[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
BUILDING THE FOUNDATION FOR SURFACE TRANSPORTATION REAUTHORIZATION
=======================================================================
(113-48)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JANUARY 14, 2014
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
Available online at: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/
committee.action?chamber=house&committee=transportation
----------
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
86-278 PDF WASHINGTON : 2013
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800;
DC area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC,
Washington, DC 20402-0001
COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman
DON YOUNG, Alaska NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia
THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee, Columbia
Vice Chair JERROLD NADLER, New York
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CORRINE BROWN, Florida
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
GARY G. MILLER, California ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
SAM GRAVES, Missouri RICK LARSEN, Washington
SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York
DUNCAN HUNTER, California MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine
ERIC A. ``RICK'' CRAWFORD, Arkansas GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
BOB GIBBS, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
PATRICK MEEHAN, Pennsylvania DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
RICHARD L. HANNA, New York JOHN GARAMENDI, California
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida ANDRE CARSON, Indiana
STEVE SOUTHERLAND, II, Florida JANICE HAHN, California
JEFF DENHAM, California RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky DINA TITUS, Nevada
STEVE DAINES, Montana SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York
TOM RICE, South Carolina ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois
TREY RADEL, Florida
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois
MARK SANFORD, South Carolina
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ iv
TESTIMONY
Hon. Mary Fallin, Governor, State of Oklahoma, on behalf of the
National Governors Association................................. 4
Stuart Levenick, Group President, Caterpillar, Inc............... 4
Hon. Kasim Reed, Mayor, City of Atlanta, on behalf of the U.S.
Conference of Mayors........................................... 4
Lawrence J. Hanley, International President, Amalgamated Transit
Union.......................................................... 4
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Hon. Howard Coble, of North Carolina............................. 46
Hon. Steve Daines, of Montana.................................... 47
Hon. Nick J. Rahall, II, of West Virginia........................ 49
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Hon. Mary Fallin................................................. 52
Stuart Levenick.................................................. 59
Hon. Kasim Reed.................................................. 68
Lawrence J. Hanley............................................... 78
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Alliance for Toll-Free Interstates, written testimony............ 105
Kurt J. Nagle, President and CEO, American Association of Port
Authorities, written testimony................................. 109
Edward A. Gottko, PWLF, President, American Public Works
Association, written testimony................................. 112
International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association, written
testimony...................................................... 120
Transportation Equity Caucus, written testimony.................. 124
Victor S. Parra, President and CEO, United Motorcoach
Association, written testimony................................. 129
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
BUILDING THE FOUNDATION FOR SURFACE TRANSPORTATION REAUTHORIZATION
----------
TUESDAY, JANUARY 14, 2014
House of Representatives,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:04 a.m., in Room
2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bill Shuster
(Chairman of the committee) presiding.
Mr. Shuster. The committee will come to order.
First I would like the opportunity to welcome everyone to
today's hearing. It looks like we have a full house, which is a
good sign. This is the first hearing for the committee this
year, and the subject matter is of critical importance to the
Nation, to the economy, and certainly to our transportation
infrastructure system.
I am pleased to welcome our distinguished witnesses: The
Governor of Oklahoma and former colleague, Mary Fallin. Mary,
it is great to see you, and Governor, it is great to see you
today.
Mr. Stuart Levenick, group president of Caterpillar. Nice
to see you, sir.
The Honorable Kasim Reed, the mayor of Atlanta. Mr. Mayor,
thanks for being here with us.
And Mr. Lawrence Hanley, international president of
Amalgamated Transit Union.
Thank you all for being here. We certainly look forward to
hearing from all of you today.
Transportation is important, I think we all know that, and
sometimes we forget the importance of it in our daily lives.
But it is how people get to work, it is how we get our children
to school, we go to the store to buy food and clothes and any
other necessities as well as visiting our family members around
the country.
But it is also about business. It is critical to the supply
chain, how it functions, how raw materials get to factories,
how finished products get to market, and how food gets from
farms to our kitchens.
It allows American business to be competitive in the global
marketplace and for our economy to prosper and grow and create
jobs. And that is absolutely essential to this bill and to any
infrastructure bill we do, and that is to talk about the jobs.
Not just the construction jobs, we certainly know there are
going to be construction jobs created, but it is the long-term
jobs.
And so that Caterpillar, when they are grabbing market
share in the world economy, they are going to be hiring
hopefully more people back in Peoria or their other plants
around the country, creating those jobs to create those
machines that again go into the world economy. And sold there
and make our economy stronger.
There is a long history of a strong Federal role in
transportation. I go right back to the key philosopher that our
Founding Fathers all read when they were developing this
Nation, this constitution, Adam Smith was the father of modern
economics. And he believed there were three duties of
Government: To provide security, preserve peace, and to erect
and maintain public works to facilitate commerce. And with
those thoughts, our Founding Fathers went forward and drew up
the Constitution. Article 1, Section 8 talks about the
interstate commerce and post roads. And those post roads today
are the highways, the byways, the transportation system of
today, as well as the inland waterways and the harbors that
were absolutely critical at the beginning of our Nation.
The Federal Government continued to invest over the last
200 years from the Transcontinental Railroad, to the Panama
Canal to the Interstate Highway System, all making significant
impacts to the efficiency and to the economy of the United
States.
Last Congress we continued this history by passing MAP-21,
which reauthorized Federal surface transportation programs, and
MAP-21 expires in September of this year. My hope is to have a
reauthorization done on time, and in order to do that the
committee's work is ramping up to get a long-term bill. Today
we are formally kicking off this reauthorization process with
this hearing.
In the coming months, we plan to hold hearings and
roundtable discussions to give stakeholders an opportunity to
share their policy priorities and concerns. We hope to take
committee action in late spring, early summer with the goal to
be on the House floor before August recess. In this timeframe
will give us a time to conference that bill with the Senate.
I believe this bill needs to be bipartisan, much the same
way we moved forward with WRRDA, to build consensus working
together and making sure we are educating, and all of you as
stakeholders in this room, helping to educate Members of
Congress, as to the importance of this bill, what it means in
their districts, what it means to their States and their
States' and districts' economy.
The next bill must ensure that our surface transportation
system can continue to support the U.S. economy and provide
Americans with a good quality of life. And as I said, this bill
is about jobs. It is about providing a strong physical platform
for U.S. companies to compete at home and abroad.
It is about making sure we can purchase goods and services
which we have come to rely on in our daily lives. And as I said
and I will keep saying, it is about jobs. Not only the
construction jobs but the jobs that people are going to be able
to create in factories around this country and also people
going into the stores and not paying more but paying less for
those products that get efficiently to their shelves so they
have more money in their pockets to spend money on other things
that they want in their lives.
So how do we get there? This bill will be built around key
principles. This bill needs to be fiscally responsible and to
build on the reforms of MAP-21. We need to continue to reduce
regulatory burdens, we need to make sure our Federal partners
have flexibility in how they spend their money and approve
projects.
We also need to focus on freight mobility. Chairman Jimmy
Duncan's special panel on freight wrapped up this October. An
independent panel provided us with a lot of good
recommendations that we need to take a hard look at. We can't
afford to be stuck in the past or we will be left behind, more
assuredly.
We should encourage our Federal partners to think outside
the box in how to address our transportation challenges. So we
need to promote innovation and lay the foundation for emerging
technologies. By passing the next surface transportation bill
we can ensure Americans quality of life and facilitate economic
growth for years to come.
So I look forward to hearing from our distinguished panel,
and with that will turn to the ranking member on the Highway
Transit Subcommittee, the honorable gentlelady from Washington,
DC.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I certainly had not intended to make an opening statement
because Mr. Rahall is shortly here. I believe he was on C-SPAN
this morning. But since he is not here, and I know he will have
something to say when he comes, I want to say, Mr. Chairman,
how encouraged I am by your opening statement and by our
beginning the year with this hearing. With every indication
that we will have a new bill, the Democrats among ourselves
have been meeting, to talk about priorities.
Of course, our major concern is the great dilemma of
surface transportation and of this committee. And that is as
our trust fund evaporates, and I don't believe that that is too
harsh a word, whether we will be innovative enough to come up
with a way to pay for this bill that will attract both
Democratic and Republican support. And, Mr. Chairman, I have no
doubt, given your leadership on the WRRDA bill, that that is
not a task beyond you, or beyond this committee.
And I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for not allowing
us to go home in January without casting the opening net for
the new surface transportation bill for 2014.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shuster. I thank the gentlelady.
And with that again Governor Fallin has got a hard stop, so
we want to get started with her.
And then I would encourage the witnesses to maintain the 5-
minute rule. I have been known to be brutal with the gavel and
the clock, but since we have such a distinguished group here, I
may be a little weaker today.
But with that, I would like to allow Mr. Markwayne Mullin
to introduce the Governor of Oklahoma.
Mr. Mullin. Thank you, Chairman.
It is a great honor I have to introduce our honored guest.
Governor Mary Fallin, from the great State of Oklahoma. What an
honor to have you back. I know this used to be your committee.
And you are going to bring a very unique perspective being that
you served our great State not only on the Federal level but
now on the State level.
Transportation is obviously vitally important to not just
our State but the entire country. It is one thing that in the
constitution that definitely specifies this is the area that
Congress has control over.
So Governor Fallin, what an honor it is to have you back in
DC, and I look forward to hearing your testimony.
Mr. Shuster. And with that I ask unanimous consent that our
witnesses' full statements be included in the record.
And with that, yield to the Governor of the great State of
Oklahoma.
TESTIMONY OF HON. MARY FALLIN, GOVERNOR, STATE OF OKLAHOMA, ON
BEHALF OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNORS ASSOCIATION; STUART LEVENICK,
GROUP PRESIDENT, CATERPILLAR, INC.; HON. KASIM REED, MAYOR,
CITY OF ATLANTA, ON BEHALF OF THE U.S. CONFERENCE OF MAYORS;
AND LAWRENCE J. HANLEY, INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT, AMALGAMATED
TRANSIT UNION
Governor Fallin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a great
pleasure to be here.
And Ranking Member Rahall, it is good to see you.
And, Congressman Mullin, thank you very much for that kind
introduction.
And members of the committee, it is a great pleasure to be
here today on behalf of our Nation's Governors in front of the
Transportation Committee.
As chair of the National Governors Association, Governors
want to work with our Federal partners on the surface
transportation reauthorization. As a former member of the
Transportation Committee and now having the perspective of
being a Governor, I understand now more than ever the
importance of Governors and the NGA and the Transportation
Committee working together on the surface transportation
reauthorization.
Our Nation's transportation infrastructure systems support
and enhance economic growth of the States and the country,
sustain our quality of life, and enable the flow of interstate
and international commerce.
However, previous surface transportation reauthorizations
and their string of legislative extensions created uncertainty,
not only on the national level but certainly on the State
level. Our States took action to maintain and develop our vital
infrastructure. But, Governors agree that successful State
action does not justify Federal disengagement.
Governors believe that surface transportation requires both
a long-term vision and funding stability to provide for our
Nation's diverse mobility needs. As CEOs of our States,
Governors understand the fundamental importance of surface
transportation to economic competitiveness and job growth.
