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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
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1, 1995
U.S. House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Surface Transportation,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to recess, at 10:58 a.m. in room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Thomas E. Petri (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. PETRI. The Subcommittee on Surface Transportation will commence with our second hearing on legislation to approve the National Highway System—NHS—and ancillary issues relating to highway and transit programs.
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Mr. Rahall.
Mr. RAHALL. I have no opening statement. I do want to welcome our distinguished colleagues from the other body, both former members of this Body, Senator Ben Campbell and Senator Olympia Snowe.
I know that we have had hearings on today's agenda in the previous Congress, and these two colleagues of ours have provided valuable input, and their testimony today will be important to us. I welcome them to the subcommittee.
Mr. PETRI. Are there other opening statements? Representative Young, you are on the first panel, and this can count for both, I think?
Mr. YOUNG. Do you want me to go down there or stay up here?
Mr. PETRI. You can stay right there.
Mr. YOUNG. All right. Whenever you are ready.
Mr. PETRI. Go ahead.
TESTIMONY OF HON. DON YOUNG, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM ALASKA
Mr. YOUNG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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I do welcome Ben Campbell for being one of the first witnesses, and I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing and for the opportunity to testify on H.R. 899, the bill I have submitted.
I have a longer statement which I will send to the committee and ask to be submitted for the record. I'll just briefly summarize my views now.
H.R. 899 repeals the penalty on States without mandatory helmet laws. It does not address mandatory seatbelt laws.
Alaska, along with 24 other States, refuses to enact mandatory helmet laws for all riders. They refuse because they are trying to protect what few State rights haven't been taken away from them already.
Alaska's resistance to the mandatory helmet law has been strengthened because the Federal Government is the one telling them to pass it.
Section 153 penalty has failed to force half the States to pass helmet laws, so we should get rid of it. There seems to be no point in taking badly needed construction money away from the States which have decided mandatory helmet laws are not appropriate.
I am a big believer, as an ex-motorcyclist—and I say ''ex'' respectfully, after two legs—I believe in safety, education, and training for motorcycle riders.
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Most States and all motorcycle rider organizations have taken the initiative to provide education and training, both of which improve safety. This should be encouraged. But as far as the mandatory helmet law is concerned, let's leave this to each State to decide. Users of roads pay taxes to build roads, not to hold the money up as bait to traps States into passing laws they don't want.
Mr. Chairman, this is a matter of philosophy on my behalf and, as I said, as a motorcycle rider for many, many years I think it should be left up to the State.
I do compliment those involved in this legislation, and I would suggest respectfully this bill has a lot of co-sponsors, we're going to get more, and hopefully we'll bring it to the floor of the House.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
[The prepared statements of Mr. Petri and Mr. Poshard follow:]
[Insert here.]
Mr. PETRI. Are there other opening statements?
[No response.]
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Mr. PETRI. Very good.
The first panel is Don Young, who we just heard; Olympia Snowe, who I don't believe is here, but whose statement will be made a part of the record; and the Honorable Ben Nighthorse Campbell, who we are very happy to have here today.
The floor is yours, sir.
TESTIMONY OF HON. BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, A U.S. SENATOR FROM COLORADO
Senator CAMPBELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am delighted to be back with my many friends.
Before Don Young leaves, I read with interest that he has a bearskin nailed to the back of his office. That certainly commands my respect.
I'm delighted that he would carry a bill for which we have worked for a number of years, which is the repeal of the section dealing with mandatory helmets in the original ISTEA Act.
We, as you know, are embroiled in a long debate. We are on our 22nd day over there, and 150-something hours, on the balanced budget amendment, and maybe somewhat stalled after you passed it over here.
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The other bill that I thought was long overdue was the bill that you did pass and we did, and is now signed into law, which was the unfunded mandates bill. So I think it is really relevant and timely to take up this discussion again about Federal Government forcing States to do things which are totally unnecessary.
I won't go through all the history of the ISTEA Act. You know it as well I do. But 899, which Congressman Young introduced, was introduced by Olympia Snowe twice when she was here in this Body before she came over to the Senate, and was introduced by Senator Durenberger on the Senate side. It was also introduced by me after Senator Durenberger decided to retire.
So far we have not got enough support for that bill to move it, but I really believe that the mood is changing and that the unfunded mandates bill really brought this into focus.
Last week I met with representatives of the Colorado Department of Transportation, and they brought up unfunded mandates. On their agenda they asked for relief of three things: one was crumb rubber requirement, one was future metrification, and the last of the three which they considered priority items to them to be changed or repealed was the mandatory helmet law.
Our Legislature in Colorado has repeatedly voted down helmet law legislation. We had it until 1977, by the way. They repealed it then. There have been a number of attempts to reinstate it, but it has been defeated. In fact, it hasn't even gotten out of committee the last few years.
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So Colorado, like many States, believe in their independence and believe the Federal Government has a role to play, but certainly should not erode States' rights, and this is certainly a States' rights issue.
We believe in Colorado, like most people do, that we are not opposed to safety programs. We understand the constant emphasis we have to give to safety education and to try to reduce death and accidents on the highway. We simply think there are better ways to do it than to mandate things through the Federal Government.
We see it, as many States do—something like 25 States have rejected this Federal mandate—we see it as a form of blackmail.
We all know very well that helmets simply won't prevent accidents. Anybody that tells you they will prevent accidents hasn't been on a motorcycle or spent very much time on the highway at all. In fact, the evidence very clearly indicates that the most effective way to reduce accidents is through comprehensive education programs.
I have just recently introduced a bill, in fact, as an alternative to the total repeal that Olympia Snowe is carrying on the Senate side, that I introduced last year which would say basically that if a State has rider education training in place that they would not be penalized by the Federal Government under the ISTEA provision.
The national average of motorcycle fatalities per 100 accidents is 2.95, but States with rider education, as we have, and no helmet bill, however, have the lowest death rate, which is 2.56 fatalities per 100 accidents. States with mandatory helmet laws and no training, on the other hand, have a significantly higher rate of 3.9 fatalities per every 100 accidents.
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Very clearly, we have the statistics to prove, at least in our opinion, that it is rider training that does the saving of lives, not helmets. In fact, there is not one single manufacturer, and no Federal agency, that will guarantee helmets over 15 miles an hour anyway, so I don't even see the reason for wearing them.
Yet, there are a number of studies that have proven that they cut down peripheral vision, they cut down hearing, and in many cases give agonizing headaches to riders that have to wear them.
But the real question isn't whether you think they should or shouldn't; the question is: do we believe in choice of the individual.
In our State of Colorado, for instance, I think we've had five deaths on the ski slopes this winter, alone. The question: is the Federal Government going to require all skiers to wear helmets?
I understand that some fatalities have even been attributed to too much sunshine, being out in the sun too long. Should the Federal Government require everybody to carry sun screen with them?
There have been something like four times more deaths in the last year from children falling out of high chairs than there have been motorcycle accidents. Are we going to mandate that every baby wears a helmet in a high chair?
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There are 10 times more deaths in automobiles from head injuries than there are motorcycles. Shall we require everybody that drives a car to wear a helmet and threaten the States that we'll reduce their funding to the construction of highways if they don't wear a helmet?
It is really a question of choice, and I think that, as Congress was kind of on a pell mell roll a few years ago to mandate that you wear certain protections and certain things for every activity, every recreational activity, that mood is beginning to change and I think that pendulum is beginning to come back to the side of common sense.
It is no question. I own a motorcycle. In fact I have got a number of them. I started riding when I was 16 and have 11. My whole family rides. So you might say I am more than casually interested in this bill, and I know the burden it places on people to have to wear them.
I would like, in closing, Mr. Chairman, to tell you a story, since Olympia has not shown up yet. This is a true story, but it is somewhat humorous.
Motorcycles are pretty heavy, as you know. Last summer mine fell off the wash stand and it was laying on its side and I wrestled it back up on its wheels. These things weigh about 750 pounds. I felt a pain when I wrestled it back up to its wheels.
I'm going to tell you the story really to emphasize the mindset there seems to be about helmets and motorcycles. I don't care what kind of an accident happens, the first thing somebody asks you is, ''Were you wearing your helmet?'' Many times it doesn't have a damn thing to do with anything, but they ask you, ''Were you wearing your helmet?''
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Well, my motorcycle fell of the stand when I was washing the thing. I wrestled it back up, I got a pain, and I went to the doctor a few months later as the pain increased and found out I had a hernia from lifting too heavy a weight, the bike.
I went out just less than a month ago—in fact, 3 weeks ago—to Bethesda, and I had it fixed. When I came back—I was out of the office a few days—I met a man from Colorado. He asked me where I had been. He said he had been looking for me. I told him I was out of the office. He got kind of nosy and said, ''Well, where were you?'' I was kind of hedging. I didn't want to really tell him, but he kept after it. I said, ''I was in the hospital.''
He said, ''What happened to you?'' I was still kind of hedging, and I said, ''Well, I had to have this little operation. It was no big thing.''
He said, ''What happened? What kind of an operation?'' He was really pressing it, so I said, ''I had this little accident with my motorcycle.'' He said, ''Were you wearing your helmet?''
That indicates the kind of mind set we face. I don't know where he thought I was supposed to wear a helmet for a hernia, but it doesn't make any difference what happens with a motorcycle, the first thing that comes up is, ''Were you wearing your helmet?''
We believe that we ought to recategorize this whole discussion, not about whether you were or weren't, or whether you should be forced to or should not.
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I know the chairman, Congressman Petri, has been a great advocate of repealing that very, very oppressive part of the ISTEA Act, and I certainly appreciate his support. I look forward to working with you and hope that this year we'll be able to get this repealed.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Senator CAMPBELL. I see my colleague has shown up.
Mr. PETRI. Perfect timing.
Senator CAMPBELL. I want to certainly commend her for the hard work she has done on this issue, too.
Senator SNOWE. I feel like it is deja vu.
Mr. PETRI. Every 2 years Olympia testifies before this committee, but now she has to come a little further.
We're happy to welcome you today.
TESTIMONY OF HON. OLYMPIA J. SNOWE, A U.S. SENATOR FROM MAINE
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Senator SNOWE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I want to congratulate you in your new capacity as chairman, and I want to recognize the ranking member, Mr. Rahall, and members of the committee. It is a pleasure to be here on this side and to be back in my building where I had an office and spent a lot of time, and to see a lot of my colleagues and friends.
It is a pleasure to be here with my colleague, Mr. Campbell, because he has really been a leader on this issue over the years. In fact, we testified—I think it was 2 years ago—on this issue here before this very subcommittee. So I appreciate this opportunity once again to testify.
I know this is an issue that's very familiar to some of the members of the committee, and particularly you, Mr. Chairman, but I hope that, as you are considering the reauthorization of the national highway system, that you will repeal the penalty that is contained in section 153 that does impose a penalty on those States that have not enacted motorcycle helmet laws.
There are currently 25 States who do not have such laws. In fact, since the time that penalty went into effect back in 1992 as part of the ISTEA legislation, only one State has enacted motorcycle helmet laws.
I think that this is a good example of the kind of legislation that will be important if we are demonstrating that we want to reduce the interference and the scope of the Federal Government and the excessive reaches of the Federal Government. This is one way that we can demonstrate that we are willing to do that.
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I think that it is certainly unfair to tell States that the Federal Government is going to dictate exactly what kind of legislative initiatives you are going to undertake, or what kind of laws you are going to pass in order to be eligible for existing funds.
As you well know, section 153 penalizes those States by withholding in fiscal year 1995 1.5 percent of their highway funds from three different accounts and transferring them to section 402 safety programs. Forty-two States already have motorcycle rider education programs. In fact, in many States, including my State, they impose fees on motorcycle licenses and registration as a way of funding those programs. Those 42 States collect $13 million in any fiscal year to support the rider education programs.
If you look at the accident fatality rates, you will see that many of the reasons why people have accidents isn't because they aren't wearing a helmet or because the helmet is an issue, it is because they have not taken any formal education for riding a motorcycle and driving a motorcycle, or alcohol is a major contributing factor, or the fact they don't have licenses.
So there are a number of different reasons as to why these accidents do occur but, more importantly, if you look at the fatality rate regarding motorcycles, it, in fact, declined between 1980 and 1992 by 52 percent even before this penalty went into effect.
I think that the States have the right and the responsibility to determine whether or not they want to invest more funds in their rider education programs. They have been proven to be very effective programs. That's why States already have them in place.
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But to say to the States, ''We are going to withhold 1.5 percent of your highway funds in 1 fiscal year, and double that penalty in fiscal year 1996 because you are not willing to enact a certain law.''
It is one thing to create incentives for States to adopt laws; it is quite another to say to States, ''We're going to penalize you for the existing funds that you have relied on traditionally for highway improvement programs.''
The fact of the matter is, we are penalizing States from improving and upgrading their road systems when it is absolutely vital and necessary for them to have those upgradings, and penalizing them by putting more money into rider education which they have already in place.
So I would hope that this committee would look favorably upon repealing section 153. I think it is a great way of setting an example that we are going to have a less intrusive Federal Government.
I know that the National Conference of State Legislatures supports repealing it. Many State transportation departments across this country support repealing it. I think it is certainly the right direction to go, and I would hope that we can take this action this year. I hope that this committee, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, will look favorably upon such action.
Thank you.
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Mr. PETRI. I'd like to thank you both for your testimony. I understand you have scheduling conflicts and have to leave shortly, but if there are questions I would be happy to—I think you probably could take a few questions.
Do you have any?
[No response.]
Mr. PETRI. Then thank you very much.
I just had one. Is there similar legislation in the Senate? Do you have any idea what the schedule for it might be?
Senator SNOWE. On the reauthorization or this specific repeal?
Mr. PETRI. On the repeal.
Senator SNOWE. Yes. I have introduced that legislation in the Senate, and the counterpart is the legislation that has been introduced by Congressman Young. It is the same legislation, which really repeals section 153 as it applies to motorcycle helmet laws.
Senator CAMPBELL. This, I might mention, is the third time around for that particular legislation, Mr. Chairman.
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Senator SNOWE. Yes. That's right.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you very much for your testimony. We appreciate your coming.
Senator SNOWE. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. The second panel is made up of our colleagues, the Honorable Larry Combest from Texas, and the Honorable Scott Klug from the State of Wisconsin.
I don't see Scott yet, but Representative Combest is here, and you're welcome to proceed.
TESTIMONY OF HON. LARRY COMBEST, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM TEXAS
Mr. COMBEST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
How long do you set your timers? I want to be sure I abide by that.
Mr. PETRI. Five minutes.
Mr. COMBEST. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I thank you for allowing me the opportunity to testify about my bill, H.R. 427, which would repeal the national maximum speed limit and corresponding compliance rules, allowing States to set speed limits.
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A native of West Texas, I have driven hundreds of thousands of miles through rural America and know first-hand the burden resulting from the establishment of the national speed limit. It is for this reason I have been a strong supporter of allowing States the ability to set their own speed limits since I was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
The current national maximum 55 mile-an-hour speed limit was passed at the height of the energy crisis in 1974. It sought to encourage motorists to drive fewer miles in order to conserve fuel. It was set to expire in June 1975.
Motorist fatalities also declined at the same time, so the 55-mile-an-hour speed limit was never terminated after the oil embargo was lifted. However, the decline in fatalities was also attributed to such factors as fewer people driving due to the gasoline shortage
In addition, other safety mechanisms have contributed to safer roadways, such as expanded seatbelt usage, a crackdown on drunk driving, safer automobile and highway designs which accommodate higher speeds, and increased driver skill, not necessarily lower speed limits.
There is no disputing the disregard that exists for the national maximum speed limit. Because it has been arbitrarily set and does not reflect a reasonable speed, only 10 to 15 percent of the motorists actually comply with the 55-mile-an-hour national maximumspeed limit.
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On Route 50 in Maryland, 85 percent of motorists exceed the 55-mile-an-hour speed limit, an argument Maryland Governor Parris Glendenning is using to increase the speed on rural interstates to 65.
Studies have also concluded that the vast highway speed differences among motorists traveling the same roadways generally contribute to accidents. Even the Federal Government realizes motorists were not complying with the 55-mile-an-hour speed limit and it readjusted its speed statistics used to measure State compliance. States are given room to fudge their reports using a formula based on speedometer, statistical, or speed measurement equipment errors. Motorists continue to disobey the 55-mile-an-hour speed limit, making the compliance rules hypocritical.
This bean counting adds unnecessary cost to States, money which could be utilized elsewhere.
Of course, I believe the safety of motorists is paramount; however, speed limits are best decided by States and their drivers based on a State's uniqueness and safety factors such as traffic flow, lay of the land, and design of the roadway—but not emotion. Even the President's national performance review emphasized empowering State and local governments to address their individual needs by getting the Federal Government off their backs and decentralizing the decision-making power.
The national maximum speed limit is antiquated. States are not going to set speed limits artificially high. They want responsible, safe motorist speeds and will set their speed limits accordingly. This is why I have introduced my measure. It is time we give the States back the authority over their speed limits on their own roadways and I strongly encourage the subcommittee to support enactment of H.R. 427.
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Mr. Chairman, the National Governors Association, the American Association of State and Highway Transportation Officials, and the National Motorist Association support my efforts.
I would like to submit for the record additional information that further addresses concerns with and ultimately supports the elimination of the national maximum speed limit.
I appreciate the opportunity to testify, and would yield back my time, sir.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you very much.
Are there questions of our colleague?
Mr. LaHood.
Mr. LAHOOD. What would you set the speed limit at?
Mr. COMBEST. The choice would be left up to the States to make that determination. As you know, it is a State's prerogative now, if they choose, to raise the speed limit on rural interstates to 65. That is the maximum.
What I would suggest is that we take away the punitive punishments placed upon States for not complying and allow the States, as was done prior to the 1974 oil embargo, to set their own speed limits based upon their own uniqueness.
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Mr. LAHOOD. How do you address the criticism that people say with respect to safety and the fact that lowering the speed limit has reduced the incidents of deaths and accidents on the highways?
Mr. COMBEST. As I mentioned, Mr. LaHood, in my testimony, there certainly has been a reduction in highway deaths. There are many other factors that are attributed to that: seatbelt laws, driver awareness, cracking down on drunk driving. In fact, it appears that there is a—I do not have the actual statistics, but it appears that there is a concern where there are varieties of speed limits.
Statistics do show, that even in States that have the 55-mile-an-hour speed limit, it is quite common that the speed limits are, in fact, exceeded.
I do think that safety is a course of primary concern to a State and would be of primary concern as they were setting the speed limit. I would much rather that the governor of the State of Texas be able to decide the speed limit, for a stretch of four-lane highway that may be 150 miles long with no curves—and that occurs in Texas. This is a somewhat unique stretch of highway and the authority to make that decision should be based upon what Texas has done in terms of their own highway system and of the uniqueness of the State, and all other 49 States should, as well.
Certainly, safety is a primary concern.
Mr. LAHOOD. What do you think the speed limit would be in Texas if the governor and Legislature could work their will?
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Mr. COMBEST. I couldn't tell you. It would only be speculation. But I would presume that it would be consistent with what is the speed limit on rural interstates at this time on rural four-lanes, which I would assume would be 65; however, I do not know that for certain nor have I asked the governor what it might be.
I recall at one time, years ago, prior to the setting of the national-maximum speed limit, I believe it was the State of Nevada that had no speed limit. There were some States that had none. That was based upon driving conditions at the time.
But, again, the choice is for the State. Let the people within the State of Texas or Oklahoma or Illinois make the determination with their State legislators and their governors to determine the speed limit in that State.
I'm not suggesting that it be any specific speed limit. I'm just suggesting that the States should be able to make this decision.
Mr. LAHOOD. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Mr. Laughlin.
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Mr. LAUGHLIN. Mr. Combest, does your bill require the State to raise limits?
Mr. COMBEST. No. It does not. It only allows the State to set it and would remove the punitive damages that could be imposed by withholding Federal highway funds from the States.
Mr. LAUGHLIN. In fact, in your bill the State could lower limits if the——
Mr. COMBEST. Absolutely.
Mr. LAUGHLIN.——transportation authority——
Mr. COMBEST. States could lower limits today, but in terms of setting the maximum, the determination would be by the State.
Mr. LAUGHLIN. Can you give us any reasonable explanation why some parts of your district where it is sparsely populated have substantially lower speed limits than are on interstates in what is defined to be rural settings?
Mr. COMBEST. I am not—I didn't understand the question.
Mr. LAUGHLIN. On interstates you can have 65 mile an hour speed limits——
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Mr. COMBEST. That's correct.
Mr. LAUGHLIN.——when they are outside the metropolitan areas.
Mr. COMBEST. That's right.
Mr. LAUGHLIN. Can you give us any justification for having lower speed limits on a sparsely-populated area of your district on a highway that doesn't have many vehicles on it?
Mr. COMBEST. I cannot.
Mr. LAUGHLIN. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Mr. Barcia, do you have any questions?
Mr. BARCIA. No, sir.
Mr. PETRI. Representative Fowler.
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Mrs. FOWLER. No questions.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Yes, sir, Mr. Brewster.
Mr. BREWSTER. We junior members are sometimes hard to see.
Mr. Combest, I'd like to ask you a couple of questions and make a couple of comments.
What is the length of your district?
Mr. COMBEST. About 400 miles from one end to the other.
Mr. BREWSTER. Mine is 240 miles by 280 miles. As one who has traveled across your district quite a bit, it occurs to me that a high percentage of the people in your district are speeding, yet I have noticed on occasion you have some roads that a car only goes down maybe every 3 days.
Mr. COMBEST. On a good day, that's right.
Mr. BREWSTER. I think the numbers would show that, even though a high percentage of your people are speeding, probably the incidents of wrecks is much lower than in Dallas or Houston or San Antonio that maintains a very close 55-mile-an-hour speed limit.
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Along with that, as one who has traveled the autobahn several times in Europe where there is no speed limit, I have noticed the percentages and number of wrecks over there per capita is far lower than in the U.S.
Do you think there is any correlation to the fact that the individual entities can set their own speed limits because of conditions in their State, because of traffic patterns in their State, as far as the autobahn is concerned, and do you think that would be helpful in your State?
Mr. COMBEST. Certainly, as the gentleman has done fact finding in my district previously, that is the uniqueness of a State. Not every State, I'm sure, would find this would be something that would be appealing to them. However, there are those areas where roads were created years ago and have been upgraded since, with a speed limit in mind of 70—not 65. I know that driving back and forth from Washington years before the speed limit changed there were several States, I believe Arkansas and Tennessee, that had 75 mile-an-hour maximum speed limit on the interstates. Those highways were designed for that. Automobiles are designed for that.
Actuality, as you mentioned, where there are many rural four-lanes in Texas that actually don't carry a great deal of traffic, it does seem to be somewhat an antiquated law.
