long Beach in this respect, and they would be perhaps picking up other jobs and, thus, denying jobs to American workers and American employers.
What evidence, if any, have the Teamsters had on this; to what degree have you worked with the State of California to make sure the safety aspects of trucks crossing that border is taken care of? Have you got any enlightenment for us on that?
Mr. CAREY. Well, obviously, if you look at the NAFTA agreement, it does not provide the same kinds of protections, if you will, for American drivers, or enforcement. For example, the CDL licenses, that is not really the same in Mexico. Front wheel brakes. The kinds of vehicles that are on the road. Literacy tests. Those are all or most of things that are very troublesome. Certainly, if I lived in California I would be very much concerned about what is running up and down those highways.
We are now compiling the statistics on all of that. I am not prepared to be responsive to that today, but I can tell you at some future date we will certainly have it. It was a major issue. Still is a major issue. And, as you know, it is in a small zone now, but it expands. And I don't know how American workers can compete with $8 to $10 to $20 a day. We just cannot do it in this country, and that is a real sad story.
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Mr. HORN. Well, I can appreciate that, but we would certainly welcome any evidence you have.
The State of California has very good safety laws on trucks and it is the responsibility under NAFTA of the States to enforce those laws even though the traffic is between two nations and/or interstate. So there is no reason, the way I have looked at it, why there should be any unsafe trucks roaming around California, and if there are, it is the fault of the State government and the State highway patrol for not enforcing the law. But we would welcome what you have when you get it.
Mr. CAREY. Thank you very much.
Mr. PETRI. Representative Johnson, do you have anything? Any questions?
Ms. JOHNSON. No, thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Representative Brewster.
Mr. BREWSTER. No.
Mr. PETRI. Representative Fowler.
Mrs. FOWLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Thank you Mr. Carey for being here with us today. I have read your testimony and heard it and I share your concerns about needing to get more investment into our highway transportation. We have had a decline in investment in our infrastructure and we need to get that back up. I know with this committee we are working on that and we appreciate your support.
And I want to echo what Mr. Baker said on needing your help over in the Senate, because we would not be in this predicament today if the Senate had bitten the bullet and passed it. And, as you know, there are several of them over there holding it up. So whatever help you can be to us in that body so that we can get this legislation moving—and I would hope no matter what happens on Davis–Bacon, and we have a long way to go still, that that would not prevent you from working with us to get this investment in our highway system that we so desperately need, because it is jobs and it is safety, and we need to get this moving and get it adopted in a timely fashion this year.
So, again, thank you for being here with us.
Mr. CAREY. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you very much for coming and testifying. We are looking forward to a victory party on off-budget for the highway trust funds sooner rather than later. If we work together, we may be able to accomplish it.
Mr. CAREY. Certainly will. Thank you very much.
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Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Let's see now. We will ask General Kenneth Wykle, Deputy Commander in Chief, U.S. Transportation Command, Scott Air Force Base, Illinois.
Thank you very much for allowing the previous witness to go forward, General; and we look forward to your testimony. Please proceed.
TESTIMONY OF LIEUTENANT GEN. KENNETH R. WYKLE, USA, DEPUTY COMMANDER IN CHIEF, U.S. TRANSPORTATION COMMAND
General WYKLE. Mr. Chairman, distinguished Members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the Department of Defense's interest in the National Highway System. I have provided the committee with a written statement and ask that that be included in the record.
Mr. PETRI. So ordered.
General WYKLE. I am pleased to represent the Department of Defense and the men and women of the United States Transportation Command. As you are aware, I addressed this subcommittee last year on the importance of the National Highway System to DOD. The National Highway System is critical to the Department of Defense's capability to deploy military units and equipment rapidly.
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The National Highway System is essential to our ability to move equipment and personnel in support of contingencies or peacekeeping efforts anywhere in the world. Accordingly, my testimony is similar to last year; however, there is a greater urgency for action due to the approaching September 1995 National Highway System legislation deadline.
To understand the importance of the National Highway System to our national defense, it is necessary to provide some background about how the U.S. Transportation Command is organized to provide transportation services to the Department of Defense, and specifically the commanders in chief.
The defense transportation system is the keystone of America's national security strategy of force projection. The United States Transportation Command and our components, the Air Mobility Command, the Military Traffic Management Command and the Military Sealift Command provide the principal air, land and sea capability of the Nation's strategic mobility forces in peace and war. I want to emphasize the word ''system,'' because defense transportation capability is more than the military transportation assets owned and maintained by the Department of Defense. Our organic assets—our Fast Sealift Ships, Ready Reserve Force vessels, strategic lift aircraft and our heavy-lift railcars provide unique military capabilities. However, our first choice for strategic lifts is the commercial sector. A healthy defense transportation system requires a combination of military and commercial assets. All segments of the total system must be in balance.
As the lead organization responsible for providing air, land and sea transportation for the Department of Defense, we are working with government and industry to carry out this mission. The Department of Defense supports the concept of a National Highway System as an integral part of the total defense transportation system. The Nation's roads connect our military installations and other defense facilities to the global intermodal transportation network.
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It is easy to overlook the role highways play in strategic mobility. During our deployments to Southwest Asia in Desert Shield, and Somalia in Restore Hope, most of the media attention focused on ships and aircraft. In Desert Shield–Desert Storm, we moved the equivalent of the City of Richmond, Virginia—85 percent of the cargo, deployed by sea and 15 percent by air—but we forget virtually all of this cargo had to first be moved to an air or sea port either by rail or by road.
The National Highway System is a critical segment of the defense transportation system. Since the end of the Cold War, the number of military units forward-deployed in Europe and other overseas locations has declined. Our military is smaller and primarily based in the United States. The national military strategy relies on force projection and forward presence. This strategy requires the capability to project military forces rapidly from the U.S. to wherever they may be required in the world.
Critical to this strategy is the ability to rapidly move forces from their bases to U.S. air and sea ports. During Desert Shield–Desert Storm, we had approximately six months to deploy our forces. We recognize we may not have that luxury in the future. Our requirement is to deploy a full Army corps and a theater support command up to 8,700 miles very quickly. This alone would be a Herculean task, yet we must also simultaneously move the Navy, the Marines and the Air Force combat and support units over similar distances.
ISTEA required the proposed National Highway System to include their strategic highway corridor network, or STRAHNET, and important connector routes between the STRAHNET and military connectors and ports. These routes represent the portion of the system of public highways we need to support the defense highway movement requirements.
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Utilizing a geographic information system, DOD highway engineers identified STRAHNET routes by moving DOD peacetime and wartime traffic over a digitized highway network. After our initial analysis, we worked with the military installations, the Federal Highway Administration, and the States to identify the optimum STRAHNET and connector routes.
Another key aspect of the National Highway System is building flexibility into the system to accommodate future needs. Periodically, a military unit's installation or mission will change, causing us to review the unit's transportation requirements. Good examples of this are the changes associated with the continuing base realignment and closure actions. These actions could force minor revisions to STRAHNET or connector routes requiring coordination with the State and Federal Highway Administration. Accordingly, the National Highway System should be sufficiently flexible to adapt to both defense needs and the long-term economic conditions throughout the Nation.
In summary, major segments of our National Highway System are deteriorating. This impacts our interstate and international commerce and our ability to rapidly deploy our forces. We must ensure the system is maintained. The National Highway System provides the mechanism for focusing Federal emphasis and oversight on these routes most important to interstate and international commerce, national defense, and major connections with other modes of transportation.
The National Highway System is essential to this Nation's security. Like the decisions in the 1950s to construct the interstate system, approval of the national highway system and future decisions on the national transportation system is an opportunity to guarantee that our transportation infrastructure can support the Nation's economic and defense requirements in the 21st century.
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Thank you for the opportunity to present our views. I will be glad to answer your questions.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you, General.
Representative Rahall, do you have any questions?
Mr. RAHALL. I have no questions except to commend you for your testimony and certainly appreciate your support of the NHS, and more specifically STRAHNET, as it is included therein; and I think it is vital for our Nation's defenses.
General WYKLE. Thank you, sir.
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Representative Mica.
Mr. MICA. Nothing.
Mr. PETRI. Representative Mineta, do you have anything.
Mr. MINETA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
General, just out of curiosity, what is your basic branch?
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General WYKLE. Transportation Corps.
Mr. MINETA. Did you go to Eustis?
General WYKLE. I did, sir.
Mr. MINETA. I was TOPC at Fort Eustis.
Mr. RAHALL. Ask him what his original home State is.
General WYKLE. State of West Virginia, sir.
Mr. MINETA. West Virginia. West-by–God–Virginia, yes, sir. Absolutely.
Well, thank you very much for your testimony. You are really right on in terms of what Mr. Rahall had in the NHS bill last year and what you are advocating here.
Now, as the States and the metropolitan areas develop their statewide transportation plans, does the Department of Defense have any opportunity to participate in the development of those plans for transportation projects that might have strategic military importance in those metropolitan areas, or within each of the States?
General WYKLE. Yes, sir. The answer to that is, yes, we do that through our Military Traffic Management Command, which has our Transportation Engineering Agency that works in concert with the Federal Highway Administration at the Department of Transportation. And they, in turn, work together with the State Department of Transportation and the metropolitan planning offices in each of the areas where new highways are proposed; and so we look at those in terms of servicing defense installations and other strategic points of interest for this country.
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Mr. MINETA. Now, the NHS includes approximately 61,100 miles of STRAHNET routes and that represents about 10 percent of the total NHS. To your knowledge, does DOD assist the States with funding any of that STRAHNET?
General WYKLE. DOD does not assist them directly, but we do assist them indirectly. And indirectly because the majority of our materiel moves to and from our bases and installations on commercial vehicles. So we give business to the commercial transportation sector. In doing that, of course, they purchase gasoline, diesel fuel and pay the taxes on that that supports the transportation moving to and from our installations.
Additionally, of course, we provide jobs to the individuals that work on our bases and installations. They, in turn, buy gasoline and fuel and pay the taxes.
In addition to that, we pay a Federal tax on all fuel that is used by the military for any vehicle that operates outside of that operation. As little as once a quarter, if that vehicle goes off the installation, we pay Federal taxes on that. So we pay taxes like any other business and are providing work to the commercial transportation sector who, in turn, pay the taxes. So indirectly we do.
Mr. MINETA. On the experience that you cite of Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, of the troop movements from Fort Campbell to Jacksonville, that was done how? Was that a commercial move?
General WYKLE. That was a commercial—
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Mr. MINETA. A move by your own military vehicles?
General WYKLE. No, sir, that was primarily a commercial move, involved 27 separate private trucking organizations that moved that materiel from Fort Campbell to Jacksonville.
Mr. MINETA. Very well.
Thank you very much, sir; we appreciate your taking time to be here.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Representative Horn, do you have any questions?
Mr. HORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I commend you, General Wykle, on the efficiency and effectiveness of your command. I think, as we all know, the military forces of the country, regardless of service, cannot really accomplish too much if the Transportation Command does not get the supplies and equipment to them.
General WYKLE. Right.
Mr. HORN. I think the reason we have an interstate highway program is we had a general in the White House who wondered what took them so long to straighten out the highways of America.