Continued Federal investment is necessary to leverage and
create a cohesive transportation system across the Nation. The
burden of maintaining the Nation's entire transportation
network cannot be left only to the States.
Federal, State, and local governments must partner to
invest in quality infrastructure to meet our Nation's
transportation needs. Investing today in transportation is
investing long term in our economic vitality and also in the
safety of our citizens. Of course, infrastructure includes more
than just transportation, and I want to take a moment to
commend this committee on the passage of the 2013 WRRDA bill.
This reauthorization remains an NGA priority.
Stewardship of our water infrastructure resources is vital
to safety, environmental protection, and economic development.
We also recognize that our Nation's infrastructure systems are
interconnected. State-of-the-art ports and waterways must have
state-of-the-art highways, transit, and rail systems.
As Congress begins its work on MAP-21, Governor support
continuing the user-pays principle to guide transportation
funding and placing all options on the table for evaluation.
Governors support Federal funding mechanism designs to maintain
reliable, long-term funding certainty. Governors support
outcome-oriented performance measures developed by State and
localities. We believe levels of Governments must cooperate to
improve and ensure safety and security of our infrastructure
systems.
Governors appreciate that MAP-21 reflected many of the NGA
priorities. Governors supported the preservation of innovative
financing tools, such as public-private partnerships and the
expanded capacity of the Transportation Infrastructure Finance
and Innovations Act. Let me emphasize that States need Federal
funding stability and certainty to pursue long-term planning
and project delivery.
Now, next I want to mention municipal bonds, because they
have assisted our States, our cities, and our counties in
financing our infrastructure needs. As you know, the Federal
Tax Code includes an exclusion from income on interest earned
on municipal bonds. Ending or capping the Federal exclusion
from income for municipal bond interest would increase the
costs of financing infrastructure projects. It would trigger
higher interest rates by at least 20 basis points. And that, in
effect, would chill the project, or trigger higher taxes on
citizens to fund our infrastructure needs.
There have been studies that show proposals to cap or
eliminate the interest exclusion on State and local tax
deductibility would bring a net loss of approximately 417,000
jobs, and the loss of $71 billion in real gross domestic
product over 10 years. Governors believe Federal taxes, and
Federal laws or regulations should not increase the costs of
States to incur the issue of municipal bonds or decrease
investor appetite to purchase them.
Infrastructure requires an intergovernmental partnership
and all levels of Government have a crucial role to play to
achieve overall success. Governors look forward to working with
this Congress and with this committee on the reauthorization of
MAP-21.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you very much, Governor.
And I would be remiss if I didn't call out a name of your
long serving Secretary of Transportation, Gary Ridley. I see
him over there. As I think he may be the longest serving State
DOT Secretary in the United States. So watch out. It is good to
have you here, a real expert with us here today.
Next, Mr. Levenick, from Caterpillar. Please proceed.
Mr. Levenick. Well, Chairman Shuster, Ranking Member
Rahall, and distinguished members of the committee. Thanks very
much for the opportunity to testify today about the
reauthorization of our surface transportation system and the
importance of our transportation infrastructure to companies
like Cat, as we do business and compete in the global
marketplace.
My name is Stu Levenick. I am a group president for
Caterpillar, responsible for leading the company's customer and
dealer support organization, which provides integrated supply
chain, transportation services, service parts logistics to Cat
dealers and customers around the world.
It is probably no surprise to anybody in the room that a
company like Caterpillar, manufacturing bulldozers, is a big
supporter of infrastructure investment. But for us, and my
purpose here today is not just about selling more machines and
jobs, it is about the drag our poor infrastructure has on the
U.S. economy, our ability to efficiently import and export, and
consequently the adverse impact it has on U.S. competitiveness.
As one of the America's leading exporters, we are keenly
aware of the importance of exports for job creation and
economic expansion. We also understand how absolutely critical
it is to have an effective supply chain if we are to maintain
our global leadership as a U.S. manufacturer.
Today, Cat exports to every region of the world. 2012, we
exported over $22 billion. These are products from the United
States which must travel through multimodal transportation
systems that includes; roads, rail, water, and air. The
condition and integration of these various models have a
significant and direct impact on our ability to move products
quickly and efficiently at the lowest possible cost.
As the world marketplace expands and our Nation faces
increasing competition from around the world, our ability to
move goods as quickly and efficiently as possible takes on an
even more important role. Our transportation system is the
backbone of our economy. Economic opportunities are directly
tied to the efficiency and reliability of this system, but we
are relying on investments made decades ago to sustain our
growing and changing economy.
Our transportation network is aging, it is underfunded, and
we must renew our commitment to this system if we are to ensure
global competitiveness in the 21st century. The big question is
what does it mean for American competitiveness. Our interstates
and highways, for instance, provide a particular challenge for
the movement of Cat products through the U.S. logistics
network. Congestion and capacity constraints are a significant
concern with high levels of traffic in major metropolitan areas
affecting turn times and on-time performance.
Similar to highway congestion, bridges present a comparable
problem with inadequate capacity for large loads or traffic
flows, bridges that were built early in the transportation
industry present the largest problems with regard to height and
age.
Our Nation's rail network is increasing seen as an
attractive cost-effective way to alleviate growing passenger
and freight congestion on our highways. It is also a vital
component of our integrated transportation system. However,
current railroad infrastructure limits Cat's transportation
options. Many rail lines, bridges, tunnels cannot accept the
physical height and width attributes of our products, and
accordingly, a great number of rail switching yards and
terminals are required, leading to added delays and increased
costs.
Like road and rail networks, our ports are also posing
significant challenges for exporters and logistics
professionals. Because U.S. port capacity constraints, outdated
manual processes and communications, and a lack of integration
and automation, Caterpillar has come to increasingly Canadian
ports for both import and export containers due to improved
transit times and costs. Approximately 40 percent of Cat's
imports and exports now move through Canadian ports.
Finally, our aviation system, which was once the envy of
the world, today is operating with substandard technologies and
facing significant capacity constraints. As an example, we
annually ship about 70 million pounds of mission-critical
service parts globally through Chicago O'Hare. These parts are
typically needed to a customer's site within 24 hours. Last
year, Chicago O'Hare airport overall on-time arrival was about
75 percent, in other words, one in four flights experiences
some sort of delay. This significantly impacts our ability to
satisfy customers and service our products in the time
customers require.
In summary, our transportation system, roads, rail, water,
and air is aging, inefficient, and in serious need of
reinvestment. This reality leads to increased costs and less
efficiency, impacting and reducing our competitiveness around
the world. Our aging infrastructure and shipping inefficiencies
it creates has added an estimated 3 to 4 days of transit time,
costing Caterpillar millions of dollars in cash flow annually.
America needs a multiyear, sustainable surface
transportation reauthorization so we can begin to rebuild our
infrastructure and get back on the road to global
competitiveness.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Rahall, and the members of the
committee, thanks for the opportunity to share with you the
views of Caterpillar on this crucial topic. We stand ready to
work with you and your colleagues in Congress to move surface
transportation reauthorization forward.
Thank you.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you very much, Mr. Levenick.
And with that, Mayor Reed, please proceed.
Mr. Reed. Good morning, Chairman Shuster, Ranking Member
Rahall and members of the committee.
I am Kasim Reed, the mayor of the city of Atlanta. I want
to tell you how grateful I am for having the opportunity to
appear before you on behalf of the United States Conference of
Mayors, representing nearly 1,400 cities across America with
populations of 30,000 people or more.
Increasingly, our success as a country will depend on how
we address our transportation needs and other infrastructure
needs in our metropolitan areas. We are fortunate because we
are seeing genuine leadership out of this committee. As mayor,
I can assure you that nothing is more important than investment
in our water and our transportation systems.
Now I happen to be the mayor of a city with the busiest
passenger airport on the planet Earth, Hartsfield-Jackson
Atlanta. Last year, we handled about 95 million passengers.
That is about 10 million more than Beijing's airport. My home
State of Georgia has one of the fastest growing ports in the
United States of America, the port of Savannah. So the work of
this committee is vital to me as a leader of the capital city
of the State of the Georgia and vital to Georgia as well.
As you prepare for renewal of the Federal surface
transportation law, I ask that we work together to expand our
investment and avoid simply flat-lining our commitments. At the
Conference of Mayors, we have found that over the next 30 years
your metropolitan areas will grow by 84 million people. I do
want to be clear when we use the word metros, we don't simply
mean cities. That is both cities and the suburbs that surround
the cities.
Mr. Chairman, this is more people than the current
population of my home State of Georgia, your home State of
Pennsylvania, Arizona, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, North
Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia combined. So I think that we
can make a strong argument that the country's future health is
going to be tied to having very healthy metropolitan areas. And
we should take a bipartisan approach to them because this isn't
simply about cities, it is also about our suburbs as well. And
I believe the work that you all are doing on the transportation
bill really does represent the most thoughtful, effective
method to expand well-paying jobs in our cities and our metro
that we will have in some time.
MAP-21 made important policy reforms by consolidating
programs, improving project delivery, providing for greater
accountability, and assisting project sponsors with more
financing options. But we need the stability of a long-term
bill. And I am hopeful that you will take that into
consideration as you move this bill forward.
I also want you to know that mayors across the United
States of America are prepared in a truly bipartisan way to
help you carry this water. To get out all over the United
States of American and explain why the work you are doing is
essential to the competitiveness of the greatest country on
Earth.
I also respectfully ask that you provide cities some
flexibility and a larger role at the table. We want to be
partners with our Governors. And we understand that that will
mean being junior partners, but we would like to have a seat at
the table and to ensure that cities have a voice as well. We
believe that when cities are directly at the table along with
Governors in States that we can actually leverage more
resources and make the dollars that you provide States and
cities go further.
The Atlanta region is one of the largest and fastest
growing metropolitan areas in the Nation. Our principle transit
system, MARTA, is the 9th largest in the country. Your bill
will help it as well. So on issue after issue, we think that we
can make a case that we will be a strong partner to you. And we
also think that the bill that you are moving will provide more
verifiable jobs if we get a long-term bill than almost any bill
that will come through Congress.
So, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for your leadership,
Ranking Member Rahall, I want to thank you for your
relationship certainly on the WRRDA bill, and I look forward to
seeing the same kind of energy and commitment to the surface
transportation bill.
I am very grateful to you. Thank you.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Appreciate that. I also
appreciate your commitment to helping us go out across the
country to educate the American people. I think that is really
where it starts and then moves into the halls of Congress. So
thank you for that commitment.
With that, Mr. Hanley, please proceed.
Mr. Hanley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Congressman Rahall.
Appreciate the opportunity to be here to testify.
I want to speak for a moment about the transit crisis in
America that has gone on for the last 5 years. As a consequence
of the downturn in the economy and the fact that Federal
funding has been flat-lined, essentially, to our cities. With
the fall in revenue coming in from tax collections in our
cities and counties, we have seen a true crisis in American
mobility. We have seen 90 percent of the cities in America have
to raise fares and cut service. Sometimes cutting service in my
hometown of New York, that had run for 100 years in that city,
because of this lack of funding available to keep the systems
running.