It might not be the case everywhere, but it would give the governor of Texas, for instance, the opportunity to make that decision in those areas of four-lanes within the State of Texas, as it would in Oklahoma and other States.
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Certainly, there are some areas that this would not be applicable to, but I would prefer the judgment of the governor of that State rather than Washington to make that decision.
Mr. BREWSTER. Mr. Combest, I noticed in your district, too, if you were to leave the highway accidentally you probably would hit a cotton field or pasture, so it is pretty safe.
Finally, could you find room for me to co-sponsor your bill?
Mr. COMBEST. I would be very happy to add the gentleman from Oklahoma.
Mr. BREWSTER. Thank you.
Mr. COMBEST. I appreciate his interest in that.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Tucker, did you have any questions?
Mr. TUCKER. I think Mr. Poshard does.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Poshard, go ahead.
Mr. POSHARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Mr. Combest, whether it was real or contrived, the situation in the late 1970s with respect to the energy crisis brought about these changes in speed limits across the country, and so on. Is there any reason to suspect that we need to continue these speed limits that are currently in force because of any energy problems that we have in this country that necessitates conservation?
Mr. COMBEST. That's an extremely good question, and I would suspect that the gentleman from Oklahoma sitting to your right would also be very willing to engage in that conversation about the energy crisis being contrived or real.
I think unquestionably the energy crisis in the 1970s was real. I would be remiss, however, if I did not add that if we happen to have another one due to the fact that we have had even a much worse turn in domestic oil and gas production—the one in the 1970s is going to seem like a cake walk.
In terms of an energy crisis today, with over 50 percent of the crude oil used on a daily basis imported into this country, unfortuntely, I don't believe there is perceived anywhere in this country an energy crisis. This is because one does not have to wait at a service station, as we did in the 1970s if you happen to have an even number license plate every other day—Tuesday, Thursday or Monday, Wednesday, Friday, whatever the case might be, to be able to buy two gallons.
Home-heating oil and all other energy sources that create the bulk of our energy used in this country are certainly in adequate supply.
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I think the argument ran out years ago from a consumption standpoint. I do believe that motorists, as well as homeowners, are continuing to be energy conscious, and we are seeing that. The automobile I drive today, compared with the one I drove in the 1970s, gets substantially greater gas mileage, has substantially more power, room, and comfort, so the automobile industry is moving down that line.
I think energy conservation is something we should all be concerned about but, as noted in my testimony, the requirement for lower speed limit was set to die 1 year after it was imposed back in 1973 and did not, as you know.
But from an energy conservation standpoint, I don't know that one could stretch that argument quite far enough to make it applicable to today's speed limits.
Mr. POSHARD. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Tucker.
Mr. TUCKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Combest, thank you for your testimony. Certainly I appreciate your proposition about delivering more empowerment to the States on this matter.
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My question is: obviously, aside from the energy issue that Mr. Poshard brought up, there is obviously a safety concern. When the 55 mph speed limit was implemented, I'm sure that factored into it.
Now, when you talked about unique or particular roads, whether they be in rural Texas or wherever, some of those roads, as you indicated, may have been designed for 70 or 75 miles an hour.
At some point there has to be a line drawn as to what is beyond safety. Would your bill be adverse to some type of a ceiling? In other words, empower the States to decide but, nonetheless, have some type of a national ceiling or some type of a ceiling not to exceed 75 miles an hour or 80 miles an hour? What would your position be on that?
Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Tucker, in response to the gentleman's question from Illinois, Mr. LaHood, I don't perceive what that might be. I think within a State that it certainly should be left up to them.
Reality tells me, however, that by establishing a ceiling somewhere in that area, even though, for example, we have been able to raise it to 65 on rural interstates in States that have determined to do so, it can only go up to 65.
I certainly believe that would be something that could be lived with. I'd rather it not be 60. We'd like it to be at least equivalent to what it could be on interstates today, but I think that is a very reasonable approach.
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I want to come back to sort of the end verse of what you were suggesting. There is a point in which obviously speed becomes dangerous. Safety must be a prime concern. But I do think that, given the wisdom of the governor of a State, based upon the highway construction, the State could make that decision.
If safety is going to be the only reason we leave it at 55, how low do we have to set it to establish that to create safety? If we are saving ''X '' number of lives between 65 and 55, what happens if we lower it to 45 or 35 or 20, or ban the use of automobiles altogether?
If the argument is that we have to leave it at 55 if we are going to maintain safety—I'm not suggesting you are arguing that. I'm just suggesting that sometimes it is part of the debate—then maybe we should consider lowering it to 45 if that is the only goal.
I think that we are looking at massive numbers of motorists today who are exceeding the speed limit, in a variety of States, because the conditions allow them to do so. I think you would—again, this is purely speculation, but I think you would see the number of people exceeding the national maximum speed limit would be fewer at a higher speed limit. There would be much more of a uniformity of the movement of traffic than there is today instead of the quite irregular amount of movement on the highway with many people speeding and many who are not.
Mr. TUCKER. My point was—and I appreciate that. My point was that yes, leave it up to the States and, as you said, the governors in their respective wisdom would probably set it at 60, 65, maybe 70 or 75, but hopefully there could be some type of study or——
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Mr. COMBEST. A cap that could not be exceeded? I think that is a realistic approach. As I said, I'd rather it be higher than 60 if we cap it, but I think that's a very reasonable approach.
Mr. TUCKER. Thank you.
Mr. COMBEST. I would leave that to the wisdom of this committee and would not suggest such an amendment myself, but I think I certainly would not consider that to be unreasonable.
Mr. TUCKER. Thank you, Mr. Combest.
Mr. COMBEST. Thank you, sir.
Mr. PETRI. Representative LaHood.
Mr. LAHOOD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Congressman Combest, if the State of Texas were to eliminate the speed limit, how much revenue would be lost by the result of the fact that people would not be paying fines for speeding or the lack of a seatbelt, if that's a law in Texas, or whatever? Do you have any notion of that?
Mr. COMBEST. Seatbelts are a law, and I don't know what it would be. I don't know what the cost would be in terms of the reduced revenue due to the number of tickets which are issued. However, I think it very easily could be offset by the amount of revenue that would be increased by the fact that people would have a whole lot more time to do work rather than spend their time on the road.
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Here if you drive 30 miles it seems like a long way and it may take you 2 hours. In Texas, it's not uncommon to spend that 2 hours driving—with the speed limit I'm sure it would be no more than 110 miles—but one has to cover much longer distances there. I'm sure people productivity would increase equally.
Mr. LAHOOD. Have you ever heard that as an argument against——
Mr. COMBEST. I have not, Mr. LaHood. Obviously, I'm being a little facetious in this.
Mr. LAUGHLIN. Would the gentleman yield for just an observation in support of what Mr. Combest is saying?
Mr. LAHOOD. Yes, sir.
Mr. LAUGHLIN. In a 3-day weekend in my district I'll average over 1,000 miles driving, and no one would think of doing that in the northeast. Mr. Combest's district is comparable in size to mine. So it demonstrates that what may be good law in Connecticut or Rhode Island or Virginia or Maryland doesn't work in the sparsely-populated areas of our country, not only in our State but Montana, Nevada, and the wide open spaces. So I think Mr. Combest's point is well made.
Mr. BREWSTER. If the gentleman would yield further?
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Mr. LAHOOD. Yes, sir.
Mr. BREWSTER. As another one who spends a lot of 1,000 mile weekends in my district, if the State of Texas was fearful of losing that revenue, they would have no reason to increase the speed limit. It would be their decision, though. I don't think it is up to us to determine about the revenue from tickets. Let the governor and the Legislature of the State of Texas or Oklahoma, or whatever State, worry about that.
If the revenue is such that they can't afford to lose it, I'm sure they wouldn't raise the limit.
Mr. LAHOOD. Are law enforcement people generally supportive of what you are trying to do here, Mr. Combest?
Mr. COMBEST. I don't recall, Mr. Lahood—and I can get this information for you—the official position of the Texas Department of Public Safety, which is our highway patrol there. I can tell you that the individual who is the executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation volunteered to appear with me today in support of this bill and with any statistics, numbers, or whatever. In fact, I think he will probably be appearing before this committee at some point. He strongly supports it.
Mr. LAHOOD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Are there other questions of Representative Combest?
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[No response.]
Mr. PETRI. Thank you very much.
Representative Klug, welcome. We look forward to your testimony.
TESTIMONY OF HON. SCOTT KLUG, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM WISCONSIN
Mr. KLUG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will keep my remarks brief to make sure that you stay on schedule.
I support what my colleague from Texas is trying to do, but actually would like to up the ante substantially and suggest that it may be time for the Federal Government to back off on all enforced mandates and financial penalties connected with speed limits, drinking laws, helmet laws, and all four of them.
The State of Wisconsin at this point stands to lose roughly $28 million a year in transportation funds if it doesn't comply with any of these Federal mandates.
Actually, the great motivation in my case for this comes because of my concern and the concern of the Wisconsin State Legislature over helmet laws.
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I had an opportunity to meet in December and January with members of the Wisconsin State Legislature specifically talking about unfunded Federal mandates and their impacts on the State of Wisconsin and the cost. During that discussion, Wisconsin now finds itself in a situation where, in this calendar year, it either has to pass a helmet law or else face substantial financial penalties from the Federal Government.
Mr. Chairman, as you well know, Wisconsin had, for a number of years, a helmet law provision and then decided to repeal the helmet law and instead replace it with a motorcycle education safety program. Statistics given to me by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation clearly indicate that States that have education programs like Wisconsin have fewer accidents than do States that have mandatory helmet laws, have fewer serious accidents than do States that have helmet laws, and have fewer fatalities.
First of all, wearing a helmet oftentimes makes it very difficult to hear adequately. Wearing a helmet oftentimes I think makes riders think they are safer than they are. Finally, wearing a motorcycle helmet in many cases actually leads to a whole series of serious neck injuries connected with wearing the helmet, period.
So, as this committee decides to debate these financial penalties, let me suggest to you that if we are going to relieve States of the burdens and financial mandates from the Federal Government on speed limits, as Mr. Combest suggested, or on motorcycle helmet laws, or on seatbelt laws, or on drinking laws, we should do all four of them at once.
This is a decision I think fundamentally and philosophically belongs in State capitals. It should be the people of Madison deciding whether people should wear motorcycle helmets or not in the State of Wisconsin. It should be the people in Austin deciding what the speed limit is in Texas. It shouldn't be the Federal Government, itself.
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That's the extent of my testimony. I'd be delighted to answer any questions for the record.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you very much for your testimony.
Representative Rahall, do you have any questions?
Mr. RAHALL. No. I don't have any specific questions of our colleague.
I just want to say to you, Scott, that if you convince our distinguished colleague, Mr. Young, the chairman of the Resources Committee—I wish he were in the room at the present time—to move our mining law bill, which you and I jointly co-sponsored, through his committee as is, then I would be glad to read your testimony further.
Mr. KLUG. Actually, I said nice things about you in the Budget Committee yesterday because in a discussion of privatization projects, actually ranking member Sabo raised a question about mining reform and the potential revenue to the Federal Government.
It seems to me, in a whole series of discussions about how to offset the Federal deficit, one of the first things we should do what I think is one of the greatest inequities in Federal law today in terms of mining regulations.
So if you read that testimony you'll see I said nice things about you, which makes me lead to the conclusion you'll read the rest of my testimony later today.
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Mr. PETRI. Mr. LaHood.
Mr. LAHOOD. Do you, Mr. Klug, support any of these laws? If you were a member of the Wisconsin State Legislature, what would your feeling be about these four concerns that you have that have been mandated from the Federal Government?
Mr. KLUG. If I had to vote in the Wisconsin State Legislature—and clearly I'm not a member, so it is a hypothetical question—I think I would vote to allow Wisconsin to maintain a motorcycle education program rather than a helmet law. I suspect I would vote in some rural areas to raise the speed limit above what the Federal standards are today. And I would likely vote to lower the drinking age to 19 rather than 21, which it is today. But since I'm not in the Wisconsin State Legislature, that's the governor's decision and the State Legislature's to do.
Mr. LAHOOD. Your argument is basically a States' rights argument?
Mr. KLUG. Absolutely and fundamentally.
Mr. LAHOOD. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Mineta, do you have anything?
Mr. MINETA. No questions, other than to thank Scott for testifying before us. I appreciate it. Thank you.
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Mr. PETRI. Mr. Brewster.
Mr. BREWSTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Klug, I certainly support part of your legislation here, but there are a couple of points I would like to ask about.
Number one, I noticed in the FBI figures for 1993 that I received a few days ago there were more people killed by drunk drivers in 1993 than by all firearms. Don't you believe that by reducing the drinking age that you encourage younger people to drink who may or may not be responsible?
Mr. KLUG. That's a fair question. Again, I'll say this one more time, just to make my point very clear.
I don't think it is my decision one way or the other up here. If Wisconsin wants to make the drinking age 19 or 29, that's their decision, not mine.
But let me make two points.
First of all, if you look at the accident rates involving drinking and driving for young people between the ages of 21 and 25, it has actually been cut in half over the last 10 years, and I think that reflects just changes in society and attitudes towards drinking today.
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I think if you actually look back at the statistics in Wisconsin when 19-year-olds were allowed to drink and 19-year-olds were then banned from drinking until they reached the age of 21, actually the drunk driving statistics for 19-year-olds had already begun to dip simply because of those social changes.
About 70 percent of all drinking and driving tickets are issued to people under the age of 40, so if you really want to ban it, and if your ultimate goal is to break that link altogether, then you should ban drinking and driving completely under the age of 40.
My sense is that if someone is responsible enough at 19 to join the military or responsible enough at 19 to get married, then they should be trusted by society to drink responsibly, and if they violate that responsibility then they should be heavily penalized, just as somebody should be who is 29 or 49 who drinks and breaks the law.
Mr. BREWSTER. There are probably those who would question the wisdom of marriage at 19, as well.
But, at any rate, I'll have to be a little concerned when we are talking about lowering the drinking age.
The second part, as Mr. Combest was just here with a bill I just co-sponsored, to raise the speed limit, I have to believe that the reduction in fatalities has partially been due to the fact that the seatbelt laws have been in place, and also because of much better equipment we have today than we had 20 or 30 years ago. But the drinking age part would certainly be a factor for me to consider in your legislation. Other than that——
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Mr. LAHOOD. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. BREWSTER. Certainly.
Mr. LAHOOD. On the point that Mr. Brewster makes, Scott, how do you account for the fact that at one time Illinois had a higher drinking age than Wisconsin, and what happened was you had young people traveling across the border so they could drink in Wisconsin and then coming back and getting in accidents? To me, that is a serious problem when you have States that border one another and you have young people crossing over and you have serious fatalities as a result of that. What's your argument for or against that?
Mr. KLUG. There are two ways. Again, back to my fundamental point, that's Madison's or Springfield's decision to make. I think there are ways, for example, you could require people to have in-State I.D.s in order to drink, which was one of the solutions actually kicked around in Wisconsin, when you had not only problems with people jumping across State lines, but we also had problems intrastate with people having different drinking ages and then driving to get across different counties in the State of Wisconsin.
I remember when I was a teenager growing up in Milwaukee it was 21 in Milwaukee County and 18 in Osakee County, which was probably 40 miles away. So that's a very real and very serious problem.
But I think what you have to begin—fundamentally, with my assumption, 19-year-olds, in my opinion, have earned the status in society given the other laws today as adults, and either they are capable of making decisions as adults involving drinking and marriage and joining the military, or they are not capable of making all of those, in which case then no one should be allowed to get married until 21, as Mr. Brewster perhaps was suggesting a minute ago.
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Mr. BREWSTER. I didn't file that bill, Scott.
Mr. KLUG. So I think that border jumping is a very serious concern, and it is not something we should treat lightly. But, again, philosophically, from my perspective, I just want to see all these decisions made at the State capital level.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Baker.
Mr. BAKER. It is good to see you here, Mr. Klug.
I hesitate to ask this question, because it is beer that made Milwaukee great, but if you accepted just the drinking age and got rid of the mandates in ISTEA for crumb rubber, helmets, speed limits, all of the other social feel-goods that we have in ISTEA, would you support it?
Mr. KLUG. Would I support what? ISTEA funding?
Mr. BAKER. No, the removal of all mandates except the drinking age.
Mr. KLUG. Sure. My sense would be any one of these financial penalties that we repeal, or any one of the Federal mandates that we repeal, is a step in the right direction.
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Again, I don't think you were in the room earlier. The major issue in the State of Wisconsin, and what has made me interested in this issue since I first got in in 1990, was a fight over motorcycle helmet laws and the fact that Wisconsin had them on the books, repealed them, replaced them with a safety program where the statistics indicate they are much safer than helmet laws.
So the bottom line for me is if you change one of these four it is terrific. If you change more than four, even better. I just want to see more decisions shifted back to the State capital, which I think is a fundamental, philosophical value that drives many republicans these days.
Mr. BAKER. Basically, I agree with you.
Don Young mentioned earlier today he had to give up motorcycles when he gave up his last knee, so many of the accidents occur to the other parts of the body. So, short of mandating armor, which I hesitate to mention because certain members of this committee will put it into law, we can't make them safe. It is up to the States to decide how you avoid accidents, and your State has been very progressive in this area.
I just have a very hard time voting to lower the drinking age.
Mr. KLUG. But you are not. You are voting to give the States the right to do whatever they choose to do.
Mr. BAKER. In Milwaukee it might be 13. I'm just hesitant to do it. But anyway, on the others you are right on.
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Mr. PETRI. Mr. Tucker.
Mr. TUCKER. No questions.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Barcia.
Mr. BARCIA. No questions.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Latham.
Mr. LATHAM. Scott, I appreciate your testimony, and I think, going to the point that Mr. LaHood brought up about interstate concerns, today I'm from Iowa. Minnesota closes their bars at 1:00 in the morning, Iowa closes at 2:00, and I think Nebraska closes at 1:00. I know you have never been up that late, Doug. And also Illinois, on our other border, stays open until 4:00 in the morning.
Using the rationale that says that young people, if they are 19, or whatever, will go across State lines, we see every night people from Minnesota come to Iowa to close at 2:00, people from Iowa go over to Illinois to close at 4:00.
Continuing the rationale of interstate control, shouldn't this committee have some kind of piece saying that every bar in the country should close at the same time with the chance that someone is going to drive across a State line to have another drink in another State. I think it is the same question.
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Do you have any response?
Mr. KLUG. Actually, I'll tell you also, if you spend any time at all talking to police officials in Wisconsin, or talking to the University of Wisconsin Police—I have 40,000 students on campus in Madison—the idea that somehow because we have passed a 21-year-old drinking age doesn't mean teenagers aren't drinking. It's simply not true. In fact, the number of citations for drinking has soared astronomically, which is obviously common sense.
They will tell you the most dangerous concern is that you now have under-age drinking parties where kids will drive out in rural areas and actually exacerbate the situation versus, if it was legal, in many ways it would be easier to police and may actually create a safer climate than we see today.
Again, I agree with you that I don't think you can guarantee that States are going to have uniform laws in terms of bar closing or drinking or anything else but, again, I hate to keep beating a dead horse on this issue, but my sense is all of these decisions, from speed limits to helmet laws, should be made in State capitals, not in Washington, D.C.
Mr. LATHAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. All right. Are there any other——
Mr. MARTINI. Mr. Chairman, may I?
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Mr. PETRI. Mr. Martini.
Mr. MARTINI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, Scott.
Just to follow up on these inquiries regarding the uniformity of the drinking age, especially between States, being in New Jersey I can also share with you what you have heard already, that each spring, up until there was a uniformity in drinking age, there were often losses of lives by teenagers who would travel across the New Jersey border to Greenwood Lake in New York when it was 18 in New York and 21 in New Jersey, and inevitably on these dark roads on the way home there would be accidents every spring and loss of lives.
I guess, listening to your sentiments with regard to States having the right to regulate these types of things, including seatbelt laws, etc., I guess I'm—you know, I know what you are saying in terms of sentiment about more involvement by States in a lot of Federal issues, but I happen to think that in certain areas there is still a need to have the impact of a Federal intervention because I think it strengthens the respect for that law.
In terms of with the increased mobility of our society now, I have a harder time justifying sending these types of things back to the States. I think, most respectfully, we might be going in the wrong direction. We have a much more mobile society than we did in the 1950s. More people have cars. More people are traveling interstate for a variety of reasons. I just fear that we might be going in a backwards direction in these types of areas.
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I have less trouble with a motorcycle law perhaps, but I think we have seen progress with the seatbelt laws, and I think we have seen savings of lives with the uniformity of the minimum drinking laws.
I agree, in many respects we should go back to the States on a lot of things, but this is one area I'd have great reservations about.
I just thought I would share that with you.
I don't know how we could avoid the losses of lives on the interstate if there is a difference of ages in drinking. I don't think there is any type of police supervision or anything that would avoid that traveling by teenagers and young people from one State to the other to take advantage of that difference in age.
You have answered, I think, most of the questions, but I wanted to share my own personal experience.
Mr. KLUG. And you may be correct, and I think that's a very valuable argument to have. I just think the argument should be in the State capital, not here.
Mr. MARTINI. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. All right. Thank you very much, Scott. We appreciate that.
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The Honorable Doug Bereuter is our next panel.
Our colleague, Greg Laughlin, asked that I include in the record a statement that he wanted to submit, associating himself, I think, with your remarks. He couldn't be here at this time because of an appointment in his office.
[Mr. Laughlin's prepared statement follows:]
[Insert here.]
TESTIMONY OF HON. DOUG BEREUTER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM NEBRASKA
Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Rahall, and members of the subcommittee.
I would like to begin by expressing my appreciation for the opportunity to appear before you to testify in support of H.R. 526, the bill I introduced along with a joint co-sponsor, Mr. Laughlin of Texas, to provide regulatory relief for farmers and farm retailers from hours of service regulations.
The need for this bill I believe is obvious. Each year farmers and their suppliers must be prepared to move quickly and work long hours when the weather permits. During certain weeks of the year there is a small window of opportunity in the crop planting and harvesting season when the demand for farm supplies escalates. Unfortunately, this demand runs headlong into the Department of Transportation's regulations for the number of hours a driver can be on duty.
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To address this problem, I introduced H.R. 526, which exempts farmers and retail farm suppliers from these requirements when operating within 100 miles of their farms or distribution points. That number, by the way, is not an exaggerated number when you consider the sparsity of population in the western part of my State and the number of farm implement dealers that still exists.
DOT's hours of service regulations are highly impractical, burdensome, and costly for farmers and farm suppliers because the law can require them to take 3 days off at the peak of the agricultural production and wait in order to accumulate enough off time to resume driving. This is because DOT regulations define on-duty time as ''all time from the time a driver begins work or is required to be in readiness to work until the time he or she is relieved from work.''
The hours of service regulations are directed towards long-distance truck drivers; however, they also apply to the local distribution of farm input materials, even though driving is incidental to the farm suppliers' principal work function of servicing farmers.