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My question would be, I assume the Army has looked at the detailed plans of what goes into the National Highway System with the Department of Transportation, and that the dimensions of various bridges and the depth of rock, cement, you name it, will support the Army equipment and service equipment that needs to travel across those highways.
General WYKLE. Yes, sir, we do. As I mentioned, our Transportation Engineering Agency works very closely with the Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration to look at those things, as well as the American Association of State Transportation Offices to make sure we have the right standards, we have the right bridge clearances, we have the right depth of the base, if you will, for the highways to support the traffic that must move over them. So we do have input to that process.
Mr. HORN. Thank you.
General WYKLE. Yes, sir.
Mr. PETRI. Representative Fowler.
Mrs. FOWLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, General, for being with us today. I represent Jacksonville, Florida, and, of course, our Blount Island there was one of the major ports that was the point of embarkation for Desert Shield and Desert Storm.
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General WYKLE. Also for Haiti now.
Mrs. FOWLER. Exactly. So we are in a critical spot. I want to ask you, will the Defense Department be expending any defense dollars to help improve these NHS routes that you have designated as important?
General WYKLE. The U.S. Defense Department will not be spending any direct dollars to improve it, but it is included in terms of the connectors and the other parts of the National Highway System. So through the indirect providing of funds, as I explained earlier, we do provide money for that.
Mrs. FOWLER. I heard you say that, but I know somewhere in there there are some dollars for defense-related highways in the Defense Department's budget, and they do not fit in your definition here. I want to find out what is the difference.
General WYKLE. Sure. There is a Defense Access Road program, which is probably what you are talking about. Under that program, the Department of Defense can provide money to build small segments of a highway or a connecting route to a major interstate or another major arterial-type road.
The criteria for that are if there is a significant change in the mission of the installation or base that was not programmed, so there is an urgent need for that highway to be modified or fixed, or if the traffic density on that highway doubles over a two-year period because of some increased requirement at that base or installation, they significantly expand the mission so that they can do that.
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It is a very small amount of money that we have available, about $10 million annually, to do those special types of projects, connect roads, but not on a large basis.
Mrs. FOWLER. But there are some dollars there if these certain criteria are met, then?
General WYKLE. If the criteria is met. The numbers are small—a small amount of dollars.
Mrs. FOWLER. I thought there were enough. I wanted to make sure if had there been a change in that or not?
General WYKLE. Yes, ma'am.
Mrs. FOWLER. I do share your concerns, General, in making sure we have the infrastructure you need to move our troops and supplies to these ports; and we will continue to work with you on it. Thank you very much.
General WYKLE. Thank you very much.
Mr. PETRI. Representative Baker, any questions?
Mr. BAKER. Just a thank you to the General for what you do for us.
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I hate it when Tillie whines like that.
General WYKLE. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. General, thank you very much for coming again this year and offering your testimony. We hope it is the last year you have to do that.
General WYKLE. We need it, sir, and I know you are working hard to get it through. And I am aware it passed this subcommittee last year, and we appreciated your support. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
The next panel is Mr. Lawrence Dahms, Executive Director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, San Francisco Bay; and I think Representative Mineta would like to say a word.
Mr. MINETA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
As Mr. Dahms is coming up here, accompanied by Mr. Bolger, let me just make a short comment.
In putting ISTEA together, the whole issue of how it was going to be structured was driven by or part of it was driven by the experience that I personally had from local government. I found that as the mayor of a city, I had to deal with the State, and the State held leverage over the cities and we had no way to counter that leverage.
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We have the metropolitan planning organizations across the country. I am prejudiced, as is Mr. Baker—I believe I can speak for him on this count—but I really believe that the MTC in the San Francisco Bay area is one of the best—that may be, in the opinion of some, may be going too far, but I feel it is; and it was the MTC that I was using as an example of how the STP ought to work.
We have been fortunate to have as our Executive Director in the Metropolitan Transportation Commission Mr. Dahms. Mr. Dahms, in terms of his credibility and his integrity, working in the nine-county Bay Area, unifying those many counties—and I am not even sure how many cities are in that MTC.
But this has been a major task, and he has done it, and I know that we are proud of the work that he does and we are proud of what the Metropolitan Transportation Commission represents in terms of what can be done when you delegate things out, decentralize it.
So I am proud to have, as is Mr. Baker, Mr. Dahms here testifying and helping us understand where we ought to be going in the future.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Representative Baker.
Mr. BAKER. I can only echo what the former chairman has said about Larry. He worked at CalTrans Transportation Agency for the State of California for several years. He ran BART for several years, our fledgling rapid transit system, which now carries over 250,000 passengers a day. And for 20 years he has run the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. That is a thankless job where you get all of the city council people and all of the county supervisors and all of the other people in transportation together and force them to prioritize so that we build the projects as they make sense.
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Once we get the South Bay to work with the rest of us, Mr. Dahms, this will be a tremendous, tremendous achievement.
I would like to just thank you for being here today and presenting a viewpoint. We are going to lean heavily on you again when we put together the NHS bill so that we can show to the Senate—hopefully, they will join us in those hearings—we can show the Senate that it is important; and it is the next highest priority project that we are putting the money back out for, and we will depend on you for that authoritative viewpoint.
Thank you, Larry, for being here. And I want to thank Norm Mineta also for his good sense of humor.
Mr. MINETA. If my friend would yield, the South Bay keeps carrying the rest of the nine-county area.
Mr. PETRI. And with those comments, Mr. Dahms, the floor is yours.
Mr. DAHMS. Mr. Chairman, you can see we are well represented in the region, making our job a lot easier really.
[11:50 a.m.]
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TESTIMONY OF LAWRENCE D. DAHMS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION COMMISSION, SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA
Mr. DAHMS. So, Mr. Chairman, and Members of the committee, I am Lawrence Dahms, the Executive Director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. And to answer Mr. Mineta's question, there are 100 cities in the region.
I am pleased that you have given me this opportunity to speak regarding legislation to adopt the National Highway System. And I am here to make just four points: to support adoption of the National Highway System; to describe our approach to integrating the national highway with the metropolitan transportation system; to seek extension of the congestion management air quality or CMAQ funding eligibility for areas transitioning from air quality nonattainment to attainment; and to join my peers elsewhere in the country under the banner of the Metropolitan Planning Organizations to supporting reinforcement of the program structure and the partnership processes defined by ISTEA.
Let me elaborate briefly on each of these four points; first, support for the National Highway System.
Our agency supported the California Department of Transportation, Caltrans, in 1993, when the National Highway System recommendations were submitted to the Secretary of Transportation. We view the National Highway System as an important part of the overall system required in our region.
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There are over 18,000 miles of roadway, and 7,000 miles of bus and rail transit in the Bay area. Of these roadways, MTC has designated the 325 miles of interstate and 2,700 miles of State freeways and major arterials to comprise the Metropolitan Transportation System in our regional plan. The proposed National Highway System is a 678-mile subset of the MTS, and in the testimony I submitted to you earlier, I had an error, it said 648 miles, it is 678 miles in our region of National Highway System.
In our region, local government is a full partner with both the State and U.S. Department of Transportation in the development of the full range of components of the integrated transportation system, including those components that are traditionally financed by State and Federal funds. For example, more than a decade, the proceeds of up to $300 million a year in local sales taxes have been committed to capital improvements of the Interstate and State highway systems, including Interstate Routes 580, 680, 880 and State Routes 4, 85, 101 and 237. It is in this context of a full partnership committed to the development of an integrated system that we believe the National Highway System must be defined, built, and operated.
My next point had to do with integrating the National Highway System and the metropolitan system. A headline in the Wall Street Journal on April 16, 1985 proclaimed, quote, ''The Explosive Growth of Suburbia Leads to Bumper-to–Bumper Blues,'' end quote. The article goes on to observe the traffic congestion is no longer mainly limited to rush hours along major highways leading to and out of big cities. Now, urban planners say traffic tie-ups are becoming the major problem of the suburbs and the backups can last all day, including weekends.
The article was widely circulated at a National Conference on Urban Traffic Congestion, sponsored by the Institute of Transportation Engineers and other groups concerned about mounting metropolitan congestion problems. In the decade since then, this national recognition of the fact that our transportation system breaks down most often in metropolitan America, we have learned many lessons and found some solutions. The most important lesson is in recognizing how every part of the system, including the National Highway System, is related to how some other part of the system works or doesn't work.
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We are gradually waking up to the idea that integrating the various pieces of the system is just as relevant as integrating communications and computer systems.
With the significant investment in intelligent transportation systems technology, authorized by ISTEA, professionals long inured in system integration discipline of the communications and computer industries are now beginning to penetrate the thinking of transportation professionals.
Besides focusing attention on integrating technology into transportation, however, ISTEA accomplishing something else that is just as compelling; recognition that system integration depends on institutional integration as several critical junctions, financing, building, operating, and monitoring transportation systems.
In setting the stage for transition from the interstate era, ISTEA called on States and metropolitan planning organizations to coordinate and cooperate with one another in specific ways. And while some pondered the meaning of coordination and cooperation as expressed in ISTEA, others recognized them as statements of the obvious. State DOTs and local governments have to get their acts together, and do it together, if mounting congestion, or for that matter, aging bridges are to be fixed. ISTEA offered more than words of encouragement. It added flexible funding in the form of the surface transportation program funds and the CMAQ funds to oil the hinges of these critical partnerships.
With this stimulus, the Bay Area Partnership was formed in January 1992, just one month after President Bush signed ISTEA into law. The Federal Highway Administration, Federal Transition Administration, Caltrans, California Highway Patrol are all key among the Federal, State, regional and local government partners.
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The partnership has been instrumental in fostering strategic coalitions that have joined to advance projects like our freeway service patrols, traffic operations systems, region transition traffic and traveler information systems. These and other innovations are being pulled together in the form of our overarching metropolitan transportation system management strategy. Also, a product of the partnership.
Through this work, Caltrans has learned that it cannot use the traffic operations system to optimize the flow on freeways to the detriment of safety and congestion on the abutting local arterials. Local public works and planning officials in turn, have learned they must invest the time to understand the traffic operations system in order to optimize the flow of the larger system. And together, we are moving ahead.
To sustain this progress, the Federal program structure must continue to support the integration of the National Highway System and the Metropolitan Transportation System in order for either to perform effectively. ISTEA made this balancing act possible. We support the National Highway System in that context.
My next point has to do with extension of the congestion management and air quality funding eligibility. System integration has progressed considerably from the use we have been able to make of the CMAQ funding. As an example, MTC has retained four traffic engineering firms to assist the small- and medium-sized Bay area cities in their efforts to upgrade, and synchronize signals.
With this infusion of technical assistance, and $41 million of ISTEA flexible funds, we are improving signal synchronization of 2,300 intersections. The flow of traffic on the NHS freeways will be improved directly when these systems improve the flow on parallel arterials.
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These improvements are part of a much larger strategy that is turning the Bay area from air quality nonattainment to an attainment area according to EPA. Unfortunately, this good news is accompanied by the bad news that we will no longer be eligible for the CMAQ funding.
At last count, there are 64 other major metropolitan areas about to receive the same penalty for having improved their air quality. A list of the areas so impacted is attached to this testimony.