I represent about 200,000 people who work in the transit
industry in the U.S. and Canada, and our members are the
frontline people who transport people in communities. They are
the urban tax collectors who pull into bus stops every day and
have to explain to people why their service is being cut at the
same time that their fares are going up. This is in a period
when there as been a bipartisan agreement in Washington that we
can't raise taxes on millionaires, we just can't do that
because that would wreck the economy. And yet as we watch
inequality gnawing at American society, we ignore the fact the
decision to not fund transit is one that has caused taxes to be
increased again and again deliberately on the poorest Americans
who need transit to get around.
The other thing that is important is that Congress should
understand that the notion that you can't raises tax to provide
transit service, is walking in the exact opposite direction of
the American people. Every time a referendum is put up around
this country to raise taxes, people vote for it. Seventy
percent of the referenda that had been proposed and actually
voted on over the course of the last 5 years, where taxpayers
have an opportunity to raise their taxes to support transit,
they vote yes. These referenda are passing. That is a clear
signal from the American people that they not only want more
transit but they are prepared to pay for it.
But more significantly the coming crisis, the one that is
looming, if you think there was a problem in Fort Lee, New
Jersey, because of some political shenanigans regarding
traffic, wait until you see what is about to happen in America.
Over the course of the next 15 years, our cities are going to
grow exponentially. There has been already an increase in the
population in cities; in my own city in New York, we have grown
to over 8 million people again. The projection is the
metropolitan area in New York will be 20, almost 21 million
people in 12 years. Where will people get transit to get
around?
And what about the young people in America? This may come
as a surprise, but young people in America not only are moving
back into cities, but they are rejecting car travel. Fewer, as
a percentage of the population, fewer young people today hold
drivers licenses than at any time since John Kennedy was
President of this country. That is a trend that we are missing
if we don't start to project a plan for how we are going to get
people around. So imagine all these growing urban centers with
young people who have no cars who have no licenses who are
flooding into transit systems. And that is the case in many of
our larger cities.
Even more shocking, the projection for Phoenix. If anybody
believes this is simply, you know, old urban cities. Phoenix is
projected in several years to have a population as large as the
current population of New York City. Eight million people will
live in the Phoenix metropolitan area soon. How are those
people going to get around? America cannot depend upon cars.
You know, people say that Americans are in love with their
cars, and I think the fact is that is not true. They just hate
everything else. And it is because everything else does not
serve their interest.
There have been studies that have shown. Matter of fact in
our testimony we talk about the fact that Brookings Institute
found in a typical metropolitan area, residents can only reach
30 percent of jobs via transit within 90 minutes. Now, knowing
that, understanding that, how could anyone think that it is
just a love affair between the American people and their cars.
It is not.
We also want to say that we will work with you, we want to
work with Congress to make this happen. In 2012, 56 Members of
Congress or the Senate campaigned with us, bipartisan,
Republicans and Democrats, worked with us around the country to
build rider support to voice their interest in transit. More
people, by the way, board our transit systems in America in 3
days than all the people that Mayor Reed talked about going
through the Atlanta airport, not to say we shouldn't fix the
Atlanta airport. But the magnitude of this is huge. There are
35 million boardings a day in the United States of people
riding transit. There should be many more. But these are
voters, these are people who need more attention to their needs
as American citizens.
So we are organizing those riders. We have 91 cities across
the country that have now formed rider groups. You will be
hearing from them. And we would ask you to join us in the month
of May when we go out and campaign throughout our cities and
throughout rural areas to try and get more attention to
transit, more funding for transit, and essentially a better way
of life for American people.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you, Mr. Hanley.
And knowing that the Governor has about 10 more minutes, I
am going to start off by asking her a couple of questions, and
I think Ranking Member Rahall, if you have one, I think we can
get it in here and we can get her out on time.
By the way, I don't know if it was mentioned here, you are
the chairman of the National Governors Association, and we are
very, very proud of you of course for being Governor but also
leading that great organization. So we will make sure we get
you out of here on time.
In your testimony, you mentioned that Oklahoma is globally
competitive because of the Nation's transportation network. Can
you explain some of the facilities that you rely on that are
thousands of miles away? And I have to admit to you, when
Markwayne Mullin took us up to the Port of Catoosa, I did not
realize it was the largest inland waterway in the country. So
again we learn everything new. It is good to be up here and
travel. If you could just talk about how the Nation's
infrastructure affects or impacts positively or negatively
Oklahoma.
Governor Fallin. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman and Ranking
Member Rahall, it is great to see you. It is great to be back
in front of the committee again. And it is interesting to see
the other side of the story once I have been on the
Transportation Committee and now as a Governor actually working
with Federal regulatory entities and Federal funds and now on
the State level. And trying to decide how you parcel and part
those Federal funds, versus the State funds, and how you
combine the two and work together.
You know, Mr. Chairman, you mentioned about how important
it is that we have reauthorization of the transportation bill.
But one of the things I want to emphasize, that I have seen on
the State level is, that we need certainty. We need certainty
in our States. When there are short-term extensions, when there
are continuing resolutions, when there is no permanency, no
long-term vision for funding for our Nation's infrastructure,
whatever type of infrastructure that it might be. Whether it is
the highways or bridges, our ports, our transit, our airports,
addressing our congestion problems, that affects our States and
it affects the certainty within our marketplace. It affects our
employers, it affects their ability to hire people, to gear up
for say, construction projects like our I-40 cross-town
interstate that you came to see in our State.
And so as you are working through the committee on the MAP-
21 reauthorization, we just ask that you look at, first of all
a long-term solution, giving us some certainty in our States,
certainly addressing all of the concerns that we have heard
from our various people testifying today, and that you allow us
the flexibility, innovation. There is some great innovation
going on among the States, some great examples of ways that we
can stretch our dollars.
But also understand that States can't pick up the load by
ourselves. That we have to have a national vision for national
transportation infrastructure system.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you very much, Governor.
Mr. Levenick, can you talk a little bit of some of the
specific experiences you have moving your goods out of the
country on the system? What are the bottlenecks? I know you and
I had a discussion before, I kept using Caterpillar as an
example of shipping out of American ports. And then you told me
you ship a lot of it out of Canadian ports because they are
better equipped to handle, they are easier, they are less
expensive. So could you talk about some of the issues that you
face, whether it is roads, rail?
Mr. Levenick. Thank you. I think the real issue, and it
talks a little about the what the Governor just addressed is
that for us, it is not any one thing. We look at the
transportation as a network. And so if you look at highways
that have bottlenecks, if you look at old bridges, if you look
at old rail that can't handle the size, the ports that aren't
deep enough.
Ironically, Caterpillar is providing the equipment that is
widening the Panama Canal. It is sort of an ironic twist of
fate that once that is widened, some of the ships that will be
able to pass through that canal may not be able to dock at U.S.
ports and benefit exports from the United States.
As we look at ports, there is some pretty good detail in
the testimony, but 40 percent of our exports and imports come
through Canadian ports today. Port of Montreal is about 3 days
faster than Norfolk, Virginia, and Prince Rupert out of British
Columbia is about 2 days faster than Long Beach for us. And
that time, of course, is money and it is costs. And as we
compete in the global economy, that matters. And so it is not
just one thing. If the network doesn't work together as an
integrated whole, it is a problem. And that is what you see,
that is what we deal with every day. And we are just a proxy
for any American manufacturer.
So again. I come back to our plea is that and again echo
what the Governor said, a multiyear, sustainable plan that
gives certainty to people making investments and at the same
time drives a line in an integration. That is a role the
Federal Government can play to really help this thing work as
an efficient network. That will readily get us back to
competitive advantage.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you very much. I would now yield to the
ranking member for questioning, keeping in mind Governor Fallin
has 5 minutes.
Mr. Rahall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First I ask unanimous
consent my opening comments be made part of the record. And I
apologize for being tardy. My comments made part of the record,
my opening comments.
Mr. Shuster. Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Rahall. Governor Fallin, welcome back. Good to see you
once again. You served not only on this committee, but
Resources Committee as well, which I chaired at one time. And I
know you have been through some difficult times since then as
Governor because of natural disasters and you have done a
tremendous job of leading your State through those disasters.
And good to see you here today.
You mentioned in your testimony, you kind of warned Members
not to misinterpret what some of the States are doing on their
own, which are very commendable actions, as far as raising
revenue, they are not just waiting for us to act here in
Washington, but they are proceeding on their own. But you said
don't misinterpret that as a signal to devolve everything back
to the States and renege on our Federal role. Could you comment
just briefly further on what that might mean? I know we heard
from Tom Donohue, the Chamber of Commerce back early in this
hearing process, we heard from the Laborers' International
Union president, from Governor Rendell, that there has to be a
Federal role in transportation. We cannot just devolve, as some
Members of this body have preached, back to the States. What
are some other negative repercussions if that were to happen?
Governor Fallin. Ranking Member Rahall, it is a great
question. And it is a very important question because I do
think there has to be a partnership between the Federal
Government, States, and localities within our individual States
to work together.
We certainly do need to have a national vision for our
transportation infrastructure because we are 50 States and the
territories that have to work together to develop a seamless
transportation system in all the different realms of
transportation that we have in our Nation.
But the States can't pick up all the costs. And certainly
as you have gone through sequester and Government shutdowns and
other things that you have had here in Congress, States have
had to make some tough choices when it came to spending and
being able to meet some of our funding needs. And we have done
some innovative things.
So I guess what I am saying is that we do need some
flexibility. We do have some great ideas within our States that
I think could be helpful and sharing those best practices with
Congress, which many times in front of this committee we have
had various people testify, like my Secretary of
Transportation, Gary Ridley, who has been before this committee
many times when I was here. But to understand that we do need
to have a national system that assures that we have safety
within our various systems, whether it is rail, whether it is
ports, whether it is our airports or commercial air, our roads
and bridges throughout our States, whatever form it might be,
transit.
But we also need to have some flexibility within our States
because each State is different, each State has different
needs, each State has different funding sources, each State has
different crises that we have to deal with. Each State has
different needs. I was listening to the gentleman talking about
transit and the need for that. And certainly we understand
that. But in Oklahoma we are a very rural State, we have a lot
of roads within Oklahoma. And so we don't have big transit
systems because Oklahoma City isn't as big as Atlanta. So each
State is different, each State has different needs. And we are
just asking that you consider that as you are working through
the various rules and regulations in the MAP-21
reauthorization.
Mr. Rahall. Thank you very much, Governor.
Let me turn quickly to Mr. Hanley. And certainly want to
thank you for all that you do and what you do for the health
and safety of our transit workers, which is paramount on all
our agendas. What impact would a slash in Federal transit
budget have on the workers that you represent? And on the
riders?
Mr. Hanley. Well, again, what we have seen over the course
of the last several years simply with no increases in Federal
funding, and also, by the way, a bias in Congress against
operating aid for transit. In times of urgent economic need, we
believe that the Congress should step up and fund some
operating aid to keep transit systems running when the economy
is not only in collapse nationally but at the local level.
But we have seen over the course of the last 5 or 6 years
more layoffs of transit workers than we had seen since World
War II. Chicago, for example, a city that depends on transit,
cut 12 percent of its transit in 1 day in 2009 because of the
economic downturn. We are a better country than that. You know,
we can't abandon riders in the streets. And at a time when the
economy really needs more people at work, it was kind of silly
not to keep transit workers working as well.