Over 80 percent of our Nation's farmers use farm suppliers to help them cope with environmental regulations; develop, implement, and manage precision agriculture; and harvest crops that produce safe, abundant, and affordable foods for Americans and the world.
Last year, working with our Senate and House farm State colleagues, I supported a waiver from hours of service requirements for agricultural purposes during the planting season, and I joined many members in a letter to the DOT on this matter. Unfortunately, last year's legislative effort to provide an agricultural exemption was reduced to a mandated rule-making, which now became a bureaucratic nightmare with no hope of regulatory relief by the 1995 spring planting season, which is about to begin in southern parts of our Nation.
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There should be a sense of urgency in addressing this problem. Please address it now.
The DOT proposed rule-making includes a number of hurdles which will further burden farmers.
I introduced this legislation very early, on January 17th, so that American agriculture can have the rule finalized before the 1995 spring planting season.
A specific exemption is certainly not without precedent. DOT has already recognized that on-duty time of certain occupations is subject to special demands, and DOT has granted seasonal waivers from hours of service requirement for small package delivery drivers during the holiday season, and for the oil and natural gas industry.
Farm and farm suppliers engage in the transport of fertilizer and fertilizer materials, agricultural chemicals, pesticide, seed, animal feeds, crops, and other essential farm supplies also deserve regulatory flexibility.
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, if I could have your special attention now to my following comments I would appreciate it.
Following the introduction of my bill I heard from some motor carriers who express concern about the bill's specific exemption for farmers and farm retailers. In an effort to accommodate clearly legitimate parts of their criticism, I suggest that the subcommittee modify my bill to create an exemption which would apply to all drivers transporting agricultural commodities or farm supplies for agricultural purposes if it is limited to an area 100 mile radius of the source of the commodities or the distribution point of the farm supplies.
This would base the exemption on the supplies or commodities being transported, rather than on the category of carrier. I suggest this important amendment to my legislation.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, in concluding I would remind you that, as the planting season draws closer, the agricultural community will once again be confronted with the hurdles presented by unreasonable hours of service requirements which were obviously not designed to accommodate the special circumstances faced by farmers and farm suppliers. My legislation, with the suggested amendment, resolves this problem in a responsible manner, and I urge the subcommittee to consider it favorably and report it expeditiously under a fast track for floor action.
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Again, Chairman Petri, Mr. Rahall, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify in support of the legislation, and I would ask your consent to include 30 or 40 letters from around the country which express support for the legislation.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you for your testimony. They will be made a part of the record.
Do you have any questions, Mr. Rahall?
Mr. RAHALL. Doug, thank you for your testimony.
I do recall this issue last year. It was part of the HAZMAT reauthorization bill, if I recall.
Mr. BEREUTER. That's correct.
Mr. RAHALL. We came back in kind of a second bite at the apple effort, did instruct the DOT, as you said in your testimony, to make the proposed rules to address the situation; is that correct?
Mr. BEREUTER. That's correct.
Mr. RAHALL. I guess my question is: if the DOT were to finalize the rules prior to the 1995 spring planting season, as it is your hope, how would this rule-making jive with the regulatory moratorium bill that has now passed the House and should it pass the Senate? How would the two jive with each other?
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Mr. BEREUTER. It's a good question, Mr. Rahall. I don't know the answer to it. I don't know if there is a specific or general exception that would cover this or not or if, in fact, that moratorium would affect it. I'll have to check on that.
Mr. RAHALL. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. LaHood.
Mr. LAHOOD. Mr. Bereuter, as you may know, I am a co-sponsor of your bill, and I want you to know that I appreciate very much your leadership on this. This is, for those of us who represent large agricultural areas, one of the ridiculous things that has been done around here. So I do appreciate your leadership and your testimony, and will do all that I can to be helpful in passage.
I think Mr. Rahall's question is a very good question. If you could have someone from your staff get back to us, I'd appreciate knowing the answer to the question also.
Thank you.
Mr. BEREUTER. We will do that, and I thank you for your comments and your co-sponsorship.
Mr. RAHALL. Will the gentleman yield?
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Mr. LAHOOD. Yes, I will.
Mr. RAHALL. I asked the question because I understood the regulatory moratorium bill, at least as it passed the House, that there were no exceptions.
Mr. BEREUTER. Right.
Mr. RAHALL. Except for imminent drought.
Mr. BEREUTER. I think that's right. Yes.
Mr. PETRI. Are there other questions? Representative Poshard.
Mr. POSHARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My district abuts Congressman LaHood's district in central Illinois. Doug, as you know, my district is about 265 miles long, and it is almost all agriculture.
I support your bill. If I am not a co-sponsor on it yet, put my name on it, because I know how frustrated our farmers get with these on duty regulations, especially during this time of the year when they start planting, and then later harvesting. It is a common-sense approach to solving a problem here, and I thank you for it.
Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Poshard. I appreciate your comment. Your district is about the same as mine, and you will recall not too long ago you had such a rainy season that your planting period was highly condensed, and the work that the farmers had to do in Illinois and eastern Iowa then was concentrated in just a week. You can imagine the difficulty that would have been created by this regulation.
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Mr. PETRI. Representative Latham.
Mr. LATHAM. I just, too, wanted to associate myself with this. I am not sure if I am on it or not, but I would offer my co-sponsorship. I appreciate the leadership of my neighbor to the west on this issue. It is very important for a district like mine, about a third of the State of Iowa, and tremendous agricultural interests.
Thank you.
Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you very much, Mr. Latham, my neighbor. You would understand the delivery of seed at the right time is really essential.
Mr. PETRI. Are there further questions?
[No response.]
Mr. PETRI. If not, my colleague, Representative Rahall, said that I should remark that this hearing has set a record in the number of co-sponsorships gathered in the briefest time. I think that may bode well. We are eager to work with you on this.
Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. The fourth panel can come forward now. It is made up of two representatives from two States. I'd like to ask if Representative Poshard would like to introduce his colleague from the State of Illinois.
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Mr. POSHARD. Yes, I would.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It really is an honor for me to introduce Senator Fawell. I had the great pleasure a number of years ago of serving for about 5 years in the Illinois State Senate with Senator Fawell. She is by far one of the more thoughtful and conscientious legislators in our Illinois General Assembly. She has been a leader there for many years.
It is a great honor for me to welcome her to our committee today, and I appreciate, Beverly, your taking the time to come out here.
Ms. FAWELL. Thank you very kindly for those kind words, Glen. You said them just the way I wrote them.
Mr. PETRI. Before you proceed, Senator, our colleague, Representative LaHood, would also like to offer a comment.
Mr. LAHOOD. I, too, would like to offer my welcome to you, Senator, and for the leadership you have provided in the Illinois General Assembly over a long period of time. I know it is an honor for all of us to have you here.
Also, I want to introduce a citizen of my district, Craig Ashbaugh is a citizen of the 18th Congressional district. He has provided a great deal of leadership in Illinois with respect to helmet laws and also a great deal of leadership in the organization called ABATE. So it is a privilege for me to introduce one of my constituents, and I thank you for that.
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Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
I'd also like to indicate that we are joined by State Representative Sherman Packard, who is of the New Hampshire Transportation Committee. Welcome. He is accompanied by Mr. Ed Hughes, who is the legislative director of the New Hampshire Motorcyclists Rights Organization.
Welcome to all of you.
Would you like to proceed, Senator Fawell?
TESTIMONY OF HON. BEVERLY FAWELL, STATE SENATOR AND CHAIRMAN, ILLINOIS SENATE TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE, ACCOMPANIED BY R. CRAIG ASHBAUGH, ASSISTANT STATE LEGISLATIVE COORDINATOR, ABATE OF ILLINOIS; AND SHERMAN PACKARD, NEW HAMPSHIRE STATE REPRESENTATIVE, AND MEMBER, NEW HAMPSHIRE HOUSE TRANSPORTATION COMMITTEE, ACCOMPANIED BY ED HUGHES, LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR, NEW HAMPSHIRE MOTORCYCLISTS RIGHTS ORGANIZATION
Ms. FAWELL. Thank you very much.
Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, thank you for this opportunity to address the subcommittee on an issue that is very important to the State of Illinois.
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I am Senator Beverly Fawell, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee in the Illinois General Assembly.
Over the past few years, you have put Illinois in a difficult position. When you appropriate funds to the Department of Transportation, you also add legislative language which requires that the State of Illinois pass certain laws which you feel are important.
One example is the amendment that you added to fiscal year 1991 U.S. DOT Appropriation Act. You wanted us to pass a law that took away a person's driver's license if that person was convicted of any drug offense.
Senator Hawkinson of Peoria and Senator Petka of Joliet are both former State's Attorneys in their respective counties and presently serve on the Illinois Senate Transportation Committee. Both of them noted that we had passed such a law 4 years ago, but the Illinois Supreme Court had declared it unconstitutional.
Yet, Congress said that if we did not want to lose our highway funding we again had to pass this unconstitutional law.
Finally, the Illinois General Assembly passed a resolution, Governor Edgar signed a letter, and the State received a waiver—with the help, I may add, of the Illinois delegation. Frankly, you did put us between a rock and a hard place.
You also mandated that several counties in Illinois develop an employee trip reduction plan. This Federal mandate is one of the most costly and the least effective programs required by the Clean Air Act. U.S. EPA officials have publicly stated that air quality benefits are minuscule and the program is not cost-effective.
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I happen to represent one of those counties, and we have not been out of compliance with the EPA's standards for air quality for the past 4 years. The 3 years before that the county was out of compliance for half an hour for the entire year. Other counties have had similar experiences. Yet, the law insists that every fourth person who works for any company that employs over 100 persons must either walk, skip, jump, jog, run, carpool, or crawl to work.
This law will impact every school, hospital, newspaper, and industry, including the Fermi National Lab and the Argonne National Lab, both of which are in my county.
The estimated cost of business in my district, alone, is $2.5 million for supplying additional transportation for their employees. And what will be accomplished if this program is put in place? Absolutely nothing.
Finally, the mandated helmet use law in ISTEA—Illinois stands with 25 States in opposing this law. We have listened to the testimony on both sides several times, and we still remain unconvinced that this law should be passed.
We know that Illinois has the best motorcycle rider training program in the Nation. To date, we have provided free training to over 116,000 riders. If the course is passed, the skills portion of the driver's test is waived.
Many of the States believe that this course is directly responsible for the reduction of motorcycle crashes, injuries, and fatalities that we have witnessed in Illinois. We have a 43 percent decline in accidents involving motorcycles from 1985 to 1990. This has led to a 46 percent decline in injuries to motorcyclists.
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During the time that Illinois had a helmet law in 1968 and 1969, our fatality rate per 10,000 registrations averaged 9.65. Back then we had 91,000 registered motorcycles. In 1993, we had almost 200,000 motorcycles registered, and no helmet law and the fatality rate was 5.8 per 10,000 registrations. We doubled the number of motorcycles, had more vehicle miles traveled per year, had no helmet law, and our fatality rate was four points lower.
In spite of our excellent training program and lower fatality rate, Illinois has been sanctioned over $6 million, with another $12 million per year sanctioned pending without removal of this Federal mandate.
I respectfully suggest that putting people to work building and repairing roads is a better and a more efficient use of our highway dollars than requiring us to print up and distribute bumper stickers telling people to drive safely.
We hear a lot from politicians about retaining and creating new jobs, not just minimum wage jobs, but good-paying jobs. I submit to you that there would be fewer people making minimum wage jobs if we provided them with the opportunity to obtain a job.
Highway construction jobs are good-paying jobs. I wonder how many millions of dollars other States have had to transfer to their highway construction and repair program to their highway safety program, and how many good-paying highway construction jobs we have lost across the Nation as a result of this sanction.
A growing feeling of resentment is being felt by a number of legislators in Illinois that you in Congress are attempting to blackmail us in passing laws that our constituents do not want nor need.
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Last session the Illinois General Assembly overwhelmingly voted that Congress should repeal the helmet use law mandate by passing House joint resolution 108. Congressman Weller, a member of the General Assembly at that time, voted for House joint resolution 108. I'm sure he knows the resentment that some are feeling in the Illinois General Assembly.
The public sent us a message last election—''Get off our backs.'' We as elected officials should realize that our constituents are quite capable of taking care of themselves and should not punish them for that ability.
In closing, I would ask you to repeal these mandates and once again allow the States to spend those funds the way they ought to be spent—that is, building and fixing our roads.
Thank you for this opportunity to speak. I'm willing to answer any questions.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you, Senator.
Representative Packard.
Mr. PACKARD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
It seems I have caught a little bit of a cold in the past day or so, so excuse my voice.
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For the record, Mr. Chairman, my name is Sherman Packard, and I'm serving on my third term in the New Hampshire House Transportation Committee, and I also serve on the Transportation Task Force of the American Legislative Exchange Council.
If I may, I'd like to briefly go into a little bit of history about the helmet law penalties and the sanctions.
Initially, this was put into play in 1966 with the Highway Safety Act, and in that Highway Safety Act there were a number of things that were combined that the Federal Government urged the States to pass—helmet laws, seatbelt laws, licensing laws, education laws.
At that time, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chose to pretty much selectively enforce forcing States to pass mandate motorcycle helmet laws while letting some of the other things slip.
There was a bill put into Congress in 1975 to repeal the helmet law portion of that, and it was signed into law in May 1976 by President Ford.
When that was done, approximately 30 States repealed or amended their helmet laws at that time. From that point on, there was a number of State legislatures that kept discussing this issue. At the same time, many of the State legislatures passed mandatory seatbelt laws.
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Prior to the passage of ISTEA Act, between 1989 and 1992 six States, without the threat of sanctions, passed motorcycle helmet laws. I think this should have somewhat of an impact on your thinking when you discuss this issue, that these were discussed in the State legislatures and passed in the State legislatures without the threat of sanctions against the State.
When we had our annual meeting of ALEC in August this past year down in Tampa, Florida, I sponsored a resolution in the Transportation Task Force that was passed unanimously, and it basically states—I'll read the summary of it—''ALEC's resolution requests the United States Congress to repeal the sanctions and the Federal mandates in the Intermodal Surface Transportation Act of 1991. State sovereignty is increasingly under attack, and States must be given the authority to choose the best course of action.''
In going along with a little bit of what my colleague from Illinois has said, the State of New Hampshire is going to be penalized on the construction funds approximately $300,000. We have a number of bridges in the State of New Hampshire, as I'm sure many States have, that are in critical condition. We need that money a lot more to repair those bridges than we do to make up some stickers or other paraphernalia that might be passed on through the 402 funds. That money is absolutely critical to our State, and I think many of the States, in the highway construction funds.
I have to ask, I think, when ISTEA was passed, it was the intent that States would pass their helmet laws. What has happened is 25 States have said, ''No, we are not going to pass helmet laws, regardless of the sanctions.'' I think this must bring into question whether this was a good move when 50 percent, in essence, of the State legislatures out there have said, ''No, we disagree with you.''
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What we are asking today—and I think I can speak for almost all of my colleagues out in the State legislatures—is it isn't the issue of helmets. It isn't the issue of seatbelts. It is the issue of: give us the ability in our State government to discuss the issue.
When we have one of these issues come before us, many times it is said, before we even start talking about the merits of the issue, itself, the first question that comes up is: are we going to lose any money? That's the first issue that comes up, not: is this a good issue? Is this a bad issue? What are the merits of the issue? Are we going to be penalized anything? All of the sudden the whole discussion goes on to that.
What we really, really are urging you to do is to adopt these amendments so that we can discuss the issues and pass the issues on the merits of the issue and not whether we are going to be sanctioned by the Federal Government.
With that, I'd be happy to try and answer any questions.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you both for your testimony.
Are there any questions, Representative Rahall?
Mr. RAHALL. No.
Mr. PETRI. Representative Poshard.
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Mr. POSHARD. Mr. Chairman, do you want us to go to questions now of these two people?
Mr. PETRI. Yes.
Mr. POSHARD. Thank you.
I don't have any questions, in particular, except to thank you both for coming here as members of your respective State legislatures for testifying before the committee.
The way I have seen this issue, and especially in light of the statistics that have come down in our own States, as Senator Fawell has stated in her testimony, we want to affect safety. Obviously we do. We don't want people on motorcycles or in cars out on the highways killing themselves. None of us do. So safety is a big factor for this committee, for our roles in government at the State and Federal level.
You have the Government on the one hand mandating a law to affect an outcome. Here's what I have seen where I live. I don't know about the rest of these folks. We have a group where I live called ''ABATE.'' This gentleman is the representative in central Illinois of ABATE. These people have done more to educate and train our people on the concept of safety and have been more effective in doing that, in cutting accidents and injuries on motorcycles on our highways than any Government law or mandate that we have passed to this point in time.
In the process, there is no holding the State blackmail for $33 million, which we have given up to this point in time, or are about to give up if we don't pass this law.
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What do we want? Do we want people who can voluntarily get the job done through education and training and affect the outcome that we all desire, or do we want to pass a law out here to mandate that it get done and, in the process, punish States like my own when we have already got a desired outcome there in a voluntary way?
I think the ABATE people have done a wonderful job with this. I think our State has done a good job with the training that we have brought to this issue. And I don't understand why we need to go any further down the road toward this kind of mandate. I think we should get rid of this thing, let our State have the money we need to construct highways and roads and bridges that are coming to us, and let these folks do their job in bringing down the accident rate and so on in a voluntary way that has been more effective than we could ever mandate it.
So that's my only point. I'm in a total agreement with you. I hope that we can settle this issue this year, not just for the State of Illinois but for every State in this Union that opposes this procedure we've undertaken.
So I don't really have any questions to ask of you, because you have already answered my questions.
Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Representative Zeliff.
Mr. ZELIFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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I appreciate your making the trek from New Hampshire for the testimony, Mr. Packard.
First, let me say that I certainly agree with my colleague in the comments that were just made.
Second, I, unfortunately, didn't hear all of your testimony, and I could appreciate it if you could answer a couple of questions for me. One, what does New Hampshire lose for non-compliance; and two, how does New Hampshire's voluntary compliance rate compare to States that have manditory laws in place?
Mr. PACKARD. Thank you, Congressman.
What New Hampshire stands to lose is approximately $872,000 worth of penalties. As I stated—I think just before you came in—that money is much more needed for the bridges and the roads in New Hampshire than it is to be put into the governor's office of highway safety, even though there are good things that they do. We need that money more for construction than we need it for anything else.
As far as compliance rate, New Hampshire right now has a higher compliance rate on its seatbelt use, which is way over 50 percent, than many States that have mandatory laws, because we have gone out and we have educated the people. We have a very, very good system where we have marked our highways urging people to use seatbelts voluntarily.
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I believe through education that the people will do what is proper. You cannot force people to do something through laws if they disagree with the law. No matter what you do, if people feel it is an unjust law—and I think we have seen this through history—people are not going to obey the law.
By passing mandatory seatbelt laws or mandatory helmet laws, if the people don't want it they are not going to do it. Again, we are not even talking about that issue. What we want to know is—revert this back to the States so we can make that decision in New Hampshire.
Mr. ZELIFF. My understanding is that we have a 54 percent compliance factor.
Mr. PACKARD. Yes, we do.
Mr. ZELIFF. On seatbelts.
Mr. PACKARD. Yes.
Mr. ZELIFF. Is that considered to be a good compliance rate nationally?
Mr. PACKARD. Well, I think if you look at the record, we have a higher compliance rate than 13 States that have a mandate law, so I would say that's a pretty good compliance rate.
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Mr. ZELIFF. So, going along that line of judgment, what would happen if we got a bonus for a high compliance rate rather than a penalty?
Mr. PACKARD. I think that's a marvelous idea.
Mr. ZELIFF. Isn't that the way the laws should be constructed? Aren't we going against the wave of everything we are doing in this Congress in terms of putting power and money and resources back to the States and letting the States comply? If we gave them compliance standards and they complied, we ought to reverse the current system—instead of penalizing a State for non-compliance, give a bonus to a State for compliance.
That's just a thought, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate your testimony very much, Mr. Packard, and have two last related questions. Do the monies collected for non-compliance go into an education fund? Isn't the New Hampshire education program already well funded and doing a good job, and that the monies collected for non-compliance are being wasted?
Mr. PACKARD. Well, I'm not sure exactly what the governor's office is doing with the money, but the fact is that in New Hampshire we have a marvelous motorcycle education program that is totally funded by the motorcyclists, themselves. We passed that one into law about 5 years ago, and our State has won a couple of national awards for our program.
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Since that program has gone into effect, we have seen a steady decrease in motorcycle accident fatalities, and we have one of the best safety records in the country right now on our highway safety all across the board.
We are doing our job without passing these types of mandatory laws. We have done the job. I think it is unfair that we are being penalized for doing a good job in highway safety.
Mr. ZELIFF. I certainly agree.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PACKARD. Mr. Chairman, if I may, just for one second, I would like to enter into the record a copy of the resolution that we did pass at ALEC.
Mr. PETRI. That will be made part of the record.
Mr. PACKARD. Thank you.
[The referenced resolution follows:]
[Insert here.]
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
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Representative Horn.
Mr. HORN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would just be curious, in the case of Illinois and New Hampshire what mandatory safety requirements does the State have on people that drive automobiles?
Ms. FAWELL. We do have the seatbelt law.
Mr. HORN. You have a seatbelt law in Illinois. How about New Hampshire?
Mr. PACKARD. No, sir. We are one of the two States who do not have a mandatory seatbelt law except for children. We have a very stringent seatbelt law that covers children from 12 and under.
Mr. HORN. Okay.
Ms. FAWELL. And we also have a law involving children as far as car seats.
Mr. HORN. And you have mandatory speed limits, I take it, in both States?
Ms. FAWELL. Yes.
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Mr. PACKARD. Yes.
Mr. HORN. Anything else you mandate of people that drive automobiles? Do you mandate safety checks, for example?
Ms. FAWELL. Of course, we are under the Clean Air Act in my particular district. That Clean Air Act, as I said, actually the State of Illinois is in compliance as far as EPA standards are concerned, and yet it is costing us somewhere between $55 million and $63 million to institute that particular act. It is not doing any good. We are running a lot of people through and sticking something up their tailpipe, but it hasn't accomplished a darn thing because if you are in compliance you are in compliance.
Yet we are, at this point, mandated to even expand it into rural counties, which isn't going to do any good at all.
Mr. HORN. I find an interest in the fact that you say it doesn't work. Does it not work because people just don't comply with the Illinois law?
Ms. FAWELL. We are in compliance. The air quality in the State of Illinois, according to the EPA's standards, has met the EPA's standards. Why in the world they are insisting that we continue this program, and not only continue it but expand it, is beyond my comprehension.