Since the air quality conformity requirements continue for 20 years after clean air standards are achieved, we argue that the CMAQ funding should also continue at least until the entire mobility/air quality relationship can be examined with ISTEA authorization is taken up by the Congress.
In fact, statutory language to preserve this funding for current recipients, at least through 1997, was included in the NHS bill overwhelmingly approved by this committee last year. We also note that our position on a CMAQ hold-harmless provision through 1997 is supported in the testimony you heard last month from Andrew Poat on behalf of the State of California, and is supported by many of the metro areas listed in the attachment.
And finally, MTC and the Association of Metropolitan Organizations urge Congress to stay the course with ISTEA. We believe ISTEA's basic structure is sound. We have put it to work in the San Francisco Bay area and are well on the way of implementing the policies of ISTEA which emphasize a unified interconnected transportation system.
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We recognize there is much more to be done and that all areas of the country may not have come as far as we have. We are confident, however, that the practical and tangible benefits we have been able to experience are being replicated in many parts of the country.
The nature of the transportation system is such that it is either well integrated by design or it is dysfunctional by default. ISTEA gives us the tools and incentive, the design, to come together as partners to develop an integrated transportation system.
Now is not the time for fundamental changes to this landmark legislation. We urge Congress and the administration to stay the course with ISTEA.
And that completes my statement, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Representative Rahall.
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As you know, last year in our NH bill, we included a provision relating to CMAQ funding. We called it the ''stay honest provision'' in that once an area was no longer in nonattainment, the provision would help it stay that way. I notice that you have attached a list to your testimony entitled, ''Ozone Maintenance Area Status List.'' Would this list those areas that you have listed who benefit from such a provision?
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Mr. DAHMS. To the best of my understanding, that is correct.
Mr. RAHALL. All right. Any one of them listed under each category?
Mr. DAHMS. Well, I may have made a mistake, but we have been communicating with many of these communities, and to the best of my understanding, they would benefit by that provision.
Mr. RAHALL. I am curious that Greenbrier, West Virginia, is on this list. Do you have any knowledge off of the top-of-your-head about that?
Mr. DAHMS. I don't, but I will be glad to find out.
Mr. RAHALL. I would appreciate it. I was just wondering whether it was the golf course or the spa facility.
Mr. DAHMS. Maybe all those trees there.
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you very much.
Mr. PETRI. Representative Baker.
Mr. BAKER. I think I would like to emphasize Larry and I appreciate your testimony—that, thanks to Mr. Mineta and Mr. Miller and my support, the communities in the Bay area are raising above the Federal and State Gas Tax Highway Funds $300 million a year in sales tax revenue to put into their roads and rail projects. So it is remarkable.
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I am sorry the gentleman from the Teamsters isn't here, but we Republicans and Democrats went to bat to raise funds after we raised the State gas tax 9 cents, to go ahead and raise another half-cent sales tax. I think we gave at the office, and the least we can ask is a competitive bidding process to stretch that dollar longer. I don't want you to comment on that.
We mentioned the air pollution attainment. We are dangerously close to reaching attainment. The language, as you see, it would protect the Bay area and other areas that are reaching attainment so that we could stretch out the loss of the highway funds?
Mr. DAHMS. That was the intent. It was a very simple amendment that was included by this committee last year, and so far as I know, I shouldn't say all of these areas will benefit, but I think most of them would. And that is something probably worthy of looking into it.
Mr. BAKER. It is an amazing achievement, considering the traffic in the Bay area, and the number of trips that between bus transportation and rail and cars, that could reduce the pollution in the Bay area. Do have you any projects going with the Livermore Lab towards smarter highways or any other functions of transportation that you know of in MTC?
Mr. DAHMS. Well, in MTC we have a field operation test financed by the Federal Highway Administration. Livermore Lab is not involved but the University of California PATH System is involved. Our contractor for that is TRW. That was a $2.5 million Federal grant that was the Traveler Information System that I referred to in my testimony.
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Mr. BAKER. As an unlicensed salesman for the Livermore Lab, I know that they are working on transportation problems down there, and I hope that we can get a task force of transportation experts to go down there and work with them, because the future cleanup of air pollution is going depend on how smart we build our transportation plans in the future.
Lastly, you mentioned keeping the basic backbone of ISTEA. Are there any changes that you would like to see in ISTEA?
Mr. DAHMS. Aside from this provision that relates to the CMAQ funding, I think that it stands well as it is. And, of course, your National Highway System adoption that this hearing speaks to is a part of what was expected of ISTEA. Admittedly, there may be some item on the margin, but it would seem to me that most of it would wait until you take it up in a major authorization bill.
Mr. BAKER. If we remove the mandates for crumb rubber in the road and speed limits, and left that up to you, it would not offend you?
Mr. DAHMS. Caltrans has to worry more about whether it has crumb rubber or not, and I am not an expert on that subject.
Mr. BAKER. I just want to make sure it doesn't offend you if some of those bells and whistles are taken off and the structure left cleaner.
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Mr. DAHMS. Clearly, I think that our administrative processes still haven't caught up with the policy that was set forth by the Congress in ISTEA, but that is something we are working on. And I think the reason we urge to stay the course with ISTEA is that we recognize Rome was not built in a day. It is still going to take some time to adjust to the new ideas. Part of it is streamlining the process. There is no question about that, but I think that is coming.
Mr. BAKER. Is there anything we need to do further make that move faster? Is it paperwork required by the Federal Transportation Department, or is it long delays because of environmental studies; what is the problem?
Mr. DAHMS. I guess I am not as well prepared as I should be today. We have been putting together a package, and, frankly, we are going to be back here to meet with you just a week and a half from now, with a list of four or five things. I will offer one—
Mr. BAKER. Larry, my red light went on.
Let me make it an open invitation from Mr. Mineta, and the Chairman and I, on getting your ideas in on how we can reduce paperwork and audits to make your life a little simpler.
Mr. DAHMS. I think ISTEA creates a lot of new partnerships, and one of them has been to put an organization like EPA in a role it hasn't been in before. I mentioned the Freeway Service Patrol, where we are the contractor for the tow trucks that drive the roads of the Bay area to get the fender-benders out of the way, and so forth. Because only the State is able to work with the Federal Highway Administration directly, and that we cannot—that creates some administrative processes that we don't think should be necessary now. We can be a direct partner with the Federal Highway Administration, and I think it would work a lot better if we could be.
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Mr. BAKER. And the State would approve that?
Mr. DAHMS. Well, I don't know whether they would or not, but I am answering your question as to ways to streamline it.
Mr. BAKER. Before we write it, perhaps, Mr. Mineta and I will meet with the State officials to see what kind of agreement there is on streamlining. We want to make sure that ISTEA is streamlined. I know that Mr. Mineta shares that, as does our Chairman.
Thank you, Larry, for your great testimony.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Mineta.
Mr. MINETA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
As you know, I strongly support the continuation of those CMAQ funds once an area might become a clean area maintenance area. And I see that Caltrans is supporting this effort as well.
Now, this list of 65 areas that you have here as part of the testimony, are there—are the State Departments of Transportation and those other 64 areas also supportive of the continuation of these funds once they become clean air maintenance areas?
Mr. DAHMS. I would have a hard time speculating about that, Mr. Mineta. One of the reasons I cite the fact that our State supports it, is that within any State there could be some competition as to whether this would happen or not, and there is some competition about that within our own State. But I was pleased to see that our State supported our idea that we should have this hold-harmless at least through the end of the ISTEA authorization.
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Mr. MINETA. Thank you.
Larry, I again just want to commend MTC and you personally for the work that you do. It makes our job a lot easier, thank you very much.
Mr. DAHMS. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. The final panel for the first session is Mr. Hank Dittmar, Executive Director of Surface Transportation Policy Project.
Sir, the floor is yours.
TESTIMONY OF HANK DITTMAR, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SURFACE TRANSPORTATION POLICY PROJECT, STPP
Mr. DITTMAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am Hank Dittmar, the Executive Director of the Surface Transportation Policy Project. And thank you for the invitation to appear before you today to represent the views of our coalition. We are a nonprofit organization that represents over 150 groups concerned that transportation policy decisions should support a strong economy, enhance efficiency, promote social equity while protecting the environment and conserving energy.
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We believe that we have entered a new era in transportation policy and investment, and that 1991's Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act, ISTEA, ushered in a new focus on efficiency, preservation, and integration of our transportation networks. Congress has the opportunity to reinforce this emphasis on efficiency this year with the adoption of National Highway System legislation that protects the huge investment of tax dollars in our Nation's transportation infrastructure.
ISTEA created a variety of very flexible programs for maintenance and improvement of State and local transportation facilities and created the planning framework which assured that these investments would be made with full public accountability. Recognizing at the same time that there was a key Federal role in ensuring the protection of his investment and the safe roads that connect our Nation, the law called upon the States and localities to work with the Federal Highway Administration to designate a National Highway System of about 155,000 miles.
The NHS, which was to be composed almost entirely of existing roadways, should be seen as a reduction in mileage from the 300,000-mile Federal aid primary system, in order to limit Federal oversight to a more manageable set of facilities. We do not believe that the NHS should be characterized or developed as a larger interstate highway system which would be characterized by mandated uniform design standards and inflexible dedicated funding.
The STPP and its members believe that this distinction is critical if we are to maintain our Nation's new focus on widely managing with limited Federal resources and limited Federal intervention into local decisions. To ensure this balance between Federal interest and State and local flexibility, we have five recommendations:
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First, STPP believes that the NHS should be integrated into State and local plans. Beyond the interstates, States and localities should be free to develop NHS roadways to meet their needs through the State and local planning and budgetary framework. Such a framework was laid out in ISTEA Sections 134 and 135. Additions and modifications to the designated NHS should be dealt with through the planning process at the State and local levels.
Congress should also clearly specify that new roads included on the National Highway System map submitted by the Department of Transportation must be cleared through the planning processes as well.
Second, we strongly believe that the NHS design standards should be flexible. The committee's proposed NHS legislation also needs to ensure that the design standards for the National Highway System are flexible enough to meet varied conditions around the country. Beyond the interstate, we do not believe that one size fits all, but suggest that the NHS legislation should clearly call for flexible design standards and protect user and community safety while accounting for differing conditions and historic, scenic, environmental, and community resources.
We commend to the committee the resolution adopted by AASHTO last year which calls for design flexibility as well as the establishment of an open, consultive process to establish standards. And we commend the committee's action in adopting NHS legislation to include language protected flexibility last year.
Third, we believe that soft match should be allowed. One of the new and exciting things that we have seen with the adoption of ISTEA is that new kinds of partners have come to the table, many of whom have desired to leverage private or in-kind resources to improve transportation facilities and to develop enhancement private projects or other kinds of public private ventures. Developers and enhancement project sponsors alike have asked to be able to put private money up for public transportation ventures as the match. We strongly support provisions to allow such soft match and hope that the committee can include such flexibility in the NHS legislation.
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Fourth, we believe that the NHS legislation and future transportation legislation should built on ISTEA's emphasis on outputs not on data collection. We believe that one substantive change to ISTEA would be to eliminate the requirement for six management systems which have resulted in major data collection exercises adding much heat without much light, and instead focus on benchmarking, asking States and localities to establish performance benchmarks for maintenance, safety and other and congestion and other things, and report periodically on how they are doing in improving performance in these areas. This kind of focus on outputs, I think, is in keeping with the new direction of Congress.