So if there are any cuts in transit obviously those same
two groups are going to feel it the most, the people who
operate the systems, the drivers and the mechanics and the
people who sell tokens and other fare media, and also the
people who ride and depend upon transit every day.
Mr. Rahall. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shuster. With that, it is 10:45. Governor Fallin, we
will let you excuse yourself. And again we are really proud of
you being the Governor of Oklahoma and of course your new
leadership position at the National Governors Association. So
thanks for taking the time to be here with us today and I look
forward to working with you as we move forward on the next
surface transportation bill this year. Thank you.
And with that, I yield to Mr. Petri for questions.
Mr. Petri. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Governor Fallin and
some of the other panel members referred to this, but I wonder
if you could expand on it a little bit. For some years now,
Congress has been drifting away from what we call regular
order, reauthorization of 5- and 6-year bills in major sectors
of our economy. We had a couple of dozen short-term aviation
reauthorizations before finally adopting a multiyear bill.
Currently in the highway area, we are on a relatively short-
term authorization.
In any event, what difference does it make if we just kick
the can down the road and don't do our job, we still seem to
have some sort of a program in place. Why is a 5- or 6-year
framework important for our country? What difference does it
make? Would each of you be willing to address that a little
bit?
Mr. Reed. The instability stifles investment. So when we
don't have a 6-year plan, and we are planning a new runway at
Hartsfield-Jackson, or a new terminal, we are taking on
projects that are multiyear projects. And it helps us when we
know what is going to be available. Good, bad, or indifferent.
I could make the same argument regarding the port in Savannah,
where we are making another long-term investment and we are
going to have to expand the roadways and arterials to deepen
the Port of Savannah.
Caterpillar just located a site in Georgia, and one of the
reasons that they did was the port. So the bottom line is, is
the stability that a 6-year bill or a longer term bill gives us
is it removes instability and allows us to go and invest
knowing what the situation is. And that is healthy because it
stimulates our ability to make investments that employ people.
So the biggest economic generator in the State of Georgia is
Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. It employs about 56,000 people
directly. And the decisions you make here give me a sense of
what we are going to need to do on our side of the house in
terms of what our responsibilities and obligations are.
So the difference between a 2-year bill and a 6-year bill
represents the difference of tens of millions of dollars being
invested locally, at the municipal level and at the State
level.
Mr. Levenick. I take the same angle that the mayor did and
just say that the same applies to the contractors, the
architects, the designers that are building this
infrastructure. They won't make investments in people,
products, material, without a long-term view as to what the
future holds. It is, you know, basically pretty simple. It is a
result. You see people relying on what they have got, on rental
of equipment, not making the hiring decisions that you would
normally see if they had a long-term plan with certainty.
I would also say that, you know, MAP-21, while it is only a
2-year extension, many of the provisions or regulatory
provisions that went into that bill I think will be very
effective going forward if applied to a longer term legislation
with certainty. The efficiencies, the accountability, the
flexibility that is built into that I think are real good
reforms that will actually make things much more efficient when
applied to a long-term commitment on funding.
Mr. Hanley. I agree as well. Significantly, in our major
cities, real estate development is always built around transit.
And people often forget that. But the value of having a long-
term plan is that first it enables people who start to imagine
better things for their cities to put them in place, and,
secondly, it certainly attracts investment from people who are
interested in developing the real estate and moving to
different parts of town.
It is vital that we have a long-term plan for--and
particularly when you think about what is going to happen to
our cities over the course of the next 15 years, as the
population grows throughout urban America, we are going to need
a transportation infrastructure in every one of our cities to
make of work. And you can't have that if you do this one year
at a time. You needto have a long-term plan.
Mr. Petri. Thank you. Just real quickly. If we are kind of
not making real progress, if we are you know, a fight between
the House and Senate, is it important to just do something for
3 months or to have crisis and deal with it and funding a major
6-year bill because of a benefit of doing that?
In other words, is it better to just keep things calm and
go along even if there's inadequate framework or is it better
to face up to our problems and put a major 6-year bill in
place.
Mr. Levenick. Well, I guess from my perspective, the reason
we are here is to make a strong case that this is about the
economic vitality of the country. We are losing ground against
the global economy. So I guess from Caterpillar's perspective
it would be worth a very good debate and dialogue. I will let
you guys work the details, but what we need is a multiyear,
multimode and transportation system with certainty that really
addresses the issues that we are all describing here.
Mr. Reed. I would certainly err on the side of short-term
pain for a long-term promise and stability.
Mr. Hanley. And I don't think we need to have a fight. I
think we all ought to agree. No committee in Congress has ever
been more bipartisan than this committee, historically, and I
think that is a proud history and you should all embrace it.
But look at what is happening around the world. My God, the
amount of money that China is investing in its transportation,
not just transporting goods, but also transporting people.
America cannot afford to let itself become a third world
country, and these are the kinds of things that we need to do
to step up and make it happen.
Mr. Shuster. Thank the gentleman. Ms. Norton is recognized
for 5 minutes.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I was really
struck by how much the witnesses had in common and over and
over again there was talk about stability and long-term
funding. Indeed, Mayor Reed, I don't know how with 2-year
funding that you could do much more than patch a road. Because
it was a 2-year patch funding that essentially was out of a
trust fund that was hardly there. It needed general revenue----
Mr. Reed. Sure.
Ms. Norton [continuing]. Simply to get over its own cliff.
But I think we ought to drill down and stop simply talking
about cliffs and disaster and let's say what we really mean.
By 2015, this trust fund, which already needed revenue in
order to fund it this year, will go from $53 billion to zero.
What I think we are most in need of are ideas about how to fund
a 21st-century surface transportation system with transit,
roads, with everything that we need in it.
The user fund was based on the old car economy. So even if
the user fund was as robust as it could be, it has outlived its
usefulness. People like me drive a hybrid. In other words, we
have had success with our energy policy, so there is less
funding for the trust fund. As successful as that was during
the period of Eisenhower, we need another way to fund roads.
Have you thought about what kinds of things the Congress
should do? You understand that funding has to begin with
funding the whole country, and has to begin here. Should we
depend on users, the basis for the trust fund? Should we have
another framework for funding our vital transportation? Have
you given any thought to that?
Do you believe that taxpayers would fully fund a new way to
do more than patch a road for every couple years or every year?
Mr. Reed. Thank you for the question, Congresswoman, and
thank you for your leadership of the District of Columbia for
so many years. I have given it thought, and I think that what
we need to do is to have a conversation in this committee where
we put all options on the table. And then people who are the
beneficiaries of your legislation need to step up once you all
decide a direction and get out here and help you sell it and
win it and not have you up here alone on a cliff.
Now, I know that that is going to mean tough negotiations.
But the reason that I wanted to come here today is because I
saw the substantial work that was done on WRRDA, which was some
of the most serious legislation that has come out of Washington
in some time. And so it suggests that under Chairman Shuster's
leadership and under Ranking Member Rahall's leadership, that
you can get a serious bill done.
So I would advocate putting all of the options on the
table. In communities like mine, we certainly are willing to
take on our own share to fund what we want. And we typically
would do it through the form of referenda. Because I believe
that, you know, when you want more money for public projects,
it is OK to go ask for folks. But we have got to be given
flexibility.
And finally, Congresswoman, I need you all's help because
mayors have to be at the table. When you don't involve your
mayors, you are losing Federal leverage and Federal money. Your
Federal dollars do not go as far.
In one project in the city of Atlanta, we invested $365
million in a project called the Atlanta BeltLine. It has
leveraged $1 billion in private investment, and I can get
projects done faster at the local level than you can at the
State and Federal level.
So in summation, I would ask that you put all of the
options on the table, I would ask that you get a 6-year bill
because a 2-year bill is not very helpful to us, and I would
ask that you give serious thought to flexibility and adding
mayors to the mix because we can get projects out and done
faster than you can at the Federal level and State level.
And I think that this committee has the ability to play the
most powerful role, or one of the three most powerful roles in
expanding well-paying jobs at a time when we need well-paying
jobs and protecting our competitiveness. I think we can out-
compete anybody, but right now if we don't start long-term
planning, we are just giving it away. I think we are just
giving our leadership position away.
Mr. Hanley. When I was in school, we had a class called
Citizenship. And I assume that if they teach that class today,
it's called Taxpayership. Because suddenly somewhere along the
line we switched from being citizens that cared about each
other and cared about our community and we became taxpayers who
wanted all that money kept to ourselves. I think Congress needs
to be a little more bold on this.
If we are going to have a vision for America that involves
a better economy, then we have to find a way to pay for it. You
just heard from a corporate titan, Caterpillar, that we need
better highways, that Caterpillar needs better highways. Well,
the folks that are making the money at the top ought to figure
out a way to pay for this. You know, one of the proposals that
is in Congress right now is to tax stock transactions.
Right now, by the way, we can all go out and buy, let's
say, a broom this afternoon and pay a tax on it because there
is a tax on the broom. But if you buy the company that made the
broom, there is no tax. So that seems kind of silly to me. When
the company who is getting the profits from the roads we build,
the transit we provide for people to come to work. And again I
know this might rub against the grain for some folks who have
adopted the idea that we are no longer citizens but taxpayers.
And what I am saying to you is we ought to find a way to do
this and remember that at the end of the day, if we are not
citizens, we have no country.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you, gentleman. With that, Mr. Duncan is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. A few years
ago, when I chaired the Highways and Transit Subcommittee, the
Federal Highway people had two studies saying that the average
Federal highway projects take 13 years. One study said 13
years, one study said 15 years from conception to completion.
And Mayor Reed, when I chaired the Aviation Subcommittee, the
Atlanta airport people, this is many years ago, they came to us
and told us that their newest runway, which is now several
years old, took 14 years from conception to completion. It took
only 99 construction days, and they were so relieved to get all
the final approvals, they did that in 33 24-hour days. What I
am getting at is we have tried in some of these bills to do
what is referred to as environmental streamlining. Most of
these delays have been on the environmental rules and
regulations and red tape.
I would like to ask all the witnesses, do you see that
those efforts have done much good? Are these projects still
taking too long? And I noticed Mayor Reed was talking about
that he can do things much faster at the local level. Most of
the developed nations are doing these projects in half time
that we are. Especially in China and Japan, they are doing
probably in a third of the time.
Mr. Reed. You are right.
Mr. Duncan. Are these project still taking too long?
Mr. Reed. The answer, Congressman, is that we are certainly
able to deliver projects faster. So this committee helped me
recently build a streetcar expansion in the city of Atlanta.
And we are going to bring it in, on budget and relatively close
to schedule, and we are going to regenerated at several
hundreds of jobs, and that was the demand. So there is no
question that we can do things faster.
If you look at the time that it took for us to complete and
construct our fifth runway, and our airport handles about 10
percent of domestic U.S. travel. Because we are the home of
Delta Airlines. The things that you all did to help us
streamline our processes helped a great deal.
And so the straight answer to your question is yes. And
then, you know, the second request would be just to continue to
help us move faster and then to push real hard to get us a 6-
year bill because we need to make multiple decisions at the
same time.