I have asked the particular gentleman who is in charge of this program, ''Why are you doing this?'' His answer to me, when I came to Washington—to visit my brother-in-law, actually—was, ''Senator, we are making everyone else do it, and therefore you are going to do it.'' My reply to him was, ''My kids used to use the same reasoning, and it didn't work then for them either.'' That's stupid reasoning.
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Mr. HORN. I'm not quite clear on what is the air quality requirement that is being imposed here.
Ms. FAWELL. You have to have so many parts per million and not exceed that. And we have reached that.
Mr. HORN. But to achieve that goal, what is being done?
Ms. FAWELL. We have done that.
Mr. HORN. But to achieve that goal, what has been mandated? Regular inspections?
Ms. FAWELL. The catalytic converters on the cars and the lead taken out of the gas has basically accomplished this.
Mr. HORN. And that was mandated by the State of Illinois?
Ms. FAWELL. It was part of this whole program to get us into compliance. Once we got into compliance, it is like beating a dead horse, as far as I am concerned. We have done it. I have suggested they go on to other things—acid rain. There are a lot of other things out there. We are not going to do any more with the cars. The cars have reached their potential.
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Mr. HORN. Let me ask: does New Hampshire have any mandatory laws that relate to air quality in terms of either the gasoline, the type of engine exhaust system, or whatever?
Mr. PACKARD. Going under the guidelines of the Clean Air Act, last session we did pass a law that would put four counties in New Hampshire underneath that Clean Air Act regulation, again under the threat of losing $500 million dollars, or something like that.
We already have legislation this year to hold off on implementation of that and to pull one of the counties out because it already meets all the requirements without having to have one car tested.
Ms. FAWELL. The problem that I have, very frankly, is that the collar counties, which are the five collar counties around Cook County, do not have mass transportation. I happen to have Fermi Lab in my district. Fermi Lab is in the middle of the country. There is no way to get there unless you drive a car.
I don't know whether you are going to have to add to the appropriation for Fermi Lab to get your scientists there, unless you want them out on the highway hitchhiking.
Mr. HORN. Thank you. My time is up. I'm simply trying to pursue if the mandate worry is whether the State does it or the Federal Government does it, or is it just some things that bother people based on those mandates and other things do not.
I'm trying to sort that out as I listen to the testimony.
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Ms. FAWELL. My feeling is, in our State, mandates bother our legislators. We feel that we were elected, as you were. My Congressman happens to be Harris Fawell, who is a brother-in-law, and I yell at him quite often.
Mr. PETRI. Representative Weller.
Mr. WELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd first like to take a moment to welcome my former colleague from the Illinois General Assembly. Senator Fawell, it is good to see you today. I appreciate your taking time to visit with us today in Washington. I know you are having a lot more fun now that our party controls both houses in the Illinois General Assembly. Things are moving on a pretty fast track there, I understand, as well. But I'm glad to be here, and I'm glad you are today, as well.
I noticed, in reading your testimony—and I apologize. I was running a little late. I have two other committee hearings going on right now, but my staff alerted me that you're up and I wanted to come over. I noted in your testimony that you mention, of course, the helmet law mandate in section 153 of ISTEA. I agree with you that this intrusive mandate on the States requires, of course, the States to pass mandatory helmet laws or to suffer a penalty of transferring a portion of their Federal highway construction funds to highway safety activities.
It is my understanding the State of Illinois lost over $6 million—I think it was $6.25 million—from highway construction money this past year, and stands to lose $12.5 million this coming fiscal year.
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Illinois, though I recall—and I'd like you to tell me a little bit about this program, but it is my understanding that Illinois has a pretty effective motorcycle safety training program and it has proven to be successful, and, in fact, your testimony mentioned that between 1985 and 1990 we had an almost one-half reduction, a 46 percent reduction, in accidents involving motorcycles.
Can you tell me a little bit about the program, where it stands today and with the current plans for the coming fiscal year?
Ms. FAWELL. Part of that program happens to be very close to my home in Glen Ellen at the College of DuPage, which is a community college. I have watched them.
It is an excellent program. It actually teaches the people who are starting to learn how to ride motorcycles the proper way of riding it, the safety features. I have also gone to a number of high schools and listened to the ABATE people that have come and talked to the regular high school driver education programs about how the motorcyclists must wear certain clothing and why they are inclined to be in the left-hand portion of the lane. It was an education for me.
That makes a lot more sense, very frankly, than us trying to test motorcyclists to see if they know how to drive. When we test a person in a car, somebody gets inside of the car in the passenger side and watches how that person drives. I don't know anybody that is going to hop on the back of a motorcycle to see if that person knows how to drive a motorcycle.
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This makes a lot more sense, and it can be and is a very, very effective program. Perhaps my seatmate here would like to add something.
Mr. CRAIG. ABATE of Illinois has been very active in promoting different education programs. They have a program where they go into the driver's education program in the high school, which I think is what the Senator has been talking about. They are involved with a self-funded motorcycle rider training program.
So there are two different aspects—training the young drivers who are getting their first license, and also in training the young riders. Those are two very valid areas that we are very active and very successful in.
Mr. WELLER. I'm glad to hear that success.
I think, as I recall from my days in the Illinois House, the Illinois State Legislature feels very strongly about this particular mandate, the so-called ''helmet law.'' Of course, the State has expressed that very loud and clear every time it has been considered in committee, as I recall from my experience on Transportation Committee.
Like you, I believe that's a decision that should be left up to the States, and that's why I'm co-sponsoring legislation with Congressman Young of Alaska to repeal that particular mandate.
One of the things, Senator, that you pointed out in your testimony also was in a diversion of funds to safety programs away from highway—it looks like I'm running out of time here, and I'll wrap up real quickly if I could, Mr. Chairman—is that you mentioned that some of these funds for safety programs were being used to print bumper stickers. I was just wondering if the taxpayers in your district in Illinois are aware of how those dollars are being spent and how they feel about these Federal dollars, tax dollars, rather than being used to fix roads and bridges being used to print bumper stickers.
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Ms. FAWELL. As you know, Congressman Weller, we have the second-largest number of highways in the United States in the State of Illinois because we are, indeed, a transportation hub.
I am sure that the average citizen in the State of Illinois does not know how much money we put into bumper stickers and, frankly, I don't see that it is doing any good. Most people won't even put the bumper stickers on their cars any more because of the new bumpers.
It is just a waste of money, and it is money that could be well served by maintaining and construction of the present highway system.
Mr. WELLER. Thank you very much for your time.
I do want to point out I agree because, frankly, Illinois being a major State with a lot of roads, ranking second overall in our Nation, it is very important that we use those dollars to improve transportation because when you improve transportation you create jobs, not only in the construction, but in related businesses that use those roads.
Again, thanks for taking time to be with us today and traveling to Washington.
Ms. FAWELL. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you all for your testimony. We appreciate your coming here from the northeast and the midwest to give us your perspectives.
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Ms. FAWELL. Thank you very much.
Mr. PACKARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. The fifth panel I think needs no introduction to this committee, Mr. Thomas J. Donohue, president and chief executive officer of American Trucking Association.
I think you are just back from the West Coast.
Welcome.
TESTIMONY OF THOMAS J. DONOHUE, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, AMERICAN TRUCKING ASSOCIATIONS, INC.
Mr. DONOHUE. Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
Actually, it is very convenient that things are running a little late. I did come back from the West Coast very late last night, and it is a pleasure to be here.
I am here today because Government regulations and mandates are strangling the trucking industry. I'm also here to support the rapid enactment of the national highway system.
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The Federal rule-making process has spun out of control, costing jobs, choking the growth of small businesses, and raising the prices for all of us. Some regulators these days approach their task like punishers, when they should be acting as problem solvers. They have created a crisis in confidence between the people and their Government, and Americans are growing more cynical and distrustful day by day.
This year alone Government regulation will cost the trucking industry $8.5 billion, an average of $6,571 a truck, or 7.5 percent of the trucking industry's annual revenue. Let me point out some of that regulation is desirable and sensible, but some of it just costs money without the results.
The House has already taken some strong steps to provide Americans with regulatory relief. The trucking industry now urges the Congress to complete the work the House has started.
Let me tell you what is most important to us in the legislation this body has passed.
All Federal regulation should be required to meet two logical, common sense tests.
First, do the benefits of the proposed rule outweigh the cost of compliance? Are the costs of compliance even understood? In other words, a cost-benefit test.
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Second, is good science being used to measure the risks associated with the new rule—in other words, a risks assessment test.
Mr. Chairman, that is all we are asking.
Every one of us in our business lives, in our family lives, and in our personal lives has to make reasonable and responsible choices every day. We set priorities. We balance competing factors. We weigh costs against benefits. We try to use common sense.
Those are rules all Americans live by—all except the regulators. For some reason, they have been granted immunity, and that's got to change.
I realize that Members of Congress who support regulatory reform and those of us in business who are fighting for it are being attacked by some self-proclaimed advocates of health, safety, and the environment. They say that we want to rip away at the fabric of protection for Americans.
Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, but that is absolute nonsense, plain and simple.
In the case of trucking, for example, a lot of people do a lot of talking about safety, but it is our companies and our drivers who have done the real heavy lifting and made a major gain in trucking safety.
Over the past 10 years, the number of miles we have driven has increased 41 percent, while the fatal accident rate has dropped 37 percent. This has been hard work to get there.
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We have passed, with your help, the commercial driver's license. We have pushed for random drug testing for drivers. We have two million roadside inspections a year. And we have passed and protected in the courts a ban on the use of radar detectors in trucks.
These regulations make sense and achieve their goals in a reasonable and a cost effective manner. Unfortunately, all too often that's not the case.
Let me give an example.
The whole area of alcohol testing for truck drivers provides a textbook case of what has gone wrong with the Federal rule-making process. The issue here is not whether drunk drivers should be on the road. Who in their right mind wants to stand still for that? The issue is whether we can come up with a reasonable, common sense plan to achieve the result that we all desire—highway safety.
Last October we petitioned the Department of Transportation to delay the implementation of regulations scheduled to take effect on the 1st of January. The regulations require both pre-employment alcohol tests and random tests covering companies with more than 50 drivers. Both Chairman Shuster and Chairman Mineta wrote to the DOT encouraging that delay.
On December 30th the DOT finally decided that random testing at the carriers' expense was to begin on January 1st, as originally required, but pre-employment testing would be delayed until May 1st.
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Now, the ridiculous part about this, Mr. Chairman, is that DOT has not yet finished writing the rules establishing how the testing should be done. Our companies are incurring enormous costs trying to obey the law without knowing exactly how to do it, and shortly we'll be faced once again with spending hundreds of millions of dollars on pre-employment testing which, in my view, is a stupidity test.
Let me just give you a little statistic. I know I'm running up against my time.
Usually lost in this debate about alcohol is that DOT's own extensive 2-year test of 65,000 drivers at the roadside measured at .02—which you could go to a reception here and be at .02—found less than two-tenths of 1 percent of those drivers failed that test.
The best way, in my view, to ensure alcohol-free highways is to repeal the pre-employment testing and use a combination of police and employers' testing that makes sense, and that could be done by adding a new requirement to the existing motor carrier safety assistance program that testing be done by law enforcement officers.
We have to do post-accident. If you have a company in Connecticut and you have an accident at 4:00 in the morning in Nevada, how can you do that? We need the help of the police.
Let me just say that we have the same problems with regulations for OSHA and FIP and lots of other areas, which we have said in our testimony. Let me just wrap up, if I can, on the national highway system.
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Regulatory relief is vital, but this committee can save jobs, improve highway safety, and support our economy by a very quick passage of the national highway system. It emphasizes the maintenance and preservation and improvement of the roads that we need. It comprises only 4 percent of our existing highways, but will carry 75 percent of our commercial traffic. And, by the way, it will save between 1,400 and 3,600 lives a year. We encourage a very quick movement on that, Mr. Chairman.
I'll leave the rest of my comments to the questions, except to say that I am very pleased to see the very aggressive effort by this committee and by the Congress on regulatory reform and on the national highway system, and we very much appreciate your support.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you for your testimony. The whole testimony will be in the record.
As you indicated, this committee last Congress, under the leadership of my colleague from West Virginia, did do its job and reported out the national highway system bill in a timely fashion. We are determined to do that again this Congress, and we are looking forward to working with you and others on that and a number of other issues.
Do you have any questions, Mr. Rahall?
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Tom, for your testimony. I appreciate your mentioning the national highway system finally and the desire to move that bill as expeditiously as possible, with which I totally agree, of course. I, however, would have put it in the front part of your testimony.
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Mr. DONOHUE. Mr. Chairman, if you would like me to begin again, I'll put it right in the front.
Mr. RAHALL. Since the main part of your testimony was on the regulatory and risk assessment, etc., reviews that have been the buzz word of these days, I'd like to ask you a question about that. And I do not characterize those who were for the regulatory reform bill in the manner that perhaps some of my colleagues or some of the press have said in the heat of debate on this issue. I recognize that there are a lot of regulations that perhaps have gone to the extreme to one degree, and that the whole emphasis behind the effort on the House floor of recent days has been to bring those to a more reasonable level.
My main concern is that the more reasonable level has been to the extreme the other way, and that in the regulatory moratorium bill passed by the House this week perhaps we have gone too far the other way and, as a consequence of those actions down the road we may see a reaction back the other way to a greater degree than exists today.
But there is that other Body, fortunately—for the first time you're hearing me say that—here on the Hill that perhaps will take a more reasonable view.
We have heard even today from a colleague of ours from the majority party come to us saying there is a regulation that he needs to help his farmers in the midwest and he's not certain, in response to my question, how the bill passed by the House this week will affect that regulation he needs. So he is going to, no doubt, seek an exemption. I dare say there are going to be many others that voted for that bill this week that are now going to say, ''Hey, wait a minute. I need an exemption.'' There probably is going to come out an amendment process in the Senate as we see exemptions offered one after another.
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Is there an area in which you see that perhaps the trucking industry is going to need some type of regulation in the future that may bump up against this moratorium passed by the House?
Mr. DONOHUE. I think your analysis of this does point out the problem that we faced in trying to make major change, and I think it is significant to keep our eye on the ball. What we are really after is not a moratorium. That's just a tool. We are after significant regulatory reform, cost/benefit analysis, and risk assessment.
In the process of getting there, we certainly do have some challenges, as you indicated. But I think the reason people were supporting the moratorium is they wanted to stop the rush to the courthouse where, for example, our problem in OSHA—which in your State is a significant issue—where the OSHA people are talking about coming out with an ergonomics rule that says that no one may lift anything that weighs more than 25 pounds unassisted. Can you imagine what that would do to the industries in your State and in our business?
So by putting the moratorium it says that we have a little bit of time now to go out and do what we are really about, and that's regulatory reform.
Let me say that you are correct that there are some matters that would concern you and concern me about the moratorium. For example, we have worked now for a number of years on the overweight container rule, which is a safety issue, and that might be held up. There are some people concerned about the alcohol testing rules. From my view, we could move ahead and get—if the Secretary felt that was a safety issue, he could include it automatically, although they are running a year behind on putting it out and people with less than 50 trucks don't get into that until next year.
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But you are correct, sir, that there are issues that are going to be cumbersome. The way to solve that is to move ahead and very quickly pass a clean regulatory reform bill, and then let's get on with our business.
But clearly we are looking at regulations coming down the pike that have the ability to shut our business down. The 25 pound rule—can you imagine that in the industries that we are familiar with? Who's kidding whom?
We look at the moratorium simply as a tool to get to the substance, which is regulatory reform, and we're willing to work with anyone to get there.
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Tom.
Mr. DONOHUE. Thank you.
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you for that testimony.
Mr. PETRI. I understand that the National Transportation Safety Board recently released a report on the issue of driver fatigue and its relationship to fatal accidents, and I wonder if you have any comments on that report?
Mr. DONOHUE. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. I do.
First I'd like to make a little comment about fatigue, and then I'll say something about that report.
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Fatigue is a problem in everyone that drives a motor vehicle, operates a railroad, or flies an airplane. We have been very aware of this, as has the committee who provided the funding for the major study that we have underway with the Federal Highway Administration looking at this subject.
If fatigue has been a problem for a long time, we're certainly making progress with it because of the significant reduction in fatalities in our business as in relation to the number of miles that we drive.
Now, as to the study that was done by the Transportation Safety Board, it adds some information to our consideration of this matter. The only problem with it was that the study made it very clear—both the one that was done a few years ago and this follow-on study—that those numbers could not be extrapolated to get a percentage of fatigued truck drivers because the way they set up the tests. All the accidents they looked at had to be within a hour's drive of the local offices, and so on.
As a matter of fact, I have a letter here which I'll put in the record from the chairman, which I received this morning. He was kind enough to come out to our meeting in California, making that point very clear.
We would hope that the study that we are doing with FHWA will give us some tools to help reduce fatigue—questions about fitness of drivers, appropriate diets, time to eat, rest patterns, and things that we can do in the industry to reduce fatigue.
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What we must be so careful of, Mr. Chairman, is not to throw the baby out with the wash water. People that want to run in and say, for example, that nobody should drive between 2:30 in the morning and 5:30 in the morning had better think twice, because we'll then take all those trucks and put them on the road during very congested times and might have a more serious problem.
So what we seek is further information, very careful information on how we can improve the situation, and a strong working relationship between the DOT and your committee and ourselves to take whatever corrective action is needed. But we are making progress, and the numbers show it.
Mr. PETRI. I think you may have answered this, but I understand we will be getting testimony later today that there is an epidemic of fatigue among truck drivers that's the cause of highway fatalities. I take it you don't agree with that assessment, or do you?
Mr. DONOHUE. No. I don't believe there is an epidemic of fatigue. I first want to sit down and say that fatigue is a problem with anyone that operates a conveyance. But we are—with a 41 percent increase in the miles we have driven and a 37 percent reduction in the fatalities—and that ties into accidents, as well—we're certainly not dealing with an epidemic.
I think it is unfortunate that the press coverage of Mr. Hall's report from the National Transportation Safety Board made some calculations that the study said right up in the front you shouldn't do.
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I want to assure people that, first of all, our safety record gets better every day, and that we are working on this thing together, not by ourselves in a cocoon, but with everyone that has any valuable information.
For example, we are now going to start some work with the Watson scientific operation at IBM on a mechanism that would alert people to fatigue.
So we are committed. There is not an epidemic to worry about, but it is something that everyone has to deal with.
Mr. PETRI. Finally, I think you indicated in your testimony the problems that the trucking industry is having with the DOT alcohol and drug testing program that they are trying to roll out now. What do you propose we do to change those rules in a manner that doesn't lessen highway safety?
Mr. DONOHUE. I think a huge dose of common sense would work, and that is to say we do two million roadside inspections of trucks in the United States today with money provided primarily by the Federal Government. Let's check for alcohol there.
We have police and law enforcement officers all over this country doing alcohol interdiction of the regular drivers. Let's do it there. When we have an accident far away from the home office of a company, let's have the law enforcement people do it.
And I think that there are some things companies can do. They can call out an employee for suspicion of alcohol use and do some testing.
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But you must understand there is a fundamental difference between drug testing and alcohol testing. If I want to drug test an employee I send him down to a lab. But as soon as we start doing alcohol testing everybody is going to sue us. Are we skilled? Are we trained? Are the machines calibrated?
Let me finally say that if we can get it done at the roadside by the police officers, we'll pay for it.
Mr. PETRI. Okay. Thank you very much.
Mr. DONOHUE. Thank you, sir. I appreciate it.
Mr. PETRI. I hope we didn't break into your luncheon plans.
Mr. DONOHUE. Lunch is one thing I don't need, but I thank you very much for having us here. It is nice to see you, sir.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
I think, if it is all right—I know we have several panels that have been waiting all day, but there is one individual who has to catch a plane and the next panel may take some time, so if Doctor Stephen Hargarten from the Medical College of Wisconsin and a member of the board of directors of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety would like to offer his testimony at this point, we'd be delighted to receive it.
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TESTIMONY OF DR. STEPHEN HARGARTEN, M.D., INTERIM CHAIRMAN, DEPARTMENT OF EMERGENCY MEDICINE, MEDICAL COLLEGE OF WISCONSIN AND MEMBER, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, ADVOCATES FOR HIGHWAY AND AUTO SAFETY
Dr. HARGARTEN. Thank you very much, Chairman Petri. I appreciate the opportunity of having this testimony.
As mentioned, my name is Doctor Stephen Hargarten. I am interim chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. I'm testifying for Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, a coalition of consumer, safety, health care, law enforcement, and insurance organizations working together for highway and auto safety laws and policies to reduce death and injury on America's highways.
As a board member of Advocates, I represent the American College of Emergency Physicians, an organization of emergency physicians across the United States.
I thank you on behalf of Advocates for holding this hearing on the issue of so-called ''burdens and mandates'' on the transportation program. I will summarize my remarks and ask that my entire statement be inserted in the record.
As an emergency physician, I know first-hand the horrible consequences of motor vehicle crashes, and I also know the consequences of deliberations like this in committee hearings such as the one being held today.
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Emergency physicians are on the front lines every day trying to save lives and repair bodies needlessly injured in crashes. The toughest part of my job is informing families that a loved one is dead or has suffered injuries due to a senseless highway tragedy. This unhappy task becomes even worse when I have to tell parents that their young son or daughter is gone forever or has suffered a lifelong disabling injury.
We know that certain circumstances lead to more traumatic injuries, and we know to be prepared for the worst when we hear from our colleagues in the out-of-hospital care team, the EMS system, that an incoming patient wasn't buckled up, or is an unhelmeted motorcyclist, or is a young, inexperienced driver who has made a poor choice about drinking and driving, or when drivers of any age are involved in high-speed crashes.
I am here today to tell you what it is like to be on my side, the bedside of these patients, or what it is like to watch a vibrant young life fade away in a pool of blood or suffer an incapacitating head injury, and how frustrated and helpless we feel when we can't do enough to stop it.
Mr. Chairman, this is not the time to move backward by repealing key injury prevention laws that have saved thousands of lives and prevented millions of disabling, life-altering injuries.
Safety belt laws, motorcycle helmet laws, minimum drinking age laws, and maximum speed limit laws are sensible, life-saving laws that work. Encouraging States to enact them does not qualify as an unfunded mandate or a burden. They do not cost taxpayers money. I would argue that without them they do cost taxpayers money. They save billions of dollars in medical and long-term care.
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If any of these laws are repealed, I can tell you that lives will be lost, that costs will increase, and that we in the States will be forced to accept the real unfunded mandate, the cost of caring for these shattered lives.
If you look at highway safety programs in terms of costs and benefits, all four of these programs come out ahead. I won't go into details about how safety belt laws have been beneficial in saving thousands of lives and billions of dollars.
Let me talk about motorcycle helmet laws for a moment. Motorcycle helmet use reduces the risk of fatal head injury by nearly 30 percent, and in counter-distinction to the Honorable Congressman Klug, there is absolutely no evidence that motorcycle helmets contribute to spinal cord injuries. I would be happy to submit that study that conclusively shows that.