Fifth, I would—we do not believe that this is the time for major changes in ISTEA. While the Clinton administration's recent restructuring proposal put many new ideas into play, and while we expect to be able to support many of them in the context of reauthorization, we do not recommend that the committee take up their changes to the ISTEA at this time. It is premature to restructure the program categories at this time.
States and localities have made investment choices that depend on the continuation of ISTEA's program structure in the belief that that structure would continue through the six-year period. To change these categories now would be a breach of faith with the public and would severely impact the ability of States and localities to obligate funds and deliver projects. We believe the NHS should be a clean bill and we ask that you restrict changes to the ISTEA to the minimum.
Finally, I would like to address a subject that I know the committee is deliberating on, and that is the question of project authorizations. While STPP believes that authorized demonstration projects are a legitimate way of expressing Federal interest, and providing a balance between local and Federal needs, we have been concerned over time that many of these funds remain unspent.
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This year, we believe that given the budget climate, the uncertainty over funding levels in the program, and the need to get the NHS bill passed in this session, we suggest that the subcommittee may wish to consider deferring authorizations as part of the NHS bill at this time if these projects would reduce funds available to the States for other projects.
And I hesitated, I think, to make that recommendation to you because I know it is a sensitive subject, but we felt that because of the budget situation at this time, the situation with rescissions on 1995 funding levels, that we wanted to bring that to your attention.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for having us here today. We believe that the NHS is a strong part of the overall framework defining ISTEA and we hope that your adoption of the NHS will serve to reinforce the good starts that States and localities have made in implementing the ISTEA legislation.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you Mr. Dittmar.
Mr. Rahall.
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Dittmar, we appreciate your testimony and want to thank you very much for your help to us in last year's passage of the NHS, including your press release in support of our bill.
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I would certainly agree with you when you state that the NHS shouldn't be characterized as another interstate highway system. I don't believe that we have ever characterized it in that manner, for indeed the interstate system is virtually complete around the country, but this is a follow-up to that system and includes that system.
I have a particular question about your statement. It is in regard to your support for provisions to allow soft match and to further get a definition from you of soft match. It is my understanding that we did allow soft matches in the NHS, at least for certain—and it is being done today in certain areas. For example, in New Jersey where toll roads are built to alleviate congestion on nontoll roads, the amount that the State expends on building that toll road is allowed for their soft match.
Are you referring in your support for such soft matches to enhancement projects perhaps where preservation groups have expended monies to acquire land or land that is donated? Are you asking that that be allowed to be used as soft match and that FHWA today is not allowing that?
Mr. DITTMAR. We have encountered it with respect to both enhancement projects and typical road construction projects, where outside of the specific toll road exemption, private developers have wished to make contributions or actually built portions of the facility. In addition in enhancement projects and we would be happy to submit language that would allow this.
We have endeavored to find the legal prohibition and have worked very closely with the administration to try to define what the legal prohibition is and they have come back and told us that the common rule prohibits the use of soft match. And I have been unable to get a copy of the common rule.
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Apparently, it is some early principle of jurisprudence or something, so we were seeking clarification. We were thinking that if the private sector wants to contribute to improving the Nation's transportation system, they should be able to do so.
Mr. RAHALL. They are not saying that ISTEA prohibits that?
Mr. DITTMAR. No, they are prohibited by general governing legislation. You might notice that my statement before the committee this year is a little different than last year, and I think that reflects the lessons that we learned in working together. We appreciate the agreements that we did reach in putting the NHS bill together last year. I hope that reflected that today.
Mr. RAHALL. I would certainly be interested in receiving further language from you in regard to the soft match and pursuing that further, because it was my understanding that we didn't prohibit such in ISTEA.
Mr. DITTMAR. We will be happy to submit that language to the committee.
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Representative Mineta.
Mr. MINETA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
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Thank you very much, Mr. Dittmar, again for the work that you do there at STPP.
I guess the thing that sort of troubles me right now is the reorganization that is going on at the Department of Transportation and how that all fits in with ISTEA, with this UTIP and the unified allocation grants. I am not sure in my own mind where that money goes.
Does it go to the State and then go to the local through MPOs? But in any event, I am wondering, do you have any concerns about the DOT reorganization and its impact on ISTEA, since you have already said you don't think we ought to do any major restructuring of ISTEA itself?
Mr. DITTMAR. I certainly do, and I am happy to clarify. We are very concerned about the Department's budget submission. It appears to us to undermine the basic premises that were outlined in ISTEA. It also appears to be a major cut in the funding available to States and localities. Not only the budget reduction overall of about 2 billion in transportation spending, but the action by the administration to create a State infrastructure bank and fund that with 2 billion and a Federal discretionary program to fund with a billion results in a net reduction in money available for capital infrastructure maintenance and rehabilitation of about $5 billion.
And it is unclear to us how those funds are going to be delivered, how the planning requirements and maintenance requirements are going to be assured. And so while we support the general idea of greater flexibility, we cannot support it if it means that big a reduction in money. And we can't support it unless we can figure out how it will work, and at this point, we can't answer either one of those questions.
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Mr. MINETA. Now, you may reference to a qualified nonprofit organization. Could you give us an example of what that—what it is in terms of who would be eligible to receive funds for an ISTEA project?
Mr. DITTMAR. Certainly. A community development corporation perhaps would be undertaking—could be undertaking a local transportation improvement. As you may remember from the time that you were Mayor of San Jose, the Community Development Block Grant program and many of the other block grants do provide the ability for contracting directly with nonprofit organizations to undertake improvements.
Mr. MINETA. The reason I ask is because under the transportation enhancement, it seems to me that there was a lot of monies that did go to small, local, community-based organizations to do things.
Mr. DITTMAR. What we found was that the local community-based organizations would conceive of the project, put the project together, apply for it and then have to find a city or a county or a State to sponsor the project. And oftentimes, they couldn't find someone who was willing to do so.
In one instance in Chicago, there was actually a community organizations that developed a great congestion mitigation air quality project around the elevated line on the west side. They conceived of it, did a design process, expended private funds, in putting their own funds in, putting it together and the project was put out to bid, and a private for-profit firm was selected to do it. And we thought that was just plain wrong.
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Mr. MINETA. Great.
Thank you very, very much, Hank.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you for your testimony.
I just have one question on a part of your testimony that I don't think was touched on too much, and that was your observation that the data collection activities of the Federal Highway Administration seem to verge on overkill. And we have been hearing that from some of the State Departments as well. And wonder if you have any ideas or if you could supply them later on, how we could suggest they revise their forms and procedures to get what they need but not to get things that they don't really need, that someone thought they should put out a form for symmetry's sake, but it is not very cost-effective?
Mr. DITTMAR. We would be happy to do so.
And my general observation has been that ISTEA set up a process that relied a lot more on State and metropolitan agencies to do the planning, and project development and planning regulation were developed to enable that. But the project review requirements were not made more flexible at the same time.
There was sort of a deal that said, if you will do better work on the front end, we will get out of your way on the back end. And it didn't happen. That side of the deal didn't happen.
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We believe that the management systems in particular are a new requirement added by ISTEA that have been, I think—they have a good idea. And the good idea is that you ought to know what you get back out of investing in transportation. But what they did was develop reporting requirements that really only tell the engineer what he is getting back. And they don't tell the Congress or the local—or the governor, really, at a level that they can use, so we would replace them with a simple requirement for maybe—that five or six goals would be set at the State and the metropolitan level, and the States and MPOs would be asked to report on how they meet those goals. And we would not dictate how far apart your lane counters would be on the local road.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you very much.
Thank you for your testimony.
This hearing will adjourn until 2 o'clock this afternoon.
[Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 2:00 p.m., the same day.]
Mr. PETRI. Well, gentlemen, welcome. I think 2:00 o'clock has arrived, and we may as well get ourselves organized and begin. I know a number of our colleagues will be here shortly, if they are not already on their way in one of the waiting rooms.
Mr. Secretary, it has been a busy time for you. We are happy that we were able to accommodate you and schedule you this afternoon. Welcome back from the opening ceremonies, and proceed as you wish.
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TESTIMONIES OF HON. FEDERICO PEÑA, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, ACCOMPANIED BY RODNEY SLATER, ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION
Secretary PEÑA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and good afternoon, Members of the committee. With me today is our fellow highway administrator, Rod Slater, who will follow my presentation by displaying the GIS technology in the National Highway System, which I think will be very helpful, particularly for the new Members of the committee.
Mr. Chairman and Members, I welcome this opportunity to meet with you to consider one of the department's highest transportation priorities—designation of the National Highway System. The NHS reflects the department's continued emphasis on the prudent investment of public tax dollars in our Nation's infrastructure system.
I would like to request that my longer statement be submitted for the record. Let me briefly touch on a few highlights in my testimony and then I would be happy to answer your questions.
Mr. Chairman, I was pleased to see that in your letter of invitation you asked us to focus our testimony on the core economic benefits of the National Highway System. I look forward to outlining for you today why we believe the NHS represents one of the most strategic investments we can make in our Nation's economic future.
But before I do, I wanted to acknowledge that we are not unmindful of the issues that have been raised by the department's fiscal year 1996 budget and the initial restructuring program design proposals. We look forward to working with you to develop closer agreement on the scope and timing of the matters that the departmental restructuring should address.
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In this era of increasing fiscal constraint, the challenge I believe both the administration and the Congress face together is to determine what changes must be made so that our organization and our programs can meet the Nation's 21st Century transportation needs.
The direction I gave the departmental task forces working on our restructuring was to put forward ideas for streamlining our programs and agencies that were as bold as possible, and to test those ideas with our customers and the Congress. What we are hearing, in general, is general support for moving ahead expeditiously with organization consolidation to reduce overhead and to create a modern, lean, integrated, and efficient structure.
We have also heard strong support for taking immediate steps to simplify process and procedures so our grantees get the most value possible for the dollars we are able to provide. And, finally, we are hearing some spirited commentary, I guess is the best way to put it, on our program design and our budgetary proposals. As I have said, we look forward to working with this committee to determine how best to advance the streamlining and restructuring needs.
In our reinvention efforts, we will also build on the department's National Transportation System effort, in which we conducted extensive outreach to the transportation community, to help us better define the Federal role in establishing the most efficient, convenient, and reliable transportation network possible. We envision the National Highway System as the cornerstone of this intermodal system.
Designation of the National Highway System will usher in a new era in our Nation's rich transportation history. The 1950s witnessed the creation of the interstate highway system and parts of our country were brought together as never before. Needed highway construction continued across the Nation, and in the early 1970s we recognized the need to maintain our investment and established highway maintenance requirements. In recent years, construction of the interstate system has neared completion, and we are now working to strategically direct our limited resources to places where they are most needed, guided by the principles of ISTEA.
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On December 9, 1993, we submitted our proposed NHS map and a report describing the system to the Congress for review. This map was the culmination of several years work by States, local governments, metropolitan planning organizations, and the department to identify highways of national significance. These are the highways that will safely support our Nation's economic, national defense, and mobility needs.