So the capital project from our airport is a $6 billion
capital project. And in order to spend those kind of dollars, I
need to know where we are going to be with our Federal partners
before I make critical decisions to put thousands of people to
work.
Mr. Duncan. All right, thank you.
Mr. Levenick, do you still see delays; is there more that
we can do through this committee?
Mr. Levenick. Well, Congressman, there is probably always
more that we can do. But I think, at least from Caterpillar's
point of view, and we are a user of the output of these
projects, not so much the builders themselves, but the reforms
that were in MAP-21 I think were roundly viewed as very
positive. And I think as we move towards a 6-year bill with
certainty, I think those reforms will have a very positive
impact and probably allow us to improve efficiency much greater
than what we have seen in the past. It is always a step in the
right direction.
Mr. Duncan. We have got to have cooperation at the State
and local levels, though, as well to really do what we need to
do.
Mr. Hanley.
Mr. Hanley. We have not experienced that problem in
transit. If anything, transit projects have been more
streamlined over the course of the last 10 years than they had
been prior to that. And certainly we think more attention
should be paid to the environment, not less.
Mr. Duncan. All right. Thank you very much.
Mr. Shuster. Ms. Johnson is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and our
ranking member and for calling this meeting, and thanks to the
witnesses for your testimony. The surface transportation
legislation is one of the signature pieces of legislation for
this esteemed committee, and I look forward to cultivating the
next piece of legislation with my colleagues for the coming
months.
I have been a strong supporter of activity yeah and had
noticed that Governor Fallin had mentioned TIFIA as a benefit
for her State and mentioned also the possibility of any other
types of creative financing options. And I would like to ask
each one of you to tell me why you--whether or not you support
TIFIA or any other creative financing that we might consider.
Mr. Levenick. Well, let me start, Madam Congressman.
Absolutely. I think, as the Governor said, and I will just echo
again her comments, I think we always want to devolve to the--
to the quick answer, what is the funding solution to make this
all better, and the answer probably is, and you will know
better than I, but there probably isn't one. We are probably
going to need all of them. TIFIA is attractive; the
infrastructure bank is attractive. Congressman Delaney's got a
proposal on repatriating foreign deferred taxes that might have
some legs. Certainly user fees is another one. We are probably
going to need public-private partnerships. I think it is going
to have to be comprehensive to really get at what we want.
So, at least from Caterpillar's point of view, we are open
to any and all. The ultimate goal for us is an integrated
network with long-term certainty in a multimodal transportation
network that improves our competitive advantage globally.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you.
Mr. Reed. Congresswoman, I believe that TIFIA is highly
effective.
In the State of Georgia, we recently were awarded TIFIA
funding. It was essential to a major transportation initiative
in one of the most congested parts of the metropolitan region.
I can't say enough about that process.
I think it also represents an extension of Federal
resources, because unlike the grant approach, it does allow
States that have strong credit and strong financial resources
to be allowed to pay the Federal Government back for your
investment, but I think that TIFIA really highlights the need
for providing alternatives, and so to the extent that you can
push out a menu of alternatives that allow us to do more and
leverage more, I hope that as you consider this extension, that
alternatives are constantly put on the table.
My city happens to be a huge beneficiary of the TIGER
initiative. We have won two TIGER grants. One leveraged double
the Federal investment. We won a $47 million investment that
leveraged a $100 million project, and the Atlanta BeltLine
recently won an $18 million investment that is leveraging $43
million of local investment. So I think that when you look at
the jobs that are verifiably created and our ability to pay our
bills, that TIFIA is an extremely effective project, but at the
end of the day, we need alternatives with verifiable track
records.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you.
Mr. Hanley. And I think from the workers' perspective, we
are interested in all kinds of creative ways to finance these
systems, but one word of caution that I want you to hear, and
that is that the public-private partnership craze that has
occurred has resulted in a real attack on American workers.
And, again, it is fashionable to attack American workers, but
then let's all talk about we should have equality. I mean, you
can't have both. You can't attack American workers and then
gripe about inequality, because that is what created it.
And what has happened in the public-private partnership
area in transit is that companies, global companies based in
England and France--one is a really great story. Veolia is a
French transit company, a water company also. It is owned by
the French social security system. And Veolia comes here and
takes over transit systems, and in every single case, they
eliminate the American workers' pension, every single case. It
is their corporate policy that American workers cannot have a
pension if they work for Veolia, and yet it is owned by the
French social security system. There is something wrong about
that, and there is something wrong about us supporting public-
private partnerships that result in degrading American jobs,
particularly if we are then going to get up together and say,
you know, we have got to ring our hands about this inequality
in America. We are creating it.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you.
My time has expired.
Mr. Shuster. Time has expired.
And with that, Mr. Hanna is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Hanna. Mr. Hanley, first of all, I am an operating
engineer, 35 years. I spent a lifetime in----
Mr. Hanley. Good morning, brother.
Mr. Hanna [continuing]. Cat equipment. I am going to ask
you something. You know, I agree with you. States are having--
they are having good outcomes in asking for additional money
for transit. You are absolutely right. The age of--between 18
and 34, people are driving increasingly less. We see for the
first time in the last 10 years numbers miles per person in
that age group are declining. We know that that is why the
Highway Trust Fund is in trouble, the diesel tax and the excise
tax and the gasoline tax, which I guess on gas, you--transit
gets about 2.8 percent. I also know that people who use mass
transit are not all poor. I have been in New York City. I am a
New Yorker. You know, a lot of wealthy people that ride the
transit. It is a great way to get around and increasingly, as
you said, 35 million people a year--a day, load themselves, and
your union does a great job of getting people where they want
to go safely.
Why isn't that--why doesn't that lead you to the conclusion
that people who take mass transit should not pay something to
the Federal Government toward that, because basically now those
people who you say are riding--are spending money on gas and
diesel, they are subsidizing, for lack of a better word, they
are subsidizing mass transit, and there is no--there is no quid
pro quo in reverse. Yet you are here asking for additional
money, which I fully understand, but why shouldn't this--part
of the problem and the difficulty on this committee is exactly
as you identified, we are having--we need to have a
conversation about how to pay this. Why shouldn't ridership be
part of that when not everybody is disadvantaged who rides mass
transit all across this country? And increasingly, it is just
the opposite.
Mr. Hanley. Where is Warren Buffett when you need him? It
is true that in major cities like Washington and New York and
Chicago, we have a much more mixed clientele with respect to
who rides transit, and certainly there are very wealthy people
who ride transit every day. There are also very poor people who
have no choice but to ride transit. I recently had----
Mr. Hanna. But poor people own cars, too.
Mr. Hanley. Let me tell you a story. I was recently
involved in a nonpartisan voter turnout operation in Cleveland,
and I was on a van who picked up a voter who had to go a mile
and a half from her house uphill on a terrible day to vote. And
when she got on, she said, Thank you. And I said, no, no. Come
on. We are happy to take you up. No, no. Thank you. She says,
you know, I own a car. But she--yeah, she said, but I can't
afford the gas. Now, this was in a housing project, by the way.
Mr. Hanna. But isn't that a case for you to say to her,
part of your gas tax is going toward this?
Mr. Hanley. Oh, yeah, but----
Mr. Hanna. You are riding mass transit, therefore, you are
not paying for it.
Mr. Hanley. Well----
Mr. Hanna. I mean, how do you justify that transfer of
taxes? I am just--it is just a simple question. I don't need an
anecdote----
Mr. Hanley. OK.
Mr. Hanna. What I need to know is why specifically do you
think people who ride mass transit have no obligation to pay
what other people in this country pay through their gas tax,
diesel and excise tax?
Mr. Hanley. No, no.
Mr. Hanna. I am not advocating----
Mr. Hanley. They do pay. They do pay. They pay huge fares.
They pay income taxes. They pay real estate taxes that all fund
transit. It is not as if transit riders are getting a free
ride----
Mr. Hanna. But the Federal Government----
Mr. Hanley [continuing]. But more specifically----
Mr. Hanna [continuing]. Subsidizes them, but we do not--we
do--the people who use the rest of the transportation system
have historically paid directly unsubsidized.
Mr. Hanley. But that is a myth. That is a myth. The fact is
that the subsidy per rider is much less than the subsidy per
car owner in America if you want to look at all the different
subsidies that go into roads, highways, bridges, et cetera. And
that is not to take away from the importance of them.
Mr. Hanna. But there is no payment on the part of people
who use mass transit back to the Federal Government----
Mr. Hanley. That----
Mr. Hanna [continuing]. Yet there is with gas and diesel
and excise.
Mr. Hanley. But they pay Federal taxes. That is what they
do. They pay income taxes.
Mr. Hanna. We all pay Federal taxes.
Mr. Hanley. Pardon me?
Mr. Hanna. We all pay Federal taxes if we are in a bracket
that allows us to do that.
Mr. Hanley. OK. But----
Mr. Hanna. You see, you really don't have an answer for
that question.
Mr. Hanley. Well, it is--I don't have a 30-second answer.
There is a long, complicated answer that absolutely justifies
huge increases in Federal investment in transit. We would be
happy to have that discussion you in writing or personally.
Mr. Hanna. My time is expired. Thank you.
Mr. Shuster. Thank the gentleman.
And Mr. Lipinski is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to go back a few minutes to share, I think, Mr.
Hanley's exasperation here when one thing he says, look at what
the--look at what the rest of the world is doing, look what we
are sitting here talking about. Unfortunately, since SAFETEA-LU
expired September 30th of 2009, we have struggled to do a long-
term robust spending bill for our transportation
infrastructure, which we all know is desperately needed. We all
know that in this room. There has been a lack of we can--you
know, we can argue here and there about who is more to blame,
Republicans or Democrats. There is plenty of blame to go around
and plenty of lack of leadership that I have seen on this
issue. It is time that we finally do something here.
Now, MAP-21 was a--was largely a Band-Aid, although it did
have, as Mr. Levenick had pointed out, had--he pointed out some
of the good provisions in MAP-21, and then there were others in
there, so that was good, but it was still a Band-Aid, and we
face a big cliff at the end of MAP-21 with funding. We need to
get this done. We need to be serious about it. We need to see
real leadership on this.
Now, I certainly thank and congratulate Chairman Shuster
for his leadership that he has taken as chairman of this
committee and moving this issue, keeping this issue on the
front burner and showing that this is an issue that affects all
Americans and it impacts business. And I think we need to do
more--a better job of getting that out there, the impact on
business, the impact on our economy.
So I thank Chairman Shuster for what he is doing, but we
really need to finally move forward, decide how are we going to
fund this. We have got to make the tough decisions to do it.
Now, Mr. Levenick, everyone knows that Caterpillar--
obviously, you know, Caterpillar will--will benefit from, if we
have a transportation bill, from what is spent on building the
new roads, the additional infrastructure, but I think the point
that I want to most bring out, and you certainly touched on,
was the impact on the economy as a whole, everyone in the
economy. We depend on an efficient transportation system. So I
just want you to--give you an opportunity, Mr. Levenick, to--
you know, to ask you, you know, what is at risk for our
economy, specifically for Caterpillar, if we continue to
underinvest in our system as we continue to do?
Mr. Levenick. Well, thanks, Congressman, for the question.