If you want to know what qualifies as a burden, let's single out the costs associated with Wisconsin Medicaid recipients who are involved in motorcycle crashes. The cost of inpatient and outpatient care, nursing homes, and other providers for Medicaid recipients for just 1 year total $2.6 million. A significant proportion of it went for head injury care.
What about dollars spent in treating head injuries? What about the fact, if we are talking about bumped heads and caring for bumped heads, as opposed to spending dollars on bumper stickers?
My written testimony details the results of a study by the University of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin DOT. The study concluded that unhelmeted motorcyclists involved in crashes were more than twice as likely to be hospitalized for head injuries. Moreover, 20 to 50 percent of the cost associated with motorcycle crashes are picked up by the taxpayers. Who is guilty of burdening our citizens here?
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I am equally alarmed that the minimum drinking age is in danger of being repealed. It is incomprehensible to me how such an effective law can be categorized as a burdensome Federal mandate. The 21 drinking age is credited with saving nearly 1,000 lives every year at a savings of $1.7 billion. After the drinking age was set at 21, the proportion of drivers 15 to 20 years old who were involved in fatal crashes and were intoxicated dropped from 31 percent in 1982 to 15.8 percent in 1993. This is a remarkable decrease.
I believe that the national 21 drinking age recommendation by President Reagan's presidential commission is really largely responsible for this.
I know my time has come to a close, but I'd appreciate a few minutes to finish my testimony.
Mr. PETRI. I'm sorry, but we have not accommodated the other witnesses. If you'd like to conclude in a minute or so, that would be fine.
Dr. HARGARTEN. Yes. Thank you.
There are so many tragedies in the world over which we have no control. When we develop programs that have such a tremendous impact on reducing deaths and devastating injuries, why are we tinkering with success?
Highway safety laws are not a burden, Mr. Chairman. If you and your committee move forward with proposals to decimate these beneficial programs, you will be dramatically increasing the burdens on emergency medical services, hospital emergency departments, extended care facilities, rehabilitation centers, social service programs, and funeral homes.
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Don't do it. Save these vital injury prevention programs.
Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you. Your full statement will abe included in the record. We appreciate your courtesy in summarizing it.
Are there any questions?
Mr. MINETA. Mr. Chairman, if I might, I'd like to thank the doctor for his statement.
Many of the arguments that are being used are really States' rights arguments—let the States determine these things. But I'm wondering whether or not, in making that States' rights argument, and in the quest to shift responsibility to the States, I assume that there will be no money going to the States in terms of administering whatever programs they might undertake. So it seems to me that's the shift and the shaft. You shift responsibility to the States, and no money goes with it.
So it seems to me that, under the guise of State rights, it will really increase costs to State government in terms of health costs, in terms of other kinds of enforcement activities they are going to have to do.
I was wondering if you could comment on that.
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Dr. HARGARTEN. As I said, I can predict with a very reasonable degree of certainty that we will see more disabling injuries and more deaths if these safety programs are rolled back.
In addition, as I mentioned, Medicaid, which is Federal/State dollars, are already being used to support the injuries to unhelmeted motorcyclists, and I don't see any reason why that would decrease as a result of these laws being rescinded, but I see an increase.
Mr. MINETA. I just want to thank you for your testimony and for your taking time from your own busy schedule to come here and testify.
Thank you very much, Doctor.
Dr. HARGARTEN. Thank you.
Mr. MINETA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you. I hope you can make your plane now. I think you can.
Dr. HARGARTEN. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Panel six consists of: Peter K. W. Wert, vice president of Haskell Lemon Construction Company, Oklahoma City; Mr. Stan Lanford, president of Lanford Brothers Company, Roanoke, Virginia, representing the American Road and Transportation Builders Association; Mr. Mike Pheifer, president, Pheifer Brothers Construction Company, representing Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc.; Mr. Eugene McCormick, senior vice president, Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas, representing the American Consulting Engineers Council; and Mr. Stafford E. Thornton, president of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
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We would like to welcome all of you gentlemen to the committee. I want you get yourself settled. We appreciate your patience in waiting until the others could have a chance to testify. I'd like to invite you to proceed in whichever order you feel is appropriate.
Who would like to start off?
TESTIMONY OF PETER K. W. WERT, VICE PRESIDENT, HASKELL LEMON CONSTRUCTION CO., OKLAHOMA CITY, OK, ON BEHALF OF THE ASSOCIATED GENERAL CONTRACTORS OF AMERICA; STAN LANFORD, LANFORD BROTHERS CO., INC., ROANOKE, VA, ON BEHALF OF THE AMERICAN ROAD AND TRANSPORTATION BUILDERS ASSOCIATION; MIKE PHEIFER, PRESIDENT, PHEIFER BROTHERS CONSTRUCTION, CO., NEENAH, WI, ON BEHALF OF THE ASSOCIATED BUILDERS AND CONTRACTORS; EUGENE McCORMICK, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, PARSONS BRINCKERHOFF QUADE AND DOUGLAS, INC., ON BEHALF OF THE AMERICAN CONSULTING ENGINEERS COUNCIL; AND STAFFORD E. THORNTON, P.E., PRESIDENT, AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS
Mr. WERT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm Pete Wert of Haskell Lemon Construction Company, a highway contractor from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. I appreciate the opportunity to testify before you on behalf of AGC of America.
AGC is a national trade association of more than 33,000 firms, including 8,000 of America's leading general contractors.
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The impact of excessive Federal regulations is massive. We are directly affected by some 17 major acts of Congress and, as a result, our members are spending a disproportionate amount of time documenting compliance with burdensome regulations. That should not be the case.
In light of the excessive and extensive regulatory environment in which we operate, AGC continually publishes mountains of materials, such as the ones we brought this afternoon, just to keep our members current. In addition to Federal regulations, State and local laws often feed upon Federal initiatives requiring duplication of processes and paperwork.
Some of the most overwhelming regulations impacting highway construction are in the environmental area. In fact, prior to construction a typical highway project must overcome seven major hurdles, taking approximately 9 years to complete.
For example, our company just completed work on an urban thoroughfare in Oklahoma City that was tied up in the environmental process for about 10 years. During that time, a major bulk fuel distribution center that operates around the clock had to share with the traveling public a two-lane road that had major drainage problems.
Aside from the cost growth in the project, itself, due to the delay, the cost attributable to safety aspects and the inconvenience to the public are incalculable.
AGC does not believe that the environment should take a back seat to construction. We have long supported streamlining and organizing the environmental compliance process without compromising valid economic goals. Environmental policies and programs should be subject to scientific risk assessment, cost/benefit analysis, and an expedited conflict resolution process.
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Of the many laws referred to in my opening remarks, in the interest of time I'll only comment on the following four most burdensome.
DBE programs, however initially well-intentioned, are not now helping those who they were supposed to help, because most DBEs aren't progressing on a path that will enable them to grow naturally within the marketplace and graduate as economically viable contractors. We are still critically short of DBEs. DBEs aren't progressing on a path that will enable them to grow naturally within the marketplace and graduate as economically viable contractors. We are still critically short of qualified DBEs in all disciplines.
Further, the programs are abusive of the rights of other individuals and businesses.
One major problem we face is that, although the program is designed to be implemented as a goal, too often it is enforced as an inflexible quota required for contract award, and good faith efforts are rarely accepted, regardless of availability or capacity of qualified DBEs.
General contractors then come under extreme pressure to provide assistance to DBEs, and this assistance, however, may also put them in violation of Federal regulations.
In addition to possible legal problems, the projects are suffering from extra costs and delays that are caused by inexperienced DBEs. It is simply not a wise use of taxpayers' money to drive up the cost of construction without adding commensurate value.
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Davis-Bacon requirements also increase cost. AGC has supported reform or repeal of Davis-Bacon for over 60 years. The purchase of construction services by the Federal Government should not dictate additional costs which don't exist in the private sector.
An additional area of concern is wetlands reform. We appreciate the efforts proposed in Chairman Shuster's bill, H.R. 961, which would streamline the permitting process and ensure the preservation of our most critical wetland habitats by establishing a classification process. These are common sense reforms that will benefit both compliance and enforcement of the law.
AGC is also concerned about the impact of the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments. Clean air is a laudable goal and does not have to come at the expense of mobility. Technological improvements have reduced vehicle emissions over the past few years in spite of overall growth in vehicle miles travelled.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, we urge meaningful reform to Federal regulations, removal of transportation trust fund from the unified budget, swift passage of the NHS, and full funding of ISTEA.
Thank you. I'll be glad to answer any questions.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you very much, Mr. Wert.
Mr. Lanford.
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Mr. LANFORD. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Rahall, members of the committee, my name is Stan Lanford. I'm president of Lanford Brothers Company, a highway contractor from Roanoke, Virginia, representing the American Road and Transportation Builders Association.
We are pleased to have the opportunity to share with you our views on legislation to improve the national highway system and on statutory and regulatory burdens facing the transportation construction industry.
Mr. Chairman, it is impossible to overstate the importance of the national highway system. Although it comprises only 4 percent of our country's highway mileage, the network carries a disproportionate share of its commerce and personal travel.
Mr. Chairman, ARTBA believes that it is essential that legislation to designate the national highway system be enacted this year.
With regard to the statutory and regulatory burdens, we believe strongly that many of them can be removed by making reasoned changes to a variety of laws that have, in practice, proven to be unintended obstacles to economic development in our Nation.
With increasing budgetary pressures at all levels of government in the United States, we believe it is more critical than ever for our Nation to extract as much value in terms of economic, environmental, health, and safety benefits as possible from each dollar of investment. Unfortunately, a number of laws, as they currently are structured and interpreted in agency regulatory action, do not allow this to occur.
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From the perspective of the transportation construction industry, there are a number of statutory and regulatory areas that do not work well and which need revision. These include provisions in environmental protection, occupational health and safety, labor, and contract law. I will summarize the problem areas that we have identified.
It is our belief that Davis-Bacon Act is outdated and should be repealed. If this is not possible at this time, ARTBA recommends a number of revisions in the act which are set forth in my written statement.
The federally-designed disadvantaged enterprise program, as currently structured, does not meet the laudable objectives of helping minorities and women establish viable firms. ARTBA believes that the program should be restructured to provide management training, technical skills, business loans, bonding, and insurance for disadvantaged individuals.
The program should also, at a minimum, require uniform national standards for certification of DBE firms and mandated DBE firm capability profiles.
In addition, if there must be a percentage goal for the inclusion of minority and women-owned firms in the awarding of transportation contracts, it should be a single goal.
Mr. Chairman, the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act include provisions which affect the development of transportation projects which must be revised. My prepared statement lists suggested changes in the following areas.
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For the Clean Water Act, revisions must be made in wetlands delineation criteria, the wetlands delineation process, EPA veto authority, mitigation banking, permit decision delays, uncertainty over activities requiring permits, and storm water rules.
For the Clean Air Act, changes should cover highway funding sanctions, the conformity requirements, and the statistical validation of air quality models.
It is our understanding that the committee does not intend to make sweeping revisions to ISTEA this year. There are, however, some troublesome aspects of the law which should be addressed prior to the time that Congress takes up the reauthorization of ISTEA. My prepared statement identifies and discusses those issues. They include: repeal of the crumb rubber requirement, reduced funding or an alternate approach for the congestion mitigation and air quality program, and modification of the six required management systems.
On other issues, ARTBA does not believe the contractor warranties should be a part of the contracting process for transportation.
The design bill concept should not be implemented for highway and bridge projects.
ARTBA believes that the current Fedebal brght in the front.
Mr. RAHALL. Since the main part of your testimony was on the regulatory and risk assessment, etc., reviews that have been the buzz word of these days, I'd like to ask you a question about that. And I do not characterize those that were for the regulatory reform bill in the manner that perhaps some of my colleagues or some of the press have said in the heat of debate on this issue. I recognize that there are a lot of regulations that perhaps have gone to the extreme to one degree, and that the whole emphasis behind the whole effort on the House floor of recent days has been to bring those to a more reasonable level.
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My main concern is that the more reasonable level has been to the extreme the other way, and that in the regulatory moratorium bill passed by the House this week that perhaps we have gone too far the other way and, as a consequence of those actions down the road we may see a reaction back the other way to a greater degree than exists today.
But there is that other Body, fortunately—for the first time you're hearing me say that—here on the Hill that perhaps will take a more reasonable view.
We have heard even today from a colleague of ours from the majority party come to us saying there is a regulation that he needs to help his farmers in the midwest and he's not certain, in response to my question, how the bill passed by the House this week will affect that regulation he needs. So he is going to, no doubt, seek an exemption. I dare say there are going to be many others that voted for that bill this week that are now going to say, ''Hey, wait a minute. I need an exemption.'' There probably is going to come out an amendment process in the Senate as we see exemptions offered one after another.
Is there an area in which you see that perhaps the trucking industry is going to need some type of regulation in the future that may bump up against this moratorium passed by the House?
Mr. DONOHUE. I think your analysis of this does point out the problem that we faced in trying to make major change, and I think it is significant to keep our eye on the ball. What we are really after is not a moratorium. That's just a tool. We are after significant regulatory reform, cost/benefit analysis, and risk assessment.
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In the process of getting there, we certainly do have some challenges, as you indicated. But I think the reason people were supporting the moratorium is they wance with varying local union work rules. These place additional burdens on the contractors.
Contractors must submit certified payroll reports, not only for their own work, but are responsible for all of its subs also at a cost to employers of hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Studies have shown that this act makes it more likely that large, non-local firms specializing in Davis-Bacon construction will work on public works projects, while small, minority and independent contractors avoid Davis-Bacon work due to the built-in inefficiencies and administrative difficulties associated with the act.
Pheifer Brothers, alone, spends over 500 administrative hours per year and generates over 2,000 pages of reports which are mailed to one of eight districts throughout the State of Wisconsin, which then must be checked and filed.
Additionally, many semi-skilled helpers are often precluded from performing tasks on Davis-Bacon work simply because of the cost involved in having to pay the prevailing wage on the trade that he is helping with. It is only natural that those new to the trade would be paid less while they master their skills.
When Congress studies and eventually enacts welfare reform, it is imperative that we consider the many less-skilled workers who will be attempting to enter the marketplace. In Wisconsin we have found that the union wage scale is often over-represented due to the definition used for prevailing. When determining prevailing wages, the resulting wage rate determinations frequently exceed the local wages. This means that small, local firms that could otherwise offer competitive bids on the basis of their local labor costs lose out to large, non-local firms because the local firm cannot do the paperwork involved or do not wish to disrupt their own employees' local wage packages by paying a split wage.
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Several arguments against repeal of Davis-Bacon have been aired before this committee in the past, and I would like to address a few of those myths.
Repealing of the Davis-Bacon Act would destabilize the procurement process by encouraging low-ball bidding. Competition does not reduce wages below market level, only monopolies do.
A contractor paying below-market wages would not attract the kind of quality worker needed to ensure project completion without overruns and ensuring future bonding.
Myth number two: repeal would result in construction wages falling an average of $1,477 per year. If this argument against repeal is that Davis-Bacon prevailing wage is not significantly higher than that found in private construction, this should not be true. If it is true, it is interesting that construction workers have been singled out for a $1,477 a year subsidy.
Myth number three: repeal of the Davis-Bacon Act would lead to the decline in apprenticeship training. The opposite is true, especially with our company, because employers choose to hire their employees and work them in the field before they invest money to sponsor them in apprenticeship programs.
These employees often get paid Davis-Bacon wages, and the incentive is gone to commit to an additional apprenticeship program. Employers need to train employees and would continue to train.
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In conclusion, the Davis-Bacon does not protect local firms from outside competition; it has the opposite effect of destroying any local advantage from real local labor costs. It does not elevate labor standards, and it does not protect laborers from below-market wages.
Why is it then that we continue to apply it? Is it because of the lifestyle to which a special group has become accustomed?
ABC strongly supports the effort being made by the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and by this subcommittee towards the enactment of the national highway system, H.R. bill 842, to ensure that the Nation's highways are adequately funded.
ABC appreciates this opportunity to come before the committee and present you with one way to provide the Nation with more highway for their tax dollar—repeal the Davis-Bacon Act.
On behalf of Associated Builders and Contractors, I again thank you and members of the subcommittee for this opportunity to testify. We'll be happy to answer any questions.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you, Mr. Pheifer.
Mr. McCormick.
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Mr. MCCORMICK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Rahall, Mr. Mineta. It is a pleasure to be here.
My name is Gene McCormick. Today, I represent the American Consulting Engineers Council. ACEC represents 5,500 consulting firms throughout our country, with over 200,000 employees. The firms represented range in size from a single individual to firms with thousands of employees, and collectively the firms design approximately $100 billion a year of infrastructure, public works, and private facilities throughout our country.
I am glad to join particularly my fellow panelists in representing the highway community from a private sector standpoint.
I'd like to perhaps begin by talking about the national highway system. I'd like to do it in a way that maybe puts it in kind of a current context in Washington, D.C., at least, if I could try.
We hear a lot about reinventing Government. We hear a lot about redefining the role between the Federal and the State governments. We hear a lot about Constitutional amendments. In my judgment, at least, the national highway system is a common denominator across that spectrum of current topics.
Our Constitution calls for the Federal Government to assure safe and efficient interstate commerce flow across our land. The Federal Government, in my judgment, has realized that responsibility during the history of our country, first in the form of turnpikes and canals, later railroads, and most recently in the interstate system. I would simply suggest that the national highway system is the next natural evolution of that, and that I believe—and we believe within ACEC—the national highway system is a very fundamental objective for the future of our transportation system in this country.
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We value and recognize the subcommittee's support in that regard, the full committee's support, and we are ready to help in any regard that we can—in our judgment, a very key factor for our future, as it is in our judgment.
Let me turn to a couple of elements that maybe should be considered in that context, if I could.
We in ACEC dedicate ourselves to quality through such things as the national quality initiative, partnering agreements, and many other facets. We are committed to quality.
One topic that has come up historically is the question of guarantees and warranties and how they may relate to the highway program and the transportation business, at large. We at ACEC remain opposed to guarantees and warranties and would suggest, for the most recent evidence in that regard, the results of a European quality tour and a report that was issued in June 1994 from US DOT that basically concludes that the frequent use of warranties in Europe was not the driving force behind quality.
On the other hand, we encourage such tools as life cycle cost analysis to make certain that our infrastructure investments are based on minimizing life cycle costs versus just minimizing initial costs.
We encourage such tools as value engineering, the collaborative peer effort to review design plans and incorporate the design and construction industry in assuring the most cost-effective products.
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We encourage efficiency in the program, and one example that has been included in three recent House legislative actions is the consideration of what we call ''a single audit'' so that individual public agencies throughout the Nation do not require an audit for each project with each firm, but rather a reliance upon a common audit provided under the auspices and guidelines of the Federal acquisition regulation.
There are opportunities to save, we believe, in the delivery of the program.
Mr. Chairman, we are dedicated and support wholeheartedly the notion, the idea of qualification-based selection. We appreciate your effort in the past, going back as far as 1987, in that regard.
Let me close by simply continuing to offer our support for your current effort, not only in terms of the national highway system, but also in terms of transportation trust funds being moved off budget. We believe that is essential to restore the integrity of both the transportation trust funds and the overall Federal budget.
Thank you very much.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Thornton.
Mr. THORNTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, my Congressman, Mr. Rahall.
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I am here today on behalf of the American Society of Civil Engineers to discuss the national highway system.
At the outset, I wish to commend the members of the panel for working so hard and so long to bring the issue of national public works infrastructure to the fore. ASCE strongly endorses H.R. 842, the Truth in Budgeting Act, which would restore integrity to the four key transportation trust funds.
The American people in poll after poll show overwhelming support for the increased investment in our vital infrastructure facilities because they know that improving and expanding America's public works, be it in highways, bridges, mass transit, airports, or protecting and cleaning up the environment, is a sound investment in economic development, the quality of life, U.S. competitiveness, and jobs.
The ASCE was founded in 1852 and is the oldest national engineering society in the United States. The membership held by more than 115,000 members are professional engineers about equally divided between private practice, government, academia, and research.
The Society's major goals are to develop engineers to move further the objectives of society, as a whole, and promote the dedication and technical capability as members and advance professional civil engineering.
The national highway system is a logical successor to the interstate system, which is, without a doubt, one of the great civil engineering achievements of our time.
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The NHS is a critical first step towards a truly integrated national transportation system. Improving the efficiency of the U.S. transportation system could pay big economic dividends.
A mere 1 percent improvement in the overall efficiency of the U.S. transportation system would translate into roughly $100 billion in savings across the economy within a decade.
ASCE Is strongly opposed to the provision in the 1993 Budget Act that raised the Federal gasoline tax by $0.043 per gallon and diverted these additional revenues to the general fund. ASCE will support any effort to return the $0.043 to the highway trust fund. We are pleased that the $0.025 diverted from the highway trust fund by the 1990 budget accord will be returned to the trust fund on October 1, 1995.
ASCE has deep concerns about the Administration's apparent retreat from infrastructure investment, in general, and surface transportation expenditures, in particular.
Any raid on the trust funds is ill advised and further underscores the importance of enacting H.R. 842. As I alluded to earlier, the American people support sound investments in building and maintaining our public works infrastructure. In an effort to maintain broad public support and control, media misinterpretations, we respectfully suggest that the projects be added. The committee should adopt strict criteria, including consultations with State and local transportation officials, for the selection of special transportation projects. Deauthorizing previous projects that have received zero funding would be another partial solution.
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ASCE strongly endorses the use of multi-year capital development at the Federal level to separate investment needs from operating expenses. We believe momentum is building for adoption of a Federal capital budget which will aid in the planning of infrastructure development.
ASCE is opposed to legislative or regulatory mandates that would impose warranty or guarantee clauses into the highway designers without regard to the realities and practice of the highway construction industry. Under current procurement systems of highway design, construction, operation, and maintenance in this country, the design professionals simply cannot assume liability and guarantee the performance of a highway facility that is built, owned, and maintained by other parties.
We do believe in ASCE that metric signage is a controversial issue and, if mishandled, could be misconstrued and unfunded mandate. Nevertheless, we do support the 1988 Omnibus Trade and Competitive Act which declared the policy of the United States to convert to the metric unit by 1992. ASCE respectfully recommends that all pertinent measurement distance and sign speeds on the national highway system utilize the metric system in accordance with that law.
ASCE has recently become concerned about some of the efforts of Congress to allow low bidding for design services. Procuring engineering services on the basis of price instead of qualifications would undermine project quality and ultimately increase overall project construction costs.
ASCE urges continued if not greater Federal commitment to education, research, and development related to infrastructure facilities, including innovation and increased productivity in design, materials, construction, maintenance, and operation while maintaining engineering quality and structural integrity.