While ISTEA provided certain key routes like the interstate system be included in the NHS, the majority of the National Highway System was formulated from the ground up as we developed our proposals. This process was truly a grass-roots effort. We looked to State and local officials to identify these major roads because they know firsthand which routes best serve their communities and connect them to others. The department's role was simply to integrate these routes into a unified system that will serve the many diverse transportation needs of the Nation.
This committee played a key leadership role in developing the truly visionary ISTEA legislation. I encourage you to move swiftly and to take the next step in the process, which is to designate the NHS to guide us into the next generation of surface transportation.
Many of you may already be familiar with the impressive figures which reveal that the impact of the NHS extends to nearly every corner of our Nation. This small fraction of our Nation's roads carries a large percentage of all personal and commercial highway traffic and ties America together by providing access to major ports, airports, rail stations, public transportation facilities, and international border crossings.
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With the designation of the NHS, we can channel needed improvements to these key highways, improving the efficiency and reliability of our entire transportation system. This translates into real economic benefits throughout the country—linking workers to expanded job opportunities, manufacturers to new markets, and consumers to more products and services fueling our economic competitiveness in the world market.
As our proposed NHS map makes clear, transportation infrastructure should no longer be viewed as a collection of individual modes competing with each other. It should instead be seen as a single system with each mode complementing the others. This is evidenced by the marked increase in the number of intermodal transportation carriers who rely on several modes to deliver goods to consumers in the most efficient manner possible.
But even with the increase in intermodal transport in recent years, close to 85 percent of the Nation's freight tonnage still travels at least part of its journey over a highway. Therefore, focused investment on the NHS is critical for handling the rapid growth of all modes of commercial traffic.
The economic benefits of the National Highway System would not end at our Nation's borders. Most of the freight moving between the United States and Canada, our number one trading partner, and the United States and Mexico, recently our second largest trading partner, moves by truck. Now that the North American Free Trade Agreement has been adopted and the largest free trade zone in the world created, trade is accelerating. The National Highway System will serve all major international border crossings and connect U.S. routes with the principal highways of Canada and Mexico, creating a high-performance system spanning most of North America.
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Future improvements to the integrated network will fuel trade expansion and benefit not only businesses in States along our northern and southern borders, but will aid those businesses across the Nation which are linked to the border regions by the NHS corridors running across the United States.
The economic benefits of strategic investments in the NHS are clear. In my longer statement I have submitted for the record, I cite both the progress that has been made and the economic productivity through better transportation, and the opportunities for future improvements because of the wide reach of the NHS. We continue to strongly support a National Highway System bill that furthers the progress made by ISTEA. I look forward to working with you and on moving the National Highway System bill forward.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, and Members, we recognize the strong link between transportation investment and economic productivity, and the need to preserve decades of investment in our transportation system to maintain our preeminent position in the world economy. With spending on transportation constituting about 17 percent of our Nation's total outlays, approval of the NHS is central to our continued economic vitality. But failure to enact NHS legislation by September 30 would result in the withholding of billions of dollars of Federal funds from the States and postponement of critically needed transportation improvements.
Therefore, I thank you for the opportunity to voice my very strong commitment to the NHS as a cornerstone of our National Transportation System, and I urge the Congress to pass a simple, straightforward legislation designating the NHS without delay.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my very brief opening remarks and, with your indulgence and permission, I would like to introduce Mr. Rodney Slater, who, at this time, will use our GIS technology to lay out more graphically the National Highway System network, and I think this year he has a new and improved version from perhaps the one you have seen on past occasions.
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Mr. PETRI. On the wide screen on our right, or left, depending on where we are seated. Please proceed.
Mr. SLATER. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, Members of the committee, I am very pleased to be here today with Secretary Peña to discuss the National Highway System, also known as the NHS. Before I begin, I would like to echo Secretary Peña's remarks about the importance of the NHS to our economy and our people.
We now have a chance, by completing designation of the NHS, to better address the intermodal transportation needs of the American people and the American economy as we enter the 21st Century. If we should fail, more than $6 billion in Federal highway monies will be withheld from the States in fiscal year 1996 and our Nation will lose a powerful tool in its effort to maintain its preeminent position in the world economy.
Furthermore, as our department moves to transform itself for the next century, the NHS will play a key role in advancing our core missions of safety, infrastructure investment, and national security.
As we proceed, I will be using the Geographic Information System, also known as GIS technology, to present the proposed National Highway System. Whereas previous demonstrations of this technology, which many of you have seen, were intended to introduce viewers to the various components of the system, today's presentation is designed to show the key role of the NHS and the role that it will play in our Nation's economy as we progress into the 21st Century.
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To begin the demonstration we will first take a look at the full National Highway System. This is the National Highway System map representing the system the department submitted to Congress on December 9, 1993, reflecting minor adjustments made in cooperation with the House and the Senate during 1994. On this map we see, first, the Dwight David Eisenhower system of interstate and defense highways shown in blue; the 21 congressionally required high priority corridors shown in orange; the noninterstate strategic highway network, or STRAHNET, in green; and connections to important military bases in purple, which along with the interstate system, serves our Nation's defense needs.
These components, all required by ISTEA, comprise 42 percent of the total system. The remainder of the National Highway System, shown in red, consists of the other roads proposed by States in cooperation with local officials. The complete map shows the proposed system, nearly 160,000 miles of our Nation's most important roads, which represents but 4 percent of the country's nearly 4 million miles of roadway.
Mr. Chairman, Members of the committee, in order to provide a closer look at the NHS, we will take a look at the system in one State. In this case, Georgia. The map will enable us to see how the NHS links our most important highways to various kinds of intermodal facilities. Turning to Georgia's intermodal facilities, we can see how they are served by the NHS.
First, its airports; next, Georgia's ports; next, its highway/rail transfer facilities; next, Amtrak stations; then those areas with transit service; and, finally, areas with intercity bus service.
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As you can see from the illustration, the NHS serves intermodal facilities as well.
When Secretary Peña and I came before this subcommittee last year to present the NHS, we emphasized its importance to our national economy. During the past year, the department has been working with the GIS to quantify the benefits of the NHS from a number of perspectives.
We have determined that 90 percent of our country's people live within 5 miles of the National Highway System. Fully 100 percent of the urban areas with populations over 50,000 are directly served by the NHS. Ninety-three percent of the small urban areas, those with populations of 5,000 to 50,000 are within 5 miles of the NHS. And 90 percent of the counties of the U.S. counties have NHS mileage within them.
Now, that covers population. Now let us for a moment look at jobs.
Mr. Chairman, Members of the committee, our analysis has borne out what we anticipated and I am pleased to report to you that 99 percent of all jobs in this country are located in those counties that contain NHS mileage, including 99 percent of the manufacturing jobs, 97 percent of the mining jobs, and 93 percent of the farming jobs.
Mr. Chairman, Members of the committee, I would like now to provide you a more detailed picture of how the NHS serves the employment base of the country. To illustrate this point, we will use your State, Mr. Chairman, the State of Wisconsin, to demonstrate how well employment is served, first by the interstate system alone and then by the National Highway System as a whole.
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This screen shows circles for each place in your State with significant employment. The larger the circle, the greater the number of jobs in that location. The interstate system serves Wisconsin's larger cities very well, and 56 percent of the State's jobs are within 5 miles of an interstate highway.
Now we add the rest of Wisconsin's National Highway System roads to the picture and we see a much more dramatic result. When we factor in the complete NHS, including the interstate system, fully 97 percent of the jobs in Wisconsin are within 5 miles of a NHS. This picture shows that the cooperation of the States with local officials and with the Department of Transportation has produced a powerful workhorse system that serves our population and our employment centers very, very well.
Mr. Chairman, now looking up at this map, it reminds me of a trip through your State when I had occasion to visit cities like Milwaukee and Madison, but I also had an opportunity to visit smaller towns that were not on the interstate system, such as Dodgeville, or Belmont, or Platteville, all along U.S. 18 and the 151 corridor. I remember well, for instance, visiting these areas and hearing people talk about the importance of transportation to them.
Also, along the way I had occasion, and the good fortune, to be joined by Chuck Thompson, the Wisconsin Secretary of Transportation. Chuck gave me a detailed report of Wisconsin's comprehensive long-range intermodal transportation plan, known as Translinks 21. The plan incorporates significant highway components, many of them located on the National Highway System.
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Throughout Wisconsin, individuals were saying we desire a transportation system that will better link us to our jobs, to the Nation, and to the world as a whole. Mr. Chairman, the National Highway System will do just that.
The National Highway System is a truly comprehensive system that will provide employers with high quality linkages to the world economy. It is these linkages which will help America retain and remain the preeminent economic power in the new millennium just before us.
As the Secretary said earlier, we are competing in a global economy. We need a transportation system that links us not just to each other but to the world as well. To this end, as we work to implement the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, we have been working very closely with representatives of the Mexican Federal Government to develop the North American intermodal GIS to support the NAFTA initiatives. This map, the map on the screen now, shows the NHS routes along the U.S.–Mexican border and their counterpart roads in Mexico, plus the major border crossings.
Turning again to the national NHS map, we see illustrated here all of the border crossings we share with our NAFTA partners. As our NAFTA implementation work proceeds, our GIS efforts will eventually be expanded to include Canadian highways as well.
In closing, this concludes the GIS demonstration, but it also demonstrates that the designation of the NHS is critically important to our Nation's economic future. The NHS will serve our people and our economy well, linking us to each other, to our jobs, to markets, and to the world. The NHS will also better link our different modes of transportation together, helping us to move closer to the realization of a seamless National Intermodal Transportation System.
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Members of the committee.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you both very much for your testimony, and I think someone will turn the lights on in a minute. There we go. Let's see, Representative Rahall, do you have any questions?
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, Mr. Administrator, we appreciate very much your testimony this morning, and we have appreciated your expertise and the manner in which you have presented the proposed National Highway System to us, most particularly I recall your submission ahead of time, ahead of the ISTEA designated time-period for submission to Congress of your proposed NHS.
I asked you this question earlier this year, Mr. Secretary, and I guess maybe there has been a little more thought to it, and that is the ramifications that your proposed reorganization may have upon ISTEA; that is, the funding categories that we set up under ISTEA, the separate categories, would those remain as they are, is it too early to tell yet, or would they be folded into your overall proposed categories under your reorganization?
Secretary PEÑA. Congressman Rahall, let me answer your question directly by saying there would be significant changes to ISTEA, and the categories that we now see in the legislation. With your permission, let me back up a couple of steps and put this answer in context.
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Mr. RAHALL. Sure.
Secretary PEÑA. I am attempting to accept the new fiscal and political reality that we are facing today, which is that we are likely to have decreased Federal funding for infrastructure. This morning I was testifying in the other body, and I was told very straightforwardly by the Chairman of that committee that the reduced funding that we had proposed in the Department of Transportation was too modest, and that the cuts we will be expecting this year will be far more draconian.