I think--simply put, I think we continue to lose
competitiveness in the global economy. And I cited a number of
examples about, you know, the longer delays for U.S. ports and
delays in shipping products across State boundaries and so
forth and so on, and I think those all build up into
inefficiency that our customers have to pay for and that other
countries in the world----
Mr. Lipinski. And what does that mean for job creation?
Mr. Levenick. Well, I think, you know, the more effective
we are at moving goods and being an effective and competitive
exporter, the better we are going to do as a company; that is a
proxy for U.S. manufacturers who export, import. And, you know,
you are going to be a much more effective company, you are
going to grow, create jobs.
I mean, if you look at--many of you have traveled to China
and you have probably witnessed what is gone on there. China is
an interesting example. They have some advantages, clearly. You
know, they started essentially with a clean sheet of paper and
so they are able to build an infrastructure network much like
what we are describing, an integrated infrastructure network,
which is, frankly, becoming the standard in the world. They
spend 9 percent of GDP. They are the second-largest economy on
earth; they spend 9 percent of GDP on infrastructure. The
United States, 1.4 percent; Canada, 4 percent. Europe, for
example, along the lines of what I am describing, they have
created the TEN-T program, this Trans-European Transportation
Network, solely focused on creating an integrated network to
make their economy much more efficient in the global
marketplace. That is the kind of leadership we need here.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. And I--efficiency means--
efficiency for American businesses mean more American jobs.
Other countries are stepping out in front of us, becoming more
efficient; that means more jobs over there than here.
In the brief time I have left, Mr. Hanley, you know that I
formed a congressional caucus on public transportation earlier
this year. I thank you for what you have done at the local
level. And we need to continue to do more so people understand
the importance of public transportation, not just to those who
take that transportation, but to those who are on the roads who
don't have to deal, then, with all the others who are on public
transportation being on the roads. But my time is up, so,
unfortunately, I won't have an opportunity to have you expand
on that.
So I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Shuster. I thank the gentleman.
And with that, Mr. Gibbs is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Gibbs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you for coming before us today, and I am--there
are lots of us here who feel a long-term highway surface
transportation bill is a very good thing, and it provides
certainty, like you said.
I want to talk a little bit about--to Mr. Levenick from
Caterpillar. In your testimony, you talk about the amount of
exports and imports that Caterpillar does through the foreign
ports in Canada in particular. In your testimony, you talk
about outdated manual processes, communications, lack of
integration and automation. Well, first, before I get to that,
I want to say, in our omnibus bill, the appropriations bill we
are doing tomorrow, we are getting the Harbor Maintenance Trust
Fund appropriation, over a billion dollars, so we are on the
right track there. And as the chairman of the subcommittee that
worked on WRRDA, that is something we have been fighting to do.
I always like to say, doesn't anybody understand the word to
mean, what a trust fund is?
But I want to talk a little bit, because I have been to
some of these ports and, you know, we talk about the depth of
the ports and the need for dredging, but you talk also in your
testimony about the lack of integration, automation and the
communications process. Can you just kind of expound a little
bit on what is going on in those other ports? And then I guess
the second part of that, too, is we get the dredging done,
which we have been fighting hard to get done, do we also have
just a plain, like, at L.A., Long Beach and some other ports, a
capacity problem is an issue? Is there some other ports could
pick up some of that? Is that part of the problem, too, or is
it some of these other problems you mentioned?
Mr. Levenick. Yeah, I think it is a little of both. And
don't take from my comments about the ports it is simply the
Port of Norfolk can't unload ships fast enough. You know, there
are a variety of issues around all of these, but I think the
issue is, is that our modes aren't as alined as they are in
other countries. So if you have a tremendous world-class port
and the highway infrastructure surrounding it, which provides
access to the Nation's network, isn't up to standard, you
haven't gained anything.
Mr. Gibbs. OK.
Mr. Levenick. This is the same argument with the States
doing their own infrastructure development. While it is
admirable that they are taking the initiative to do this, if we
wind up with a patchwork of 50 different States, you haven't
created a national network that is very efficient. Other
countries are doing that much better. I mentioned the TEN-T
issue in Europe. China certainly has done that with a clean
sheet of paper; Japan is very good at it, and even Canada has
done a good job of it. So it is a series of things regarding
alignment of these modes, the information systems necessary to
communicate effectively between the modes, and a variety of
things like that that really make it not optimum, and we all
pay a price for that; we don't see it, but we do, and we are
losing global competitiveness as a result.
Mr. Gibbs. OK. And I just want to turn to Mr. Reed with
your Savannah port and Atlanta being, I don't know how many
miles it is in from the port, but it is, you now, definitely
landlocked, and you talked about what you are trying do to
improve that, what you just said about the, you know, the
intermodal. Can you comment on that, what you are seeing in
regards to Savannah and Atlanta?
Mr. Reed. Yes, Congressman. Savannah is about a 2\1/2\-hour
drive from Atlanta, but Atlanta has the highway network that
then gets the goods throughout the Southeast, so it is that
kind of partnership. About 100,000 jobs in the metropolitan
region are supported by the Port of Savannah. It is the fastest
growing port on the eastern seaboard, but it needs to be
deepened immediately to 47 feet. This committee has been
helpful with that. But I recently traveled to Panama with Vice
President Biden, and President Martinelli talked about global
exports and said that every port that is going to be a player
in the global economy needs to be at 50 feet, so that is where
the United States needs to be, and that exports around the
world over a 30-year period of time, as you know well, will
increase by about 80 percent, and then when you add to that the
issue of the size of the ships.
So we did all of the work that Caterpillar's been a part of
to get the Panama Canal so that it could handle a ship with
12,000 or 13,000 BTUs, and now you have ships that are being
manufactured that are going to handle 18,000 BTUs, and so we
have to begin. And when we have a 6-year runway, I think we
have a better opportunity to take all of this in and get ready
for it.
Mr. Gibbs. I am just about out of time, but I just want to
make the comment, I think you are making the comment how
important it is to connect these systems. I always think, you
know, all of our transportation systems, you have to look at
the whole system and not just one part. And I would also--I am
out of time, but I would also just say we have got a good bill
out of WRRDA out of the House, and it is not completely there,
but we are getting there, but just tell all your members, all
your people you work with just keep the pressure on both the
House and the Senate to get it done. Thanks.
Mr. Shuster. Mr. Gibbs, we are working on it.
And with that, Mr. Carson's recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Carson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe that States
like Indiana have demonstrated that there is a role for the
private sector in building and expanding our transportation
infrastructure. Going forward, what do you all see as effective
plans for, or paths for that matter, for the private sector to
help build out transportation systems? What should we consider?
Is there a menu of alternatives that you may have in mind?
Mr. Reed. Well, what we look to do is to have local
leverage that then is paired with Federal commitments. So, in
the two most recent examples we have had, one was our TIGER
bill. We have about 42 million guests. We leveraged double what
the Federal Government put in, so we think that that represents
a good investment for you all. We are also going to be open to
public-private partnerships, but we will allow our private
sector--our public sector employees to compete. But in the
United States, public-private partnerships are going to have to
be a part of the long-term solution, because you have so much
wealth that is prepared to invest in infrastructure around the
world----
Mr. Carson. Absolutely.
Mr. Reed [continuing]. But what we are not going to do is
to let a three-piece solution crowd out access and
opportunities to traditional labor, so everybody is going to be
able to come to the table and show that you can compete.
The next step for us in Atlanta is going to be a light rail
system for the Atlanta BeltLine, which people in Atlanta are
wildly supportive of. So one of the opportunities to fund that
would be a referenda, because I don't believe in simply
imposing taxes on folks based upon my own notions of what I
think should be done.
But the bottom line is alternatives, alternatives,
alternatives that have been vetted and proved effective, and
then let the local electeds make the decision and suffer the
consequences, good or bad.
Mr. Carson. Right. That is good.
Mr. Hanley. Did you want a reaction from me?
Mr. Carson. Yes.
Mr. Hanley. Yeah. My union has had the great advantage of
122 years of vetting private companies, and we--and most of the
contracts we have at this point are with private companies, not
with public agencies. And we can tell you unequivocally that
private companies collapsed throughout the United States; it is
what led to the original bill in 1964 50 years ago to bring
mass transit back. And so long as we seek to improve transit by
injecting the importance of a profit motive for private
companies, we will fail.
Government can effectively run transit. Government does
effectively run transit. And frankly, trying to reinvent, you
know, the 1960s, when transit collapsed in America, we think is
a critical mistake.
Mr. Carson. OK.
Mr. Levenick. You know, first of all, I would agree. I
think Indiana has done some creative things, and I think they
can be kind of a poster child for some of the options which
might be available, but in the end, from my point of view and
Caterpillar's point of view, whatever gets us to a multiyear,
sustainable integrated network is what we need. And I think you
are probably likely going to need all of the above. All the
private partnerships have their role, referendums have their
role, user fees, user taxes, I think all of this is going to
form, you know, the potential here to find the funding we need
to get this done, but the important thing here is to understand
that this really is about the economic future of the United
States. I mean, this is not just some short-term thing. This
really is about how we compete in the global economy and the
standard of living that we are striving to achieve. And, you
know, hopefully, the comments that we have made help put that
in perspective for you.
Mr. Carson. OK. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you.
With that, Mr. Webster is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Webster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
doing this, getting started early on the reauthorization. I
think this probably could be one of the most important--
probably the most important bill that passes this last half of
the--of our--of this 2-year Congress.
I have a question for the mayor. I am intrigued by a mega
city inside somewhat of a rural State.
Mr. Reed. Yes.
Mr. Webster. And I am wondering, how do you bring about
influence in that there is one step between you and the Federal
Government through the DOT and through the MPO process? How do
you work that out?
Mr. Reed. I work it out by partnering with my Republican
Governor, who is a--Republican, but we understand that there
are some things that we have got to work together on, and we
both occasionally get in trouble. I supported his application
for a TIFIA loan for $270 million and caught some flack from
folks in my party for supporting a Republican. He supported me
on a transportation referenda, and he caught some flack, but I
tell you what, unemployment since we both took office is down
from 10.2 to 7.0, and we will put the jobs that we have created
up against all of the people who criticized him for working
with me and for me to work with him.
So, you know, I understand that he is Batman, and I am
Robin, but I do believe that mayors have to have a voice. I
don't have it confused. That is why I wanted to share that with
you, because the bottom line is, is that, you know, folks in
cities will help to fund things that folks in rural areas might
not want to be a part of, but at least give folks that
flexibility, because it does allow the Federal dollar to come
forward. And, you know, I think that that has been the key in
Georgia for us.
We work together on the things that we agree on, and we
don't on the things that we don't agree on, and so that is why
I think that we have had the kind of wins, speaking of
Caterpillar, the deepening of the Port of Savannah and others
that we have been having. So that is what I think. And I am
sure I will get in trouble for saying that during my testimony.
Mr. Webster. I hope you don't. I would ask you this, then,
we just finished a freight panel which did a study around the
country about how we might be able to enhance that through--and
a lot of the discussion was about how we could somewhat
regionalize things, certainly roads and railroads and highways
and other things, and most of the people that come in on--to
your--to your airport come from somewhere else----
Mr. Reed. You are right.