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ASCE supports the repeal of the Davis-Bacon Act. ASCE believes that the Federal, State, and local officials should rescind existing disadvantaged business enterprise programs based on the Small Business Administration's size of standards.
This concludes my remarks, Mr. Chairman. I would be happy to answer any questions of any member of the subcommittee.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you very much, Mr. Thornton.
Mr. Rahall, do you have any questions?
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Thornton, I believe you wear another hat as a professor at West Virginia Tech?
Mr. THORNTON. That's correct, sir.
Mr. RAHALL. That's an institution of excellent higher learning in the Third Congressional District of West Virginia.
Mr. Chairman, before I ask a question let me ask unanimous consent, if I may, to submit for the record the written testimony of Mr. Terry Bumpers on behalf of Contractors Coalition for Davis-Bacon.
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Mr. PETRI. Without objection, so ordered.
[Mr. Bumpers' prepared statement follows:]
[Insert here.]
Mr. RAHALL. I'd say that in his testimony—which I might say the Contractors Coalition is formed of a number of construction companies, including Bechtel Construction Company, the Labor Management Council in my home State of West Virginia, and another council in West Virginia called the West Virginia Construction Council. That's the membership of this coalition.
The thrust of their testimony, Mr. Chairman, is that they are opposed to repeal of Davis-Bacon. They state in their testimony that, ''Contrary to assertions of those in favor of repeal, those of us who work every day in the construction industry know that repeal of the Davis-Bacon Act would only serve to drive down wages, and with it the quality and productivity of workers, but would not—'' and they underline ''not''—''decrease costs. Contractors who bid on prevailing wage construction projects know that productivity is a major factor in determining labor costs and not the hourly wage rate.''
That's in their opening part of their testimony.
Let me ask the panel, if I might—and I know, Mr. McCormick, I believe you have already answered this question. But, as each of you know, in last year's NHS bill we included provisions relating to life cycle cost analysis and value engineering. Would each of you state your position, the position of your organization, on this issue, please? We'll start with you on the left.
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Mr. PHEIFER. On both of those issues, ABC would be in favor, on cost reduction incentives especially. Innovative ideas by the contractors—we would be in favor of that.
On the other item, I would also be in favor of that item also.
Mr. LANFORD. ARTBA would support life cycle studies to show that this was an economical move.
Mr. RAHALL. That was a yes to both? I'm sorry.
Mr. LANFORD. Sir?
Mr. RAHALL. That was a yes to both, Mr. Lanford?
Mr. LANFORD. Yes. Yes to both.
Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Wert.
Mr. WERT. Yes, Mr. Rahall, the AGC of America would support both the life cycle costing and certainly the expansion of the value engineering concept.
Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Thornton.
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Mr. THORNTON. The American Society of Civil Engineers supports both of those concepts, and certainly the life cycle analysis we feel is one of the things that just is a must in comparing alternatives to any project.
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you, gentlemen.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Mr. Mineta, do you have any?
Mr. MINETA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me thank the panel for their testimony here.
I'm wondering, since many of you are calling for outright repeal of certain parts of laws that already exist, how much of that is being driven by the fact that maybe these are really good pieces of legislation but maybe they are not administered as well as they should be? So rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water, is there some way that some of these programs might be administered in a better way?
These are goals, it seems to me, that have some public policy benefit. Obviously, if it hadn't been there in the first place, they would not have been enacted into law.
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But now I just hear everybody saying, ''Repeal this. Throw that out. Get rid of this.'' I'm not sure that necessarily is the way to go.
I know they talk about Members of Congress that way—that we ought to be tossed out. But I'm just wondering.
Mr. McCormick, you were a former administrator. Were all these things so bad that we should have gotten rid of them when you were an administrator, or are there some public policy interests that ought to still be retained in some of these things that all of you in your testimony have said we ought to get rid of?
Mr. MCCORMICK. Let me react to one that I heard my fellow panelists refer to, the DBE program, if I may.
First of all, I'll state kind of my organization's perspective. ACEC, the American Consulting Engineers Council, believes the program can be strengthened. Maybe there are two primary examples of how the program could be strengthened. One would be to try to make sure that there is more of what I call ''business training'' incorporated into the program so that there is the true opportunities created.
Secondly, the creation of some sort of graduation progression bench marking, if you will, within the program so that it just doesn't remain dormant.
On a personal standpoint, I guess I would pick on that second element of one that we were trying to nurture and develop further within the Federal Highway Administration. I think there is probably still plenty of operational room for administrative growth in that respect.
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Mr. MINETA. Any other reactions from some of the members of the panel?
Mr. THORNTON. It was our position on DBE not to do it, to take the size limitation off. We feel that it is unrealistic, that you stifle growth in some companies by telling them they've got to stay this small to get considered. That cuts down the competitiveness of them trying to grow and become a larger firm.
That's the only part of that we——
Mr. MINETA. Even part of that is to say that it is sort of phased in the sense that as you get up to—I forget what the threshold is now. Is it $16.3 million? I started out an insurance agency in 1959 with zero in premium volume. By about 1970 I think I had it up to about $2 million. There were no DBE programs or anything of that nature for services.
But it seems to me there ought to be—and I think maybe from a public policy perspective, there has been some thought that you can help people get started and then phase them out at some point. Same thing with Davis-Bacon. Maybe if we, as someone has suggested on there, if we raise the threshold to $1 million instead of $2,000 right now, maybe we—there are things that we ought to be maybe doing instead of just throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I would hope that we might be able to have your cooperation and the organizations that you represent to try to put your thinking cap on so that we say, ''Yes, the world isn't all that bad. We ought not to just pull the bag over our head or stick our head in the sand. There are things that we ought to retain, and that we ought to try to work towards improving,'' instead of just saying, ''Let's get rid of it all.''
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It's like people saying that we ought to cut spending. That sounds great, but there is a great deal of public spending by which you are benefiting, the private sector benefits. Where is that great cry for saying, ''We've got to keep public investment in infrastructure going.''
I hear cut, cut, cut, pork, pork, pork. But is seems to me that when I look at the figures of 1967, 6.2 percent of our Federal outlays were in capital investment in infrastructure. Today that's 3 percent. We are trying to come up with a NHS to take us into the next century, and it means increased investment. Yet what we hear a lot of is, ''Cut public spending.''
Well, public spending, frankly, benefits the private side. If the private sector wants just-in-time delivery in terms of their inventory control system, it ain't going to work if we've got a lousy infrastructure system.
So it just seems to me that what we ought to be doing is putting on our thinking caps to be able to help each other both prosper in terms of productivity, being competitive in an international, global marketplace, and try to help each other out.
In any event, thank you very, very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
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Mr. Barcia, do you have any questions?
Mr. BARCIA. No, sir.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Wamp.
Mr. WAMP. No.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Rahall.
Mr. RAHALL. No.
Mr. PETRI. I had a question or two of Mr. Pheifer.
In your written testimony, and I think in your oral testimony, as well, you indicated that it is your belief that union wage scales are often over-represented in Wisconsin when determining prevailing local wages.
Could you give us any more specifics on that as to what the difference between union and non-union wages amounts to in your area of the State?
Mr. PHEIFER. I think where the problem comes in is how prevailing is determined in the definition of prevailing. It is not an average, and the prevailing is interpreted to be the wage that is most paid in that area, because merit shop and open shop contractors tend to pay their people on merit and have a lot of different wage rates, they don't fit the formula and therefore the prevailing wage for that area becomes the union wage scale because they pay them exactly the same thing, and the carpenter wage is exactly that throughout the area.
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For Pheifer Brothers, 95 percent of our work is prevailing wage, so I don't have a real good idea on what the big difference is.
I think the theory that open shop is paying a low—merit shop is low-paying, unskilled construction firms, I think that's outdated and it just simply isn't true.
We have to—we are very concerned about our workmen comp premiums. They are probably as expensive as what we would save in labor by paying a substandard wage.
To answer your question directly, I really don't know what the big difference is between it, but I think the act was something that was started or enacted in 1930, and it has just outlived its usefulness.
Fair competition and the other OSHA and workmen's comp premiums are going to make all contractors look at safety, coupled with the fact that the owners that are receiving the end product won't accept a sub-standard product. If we hire a bunch of people from Mexico, as I have been told, for $0.40 an hour, that just simply isn't going to happen because the ultimate owner is not going to accept that quality. That's why I feel it is outdated.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Thank you all very much.
Mr. Barcia.
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Mr. BARCIA. I'd just like to make one comment.
I'm sorry I didn't hear the statements of all the panel members, but I just would like to point out that in some instances a public work involving construction projects—when I was in the State Senate up in Michigan we had a high school that contracted with an electrical contractor who employed his children. There is a loophole in Michigan law which allows family members to be unlicensed to perform basically electrical contracting work.
It turned out to be a big fiasco. Much of the rewiring on that project had to be redone by skilled tradesmen.
So I would caution you to consider that many States have loopholes in those laws so that a family-owned business can employ 10-, 12-, 14-year-old children to perform highly-skilled construction work, and in many cases that work has to be redone at tremendous expense of the public with taxpayer dollars.
I'd just like to point out that in some instances that still does happen. That was about 3 or 4 years ago.
Mr. PHEIFER. I could respond to that.
I think that you bring up a valid point, but, on the larger scale, I have found that almost all municipalities require you to be pre-qualified 5 days before you are allowed to bid on a particular project. And I think there are enough safeguards out there that can protect the project from substandard quality. Also, from a bonding standpoint, I seriously doubt that they would be able to become bonded or come up with a bond if they did substandard work.
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Mr. BARCIA. Are you familiar if there are many States like Michigan that allow the children of licensed contractors to perform work such as sheet metal work, electrical work, and things like that? Is that something unique to Michigan, or does that happen around the country fairly regularly?
Mr. PHEIFER. I'm not aware of it in Wisconsin.
Mr. PETRI. All right. Thank you very much, gentlemen. We appreciate your testimony.
The members of panel seven are: Mr. Mike Stewart, president and chief executive officer, World Class Transportation Services, Chattanooga, Tennessee; Mr. Scott Wexler of the National Licensed Beverage Association's Government Affairs Committee and executive director of the New York Tavern and Restaurant Association; and Mr. Giffen B. Nickol, communications coordinator of the Maryland Chapter of the National Motorists Association.
I believe our colleague, Mr. Wamp, would like to introduce his constituent and fellow Tennessean, Mr. Stewart.
Mr. WAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do appreciate your allowing me to introduce Mr. Mike Stewart to your subcommittee and for being invited to participate in today's hearing as a member of the full committee, although I do not serve on this subcommittee.
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I think Mike Stewart's story and the story of his business, World Class Transportation, is one which should be told and one which the members of this subcommittee need to hear.
Lately the debate in this Congress and this country has gotten quite heated over the future of affirmative action programs in America. In my opinion, any mean-spirited debate will not serve the disadvantaged individuals or business people in this country.
On our committee, Transportation and Infrastructure, we enjoy a spirit of bipartisanship very rare in this day and age, and under the leadership of Chairman Shuster and ranking member Mineta, and under your leadership, Mr. Chairman, and the leadership of your subcommittee ranking member, we can look into the effectiveness of such programs and judge them on their merits without resorting to partisan bickering.
I am personally committed to make sure that small businesses in my district succeed and thrive. On top of that, I am particularly committed to giving minority-owned and historically disadvantaged business owners an opportunity to learn the necessary skills, helping them gain access to capital, and helping them to create market opportunities where they do not exist so that all Americans who want to work and contribute to society can have that chance.
Unfortunately, some of the very programs we have put in place in the past are now hindering that process, not helping it.
I join my colleagues in calling for an evaluation of the affirmative action programs now in place and see if the programs Congress has put in place to help the disadvantaged actually help or hinder their ultimate success, whether we are tearing down those road blocks or building up even higher walls.
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Mike Stewart's experience with DBE programs of the Federal Transit Authority speak for itself. I'm proud to have such a world-class company in my district and such a world-class individual from Chattanooga, Tennessee, here to talk to us today and answer our questions.
Mr. Mike Stewart.
Mr. PETRI. Please proceed.
TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL STEWART, PRESIDENT, WORLD CLASS TRANSPORTATION SERVICES, CHATTANOOGA, TN; SCOTT WEXLER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NEW YORK TAVERN AND RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION, CHAIRMAN, GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS COMMITTEE, NATIONAL LICENSED BEVERAGE ASSOCIATION (NLBA), ACCOMPANIED BY JOHN CHWAT, WASHINGTON LOBBYIST, NLBA; AND GIFFEN B. NICKOL, COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR, MARYLAND CHAPTER, NATIONAL MOTORISTS ASSOCIATION
Mr. STEWART. Thank you, Congressman Wamp.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to testify.
World Class Transportation Services is a Chattanooga-based company providing bus rehabilitation and rail car rehabilitation to the transit industry.
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Our initial venture into the transit business was installing wheelchair lifts on buses for the Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority to help them comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
At our Atlanta facility, we are participating in the overhaul of the rail cars for the upcoming Olympics. Unfortunately, major procurements are limited to a few giant prime contractors, leaving the disadvantaged business enterprises, the ones even with the experience and expertise as World Class has earned, restricted to a traditional minority scope of services as they, the prime contractors, satisfy the participation goals for the federally-funded transit procurements.
As a front row participant, I bring to your attention the ineffectiveness of the present structure in assisting small businesses in participating in Government contracts.
The machinery of the minority business development programs and businesses that have been historically at a disadvantage, whether economically disadvantaged, race, gender—this program certifies them as meeting the DBE criteria.
This is an aggressive function of the transit industry, but it has been our observation that the compliance lacks in this area of enforcement.
As mandated, transit authorities set a goal of projected DBE participation as part of the procurement and the award criteria. A DBE compliance plan is given to weigh towards determining the successful prime contractor.
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My company has had frequent opportunities to perform as a pass-through company, and it would not be difficult to name several DBE companies performing solely as pass-through companies to major prime contractors in the transit industry.
In order for World Class Transportation to participate on contracts with the prime contractors, they must first choose to include my company on their bidder's list and, second, the components that are bid must be provided by my company, must be put on the list.
Being that we perform outside the traditional area of DBE participation, the level of overhaul and rehabilitation that are our measured components set us aside from other small minority companies.
On the projects that we bid directly to transit authorities, the disparity is evident. The bonding limits preclude us from bidding the projects we know that we can perform on. Additionally, equipment sources tend to quote to us a different level of pricing, although it is unlawful, it is difficult to prove, thus inflating our prices past the competitive range.
Although supposedly the DBE participation is a criteria towards award, it has never been our experience that this has lifted us past the low bidder.
In other Federal Government arenas, the opportunities exist to compete solely against other designated participants of the certification program, or to have a published percentage advantage in the bidding process. I would not suggest that transit adopt these procedures, but adopt a program that sends a positive message and provides an avenue for DBEs to grow into a full participant in the transit without further need of the segregations.
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Certainly this should be a strong consideration and should be of strong merit.
Fortunately, the Federal Transit Administration has seen the need to propose the 49 CFR 23, which is a minority development program which has been structured to provide the mechanisms for developing minority businesses from the subcontracting stage to the stage of a prime contractor. For the past several weeks I have exposed several transit authorities to the possibilities of their participating as our sponsor on this program to act as a technology support.
With the moral support and encouragement from the Federal Transit Administration, in listing the funding support of Congress, this is the final piece necessary to put the program in implementation.
The 49 CFR 23, which is a disadvantaged business development program, is the answer.
The gentleman before me was speaking of the same situation. How do you get a small, minority-owned business from the level of a subcontractor to the level of a prime without technology being transferred? It should be a graduated step where you enlist into a program and then eventually graduate out of that program standing on your own.
I thank you for this opportunity to testify.
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Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Mr. Wexler, would you like to proceed?
Mr. WEXLER. Mr. Chairman, I am Scott Wexler, chairman of the Government Affairs Committee of the National Licensed Beverage Association, an organization that represents the retail alcohol beverage industry. I am also the executive director of the New York Tavern and Restaurant Association.
I am accompanied today by John Chwat, the association's Washington lobbyist.
We appreciate this opportunity to present testimony in support of H.R. 607, the States' Rights Empowerment Act of 1995, introduced by Representative Scott Klug, which is pending in this subcommittee.
Representative Klug's bill, as you know, would do away with Federal requirements that blackmail the States to implement laws governing the use of motorcycle helmets and seatbelts, mandate speed limits, and set the legal drinking age.
The NLBA believes that no matter how noble the cause, the individual States should not be pressured into enacting these mandates.
Representative Tom DeLay addressed these States' rights issue in 1988. Commenting on the floor, Representative DeLay eloquently stated that, ''Under the threat of withholding Federal highway funds, we could dictate almost anything to the States. We already use this stick to dictate the drinking age, seatbelts, and speed limits. Although this is all done in the name of public safety, I am just afraid that it is done at the expense of our unique form of government.''
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The Constitutional limitation on the power of Congress and the delegation of the remaining powers to the States was done for a reason. By weaseling around those limitations through the blackmail of withholding their rightful highway funding, we do an injustice to our sacred Constitution.
In regard to that portion of H.R. 607 that seeks to repeal the national minimum drinking age, throughout our Nation's history it has always been accepted that the regulation of beverage alcohol is one of the powers that the States did not relinquish to the Federal Government. Except for a brief experience with prohibition, it has always been the States that have decided when and how alcohol can be sold within their borders, who can buy alcohol, and how old these people must be.
The NLBA concurs with and commends to the Congress the sentiments expressed on June 26, 1984, by Senator Strom Thurmond during the debate on the national minimum drinking age amendment. At that time, the Senator argued against this approach saying, ''I cannot support its adoption because it would result in Federal encroachment into areas that have been reserved to the States under the U.S. Constitution and by firmly-established traditional division of Federal/State responsibilities.
''This practice, Mr. President, is nothing short of coercion and blackmail by the central Government in Washington. I believe it to be repugnant to the Constitution, inconsistent with sound principles of Federalism, and not in the best interest of our country. I do not believe this practice should be continued.
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''Mr. President, while I wholeheartedly agree that drunk driving is a serious problem, and one that urgently needs to be addressed, I cannot support legislation such as this which would result in further Federal encroachment into areas reserved to the States.
''With the repeal of the 18th amendment and the ratification of the 21st amendment, the regulation of alcoholic beverage sales and consumption is more clearly than ever left to the police power of the respective States.''
If you examine the legislative history of the 1933 debate on the 21st amendment, you will see that Senator Robert Wagner of New York urged deletion of the proposed section three of the 21st amendment because it allowed for Federal intervention. He questioned the proper focus of section three when he said, ''If Congress gave itself power to regulate the saloon, it would have the power to regulate the place and hours of purchase as well as the age and sex of purchasers.''
Section three was deleted by Congress, and by doing so reserved these powers to the States.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, this Congress has addressed the issue of unfunded mandates. H.R. 607 extends this line of thinking to the use of motorcycle helmets and seatbelts, speed limits, and the legal drinking age. Passage of H.R. 607 would permit the States to use their own judgment on these highway safety proposals without the coercion of the Federal Government.
I have attached to my testimony, Mr. Chairman, a section of a dissenting opinion of the Supreme Court Case, South Dakota v. Dole, which challenged the Constitutionality of a national minimum drinking age law. The arguments raised by the justices in this dissent are supportive of our position as it relates to H.R. 607.
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The NLBA has consistently supported the rights of States to make their own laws relating to beverage alcohol. We urge you to pass H.R. 607, remove the unfair coercion, and return control over these issues to the States where it belongs.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before the subcommittee today.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Mr. Nickol.
Mr. NICKOL. Thank you Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee.
My name is Giffen B. Nickol. I am a resident of Bel Air in northeastern Maryland.
For the record, I am a district staff employee of Maryland Representative Robert Earl Ehrlich, Jr., but I am here today on my own time and I am not representing Mr. Ehrlich before the committee.
I am the volunteer communications coordinator for the Maryland Chapter of the National Motorists Association, and I am here today in that capacity to speak to you on H.R. 427.
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For your information, the National Motorists Association is supported solely by the memberships of individuals, families, and small businesses. We are not supported by or funded by any corporate vested interests.
The question of highway speed limits is of great importance to us all. This issue affects, to varying degrees, every American with a driver's license, and that includes a majority of our citizens.
It affects our driving behavior, our driving records, our insurance rates, and our individual and collective attitudes toward law makers, law enforcers, and the law, itself.
In order to examine this issue clearly, we must first understand what is normal driver behavior.
For many years, I have quipped that 95 percent of all American motorists believe that 95 percent of all American motorists are terrible drivers who don't know what they are doing, but no one ever includes himself in that category. Each of us professes to be an excellent driver. It is always the other guy who drives too fast or too slow or too erratically.
In reality, traffic engineers have long known that the typical motorist avoids unnecessary risk and, absent impairment or some other abnormality, operates his or her vehicle in a safe manner.
Where speeds and speed limits are concerned, the vast majority of motorists drive at speeds they find safe and comfortable, irrespective of the numbers affixed to speed limit signs.
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Posted speed limits do not control actual driving speeds, and speed limits set higher or lower than motorists deem safe will be ignored.
Speed limits must not be used to try to force reasonable motorists to drive at speeds they find to be unreasonable. Unfortunately, for 20 years the maximum national speed limit has done just that.
All over these United States modern highways in good repair which have been designed to facilitate and encourage safe and efficient high-speed driving are posted at speeds well below what most drivers deem reasonable. The result of this has been to encourage law-breaking and to promote disrespect for speed limits, in general.
Various enforcement campaigns aimed at reducing highway speeds have resulted in millions of Americans whose conduct is neither harmful nor dangerous being cited for speeding, and suffering the fines, blemished driving records, and increased insurance rates which have resulted.
A fundamental principle of lawmaking in a free society is that the reasonable actions of ordinary citizens ought not to be illegal. Laws should single out and punish only unreasonable or dangerous conduct. To our great detriment, the national maximum speed limit violates this principle.
The very concept of a national maximum speed limit begs the question: who should set speed limits? Highway conditions in this vast country are far too diverse for one speed limit, no matter what that limit might be, to be applied nationwide. State transportation officials who are most familiar with the highways under their jurisdictions, are the individuals most qualified to set speed limits.
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Traffic engineers are educated, trained professionals who can be trusted to act in the best interests of the motoring public. There is simply no reason to suspect that they cannot be counted on to set appropriate speed limits on their various State highways.
It is highly unrealistic to suppose that one speed limit is right for all of our highways, and that such a speed limit can be administered fairly and properly from this city.
Two decades ago, in the midst of a so-called energy crisis, the national maximum speed limit was created as a temporary fuel conservation measure. Today, there is simply no good reason for the Federal Government to maintain control over the States' highway speed limits. Consequently, I respectfully urge your support for H.R. 427, and I ask for your vote to repeal the national maximum speed limit.
Thank you very much.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you. I have been monitoring that light in front of you with the time for the vote on the floor, and I think we are short-changing everyone about 15 seconds, which may explain why your statements tend to run slightly over, because you probably have been doing a good job of keeping within the 5 minutes.