In that context, what we have tried to do is to restructure our programs to give more flexibility to the States and localities in the context of reduced Federal funding, so that we will be able to leverage and maximize those decreased funds. In order to do that, we think one of the things that will be helpful will be to consolidate and collapse the many different categorical programs we have today into broader programs to give the Governors and the local officials much more flexibility in being able to make funding decisions for their priorities, as opposed to the other approach, which is simply to make significant reductions in all categorical programs so that we end up with 30 categorical programs with significant reduced funding with minimum impact.
We have tried to present the Congress with a different approach, a more strategic approach, I think, which will allow for that to occur. In order for us to meet that, we would have to present to the Congress some legislation later on this month, and we hope to do that as respects the consolidation of the 10 modes to the 3, as respects the Air Traffic Control Corporation, and some other components of our restructuring effort.
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I am not sure I answered your question but I tried to at least frame it in context.
Mr. RAHALL. Well, your proposed changes then become as parts of another package and nothing will be done on the NHS in regard to any changes.
Secretary PEÑA. That is correct.
Let me answer the question of the NHS. As you will recall, one of our proposals is to develop a unified grant which would be provided to the States. Within that unified grant, there would be certain subsets or set-asides. One of them would be the National Highway System, another would be safety, another would be something we are calling an urban factor, another could be research and development.
So that in that sense, the National Highway System subset would be protected for each of the States and those funds could be continued to be used for the NHS.
Mr. RAHALL. Let me ask about another part of your proposal in regard to innovative financing. I find that a little more attractive than other parts of your proposed reorganization.
Could you update us on some of the more recent initiatives you have taken in that regard?
Secretary PEÑA. Absolutely, Congressman.
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What we did, through the leadership of Rodney Slater and his team at Federal Highways—and they have done a great job, by the way, as have the other intermodal administrators, who were also involved in this. A year or so ago we asked the States to submit to us projects which they had been wanting to finance and construct but for which they could not proceed because of Federal criteria and conditions.
We experimented and changed those criteria and conditions and, as a result of that, we were able to approve, I think 30.
Mr. SLATER. Thirty-one.
Secretary PEÑA. Thirty-one projects in 25 States amounting to a billion dollars in projects which can now occur, which otherwise would not have occurred had we used our old criteria.
For example, as you know, one of our criteria has been that there must be a local match. We experimented with the concept of having certain States use private sector investment to substitute for the traditional State match. And that allowed us to attract private sector involvement in some of these projects and to have that project become doable.
A number of other creative approaches like that we have used to get these projects going, and as a result of this experiment, we are going to do a second round of this innovative financing and we would like to then institutionalize it permanently in the legislation so it will be part of our process for years to come.
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Mr. RAHALL. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Secretary. I have some questions for Mr. Slater on the second round.
Mr. PETRI. Right. We will have several rounds. Representative LaHood.
Mr. LAHOOD. Mr. Chairman, are we going to have the second round to these.
Mr. PETRI. Yes.
Mr. LAHOOD. I will wait to see then. I have some questions that are not related to your testimony or the NHS, but in order to not to distract from other Members who may want to ask about that issue, I would like to come back later on and ask a couple of questions.
Mr. PETRI. Representative Hutchinson.
Mr. HUTCHINSON. Yes, I just want to take the opportunity to thank you for the presentation and say hello to Mr. Slater again. We are very proud of Rodney and the great job he did in the State of Arkansas in our State Highway Commission and the excellent job he has done on the national level.
And while Rodney and I come down on opposite sides of the political fence sometimes, and disagree on some things, we always agree on the importance of highways, the National Highway System, and we always agree that Bob Dole was wrong when he said that the way to balance the budget was to sell the State of Arkansas.
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Thank you very much for your presentation today. We look forward to working with you.
Mr. SLATER. Thank you, Congressman.
Mr. PETRI. Okay, Representative Filner.
Mr. FILNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, Mr. Secretary, Mr. Administrator, it is always a pleasure to have you; and we in the San Diego area certainly appreciate all the work and also visibility that you have shown there. Whether it is commuter trains or buses or planes, you have been there, showing what a cooperative effort between the Federal and local governments can do, and we really appreciate that.
I would just like to focus a couple of questions on the international trade part of your testimony, and NAFTA. As you know, I represent that section of the U.S.–Mexico border that accounts for probably half or more of the surface transportation across that border.
You mention in your testimony that you did not read, but in your prepared remarks you go into how important the truck traffic is between our two nations and how important the infrastructure is. Which brings me to the conversation we have had, I think, on several occasions.
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At the border crossings in the San Diego area, where half of the international trade crosses, there is no road other than an inadequate city street right now that connects those border crossings with the interstate highway system. We have a projection for something called State Route 905, which has been added to the National Highway System, but that route is years and years and years off in the funding, whereas the truck traffic, as you know, has dramatically increased right now.
At this point, it seems to me, as a policymaker, I can only address the situation through demonstration projects. And as you know—that is a very difficult thing, you pointed out, due to the funding problem; but it is seen increasingly as, well, that is the pork for my district. And maybe I will get some, maybe I will not.
But that highway should not be seen as a congressional district's pork. It is part of the plan that is absolutely necessary if NAFTA is going to work.
I think you agree with me. I think you have seen the area. And we must have, I think, a policy and a set of resources directed toward the implementation of NAFTA.
I think in earlier testimony that you gave, you and I had some exchange, and I called for the establishment of a NAFTA infrastructure fund. I was wondering whether you all had looked into the possibility of establishing such a fund. What do we need for you to look into it, given your necessary cut of resources?
I mean, the administration went all out to get NAFTA passed. It succeeded. And yet the infrastructure—certainly in San Diego—is nowhere near what is necessary to make it work.
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Secretary PEÑA. Congressman Filner, you have asked, obviously, a very good question; and let me suggest the following.
We had at one time contemplated that the Environmental Infrastructure Bank legislation, which passed a year or so ago, which was going to attend to some of the by-product problems of NAFTA traffic, could have been broadened to include transportation infrastructure. As we understand, the way that legislation is being interpreted, it does not.
Second, we have not then recommended that a separate infrastructure bank be created specifically for transportation. However, in the proposal that we are making to this Congress, again we would give more flexibility to the States through this unified allocation.
Second, the creation of State infrastructure banks, which would allow Federal dollars which would capitalize those infrastructure banks to be leveraged one or two or three more times by very creative financing techniques, that that could be used to address problems that you have described in the State of California.
And, thirdly, by recommending that we have about a billion dollar Federal discretionary fund for projects of regional or national significance in cases where a particular corridor had a significant regional impact, that that could be susceptible for accessing the Federal discretionary funds.
So that is our way of trying to give States more flexibility, to try to create more private-sector involvement and some Federal coordination to deal with those particular issues, again in the context of reduced Federal funding for so many of our very important—
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Mr. FILNER. Well, the latter one is the most—I think the most pragmatic way, going against the grain of this devolution in this block grant to the States. If you do that, in this case, in California, I don't know about the other border States, the politics of the State, the regional population differences, whatever you want to say, will not bring the border into that equation as a very significant factor; that is, we will be fighting the rest of the State of California like we fight the rest of the Nation for our part of that flexible funding, and we will not get any.
Again, this is a Federal responsibility, and I think it has to come from the Federal budget to the extent that we can. But I will tell you, NAFTA is going to break down, if it has not already for some other reasons, in the serious lack of road infrastructure in the part of the Nation that serves over half of the truck traffic.
Mr. PETRI. You will get a chance to explore that further if you wish, Bob.
Representative Fowler.
Mrs. FOWLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Mr. Secretary, Mr. Slater, for being here with us today. I am sorry I missed your testimony, but I have read it and I heard Mr. Slater's and I just want to say I look forward to working with you. I totally agree it is imperative we go ahead and get this National Highway System approved.
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As you know, we did so last year and the holdup was in the Senate. So we hope that you will be an advocate in the Senate and work with those with whom we had some difficulties last year and see if we cannot get this moving, because I am sure we will in the House once again, and we need to get it through the Senate so we can get this approved. I think it is critically important to the economic future of this country to get this system under way and approved.
So, again, I want to thank you and look forward to working with you on it.
Secretary PEÑA. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Weller.
Mr. WELLER. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, Mr. Secretary. As one of the new kids on the block here, I look forward to working with you and appreciate the chance to hear your testimony and the presentation as well.
Earlier the Transportation Committee held hearings on the issue of mandates affecting the States, and of course, part of your initiative here is—a significant part of it is giving greater flexibility to the States in how they can use these highway funds and transportation funds.
I was wondering, is your department taking a look at the current Federal mandates currently being imposed on the States as they affect the highway system? Have you been reviewing these and could you suggest mandates that you believe we should reconsider, or perhaps relax or change, in how they impact the States?
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Secretary PEÑA. Congressman, we have been conducting a general review of a number of mandates throughout the government as part of the reinvention process.
Generally speaking—and I will ask Administrator Slater to add to this—most of the requirements that we are concerned about, that people raise questions about in Federal law, are permitted to be funded as part of the grant that a State receives. So in that sense it is not an unfunded mandate.
I think we have found one or two relatively small programs which are truly unfunded in the sense there are no Federal funds which can be used to offset the cost of those programs.
Having said that, we are always willing to work with you and Members of the committee to determine how we can again provide more flexibility to the States, continue to maintain national policies, and ensure that we do not put onerous burdens on the States which are not necessary.
Mr. WELLER. But will your Department be preparing a set of recommendations, specific recommendations, that will be presented to this committee and the Congress for us to have a chance to—as part of us working together we are, of course, looking for ideas from you, specific recommendations and changes we can make. Will you be issuing some of these recommendations?
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Secretary PEÑA. Let me have Administrator Slater talk about those within Federal Highways first.
Mr. SLATER. Congressman, the Secretary has asked all of the modes of transportation to look at the various regulations that we monitor, that we execute, working with industry, working with the enforcement community, to see if those, some of them, have outlived their purpose, to see if some can be altered in some way, either administratively or, where necessary, legislatively; and we are involved in that process.
As relates to motor carriers, which falls within the responsibility circle of the Federal Highway Administration, we currently have a zero base review of all of our motor carrier regulations, which means that we are looking at our entire collection of regulations, assuming that they were not in place; and if they were not, which would be necessary to respond to issues of safety and concern that are critical. And as we complete that review, we then will be reporting to the Secretary, who will then move forward in working with the White House to ultimately make some presentation to the Congress.
Also, I would like to add that this month we will have a motor carrier safety summit, truck and bus safety summit in Kansas City, Missouri. This will actually be the third safety summit that we have held at the direction of the Secretary. There has been one dealing with the railway, railroad community, another dealing with aviation, and now motor carriers. So we are being very proactive and being very aggressive in looking at these regulations and how they impact the economy.
Mr. WELLER. Do you have a timetable when you hope to have this completed?
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Mr. SLATER. We have the obligation of submitting prior to June 1st our recommendations to the Secretary, who then will be working with the White House on an overall, government-wide process for submission.
Mr. WELLER. So if we are looking at June 1st when the Secretary receives it, when would we as Members of Congress have the opportunity to see your recommendations?
Mr. SLATER. I would say in a reasonable time.
Secretary PEÑA. I am trying to think out loud, off-the-cuff here what that date is. Let me get back to you on that, if I could, and give you a specific timetable. This is an administration-wide effort and we are trying to synchronize our efforts, but we want to impact this session, obviously.