Mr. Webster [continuing]. Sometimes out of your State, and
none of those stop at your city line nor do they stop at the
Georgia State line. How do you--do you have any suggestions for
us on how we can, without overburdening you with some sort of
Federal--Federal heavy hand, help you in becoming or
maintaining a regional picture that goes beyond your State or
city boundary?
Mr. Reed. Yeah. I think that you can help us by identifying
Republicans and Democrats that have addressed regional efforts
and partnerships successfully. There are not that many of them,
but what we like to have in politics is examples, so--and I
think that Governor Deal and my relationship has been talked
about--not across the country--because we are kind of unusual,
but to the extent that you have bipartisan solutions on
regional issues and you hold those up as examples and reward
folks for engaging in that behavior, I think that you help
America.
The State of Georgia got turned down for TIFIA four times.
When the Governor and I both supported the application, we got
a $270 million grant. And I think that that is--I remember when
we walked in Ray LaHood's office, he didn't understand why we
were there together. What is this mayor of Atlanta and this
Governor of Georgia, who had been a Member of Congress for 20
years, walk in to his office for? When we have examples like
that, I think that committees like yours, with all of your
influence, should hold them up and look at what we worked on
and what we got done, and I think the country can learn from
that, because, you know, I served in the legislature a long
time. When folks come to see you, if they are really smart,
when they start opening their mouths, they make sure that they
don't tell you anything that is going to get you beat. I know
that is how--I used to--when folks used to, like, don't come in
here with something that is going to get me beat. So you have
got to be able to tell me about examples where other people
have done this and lived to tell the tale, and I think that
that helps the country, and that is what you all did on WRRDA,
and I think it is what you all can do on this surface
transportation bill. This is the biggest opportunity to create
well-paying jobs in the tradition of Eisenhower that we are
going to have around here in the next 24 months.
Mr. Webster. Thank you very much.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you for that insight, Mr. Mayor.
And with that, Ms. Hahn is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Hahn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also recently served
on this terrific panel on 21st-century freight transportation.
We were tasked with coming up with recommendations for a
national freight policy in this--in this country, and we
traveled across the country, everybody came out to L.A., Long
Beach, to look at those ports and understand what impact those
ports have on our country.
One of the recommendations that I helped craft was a
recommendation that would have required our DOT Secretary to
identify corridor-based solutions to freight mobility. I
represent the Port of Los Angeles, and I understand what we are
talking about when we talk about the last mile. And I have been
told that cargo gets diverted, not because of any fees or
environmental regulations in our ports, because it--but it is
because of land side congestion. So I was disappointed to see
that DOT failed to include last mile connector roads, which
connect our ports to major highways, in their recently released
MAP designating the primary freight network. I think that is a
big oversight.
And nobody understands, you know, the congestion or
dredging as much as I do. I have traveled to the Panama Canal.
I understand what that is going to mean to our U.S. ports, but
I also know that--you know, they call me Ms. Harbor Maintenance
Tax around here, because I have been on this issue since I came
to Congress 2\1/2\ years ago. We have $9 billion in surplus in
our Harbor Maintenance Tax that we are not spending for the
purpose for which it was collected, which is to invest in the
maintenance and the dredging of our Nation's ports. The head of
Army Corps told me that if we could release all of that money,
they could have our ports dredged to 53, 54 feet within 5
years. That would create jobs, and that would keep us globally
competitive.
But I will say, Mr. Levenick, it was very disturbing, very
disturbing for me to read your testimony and to hear your
testimony. And I understand, again, we need to do a much better
job of dredging our ports, being globally competitive, working
on that last mile, but, you know, I feel like you are part of
the problem and not part of the solution. You are shipping 40
percent of your product through Canadian ports, which means
basically you are avoiding the Harbor Maintenance Tax. So you
are avoiding paying that, and that is the very money that we
use to maintain our ports and harbors. And we are looking to
actually expand the use of the Harbor Maintenance Tax to
include possibly land side improvements that relate to our
ports.
So you are failing to pay it, you are avoiding it, and then
you are using our infrastructure, and you are complaining that
our ports aren't dredged and our infrastructure's not
maintained, so--and by the way, I just want to go on record
saying, I know, and I am glad you said it wasn't one thing that
caused you to abandon our U.S. ports, but, you know, automation
is not going to be the answer to making us, you know, more
efficient. I mean, we are--we are--you know, we--if there is
one thing we got to fight for, it is good American jobs, and
there are good American jobs at our ports. And automation may
be coming and maybe it is a little more efficient, bu it is not
the answer. And with automation comes the disruption of good
American jobs, and I am not sure that is what we need to be
focusing on.
I think there are other ways to be more efficient and move
those goods, but we have got to talk seriously about our roads,
our infrastructure, our bridges and certainly that last mile.
So what other ideas do you have? And by the way, I am
disappointed that you are a board member of the United States
Chamber of Commerce, and you are abandoning our U.S. ports and
shipping your products through Canada. You know, I just don't
think that is a good message. So what other ideas do we have
collectively, and I would like to hear you, to improve that
last mile, to improve the congestion and to make this seamless
transportation network that does include more on dock rail, you
know, better near dock facilities and moving this cargo more
efficiently?
Mr. Levenick. Well, first of all, I think what has drove us
to that decision is not some arbitrary decision that we are
abandoning the United States. I mean, the whole reason I am
here is we are one of the largest exporters in the United
States, and we would love nothing better than--and we find it,
frankly, crazy that we can't export efficiently on a global
basis from our U.S. ports, and the only alternative to be
globally competitive--our customers around the world don't care
about U.S. jobs. They care about a cost-effective delivery of
their product on time and in a competitive cost. And so we are
forced as a global competitor, like anybody in the global
economy, to play by those rules.
The suggestions I think we have laid out, and I am glad to
hear that you understand that it is not--it is not one
solution; it is an integrated network. That is what the rest of
the world's going. That is where the rest of the world's going.
One solution on, you know, a weight limit addressment or just
purely highway funding isn't necessarily the answer. It is got
to be--this is where I think the Federal Government really
plays a role, and I compliment the study that was done for--by
this committee over the last 9 months. So I think that is a
great blueprint for where this country needs to go, but
ultimately, it is about an integrated network, you know, led by
I think the philosophy driven by this committee and the Federal
Government with flexibility for regions and for States that
will get us back to where we need to be, but by no means are we
abandoning U.S. Ports. I mean, the ports that we do use today,
of course we are paying taxes. And we would like to see those
taxes spent against--or those fees spent against the
improvements you are talking about. But we would love nothing
better than to be able to ship all of our goods--it only makes
sense. The ports are closer to our places of manufacturing in
the United States than Canadian ports. We are only doing that
because we are driven by the global economics.
Ms. Hahn. Well, and--but you are. I mean, you are--
certainly you talked about abandoning L.A., Long Beach. And,
you know, our local economy in Los Angeles is really tied to
the economy of Long Beach and L.A. When cargo is down in those
ports, you know, small businesses suffer in Los Angeles.
Thank you.
Mr. Shuster. Thank the gentlelady.
With that--is Mr. Davis here? Oh, there he is. Mr. Davis is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Davis. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
opportunity.
Mr. Shuster. Sorry. I forgot you were sitting on the other
side of the room.
Mr. Davis. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Right in front of
Ms. Harbor Maintenance Trust----
Ms. Hahn. Thank you.
Mr. Davis. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, in all
seriousness, and thank you to the panel. This committee--and
what has been great for a new freshman like me to hear is the
talk about the cooperation and bipartisanship, especially when
it comes to transportation issues. This committee recently
passed a bill, passed the WRRDA bill out of here unanimously.
We don't hear about that in the press. We don't hear about
bipartisanship and cooperation. So whether it is Batman and
Robin, Mr. Mayor, or you and the Governor, you know, it is
great to hear where you are making successes on a bipartisan
basis when you talk about infrastructure and implementing it in
a very cost-effective way.
And I would also like to congratulate the city of Atlanta
on three Hall of Famers this year.
Mr. Reed. Yeah. Pretty good.
Mr. Davis. Yeah. Congratulations. And thank you for what
you do for that great city.
When you talk about cooperation, you talk about
infrastructure. We have examples of success all throughout this
country. Next month, we are going to open the Stan Musial
Veteran's Memorial Bridge across the Mississippi River from
Illinois into Missouri, and that was a project that had been
long planned. And it took bipartisan cooperation from--they are
not Batman and Robin, but two that I would like to call out are
former Member Jerry Costello from the State of Illinois and
also my colleague and friend John Shimkus for their bipartisan
cooperation, but it took so many others to work together to
make that project a reality. And we on this committee have the
opportunity to do that together. I am glad the chairman has
begun the dialogue and opened up the process of us being able
to do that. And all of you today have provided me a great
knowledge and a great optimism on where we can go. And I do
have a couple of specific questions.
Mr. Levenick, as you know, it has been a difficult year in
Decatur, Illinois. However, I was really excited to here that
Cat's application for a $694 million loan was recently
approved, and that is going to hopefully provide more mining
equipment to a new iron ore mine in Australia. I am hoping that
means an increase in workload for your Decatur plant and more
jobs for my constituents.
And in your opinion, though, what is the most important
thing this committee can do to help Cat, ADM and others in the
Decatur area bring more jobs to central Illinois?
Mr. Levenick. Well, I would piggyback a little bit on what
Mayor Reed said before. I think--you know, we located a
facility in Athens, Georgia, essentially to take advantage of
what we believe is going to be world-class infrastructure. We
moved goods back to the point of where they are consumed from
overseas. I think that was a very good move for us and for the
country. And simply stated, I think what Cat and any other
manufacturer or business like us that is a global exporter
needs is a sufficient network of transportation. Make us
globally competitive. That is going to create more jobs in the
United States. It is going to make us more successful as a
country, raise our standards of living; integrated multiyear,
multimodal program with certainty is going to give us the
competitive advantage we need to be globally competitive.
Mr. Davis. Well, thank you very much for that. And I know
in your testimony and also in your responses today, you talked
about the investments other countries are making to
transportation and infrastructure systems, and also how an
organization and a company like Caterpillar would make
decisions. And you have let us know how much of a factor
efficiency and reliability of the surrounding infrastructure is
when you make those decisions.
And today's marketplace is global. We understand that. And
I respect the fact that you have to make decisions on a global
basis. However, within the State of Illinois, in particular, in
regards to the many facilities that you have in that great
State, what would you say is the number one transportation
impediment to growth and expansion in the State of Illinois
versus in Athens, Georgia?
Mr. Levenick. Probably the--it is different in every State,
obviously, but I think probably the challenge in Illinois would
be the highway system. It has been underinvested in for a
number of years, and it needs to be upgraded, repaired,
replaced. It is not a--like other States, it is--Chicago is a
very big metropolitan area, but the rest of the State where our
facilities are located is, you know, relatively resident or
smaller communities, Peoria, Decatur, Aurora, so the
infrastructure that exists there is just outdated and needs to
be upgraded.
Mr. Davis. Well, thank you very much for your testimony. I
had some more questions, but since the chairman didn't
recognize I was here, I ran out of time.
I yield back.
Mr. Shuster. Well, I am sorry. I really apologize I didn't
recognize the gentleman from----
Mr. Davis. Does that mean I get more time?