Are there any questions of the witnesses?
Mr. RAHALL. Just one quick question, Mr. Chairman.
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I'd just like to ask Mr. Nickol: does your boss know where you are?
Mr. NICKOL. Yes, sir, he does.
Mr. RAHALL. Does he support your testimony?
Mr. NICKOL. Yes, I believe he does. And he is a co-sponsor of Congressman Klug's bill, H.R. 607. When he was in the State Legislature in Maryland he was an enthusiastic supporter of our 65 mile per hour speed limit bills there.
Mr. RAHALL. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, since this is staff day for witnesses before our subcommittee, let me just correct for the record, if I might, in Mr. Stewart's testimony the name of a staff member of our subcommittee which he mentioned as Roger Nobles. Actually the name should be Roger Nober, N-O-B-E-R, the majority counsel for the Subcommittee on Surface Transportation.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Yes, Representative Franks.
Mr. FRANKS. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask unanimous consent to make a statement part of the record.
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Mr. PETRI. Yes. So ordered.
[Mr. Franks' prepared statement follows:]
[Insert here.]
Mr. PETRI. Any other questions?
Mr. MINETA. Mr. Chairman, may I very quickly ask the—Mr. Nickol, this National Motorists Association, what is the organization?
Mr. NICKOL. The organization was founded in 1982 specifically dedicated to repealing the national maximum speed limit. It is headquartered in Dane, Wisconsin—Mr. Petri's district, I believe—and it is made up of motoring enthusiasts. It is a grassroots organization, and its membership is—the organization is supported solely by dues paid by members and families and small businesses.
Mr. MINETA. And you say the stated goal is only to get rid of the maximum speed limit law?
Mr. NICKOL. The NMA works on drivers' rights issues across the country. Our goal in this matter is to——
Mr. MINETA. I'm sorry? Driver what?
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Mr. NICKOL. On drivers' rights issues—highway issues across the country. Our goal here is to eliminate Federal control over State speed limits. We believe that State highway engineers are qualified to set appropriate speed limits for the roads within their various jurisdictions.
Mr. MINETA. I notice that in your statement you say ''State transportation officials who are the most familiar with the highways under their jurisdiction are the individual most qualified to set speed limits.'' They do. They are the ones who determine it within the bounds of the maximum Federal/State limit.
Mr. NICKOL. Exactly. Let me give you——
Mr. MINETA. As far as any other setting of the limits, the State does it.
Mr. NICKOL. Let me cite a situation that we have going on right now in the State of Maryland, and it will, I think, illuminate the point that I'm trying to make.
Mr. PETRI. I hate to break in, but we are down to a very few—we're going to have to run and take a 10-minute break.
Mr. Wamp and Mr. Mineta may have some further questions, if you could keep yourself available in case that's the case.
We'll be back in 10 minutes.
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[Recess.]
Mr. PETRI. Please return to your seats and come back to order.
I recognize the representative from east Tennessee, Representative Wamp.
Mr. WAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I do want to ask Mr. Stewart a couple of questions on his testimony, if I may. And thank you for your kindness, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Stewart, in your testimony you mentioned that bonding limits prevented you from bidding directly to the source agency on projects within your level of expertise. Could you please give more details on how this process works and where you think the problems may lie?
Mr. STEWART. Yes. Bonding basically is an asset-based requirement. You are basically required to have the amount of assets in your company for the limit that you are trying to get bonded for. Small, minority companies, most of our projects have been small from a subcontractor's standpoint, which means that most of the prime contractors put up the bond. When a small company goes to get a bond, what happens is you have no track record as being bondable from a bonding agent, which means when the amount of money needed—if it is a $200,000 bond and you only have $150,000 in assets, the next time you go for an additional bond over the amount of $200,000 you can only get one and a half times the amount of your first bond.
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In my case, our first contract was a $50,000, then we went to a $400,000 contract. We were not eligible for bonding because it was more than one and one half times. That is one rule.
Secondly, bonding—anything that you get bonded as a subcontractor has no relevance on your attempt to get bonding as a prime, so you can work 10 years as a subcontractor and go and apply for a bond as a prime and you have no record.
Mr. WAMP. Is it fair to say that, summarizing your testimony, you've been given the opportunity to act as a pass-through contractor by prime contractors who would just as soon you take your money, not compete with them, be quiet, don't do anything, just take your money—is it 10 percent, Mr. Stewart?
Mr. STEWART. Basically it is 5 percent.
Mr. WAMP. The 5 percent—and you see that happening. How many times have you been approached to act as a pass-through contractor, 8(a) contractor, where you really would like to have been competing for the whole pie?
Mr. STEWART. I couldn't count those times, Congressman. Minority participation is mandated; therefore, the prime contractors have to have minority participation in order to be a responsive bidder in a certain procurement.
In my situation, my company has grown to the capacity to where we can compete as a prime contractor; therefore, when they approach us to work with them on a contract, we want to assist them as a participant or a partner on a contract versus just allowing them to give them a 5, 10, or 20 percent minority participation.
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In most cases, we end up having to be approached to give—on a $1 million contract, they may say we will run $250,000 through your books for a 25 percent minority participation, but in actuality offer us a $15,000 or $25,000 payment for running that amount of money through our books.
That is being accepted on the most part by some companies, but in my case I have employees. We have to carry a $10 million liability insurance policy. We have two facilities. I could not continue to operate my business without a profit and without being able to have a certain gross volume coming through my company to cover our overhead.
Mr. WAMP. Do you think then that the 8(a) program needs to be modified so that this temptation to engage in tokenism with 8(a) contractors by the prime contractors? And furthermore, is mentoring a way to assure or encourage the prime contractors to assist the 8(a) contractors? And exactly how many employees do you think you would have right now had you been allowed to compete with these people you are doing business with?
Mr. STEWART. Basically, mentor protegee programs, in my opinion, do not work. I think it is odd to consider a prime contractor to mentor a minority contractor that will eventually grow up and compete against him. So what happens is they tend to keep us to a minimum amount of technology or a minimal scope of work so that we cannot come up and compete.
We have contracts available right now that, if we were to bid as a prime, we could increase our staff some 100 to almost 200 percent, basically, if we were the prime contractors.
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The DBE development plan is the key, and it has been a proposed ruling with the Federal Transit Administration since 1988. I would ask this committee to research that and ask why is it that there is such a program that is vital and would solve many of the problems dealing with pass-throughs, minority participation, and it would allow the minority companies to grow and transition to be prime contractors, yet it has been on the books for such a long time as a proposed ruling and has yet to come up for a final ruling.
Mr. WAMP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. STEWART. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Yes. Thank you.
Representative Mineta.
Mr. MINETA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Stewart, let me ask you about—you say that you are kept from becoming a prime for what reason?
Mr. STEWART. When I say ''kept,'' in certain contracts—in the paperwork that I presented to you, there is a bid that we recently protested because we bid this job as a prime. Now, I bid against the normal prime contractors that I would have subcontracted to, simply because the transit authority failed to implement a goal on that project.
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Now, keep in mind if there was no goal on the project the prime contractors wouldn't have come to me for a subcontracting opportunity; therefore, I had no choice but to bid the contract as a prime.
Once having done that, there was no emphasis put on minority participation at all.
Now you have a small minority contractor being forced to compete against a prime contractor, yet there is no price differential between the two. We have to compete on an even level.
Mr. MINETA. And where does the bonding part of it fit into what you are talking about?
Mr. STEWART. The DOT bonding assistance program which is now in place has certain limits attached to it, and those limits are it can only bond one and one half times the smallest bond. Secondly, if you look at the history of minority, small, disadvantaged businesses, we have not had access to the capital in which to grow our businesses. In most cases, we have to deal with the venture capitalists, in which in most cases they require you to give up an equity position in your company.
One of the other rules that applies to that is if you are a small business and you have borrowed money from a venture capitalist, then the short-term lending and the bonding assistance programs look at your financials and feel that you are not in compliance as a DBE because you have given up part of the equity in your company to a non-DBE company. It's like: which comes first, the chicken or the egg? You have to borrow the money in order to sustain your company, and if you borrow the money you can't get the bond to bid the job; therefore you are forced to stay a subcontractor.
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Mr. MINETA. Is that the fault of the DBE program?
Mr. STEWART. In some cases it is, sir. I think it is the fault of the program that, in cases where minorities like myself can go to a property and request that bonding be waived or reduced to 20 percent, which is stated in 49 CFR part 23, that the transit authorities comply with that. In most cases there is no compliance.
Mr. MINETA. But is that a bonding market problem, a marketplace problem, rather than rules and regulations?
Mr. STEWART. What would——
Mr. MINETA. Bonding generally is based on capacity and the experience to do the job.
Mr. STEWART. That's correct. But if you never have the opportunity to do the job and you are always forced to be a subcontractor, not gaining the experience to graduate to a prime, you'll never, ever have the opportunity to get the bonding capacity that you need to compete.
In most cases, bonding can be reduced or waived by the transit authority. If they fail to do that, if they fail to look at a minority company as a disadvantaged business and say, ''Well, if we are not going to do it for the prime we're not going to do it for you,'' then why is that rule in place?
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It's like what would happen to our cities if there were no police to enforce the rules? It would be total chaos. The transit authorities can interpret the Federal regulations any way they see fit. It's like having three different denominations read the Bible.
Mr. MINETA. I know, but in terms of the bonding capability, as you have indicated, you can do it through selling of a portion of your equity or by having a cosigner. There are a number of ways to do it. Or if, as you have indicated, the transit authority waives bonding requirement. I'm not sure how many actually waive the bonding requirement.
Mr. STEWART. The percentage is slim to none.
Mr. MINETA. I would think none. If I were a general manager of a transit agency and had a large construction job, I don't think I'd waive that bonding authority.
Let me ask Mr. Wexler a question. In your statement you had indicated that jurisdictions would lose funding. I was wondering what funding would be lost to a State where you talk about the blackmail of the States to do the motorcycle helmet, seatbelt mandates, speed limits, and legal drinking age? What monies do the States lose?
Mr. WEXLER. It is part of the Federal highway funding, and in New York State, at the time that the State was blackmailed into this decision, it was $90 million annually.
Mr. MINETA. And did the State lose the money?
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Mr. WEXLER. No, it didn't, because the State decided that——
Mr. MINETA. I thought you said the State loses the money.
Mr. WEXLER. Would lose the money if they failed to adopt the Federal mandate.
Mr. MINETA. Do you know of any States that have lost money under the provisions of ISTEA?
Mr. WEXLER. No. They all comply with the Federal mandate.
Mr. MINETA. No. All the States haven't complied, but they don't lose money. They lose construction money, but it goes over to the education side.
Mr. WEXLER. In terms of the——
Mr. MINETA. On the basis that the States don't have those helmet laws, then we'd better educate those folks, so the States don't lose the money.
Mr. WEXLER. In terms of——
Mr. MINETA. Is that understood?
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Mr. WEXLER. In terms of the Federal drinking age mandate, New York State and many other States were told by the Department of Transportation that they had, by a date certain, to change their law. In fact, New York, even after adopting a 21-year-old purchase age law, was then told by the Secretary that the purchase age law was not sufficient to comply with the Federal mandate and needed to apply for a further interpretation, and eventually New York State was given that interpretation and the Secretary informed them that funding would not be withheld.
But New York State was certainly given a very strong directive by the Secretary——
Mr. MINETA. You'll find, regardless, that States don't lose money. They lose construction money, admittedly, but it goes over to the safety pot. That's what they do. It goes from the construction over to the safety side so we can do educational programs, etc.
Again, I'd like to thank the panel for taking time from their own busy schedules to testify before us.
Thank you very, very much.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
We may have a research problem here. I think money does go over on seatbelts and helmets on safety, but on the drinking age I'm not sure that it does, but we'll double check that.
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Mr. Franks.
Mr. FRANKS. No questions.
Mr. PETRI. Well, gentlemen, thank you very much for coming and being so patient to get to your point in the program.
The next panel, panel eight, is welcome to come forward.
I'd like to give a special welcome to Mr. Ned Bechtold, who is president of Payne & Dolan, a leading asphalt contractor in our region and a leader in the construction industry, who is going to be representing the National Asphalt Pavement Association; Mr. Tim Baker, president of the Rubber Pavements Association; Mr Jim McCarthy, vice president of government relations, Snack Food Association; and Mr. Chip Smith, Premier Oil and Gasoline Supply Company, Rahway, New Jersey, representing the Petroleum Marketers Association.
Gentlemen, you have been very patient. Thank you for coming here today.
Mr. Bechtold, would you care to start off?
Mr. BECHTOLD. Yes, sir.
TESTIMONY OF NED BECHTHOLD, PRESIDENT, PAYNE AND DOLAN, INC., WAUKESHA, WI, ON BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL ASPHALT PAVEMENT ASSOCIATION; TIM BAKER, CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, RUBBER PAVEMENTS ASSOCIATION; JAMES McCARTHY, VICE PRESIDENT FOR GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, SNACK FOOD ASSOCIATION; AND CHIP SMITH, PRESIDENT, PREMIER OIL AND GASOLINE SUPPLY CO., RAHWAY, NJ, ON BEHALF OF THE PETROLEUM MARKETERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA AND THE FUEL MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION OF NEW JERSEY
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Mr. BECHTOLD. Good afternoon. My name is Ned Bechtold. I'm a contractor from Waukesha, Wisconsin, and am pleased to be presenting my testimony on behalf of the National Asphalt Pavement Association.
While I will concentrate my testimony on section 1038, the crumb rubber mandate, I do want to mention our support for approval of the national highway system and taking the trust funds off budget.
NAPA urges this subcommittee to include repeal of section 1038(b) as part of the NHS bill. Support for repeal of this costly mandate is shared by the National Governors Association, the American Association of State Highway Officials, the National Associations of Counties and Highway Construction Organizations.
Section 1038 is unprecedented in mandating the use of a specific product in the highway program with so little knowledge about the product, itself, or the consequences of its use.
Due to many unanswered questions about the use of crumb rubber in asphalt pavement, Congress has, for 2 consecutive years, put a moratorium on penalties for States which fail to meet the mandate. Despite the moratoriums on penalties, 48 States have utilized crumb rubber in asphalt pavement. A couple use it routinely.
It is our view that section 1038 has served its purpose in giving the technology broad exposure and the minimum utilization requirements should now be repealed.
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NAPA is not against the crumb rubber technology, per se. What we do oppose is another Federal mandate imposed on recipients of Federal aid funds, as well as the industry, with limited research or performance data to justify it.
Our concerns are with the cost, engineering properties, recyclability, unknown health and environmental impacts related to the use of crumb rubber asphalt.
Let me briefly summarize some of the issue.
Crumb rubber, modified HMA, can cost more than conventional HMA. The most recent AASHTO study survey indicates that for projects bid and constructed in 1993, the cost of crumb rubber modified hot mix asphalt was some 67 percent more than the cost of conventional hot mix asphalt.
The governor of Ohio testified earlier this year before Congress that, with the additional cost to comply with section 1038, Ohio could repave nearly 700 miles of rural highways and rehabilitate 137 aging bridges.
Performance of crumb rubber modified hot mix asphalt has been mixed. There have been both successes and failures. Certainly there is no persuasive evidence that it is a superior product.
The hot mix asphalt industry has been a leader in recycling its product since the 1970s before recycling became fashionable. According to figures published by the FHWA, 73 million metric tons out of the 91 million tons of hot mix asphalt pavement removed each year are reused in other highway projects.
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If for some reason crumb rubber modified hot mix asphalt is not recyclable, mandating its use would be disastrous to the industry, the States, and society, in general.
We don't know with any certainty if the addition of crumb rubber modifier to hot mix asphalt will create additional air quality problems. An increase in emissions will result in significant costs to the producer to mitigate the problem.
Health impacts—there is a similar issue with asphalt fumes. We have conducted studies that show worker exposure to fumes from conventional hot mix asphalt does not pose a significant problem; however, the addition of crumb rubber to the mix introduces the concern that there could be adverse health impacts on workers.
Last November, voters sent a message to change the way Washington does business. Taking action to repeal section 1038 would send a positive signal to the States and the business community that this Congress is committed to bring about change in the use of mandates.
NAPA appreciates the opportunity to present this testimony, and I would be happy to answer any specific questions.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you very much.
Mr. Baker.
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Mr. BAKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for providing the Rubber Pavements Association with the opportunity to be represented at this hearing today. I serve as chairman of the Rubber Pavements Association.
I appear today, as in previous years, to explain how crumb rubber from scrap tires is used in the United States and abroad to modify and improve asphalt pavements.
Crumb rubber was first tested as a modifier for asphalt pavements in the mid-1960s. Its use then and now has been based on the performance characteristics of crumb rubber as a modifier, not as a recycled material produced from scrap tires.
States like California, Arizona, and Florida use asphalt rubber as standard procedure in a variety of applications. Extensive experience has shown that asphalt rubber makes longer-lasting, lower-maintenance roads. The use of crumb rubber and asphalt pavements retards reflective cracking, reduces the propensity for rutting, slows the aging process, and increases pavement flexibility.
California, based on its extensive experience with crumb rubber modifier, used approximately one million tons of asphalt rubber hot mix in 1994. This represents approximately 10 percent of its asphalt paving application.
Asphalt rubber has been used in California in varied climates, from Palm Desert to the Donner Pass.
Florida's Governor Lawton Chiles instituted a program that in 1994 used a pre-reactive crumb rubber modifier process in 100 percent of the State's surface treatments. The Florida DOT, like CALTRANS, is a leader in pursuing the use of innovative materials to improve pavement performance and durability.
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In Arizona, where asphalt rubber was developed, the State is using the material to improve pavement performance in numerous applications in all climactic conditions.
Cost is perhaps the least understood and most controversial aspect of asphalt rubber. A simple comparison of asphalt rubber and conventional asphalt material costs will show that asphalt rubber material costs are higher. While this is true, these types of comparisons are fatally flawed because they do not calculate savings resulting from alternative designs allowed when using asphalt rubber. They also do not calculate life cycle cost savings.
Additionally, these flawed cost calculations, which have been provided to Congress, do not reflect market changes resulting from increased competition, economies of scale, and the exploration in 1992 of the primary asphalt rubber patents.
It is distressing that time after time, year after year, these erroneous, inaccurate cost estimates find their way into the public policy debate over the use of CRM technologies.
It is my sincere hope, Mr. Chairman, that we can move beyond these inaccurate cost estimates and focus on the proven cost-effectiveness associated with the proper use of these materials.
Opponents of crumb rubber modified materials have claimed that there may exist emissions and/or recyclability problems with this material. These same concerns have been raised publicly for years, while evidence indicating that they are unfounded has continued to mount.
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Since FHWA and EPA reported to Congress in 1993 that there were no significant differences in crumb rubber modified materials and conventional asphalt, there have been an additional 10-plus studies conducted across the country to evaluate emissions and worker safety. These studies have shown no increased volumes of emissions or increased threat to human health or the environment due to CRM materials.
The number of successful recycling CRM projects in the United States has also continued to grow and, again, there is no evidence to date to suggest that asphalt pavements containing recycled tire rubber cannot be fully recycled.
As a matter of fact, Mr. Chairman, there have been more studies done on the environmental, worker health/safety, recyclability aspects to CRM materials than all other asphalt modified materials combined. Again, these studies have shown no significant difference between conventional asphalt and CRM materials.
In conclusion, I'd like to add that improved performance as a result of using CRM technology has only been accomplished through a commitment to innovation by leaders in certain State DOTs and in the asphalt paving contracting community. As with any emerging technology, there involves a learning curve for those dedicated to perfecting a superior technology.
The members of the Rubber Pavement Association support the continuation of Federal, State, and industrial-sponsored research projects on CRM technology. An aggressive technology transfer program is also critical to States to understand how to properly use CRM technologies.
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I would like to thank you for your attention and for listening to our beliefs.
Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you very much. Your full statement will be included in the record.
Mr. McCarthy.
Mr. MCCARTHY. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I'm Jim McCarthy, vice president of government relations for the Snack Food Association.
I appreciate this opportunity to bring to your attention an issue very important not only to our snack food members, but all light- and medium-duty service and delivery vehicle operators—that is, the need to adopt legislation redefining the term ''commercial motor vehicle'' by establishing the gross vehicle weight rating criterion as over 26,001 pounds or more.
The Snack Food Association is a national not-for-profit trade association representing more than 500 domestic manufacturers and suppliers involved in the production and distribution of more than 95 percent of the snack products consumed in the United States.
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Although the Association represents nationally branded and distributed snack products, the majority of our member companies are small, family-owned, regional businesses that depend on the use of small commercial vehicles for product distribution.
SFA members utilize 25,000 light- and medium-duty sales vans to deliver fragile and perishable products directly to store doors.
We need legislation to establish a clearly-defined regulatory policy for vehicles with the GVWR between 10,000 and 26,000 pounds.
Currently, some Federal regulations apply to all commercial vehicles weighing more than 10,000 pounds, while other Federal regulations apply only to vehicles over 26,000. This patchwork of record-keeping and reporting requirements is confusing and costly to delivery and service fleet operators and unnecessarily diverts valuable enforcement resources from concentrating on the heavier trucks.
Raising the weight threshold is not a new issue, but one that has been overlooked. Over the years, many in the snack food, baking, wholesale grocery, soft drink, beer delivery, dairy, plumbing, floral, lawn care, etc., have raised these concerns with the Department of Transportation in comments to regulations pertaining to route truck sales and repair people operating vehicles over 10,000 pounds. We have raised this issue as posing an unnecessary regulatory burden.
Please consider the following facts, Mr. Chairman.
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Vehicles in the 26,000 GVWR range are typically utilized in local distribution service by wholesale or retail establishments, or as service vehicles by vendors providing service to businesses or households. Often these vehicles are parked for a large portion of the work day.
Vehicles in the 10,000 to 26,000 range typically are used for local delivery operations, traveling less than 75 miles a day. These vehicles principally operate in city streets and secondary roads.
Three-fourths of all the accidents involving commercial vehicles which are reported to DOT involve vehicles over 26,000 pounds. That is why it makes sense to concentrate regulations and enforcement procedures on bigger trucks.
Technicians and sales people should be subjected to the same regulations meant for large trans-continental vehicles and operators traveling hundreds of miles daily. Those larger vehicles are often away from their home terminals for several days at a time.
Also, another fact, safety will not be compromised. We believe that the requirements of the insurance carriers, State licensing boards, State inspection stations, and businesses wanting to avoid costly breakdowns and interruption of service to customers are sufficiently strong motivators to ensure the proper and safe operation of local delivery vehicles.
Many snack sales people take their vans home each evening or return to a central location. As a result, there is more control and maintenance that is not always present in long-haul truck operations.