Mr. WELLER. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. I had a couple of questions to conclude the first round, and then we will have a second round.
I think working with Representative Filner and others, this committee is eager—or I should say interested in having a hearing down in the Southwest. We have received a number of requests from different transportation people, State highway people in the Texas–Arizona–Southern California area, where the infrastructure is under a great deal of strain; and they are also quite interested in developing—and I guess you already do have a lot of task forces with Mexican authorities to develop procedures and strengthen arrangements—we hear about a lot of illegal immigration—but for legal commerce back and forth as expeditiously and efficiently and legally as possible.
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We have a lot of work to do to speed the flow of efficient commerce between our two countries and make this whole thing work. So we are eager to work with you and your Department, and we would be open to any suggestions on how we could be helpful through possibly having a hearing or something in that region, to provide an occasion for focusing some of this joint Mexican–American work and making inquiries into areas where it might be useful to do that.
The other thing is, we are eager to get your formal reorganization proposals, and we will be cooperative in holding as thorough a hearing as possible on that and hearing them fully so that people in both parties and around the country can view them and make modifications or whatever. So I don't know when those will be forthcoming, but the sooner the better, from our point of view.
Finally, I think last year's National Highway System bill directed the Department to submit proposed intermodal connectors in a certain period of time, which is something that I understand you were doing anyway. Could you tell us what progress the Department has made in identifying intermodal connectors? There is a great deal of interest by people who have to operate through our ports in particularly.
Secretary PEÑA. I would be happy to, Mr. Chairman. And Mr. Slater can add to this also.
I think we are on target to provide that report to you by the end of this year, as we were directed. And, obviously, as we work through it, at any point where the committee would like to have a preliminary sense of where that work is headed, we would be happy to present that to you in some informal fashion, if that would be of assistance.
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Also, on the first subject you raised, Mr. Chairman, let me say that last year I held the first transportation–NAFTA summit with my counterpart from Canada, Mr. Douglas Young, and my counterpart from Mexico, Secretary Emilio Gamboa; and we agreed that country-to-country, government-to-government we would work together on cross-border infrastructure as respects planning and financing and strategizing, as opposed to what had happened for so many years in the past, where one country would take a certain step on one side of the border and the other country would not do the same and then you would have a disconnect.
We would be happy to present that information and our consultative product with both countries to you for your consideration as you conduct these hearings throughout the Southwest. I commend you for having the foresight to having those hearings. I think it is very helpful, very useful and quite necessary.
Mr. PETRI. And if there are any contacts we should be making with your compatriots in Mexico or possibly—I don't know what the procedure would be to have a joint Mexican legislative–U.S. committee hearing or some sort of thing of that sort, but we would be eager to explore those possibilities.
One last question.
Mr. SLATER. Mr. Chairman?
Mr. PETRI. Yes.
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Mr. SLATER. May I provide a little more detail on the intermodal connections?
Mr. PETRI. Sure.
Mr. SLATER. We should have the report ready by the fall. We are, as the Secretary noted, really ahead of schedule in some respects, and we are involving the State and local elected officials and organizations interested in transportation in the process. We are actually getting their ideas and putting together the criteria by which we will judge the intermodal connection, intermodal connector. So I just wanted to really underscore that point.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Representative Rahall.
Mr. RAHALL. Just to follow up on that, Rodney. That is in consultation with the States; is that correct?
Mr. SLATER. Yes, in consultation with the States, also MPOs and also transportation organizations as well. So it is much like the grass-roots effort that produced the National Highway System.
Mr. RAHALL. But if I understand, you are not going to have that information to us in final form in time for inclusion in NHS, will you?
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Mr. SLATER. No.
Mr. RAHALL. This year's bill. You are going to ask for flexibility in our bill, as you were asking for last year.
Mr. SLATER. Yes.
Mr. RAHALL. And you want us to identify or provide you that flexibility not knowing the access routes or not knowing further information on where those facilities are going to be; is that right?
Mr. SLATER. Right. We have a pretty good sense, though, where most will be, because in putting together the NHS, we were in consultation with the States and with local transportation officials, local elected officials. But now it is just a matter of pinpointing the exact location. It is our belief that there will be very little deviation from the various lines that are represented by the NHS map.
Mr. RAHALL. Okay. Let me ask another question on the original map that you submitted to us last year. We had a policy, on our side anyway, of not adding mileage to that system. What did the Senate do? Did they add any mileage to your system in their bill?
Mr. SLATER. Actually, Congressman, there were some miles added, minor additions, in our consultations with both the House and the Senate. We are in good shape as relates to all of the States and we think that we have on the map those miles that are of the most importance to all of the States and all the Members of Congress.
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Mr. RAHALL. Our policy was that it had to be asked for by the States.
Mr. SLATER. That is correct.
Mr. RAHALL. And approved by you. Was that the policy followed in the other body as well?
Mr. SLATER. That was the policy followed by the Senate as well.
Mr. RAHALL. Okay. Thank you. Oh yes, one last question, Mr. Secretary.
At the time that the NHS was announced, and I was there at your announcement ceremony and participated in it, you also spoke very highly of the NTS, National Transportation System and policy into the next century. Can you update us on that status? Are we still on line with the NTS?
Secretary PEÑA. Yes, Congressman Rahall. We have conducted a number of workshops and—I would not call them hearings but sessions around the country with local officials, State officials, technical individuals, researchers from universities, et cetera, to get their thoughts on how we can develop this concept of a National Transportation System. Many of the ideas we have received in those meetings we are incorporating into the programmatic and consolidation changes that we are recommending to the Congress. So they are reflected in that proposal.
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For example, the notion that we get away from, up front, very specific criteria and conditions and move toward a more performance-based relationship with our States, what we are calling a performance partnership, where we simply say to the States, we will not dictate to you how you achieve a goal, for example, of reducing highway deaths or increasing the efficiency or the condition of a particular piece of infrastructure, you will have that flexibility, but we would like a performance output of X—that notion of changing that relationship.
Second, the whole idea of being able to make investments in a more unified fashion so that we do not constrict our local decision-makers and others into making mode-by-mode investment decisions rather to making transportation intermodal decisions. Those ideas we have captured from the testimony, and we are incorporating it in the proposals we are going to be submitting to you, hopefully within the next few weeks.
Mr. RAHALL. But the NHS is still the backbone of the NTS?
Secretary PEÑA. Absolutely.
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Representative LaHood.
Mr. LAHOOD. Mr. Secretary, one of the things that I like about your background is that you have been a local elected official, and I think that the fact that you have had to stand for election and go out and campaign, I think that is good experience that a lot of people in government should have, and I respect that about your background, and I know you bring that kind of experience to the job.
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I say that in the context of earlier this week we had before our committee a group of people from the Metro system here in Washington, D.C., who have brought to our attention the fact that your Department is requiring them to spend $30 million to put in place a truncated—
Secretary PEÑA. Domes?
Mr. LAHOOD. Yes, sir. In a system that they believe already has those that will accommodate blind people. And we had testimony from other groups also, some in support and some not in support. I am astounded that the Department of Transportation would require in the Capital City that is on the brink of bankruptcy—on a state-of-the-art Metro system that I think, by their own admission, has been run very efficiently, to require them to spend $30 million for those truncated domes.
I wonder if that ultimately was your decision or someone in your Department or how that came about, and if you support that decision to require the Metro system here in the Capital City to spend $30 million on a state-of-the-art system which seems to accommodate the very handicapped that they are trying to help.
Secretary PEÑA. Well, Congressman, I think I am glad you asked that question, and let me try to answer it. As I think you know, there are far more complicated issues involved in those matters. Let me give you the background.
First of all, as you know, the Congress several years ago passed a law dealing with accessibility which the Department was required to implement. This question of accessibility for the blind was part of that legislation, and it involved an Access Board which the Congress required to make some recommendations. The truncated dome concept came out of that very elongated process.
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Most, if not all, of the transit agencies in our country, have implemented the truncated dome, ''Domes'', program. And some, I believe, had done it independently of this proposal. In the case of WMATA, WMATA argued very strongly that it wanted to experiment with other options, and so they made this passionate plea to me and made the point you did; and that is, give us, the local elected officials, an opportunity to go out and experiment with some other ideas.
For example, they said we could do some scraping of the granite which has the same effect of warning the blind who are using their cane and not need a truncated dome. Give us some time to experiment with some other options. And I said, fine.
So we gave WMATA the opportunity go out and experiment with two or three other proposals, but we all understood that the status quo was not sufficient. That was an understanding that was reached with WMATA, which was embodied in a letter that was, frankly, drafted by lawyers from both WMATA and the Department, and which I sent to the Chairman of the Board sometime ago. So WMATA embarked on this process of looking at other options.
Unfortunately, I have been told, and I have not seen the report directly, so I am relying on what the Federal Transit Administrator, Mr. Linton, told me, WMATA came back in and said it tested not only these other options but also the status quo and now wants to stick with the status quo.
Well, had I known that, many, many, many months ago, we would not have needed to go through this very complicated process. So, in a sense, I think there has been some misunderstanding of what I thought was going to be the testing that WMATA was going to conduct.
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Nevertheless, I have tried to be flexible. We have tried to give them other options, and at this point, I leave it in the hands of, at least at this point, the Federal Transit Administrator to try to work out some other option with the WMATA board to see how we can respond to what is a Federal law.
That is where we are today. I know I gave you a very complicated answer, but unfortunately, it is a very complicated situation.
Mr. LAHOOD. I ask unanimous consent for just another question, please.
Does it bother you at all, though, that we are requiring a system that is a very good system—maybe one of the most efficient systems for carrying people, and they believe that they have a mechanism in place for blind people—to be requiring them to spend $30 million in a city, as I said, that, as you well know, is on the brink of bankruptcy? I guess what I am wondering is, as a former elected official, as somebody who has seen mandates passed from this government to the level of government where you were at, does that bother you at all?
Secretary PEÑA. Well, Congressman, it is a concern when we believe that there are unreasonable burdens placed on those of us who are former elected officials. However, I think most people would agree that trying to address the needs of the blind and other handicapped is an important national policy, and it has been embodied in national law.
I am no longer a local elected official; I am now a Federal official who is required to follow the law, and that is what we are trying to do and, at the same time, to try to be flexible with local elected officials and others to see if we can make other accommodations.
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In addition to that, last year the President proposed increased funding for the capital portion of the transit grants in order to help offset some of the cost of the Americans With Disabilities Act. So we will continue to work with WMATA to attempt to address the Federal law, to be sensitive to the needs of the blind and the handicapped to make the system accessible, without placing a disproportionate cost on an excellent system.
Mr. PETRI. Well, let's see.
Mr. Barcia.
Mr. BARCIA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would like to welcome, of course, the very special guest we have before the subcommittee today and extend my appreciation, especially to Secretary Peña for his leadership in the last session of Congress, as well as, of course, the important months ahead as we attempt to determine what commitment of Federal resources will be dedicated to our infrastructure.
I want to say I appreciate your commitment, of course, to investment in our infrastructure, and I apologize for missing the GIS presentation. I was tied up with some constituents visiting my office, and I got detained, and got here after the presentation. But I do appreciate the information you are sharing with the subcommittee.
I would just say that I am, of course, concerned, as one Member of Congress, about the level of support from the Congress for our infrastructure, not only our Nation's highways, of course, but airports and other modes of transportation.
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And in the way of a final comment, I would just like to say I would like to follow up with you because I know that in my district, the Fifth District, there was an area that we were attempting to get on the National Highway System. I believe the State of Michigan did submit that, but the Department turned it down, and I am sure you had good reasons for it, but I think that the traffic volume will be increased in future years relative to the thumb area of Michigan as a result of the tunnel which is being constructed from Canada to Michigan, the United States–Canadian tunnel under Lake Huron, at Port Huron–Sarnia.
And I would want to say again, I appreciate all you have done to help my home State of Michigan, and of course, I think you are doing an excellent job in providing leadership on these many issues that we will be addressing in the coming months relative to our investment in our Nation's infrastructure. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Representative Fowler, do you have anything?
Representative Filner.
Mr. FILNER. Just briefly.
Mr. Chairman, and I appreciate the suggestion of hearings on the border. I hope the record will show your initial words, that you were eager to hold them. Change them to interested. But I want the record to show that I was eager to hold them.
Mr. PETRI. Eagerly interested.
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Mr. FILNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I do want to beat a dead horse for a second, Mr. Secretary, and to share with my colleagues. The commercial border crossing between it is U.S. and Mexico that serves over half of the truck traffic, or almost half of the truck traffic, has about a 10-mile stretch between the border and the interstate system with inadequate road. I mean there is no road to handle it. There is fatalities on it now every month and getting worse.
So we need to speed up that construction. The only mechanism I can think about is use of a Federal NAFTA infrastructure fund or some regional approach that you mentioned earlier. I would not leave it to the States.
If Texas and California were given a block grant, the border, most likely, it would not serve the same consequences you would want to under Federal priorities. I would urge my colleagues on the subcommittee and would hope they understand that when we are asked in our area to implement a national trade policy without the resources, if I can use the current phrase, it becomes an unfunded mandate.
And I hope that we will look more carefully, whether it is the northern border or the southern border, at funds earmarked to look at that investment infrastructure. That is where economic growth is occurring for jobs all through this Nation. And I am talking about San Diego, but the trucks do not stay in San Diego.
They move to the rest of the Nation. And we ought to be able to handle it in a much more efficient fashion. So I hope we will keep thinking about that.
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And I appreciate the time, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary PEÑA. Mr. Chairman, if I could respond very briefly to this comment, because it raises another issue. We were able through this innovative financing project that we did last year to do something very interesting in Laredo, Texas, where we brought in—or the city brought in a private sector party.
We were more flexible in how we were using our Federal funds, and I think it was GSA which also had the responsibility for constructing one of the buildings. And we completely turned around the responsibilities to the various parties so that that building is now being able to be constructed and it was a very creative way that we did that, and I give credit to the city and the State and the private sector involved in that.
We would be happy to sit down and discuss with you whether there might be some creative approaches that might be used in that one segment. I don't know if the potentials are the same, but it demonstrates how we can deal with a border-crossing situation.
Mr. FILNER. Talk to those of us who have some experience in this at the border. The administration came out with a border-crossing tax without discussing it with any Members of Congress who happen to represent those areas. And demonstrated a very real misunderstanding of the situation and was forced to withdraw it.
I mean, if you are talking, for example, about a toll road that Mexican trucks would travel on, you better talk to us first about that because you are very likely in that situation to create other problems. And as we solve them—at least Members of Congress are not always obstacles and problems to the administration.
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We have expertise and resources and we want to help. So please draw on us for that kind of help. We do understand the area to some degree, and which we are trying to come up with beneficial policies.
So, whether it is a border tax, a crossing tax, or a toll road, or whatever, please don't just announce it without asking. We might not agree, but at least get some input.
Secretary PEÑA. We agree, Congressman. The proposals came from the States. We invited the States to give us projects that they could not construct because of Federal problems or requirements or conditions, and they submitted the proposals to us, and we would be happy to sit down with you in your office and the local officials in the San Diego area to discuss this. But we are not about to impose any solution unless it comes from those parties, but we want them to know that we are willing to be flexible and creative in how we have looked at some of these projects in the past.
Mr. FILNER. Thank you again for all your activity on behalf of our Nation's transportation system.
Mr. PETRI. I have a question or two, and Representative LaHood does, too. I understand that you are resubmitting a fiscal year 1996 budget which is different from your UTIP proposal, and also different from your ISTEA proposal that was included in your original budget submission.
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Could you elaborate on what the Department is planning to do and when?
Secretary PEÑA. Mr. Chairman, I apologize I could not hear you.
Mr. PETRI. I understand you are resubmitting a fiscal year 1996 budget which is different from your UTIP proposal, and also different from the current year ISTEA budget that was also included in your original budget submission. Could you elaborate on what the Department is planning to do and when?
Secretary PEÑA. Mr. Chairman, what we are going to be doing is submitting the legislation which would allow us, if passed, to implement the administrative and consolidation proposals that we have made for the Department. However, as respects the $2 billion plus reduction in our overall budget, that would not change. Those overall total reductions would remain the same.
There may be some modifications within that, but I think they would be relatively minor. The big piece that we will be providing to you is the actual legislation which allows us to reorganize the Department and to change the way in which we currently have our programs designated in law.
Mr. PETRI. Just one question on something that happens to be sort of in our area, therefore, we are all aware of it and can personally relate to it. And that is this metro thing. Yesterday, when they testified, metro produced evidence that their system was, according to their statistics. The safest metro system in the country for handicapped and blind people currently, that is prior to the modification.
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And it seems to me that if that is true, and that was not contradicted, thought should to be given to trying to go to some sort of a goal standard or maybe we should come up with some flexibility, saying we want you guys to protect the blind and the handicapped, and here is the way we recommend you doing it, but if you are, in fact, significantly above whatever the national average is or some performance standard, you go ahead and do whatever you want to to get to that goal.
And they said they wanted to perform even better. Their indications were that some blind people were falling between cars, because if you go up to the edge, you can check the edge, you can put those ripple things there, but you may step forward and think that the door is open and, in fact, it is between the cars. And they would like to make some modifications or are considering some additional investment to try to help prevent people from making that mistake. And it is an understandable mistake to me.
And I would stand corrected, but if we force them to spend a lot of money, and basically they have their backs up, and I think you have a bureaucratic turf war in part—you do it my way because it is my decision—and we are going to have to get over that somehow, too.
But how we move forward on this and not end up getting further embarrassed as a government and embarrass the whole Americans with Disabilities Act by making it look irrational and frivolous, I don't know. But it is a problem. And it is going to get worse. The longer it is postponed, the worse it is going to get, in my opinion.
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Secretary PEÑA. Mr. Chairman, we are happy to continue that dialogue and just to restate what I said earlier, I thought we had done that a while ago when we sat down with metro and said, don't proceed, and we worked out an experiment where they would be able to test other options. And there is now a misunderstanding about what that agreement was, which is embodied in a letter which was drafted and sent to them.
But we will be happy to sit down with the metro people, and frankly, we agree with what you have just said about performance standards. That is what we are in this administration trying to get to with performance partnerships, so that we give people the flexibility to meet certain outputs which we think is why this is all being done. If you don't get the outputs and you do all the rest, we haven't accomplished anything. We welcome the concept of performance-based measures.
Mr. PETRI. They claim they have the output now, and have done it with slightly—I mean, they anticipated this problem and put it into the design of the current system.
One last point, there is this argument that some people make that we need uniformity between metro systems and, therefore, their 12 inches should be 14, and there would be a ripple, but there was testimony submitted that the Department has been flexible with many metro systems around the country not requiring that all 140 of their stations, but only the 7 most heavily traveled—or, in other cases, giving people 40 years to gradually work into that arrangement.
And it occurs to me that the metro system here is still expanding and growing, and therefore there are going to be additional interlink stations and new stations coming in. And it certainly would be very easy for them to put in 14-inch or 24-inch, as opposed to their current 18-inch in new stations. There must be some way of working this problem out.
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Secretary PEÑA. We will continue to work at it, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. LaHood.
Mr. LAHOOD. Mr. Secretary, also this week we have heard from people, including Members of Congress, who testified here who, have introduced bills to prohibit the Federal Department of Transportation from withholding funds from States who don't comply with laws, whether they be helmet laws or speed limit laws.
We had a Member of Congress from Texas testify that he would eliminate the speed limit. I am wondering if bills like that were to pass both Houses, has your administration taken a position on things like helmet laws and restricting States who don't pass helmet laws, and if we were to pass Mr. Combest's bill which would eliminate the speed limit and allow States to set their own speed limits, has your administration taken positions on things like that?
Secretary PEÑA. Congressman, we do not have an administration position yet on all of those issues. If the question that you are asking, if the Congress passed that would the President veto the bill, I have no idea. We have not had a chance to focus on that particular issue.
Mr. LAHOOD. Have you had a chance to focus on 13–C and Davis–Bacon? I am sure you know there has been a lot of testimony about that before this committee and other committees, and a lot of discussion about that on both sides, and I wondered if you or your administration or the President have focused on if that kind of language to eliminate either one of those two provisions were included in bills, have you taken a position on that?
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Secretary PEÑA. Congressman, the President through the Vice President, has said that he would oppose efforts to repeal Davis–Bacon, but not to amend Davis–Bacon, and in fact last year we did as an administration provide a compromise and a modification and a refinement of Davis–Bacon to address at least some of the concerns that were raised about Davis–Bacon. That didn't pass.
And I would presume that we would continue to be interested in working with the Congress to make adjustments that we think are necessary and helpful for Davis–Bacon, but as the administration has said, repealing Davis–Bacon is something that we would oppose.
Mr. LAHOOD. Has any consideration been given to 13–C?
Secretary PEÑA. There has also been internal discussions about 13–C. I know that in the case, for example, of Amtrak, that Mr. Downs, the President of Amtrak is having discussions with labor about how to make some adjustments to 13–C. Now decisions or conclusions have been reached, but I know that there has been some exploratory talks about 13–C.
Mr. LAHOOD. I, too, want to offer my good words to you, Mr. Secretary, for the good work that you do on behalf of transportation all over the country. And I know that you and your people work very, very hard. And I appreciate the good work that goes on there.
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Thank you, very much.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Mr. Mineta.
Mr. MINETA. Mr. Chairman, I apologize to you, Mr. Secretary, and Mr. Slater, for not being here for your presentation, and all I can really do is to echo the words of our very fine colleague from Illinois, Mr. LaHood, in commending you for the job that you do. Really, when you look at it from a policy perspective as well as things that are getting done, you are reorganizing, you are directing your financial resources, as limited as they are, to make sure you get the biggest bang for the buck. And you can see that across the country. So I just want to say thank you very much, and I apologize for not having been here. But I was testifying before Mr. Clinger's committee on capital budgeting and it doesn't include taking the trust funds off of budget, Mr. Secretary.
Mr. PETRI. Are there further questions?
If not, on that note the hearing is adjourned.
Thank you very much.
Secretary PEÑA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. SLATER. Thank you.
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[Whereupon, at 3:13 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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