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Many fleets currently avoid slightly larger, more efficient vehicles to stay under the 10,000 threshold. Changing the definition would reduce miles through more efficient utilization of larger vehicles in the 10,000 to 26,000 pound range.
The Federal Highway Administration's accident statistics show that drivers of vehicles 10,000 to 26,000 pounds are even less likely than drivers of passenger vehicles to be involved in fatal accidents.
Let me just summarize, Mr. Chairman.
The redefinition of commercial motor vehicle just makes common sense. We need legislation now to remove these burdensome record-keeping requirements, eliminate the daily pre- and post-inspections and maintenance reports, and to suspend the costly pre-employment tests and physicals now required for technicians and salespeople that operate light- and medium-duty trucks.
Thank you for your kind attention. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you, Mr. McCarthy.
Mr. Smith.
Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, my name is Chip Smith. I'm president of the Premier Oil and Gasoline Supply Company based in Rahway, New Jersey.
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I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today in connection with your concerns about the problems created by the mountains of rules and regulations established by the Department of Transportation and their effect on small, independent petroleum marketers like myself.
I am testifying today on behalf of myself and the many others like me who form the membership of the Petroleum Marketers Association of America and the Fuel Merchants Association of New Jersey.
As small businessmen and women, independent petroleum marketers must comply with a staggering amount of Federal and State rules and regulations. We just conducted a 3-day regulatory audit which cost us nearly $5,000 just to ensure that our company was in full compliance with DOT regulations.
An audit is essential to avoid the risk of huge DOT fines and penalties. It is costly and a big headache, but a necessary defense against an over-zealous bureaucracy.
I would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have regarding this aspect of the regulatory problem after my testimony, but the reason I am here today is to talk about cargo tank regulation.
I am referring to a 1991 regulation by DOT's Research and Special Programs Administration which eliminated an exemption from Federal hazardous material regulations for all small cargo tank trucks under 3,500 gallons. I want to make it clear that I am not talking about the long tankers with the detachable trailers that you see running down the highway. I am referring to the smallest tank truck that is made. These tank trucks have two axles with a cab that is permanently attached to the tank, itself. It is about the size of a small commercial delivery van and may have a single 3,500 gallon tank, or up to five smaller compartments that hold a total of 3,500 gallons of petroleum product.
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Small cargo tanks are used to haul petroleum from a bulk storage facility directly to the customer and operate almost entirely in intrastate transportation. Until a few years ago, small cargo tanks were exempt from Federal hazardous materials transportation regulations. These tanks were not regulated by the Federal DOT, but by State authorities.
Each State regulated the inspection and maintenance of these vehicles and required them to operate under a variety of safety regulations.
State regulation obviously worked very well, since small cargo tanks were operated safely and with comparatively little loss of product. Then, in 1991, the Federal DOT preempted State regulation of small cargo tanks by removing the 3,500 gallon exemption, thus creating a new regulatory program that is expensive and unnecessary.
Under current DOT regulations, all cargo tanks of 3,500 gallons or less must meet rigorous, highly technical, and very costly testing and inspection procedures. DOT now requires that small cargo tanks have an external visual inspection every year, a comprehensive internal inspection, and hydrostatic pressure test every 5 years, all by a certified Federal inspector.
Unfortunately, Federal inspectors are few and far between. As a result, small petroleum marketers are forced to take the cargo tank out of service, have an employee drive it to a far-off inspection site, have it inspected, and then have it driven all the way back. The time lost to the inspection process can be as much as 3 days. The approximate cost of inspections range from between $750 and $1,000 annually, exclusive of travel time and down time costs.
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The State never required anything like this. It is wasteful, unnecessary, and foolish.
The Federal regulations also require all small cargo tanks to be retrofitted with new manhole covers before September 1 of this year. A manhole assembly is located at the top of the tank and is simply a lid that covers the smaller cargo tank's opening where the product is loaded.
The retrofit requires high-tech pressurized manhole covers designed to prevent product from spilling in the rare event of a roll-over. According to the tank manufacturers, the cost of retrofitting would cost between $2,500 and $3,000. However, some cargo tanks cannot be retrofitted because the manhole assemblies are too close together. Small marketers with these vehicles must replace them altogether at an estimated cost of $68,000.
These kinds of costs are driving the independent petroleum marketer out of business, and for no good reason. DOT can make no credible case for the preemption of State regulation of small cargo tanks.
In my opinion, the annual pressure test, hydrostatic test, internal inspection, and manhole retrofit are unnecessary and far too costly. They do very little to improve upon an already excellent safety record.
The States can do a much better job regulating small cargo tanks because they understand the economic impact of their regulations.
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I think we should begin today to bring common sense and balance to the DOT regulatory framework. Congress can start by restoring the exemption for the 3,500 gallon tanks from the hazardous material transportation regulations.
Thank you for the opportunity to address this body.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you, Mr. Smith. Your full statement will be included in the record.
Are there any questions? Mr. Franks.
Mr. FRANKS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'd like to ask Mr. Smith what motivated you to undertake the audit? And did you say it cost $5,000 to conduct this audit as to whether or not you were in compliance with these DOT regulations?
Mr. SMITH. Yes. All expenses around it approached $5,000. We got involved with it initially through a notification from New Jersey Motor Truck advising us that we probably weren't fully aware of all the requirements that we had to work under, and I believed it and went to a seminar, and after the seminar I knew it. So we hired a consultant who spent 3 days in our office. It took those 3 days of her time plus two of my employees for those 3 days to handle paperwork.
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It is amazing the threat to us financially all because of misplaced pieces of paper or failure to be able to document properly.
These are things that we didn't have to do prior to 1991. We had self-inspection rules in New Jersey. We had plenty of regulation that the State imposed on us, but we weren't subject to the possibilities of fines that might put us out of business or word from DOT that we had to take trucks out of service and might put a whole fleet down.
Under hazardous material transportation, or hazardous material regulations, one dealer in New Jersey, for the sake of a sentence not stamped on a delivery ticket, calculated the potential for $1,400,000 worth of fines under that particular regulation.
Mr. FRANKS. I'm sorry? Because a stamp wasn't affixed to a form?
Mr. SMITH. Yes. The forms that—really, that particular item I picked up from our meeting the other day, and I believe that's under IRS regulations, not DOT.
Mr. FRANKS. So, bottom line, you found yourself out of compliance but largely with paperwork requirements that are part of the regulatory scheme, not the substantive requirements that would relate directly to the safety of the vehicles?
Mr. SMITH. We have an excellent safety record. We have managed each year to have our insurance premiums reduced because of good experience.
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Mr. FRANKS. Was there a history of problems when this was under the jurisdiction of State regulation that caused the Federal DOT to ascertain the need to move into this field? In other words, was there a problem when the States regulated these activities?
Mr. SMITH. No. I don't believe so. I certainly, for the 32 years I have been in business and our transporting on these small trucks, have never been aware of a statistic that proved that the Federal Government had to get involved in the intrastate activities of our industry.
Mr. FRANKS. Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. I have one or two questions.
Mr. McCarthy, in your testimony you indicated that trucks between 10,000 and 26,000 pounds of weight perform a variety of different tasks. I'm curious to know whether you think it might be practical for us to try to look at some sort of use-based regulation or changes rather than just going from 10,000 to 26,000 weight, when it might not really be applicable for certain types of vehicles within that range.
Mr. MCCARTHY. We feel, Mr. Chairman, that with the State requirements and the insurance requirements that are on trucks of this nature, and the fact that the drivers of these trucks principally are salespeople and service providers, they really are in a whole different class.
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If there was a need for another regulatory scheme, I think we'd be happy to entertain that. Of course we would be if there was a safety need. But in looking at the data, looking at the incidence of accident, my understanding is that, from the DOT data, there is more commonplace accidents in automobile accidents than trucks of this nature.
We feel that the State scheme that is out there and the insurance requirements, as well as the nature of our business, we wouldn't be putting trucks on the road that are dangerous facing legal liability, worker's comp problems that—we don't believe that, or at least have not seen the need for any other regulatory scheme.
We'd be happy to talk to others that are similarly placed about that if that was something the committee thought was wise.
Mr. PETRI. We can discuss it further.
The section 1038 crumb rubber requirement is certainly one that has attracted a lot of people's attention. I guess there is a growing feeling, at least in some quarters, that possibly having a mandate rather than encouraging or whatever may have ended up being counter-productive. It seems to have gotten a lot of State Transportation Departments' backs up, and it may be retarding looking at different ways of handling waste materials rather than forwarding progress toward that goal.
I'd like to ask Mr. Bechtold if you think there might be more cost-effective ways of disposing of surplus tires than the 1038 mandate that we currently have.
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Mr. BECHTOLD. Yes, Mr. Chairman. In answer to your question, our industry has nothing against recycling rubber in hot mix asphalt, it's the mandate idea of it that we think is counterproductive. In fact, in the State of Wisconsin right now—and I believe some time in 1996 there won't be any tires left in the State. They are going to all have been used up by our utilities. And the utilities are really right now, at least in the State of Wisconsin, fighting over those tires because they can burn them and they can burn them without hurting the environment.
It is just our feeling that if the different highway departments feel they can use rubber tires effectively and they make a good mix, that's fine, they should do that. But it should be done on the basis of the skill of the technical people that are involved in it from the highway departments, the engineers, rather than from Congress.
If the tires are being used up in the States in a more economical way, I think they should be allowed to do it.
Mr. PETRI. It's my impression that our State, long before there was any Federal mandate, thought they should have a program and therefore encouraged a utility up in the Green Bay area to engineer an electrical generating facility in such a way that it could successfully burn or convert to energy surplus tires with no or well within the emission standards, and so investments were made and that program went into effect.
Now, we hear some arguments with the crumb rubber people that they've made investments after this Federal mandate, too, and so they are reluctant to end the program.
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Mr. BECHTOLD. Yes, they have made investments, Mr. Chairman, and I think it would be very counterproductive for us to mandate that they can't get those tires, that we have to pay even more for them because we have to use them. I think the market should decide where they go.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Baker, do you have any comments?
Mr. BAKER. First of all, our view on the use of rubber in pavements is not a tire disposal issue, it is a matter of a better roads issue.
Yes, Wisconsin has been—specifically, Wisconsin has been aggressive in their program for using tires in energy recovery, but they are somewhat unique.
But our position is a better roads position. We view the whole legislation as it is more than just a mandate. As a matter of fact, we believe that section 1038 at this point in time is not a viable alternative because of the delays. What we are really looking for from Congress is some consistency.
We had a piece of legislation that was passed, and then it was neutered 1 year and neutered a second year, and this makes it very difficult for our industry to operate.
In 1994, along with National Highway Systems Reauthorization Bill, both from the House and the Senate side there was a section 108 which had what we'd like to consider a national demonstration program. It was a 2-year program with very limited requirements to it. We viewed that being much more of a compromise position between the paving industry, on the one hand, and the environmentalists on the other hand, and what we are looking for is some consistency.
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Also, in reference to 1038 in the Wisconsin situation, there was provision in 1038 that if the tires were not available, if they were being consumed in other fashions, then that State would be exempt from utilization of the tires.
Again, I emphasize we need something that is consistent. That is more important to us than anything else at this point in time.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you all for your testimony. We'll continue wrestling with these problems.
Last but not least, I'd like to invite Ms. Beckie Brown, national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and Doctor Gerald Donaldson, co-chairman of Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways, also known as CRASH, accompanied by Jack Rendler, the executive director of Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways, to come to the witness table and offer your testimony.
Who would like to start? Would you like to start?
Mr. DONALDSON. I'll go first, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
TESTIMONY OF GERALD A. DONALDSON, PH.D, CO-CHAIR, CITIZENS FOR RELIABLE AND SAFE HIGHWAYS (CRASH); REBECCA BROWN, NATIONAL PRESIDENT, MOTHERS AGAINST DRUNK DRIVING (MADD)
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Mr. DONALDSON. Mr. Chairman, this Congress has reconstituted itself, as you well know, as the Congress to reduce regulatory burdens, to provide regulatory relief.
CRASH is here today to ask you to do exactly that. There is a regulatory burden out there. It is the burden of regulations written in 1937 at the behest of the trucking industry and codified by the Interstate Commerce Commission that allows drivers to drive 60 hours in 7 days or 70 hours in 8 days, to be allowed 8 hours of off-duty time, an amount of time, Mr. Chairman, which doesn't allow them even the minimum amount of time to get a decent piece of rest.
That kind of sleep deprivation and fatigue is leading to a pervasive and chronic public health and safety problem in the United States. A very high percentage of the accidents that occur every year in this country with heavy trucks are being caused by heavy truck drivers who have not had enough sleep, have not had enough rest, are constantly suffering shift inversion where they are driving when they were resting the day before and resting when they were driving the day before.
What a surprise, Mr. Chairman, that those regulations would lead to that kind of consequence, and now 60 years later we have to recognize that we have an epidemic before us.
I thought it was intriguing today that Mr. Donohue of the American Trucking Association disclaimed that there was an epidemic. It is not my research, Mr. Chairman, that says there is an epidemic. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statisticians say that our fatal accident reporting system kept by our Government is a radical under- reporting of fatigue and sleep-deprived-related accidents in heavy truck drivers.
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Maybe 30 to 40 percent of those heavy truck driving crashes are being caused by fatigued and sleep-deprived drivers. National sleep research efforts by the National Commission on Sleep Disorders, other prominent researchers on sleep disorders, sleep deprivation, have all shown that there is a pervasive chronic problem, and not just among truck drivers, Mr. Chairman, but among drivers in general throughout the United States.
Mr. Chairman, there isn't any question that we have a virtual epidemic of sleep-deprived accidents in the United States among heavy truck drivers, and I don't think that there is a broom big enough in this country to sweep those findings away, and I don't think there is a rug big enough in this country to sweep those findings underneath it to hide it.
Now, as you know, the National Transportation Safety Board's findings were a study which was done with the highest order of statistical analysis about nighttime truck drivers. I found it interesting also today, intriguing, Mr. Chairman, that Mr. Donohue wanted to point out that he had a letter from Mr. Hall, the chairman of the NTSB, which somehow disclaims the statistical power of the study. Well, I haven't seen that letter, but Mr. Hall is the first signator on the report of this letter about heavy truck accidents among fatigued and sleep-deprived accidents.
Let me point out to you what one of the major findings of this study was. Let me read this into the record. It is on page 37 of this document, which is Volume One of the NTSB Safety Study Factors that Affect Fatalities in Heavy Truck Accidents. You can see how easy it is to see in medium yellow.
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''Although the Safety Board examined single-vehicle accidents, there is no reason to believe that the factors that were associated with fatigue-related single-vehicle accidents would be any different in other kinds of accidents. The board believes, therefore, that the results of this study can be generalized to the trucking population, as a whole.''
Also, Mr. Donohue said that we should wait for the results of the Trucking Research Institute study on fatigue. Well, let me tell you what the NTSB, only one page later, says about the Essex Corporation study being conducted by TRI.
''Studies of subjects in a controlled driving experiment or other controlled environment cannot provide evidence of the factors that lead to fatigue-related accidents, or any accidents, for that matter. Accident investigations provide the valid body of information on which to base sound transportation safety policy decisions than whatever can be obtained in controlled or laboratory studies.''
Mr. Chairman, one of the things that we have come up here today to talk to you about is the need to carry forward the kind of study that has already been conducted by NTSB which asks for very moderate changes in our hours of service regulations: to get rid of the split time and sleeper berths, to let drivers have enough time so they can get a solid eight hours of rest.
We need a study which goes beyond this to address the problems of shift inversion, drivers constantly driving 10 hours on duty, 8 hours off duty, week after week in long-haul operations, drivers that are paid by the mile.
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And we will take the recommendation of Mr. Donohue—and this is my final remark—we will take the benefit/cost analysis. We will take the risk assessment. And if we can get that as part of the effort to have an omnibus, a comprehensive study that deals with truck driver sleep deprivation and fatigue and their contribution to accidents above and beyond what the NTSB has already identified, we will accept the consequences of that assessment.
We agree with that effort, Mr. Chairman. We believe it ought to be undertaken. We think it ought to be supported by this committee.
Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you, Doctor Donaldson.
Ms. Brown.
Ms. BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My name is Rebecca Brown, and I serve as national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. I speak today on behalf of our 3.2 million members and on behalf of the parents of every child across America.
I am here because of a chain of events that began in my life on December 9, 1979. On that date, my 18-year-old son, Marcus, was driving home with his date, Peggy, when a driver crossed over the center line and crashed head on into Mark's car. Mark was killed instantly, and Peggy was seriously injured.
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My husband and I came upon a scene of emergency vehicles, police cars, lights flashing, and wailing sirens. When we looked at the smashed vehicles, one vehicle appeared to be our son's.
We pulled over and soon learned that it was, indeed, our son. He had been killed instantly. It wasn't too long afterward that we learned that the driver was 19 years old and had been drinking, and his BAC level was .15.
Marcus' father and I were button-bursting proud of our son. With his death, our families' lives have been changed forever and the hopes and dreams of my precious son, with his great sense of humor, his love for sports, and his goals for the future now go unfulfilled.
At that time, our home State of Florida had a drinking age of 19. Had the legal drinking age been 21, then the 19-year-old driver perhaps would not have been put in a position to have made the tragic decision to drive drunk in the first place, because he would not have been able to legally purchase or consume the beer that he drank that day.
Our family has always believed that the needless death of our son, Marcus, would not have occurred had the legal drinking age been 21, and I would not be here today speaking to you in defense of a law that has saved thousands of other equally precious lives.
Since 1984, more than 9,500 deaths and countless injuries have been prevented because of the leadership shown by the United States Congress in passing the national minimum drinking age law. A total of nearly 15,000 lives have been saved and deaths prevented by age 21 laws, counting back as far as 1975, and at least 15,000 families have been spared the devastation and the heartache the my family and thousands of others have suffered.
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Because of age 21, untold numbers of parents sill have their daughters to plan their weddings with, and can see the pride in their sons' eyes as they hold their firstborn child, and their children have had the chance to go to school, take a job, pay taxes, and contribute to our society in many other meaningful ways.
Recently I encountered Peggy, the girl who was injured in my son's crash. She held her infant in her arms. In that instant, I was reminded of the future my son could have shared with us and what might have been.
I hope the emotion doesn't take up my time. I'm trying to get under control here.
Age 21 does not work perfectly. There are still too many young people who die or are injured each year in crashes involving alcohol, but rather than undermining or dismantling this life-saving measure, we should be finding ways to strengthen it, reinforce it, and make it more effective.
Near the end of Congress last October the House passed legislation which included the High Risk Drivers Act and increased the authorized level of funding for the existing NHTSA section 410 incentive grant program. The High Risk Drivers Act would encourage States to adopt graduated licensing for young, inexperienced drivers. A fully functioning section 410 program would provide real incentives to States to set the maximum BAC level for those under 21 at .02 BAC and provide other incentives to enforce the minimum drinking age.
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We need to go forward, not backward. H.R. 607 would take us backward.
Age 21 is not an unfunded mandate. Although enforcement, as well as public information and education activities are necessary to make age 21 most effective, the law itself requires no action on the part of the States other than to set the drinking age limit at age 21.
Mr. Chairman, I still have two pages. May I continue?
Mr. PETRI. Yes.
Ms. BROWN. Thank you.
Not only is this not an unfunded mandate, it is a law which saves States, cities, industries, and private citizens millions of dollars in health care costs, lost productivity, and other hard costs and financial burdens. For each individual whose life has been spared because of this law, the potential and opportunity to be a productive member of society has been preserved.
The benefits to society can and must be continued. We must avoid the pain and cost that will be inevitable should this law be ended.
I once saw a sign that read something like this: ''The bad taste of poor quality will linger long after the pleasure of a bargain has disappeared.''
Gentlemen, to do away with the Federal law that has saved at least 9,500 young lives since 1984 would constitute the meanest of bargains and would leave Americans with the dreadful bitterness to come when the deaths of our loved ones inevitably increase.
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Mr. Chairman, in 1984, when the national minimum drinking age was first enacted, the White House and Senate were in control of the republican party. The effort to enact 21 was bipartisan. Two of the greatest champions of that effort were then Transportation Secretary Elizabeth Dole and President Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan may be called many things, but soft on States' rights is not one of them.
President Reagan made an exception to his stalwart support of States' rights because he saw that the interest of the Nation and its children demanded it.
I am told that those who want to repeal the 21 law act on basis of philosophy. They claim to support 21, but prefer to let the States do it. Ronald Reagan saw through that philosophy in 1984 and knew that this line of reasoning would produce a patchwork quilt of State laws and incentives for young people to cross State lines in search of alcohol.
We do not want to return to the blood-bordered patchwork quilt, and that is exactly where repeal of 21 would take us.
I'm not a philosopher. I am a victim of a criminal act of drunk driving, and I'm here representing the victims of that act.
Of all the success stories you, as our Congressional leaders, can hail, the Federal age 21 law must be one of the most shining examples. Mothers Against Drunk Driving finds it unconscionable that anyone would consider repealing it.
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I ask you to consider very carefully the impact of H.R. 607. Think of my son Marcus, and think of all of our dearly-loved sons and daughters.
Thank you.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Thank you both for coming here and offering your testimony.
I think I have a question for Ms. Brown, and that is that we have been engaged in a multi-prong attack on drunk driving and the mayhem it causes on our highways, both the 21 drinking age, but also a lot of different public education programs. I think your group has been in the forefront of that, trying to increase people's awareness and reduce their tolerance for drunk driving, and others have tried to develop designated driver programs and various other approaches to try to make sure that if someone does drink they don't get behind the wheel.
Ms. BROWN. Yes.
Mr. PETRI. Do you have any sense at all as to what is most effective? Is it the combination of things? Is it the 21 year mandate? Is it the education programs? Are they all equally effective, or are some more effective than others? Could you comment on that?
Ms. BROWN. Unfortunately, drunk driving has many issues that, put together as a puzzle, make it work and help reduce the deaths and injuries on our highways. We have never identified one countermeasure in itself that would save all of the lives on the highway.
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However, the age 21 drinking age law was probably one of the most effective countermeasures that we have ever come across in the history of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, which is 15 years old this year, and have saved as many young lives as that one single countermeasure.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you.
Thank you both very much.
Ms. BROWN. Thank you.
Mr. DONALDSON. Mr. Chairman, I have one request. If you would be so kind, since it became an article of debate today to some extent, about what the NTSB study did or didn't say, I have five pages here of their conclusions and recommendations, and with your permission I'd like to submit it for the record for committee use, as well.
Mr. PETRI. Yes. It will be made a part of the record of the hearing.
Mr. DONALDSON. Thank you, sir.
Mr. PETRI. Thank you very much.
Ms. BROWN. Thank you.
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Mr. PETRI. That concludes our second hearing of the week. I think we have another one tomorrow.
Thank you very much.
[Whereupon, at 3:19 p.m. the hearing was recessed, to reconvene on Thursday, March 2, 1995.]
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