Mr. Shuster [continuing]. Illinois. No, but I have to point
out to the committee that the Stan Musial Bridge is actually
the Stan Musial Bridge II, because the Stan Musial Bridge is in
my district. It runs across from Donora, where he was born, to
Monessen, Pennsylvania. So I just had to point that out to the
gentleman from----
Mr. Davis. Little minute details.
Mr. Shuster. And with that, I recognize Ms. Napolitano.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I, too, want to thank you and Ranking Member Rahall for
working on a bipartisan basis. Now all we need to do is have
the witnesses understand that we need your help in convincing
the other Members of Congress to vote for a 6-year bill. We
have been wanting it. We have been needing it. And you know
better than anybody where that need is. And if we don't work
together and convince some of the folks that will help us put
that 6-year bill forward, that we won't be as successful, so I
am asking for your help to be able to convince some of the
Members who are a little reticent on doing a 6-year bill versus
a 2-year bill.
And you talk about global competitiveness. And I am from
L.A. The ports that Ms. Hahn talks about run through my
district, the freight, and the great separation, the funding
isn't there to be able to increase the number to do more on-
time delivery. The railroads are not putting as much money as
we would hope they would. And somehow we need to be able to
change the mentality of where the job development is, what it
is going to mean to the economy and how we can all partner and
be better, how would I say, served?
And, Mr. Reed, I am a former mayor of a small city----
Mr. Reed. I know.
Mrs. Napolitano [continuing]. And it is--that is where the
rubber hits the road. That is where people will come to you and
tell you what their needs are. And you are right. We need to
have a lot more of the ability for the local communities to
make up their mind what their needs are rather than to have
somebody tell them, but what about an infrastructure bank to be
able to help those communities that are note able to finance
their own projects being able to get some help from
transportation funding? And that is some of the things that I--
that I have very, very key in my mind.
And you talk about infrastructure development. South
America is going great guns to be able to take some of those
freight lines away from us, or freight corridors. The
infrastructure that is being spent in many of the countries far
outweighs, as you pointed out, what we are doing in this
country.
To some of the areas, and this goes to Mr. Reed, is--
Honorable Reed, is the local hire preference. It used to be
years ago when the law was first proposed and passed, it was 80
percent Federal funded to 20 percent, and it is now reversed.
So why are we not allowing the communities to be able to do
local hiring, because they know where their pockets of poverty
are that can benefit from job development and job training, and
somehow we have not really reversed that to be able to allow
local communities to do a lot more of their own economic
development. That is one area.
And the other area goes, of course, to Mr. Hanley is we
didn't talk about safety, transit operator safety, whether it
is railroad, bus drivers. I think we have more bus drivers, as
you pointed out, suffering from fatigue and causing accidents.
You have more accidents with buses than you do with airplanes.
Now, how do we address those, and how do we begin to understand
that all of it comes together? You have to have the funding,
you have to have the community support, and you have to be able
to have driver safety or employee safety, because not only is
it the person who is doing the driving, but it is also the
people he has under his charge, whether it is a bus or a train
or a plane. Anybody.
Mr. Reed. Well, Congresswoman, I would start by saying I
fully support your feelings regarding an infrastructure bank,
because of the reversal in funding that you have pointed out.
So when our MARTA system--we have the ninth largest system in
America. It does not receive State funding and runs in a pretty
strong fashion. When it came about, it was 80 percent Federal,
20 percent from the State and local. That has changed, which is
why--and I was aware that you had been a mayor, which is why I
think mayors have to have a bigger say, because the bottom line
is 70 percent of the GDP in America is in cities. So I would
fully support your efforts around an infrastructure bank. And I
advocated in my own remarks that mayors need to have a seat at
the table to have their own ideas baked in and to use the tools
that we use.
So you referenced the local hire initiative. All of that is
impossible under the current framework that is being sent to
us, because we are not even at the table. And so getting folks
well-paying jobs is being slowed down at the Federal and State
level. And so I was just advocating one that I think that the
infrastructure bank is a good solution, that once it works its
way through and comes out in a bipartisan fashion, I think it
is going to be part of the future because it will extend the
Federal Government's resources at a time when we need to do
more with less.
Mr. Hanley. In our formal written testimony, Congresswoman,
we addressed all three of those areas, one being the fact that
there is a massive wave of assaults on transit workers,
particularly bus drivers throughout the U.S. and Canada right
now. We believe it is connected to the fact that they are in a
bad economy, that the service has been cut, passengers are
angry and the fares have gone up, but these are very critical
assaults that are going on. People are being beaten within an
inch of their life.
The other thing is that in public transit, one of the dirty
little secrets that nobody ever wants to talk about is that
transit systems do not provide bathroom breaks and do not
provide access to bathrooms, and as a consequence, and this is
a safety and health issue, drivers all over the country are
driving around developing diseases, not being able to use
bathrooms, limiting their intake of water, and this is
something that we would like to address with Congress during
this reauthorization.
Also, in the over-the-road industry, which you just
mentioned, the Greyhound-type buses, not just Greyhound,
because of deregulation, we have had a huge increase in safety
hazards and deaths. People are dying all over the country. More
people die in bus accidents now than in plane crashes, and that
is because of the fact that our Government has abandoned
regulation.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for your indulgence.
Mr. Shuster. Thank the gentlelady.
And with that, I recognize Mr. Barletta for 5 minutes.
Mr. Barletta. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to thank the chair also for putting this panel
together.
I enjoyed hearing from all of you. I, too, was a mayor; I
was a mayor for 11 years, so I agree with the importance of
having mayors at the table in the decision process. There is
not a tougher job in politics than being a mayor, as you know.
And I also understand the importance of public transit and what
it means to a community. My family was also in the road
construction business, so I have been on a Cat 956 front-end
loader. I also understand that in that industry, contractors
are not going to buy a $500,000 piece of equipment on a 2-year
bill; that if we want people to make investments, they need to
know there is work for 5, 6, 7 years. There is also nothing
better for the economy than a long-term bill, because when
there is a lot of construction work, construction workers make
good money. When construction workers make good money, they
take their families out to eat. They spend it in the local
economy, and that money stays right in our communities.
I also believe that public-private partnerships are very
important in the fact that we are able to stretch our dollars
and bring the private money in so that there are more projects.
When there are more projects, more people will be working, and
maybe we wouldn't be talking about extending unemployment
compensation if there was more work for construction workers so
that they know that they had a job.
Mayor Reed, your northwest corridor project is very
interesting. I would like if you could explain a little bit of
that and what the TIFIA program means to that project.
Mr. Reed. Well, what it means is we have a choked I-75
north corridor, which is northwest above the city of Atlanta.
And our metro, now, Congressman, is 6.1 million, so we have got
the ninth largest metro in the U.S. The problem is, is that we
grew that fast probably 20 years ahead of where most folks
thought we would get there, and so that corridor is choked and
congested.
The State of Georgia enjoys one of the highest bond ratings
in the United States of America. We are one of seven or eight
States that have Triple A ratings by all of the major rating
agencies, and we needed the Government's help. And so we had
applied before. We applied most recently, received a grant
under Secretary LaHood, and then that grant was--is being used
in that corridor. And I think it just represents one of the
best solutions, because you all are not encumbering the Federal
Treasury with debt. We will pay it back. We are capable of
paying it back, so we think that that should be held up as a
tool and talked about and talked about and talked about.
And I also happen to believe that once you all draft a 6-
year bill, mayors across America got to get out and talk about
it and help you explain, because the bottom line is I certainly
agree with my colleague from Caterpillar, is that it is really
about competitiveness, but folks aside from Members of Congress
need to get out and say it. This is about the America that we
want to have, and so the bottom line is if we don't deal with
our arterials and our traffic and the deepening of our ports
and our roadways, you know, we are giving away where everybody
says the growth is, which is in our international routes and
access and in the global economy. So that is my straight
answer.
And so much freight travels on that 75 corridor to the rest
of the United States, certainly in the Southeast in the United
States. Atlanta and our metro is the hub and is the most
dynamic economy in the Southeast. Our metro economy is larger
than that of 30 States. So this is real money, real job
creation. It is about a $298 billion metro economy.
Mr. Shuster. Thank the gentleman.
With that, Mr. DeFazio is recognized.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Levenick, earlier Governor Fallin talked about the fact
States have stepped up and said that that can't be a rationale
for the Federal Government to pull back from its proper share.
There is kind of a--well, there are some right wing think tanks
around here who are pushing very hard on the idea that we
should have what is called devolution; we should devolve the
duties of financing, coordinating and constructing a system, a
national transportation system, to the States. And when I say
to them, well, how is that going to work? For instance, I guess
there was some earlier discussion about you using harbors in
Canada because it takes longer through L.A. So how does that
work for L.A.? So they provide their freighters to go all over
the United States, but the Port of L.A. and California should
pay for the Port of L.A. and the Federal Government shouldn't?
I mean, what do you think about this theory that we should
devolve back to the States the duties for a national
transportation system?
Mr. Levenick. Well, I think, first of all, we don't support
that.
Mr. DeFazio. Good.
Mr. Levenick. That is the simple answer.
Mr. DeFazio. That is good.
Mr. Levenick. I think the chairman said it in his opening
remarks, the Federal Government has always had a constitutional
role that creating a national system of transportation that
supports the common good. We couldn't agree with that more. We
need an efficient network. And you have seen States take the
initiative, and we commend it, because they are acting in, I
guess, their own self interest to pass gas tax or find funding
mechanisms to drive some investment in infrastructure, because
they recognize the importance, but that can't really be the
answer. If we wind up with a patchwork of 50 different
solutions, you don't have a network, and that is some of the
heartburn we see today with all the different regulations and
the inefficiency in the system is driven by, frankly, a lot of
variation in our network that has likely evolved over time
because some States didn't keep up with--you know, with the
development of world-class transportation that others did, and
we wind up with this situation.
So I don't think devolving the responsibility for this to
the States is an effective solution if we are going to be
internationally competitive.
Mr. DeFazio. And then just--I recently visited an equipment
manufacturer in my district, Johnson Crushers, they make rock
crushers, and I think you may compete in some areas, but they
made a point and they showed me graphics that whenever we are
uncertain about the future of the Highway Trust Fund or we are
inadequately investing, domestic orders drop off dramatically
because the contractors don't see the work in the future. And
one of the States already--it might have been Oklahoma, I can't
remember--has said we are pulling back on our investments,
because we don't know if the Federal cost share is going to be
there, because the trust fund goes to zero next--next fiscal
year.
Have you seen the same impact on Caterpillar's heavy
equipment domestic sales that when there is uncertainty about
the future or we are not investing adequately, that your sales
suffer?
Mr. Levenick. Yeah, we have seen that. And we certainly
hear it from our customers, who are very vocal about it, and
our dealers who, you know, explain very clearly that, you know,
without a long-term solution, we won't step up and make the
long-term commitments on investments that are necessary.
One of the phenomenons that I think supports that also is
the dramatic expansion of the rental industry for heavy
equipment. People are choosing more to rent rather than buy as
a result of this or hold on to equipment longer than they
otherwise would. So there is a whole series of things that play
out, and it varies State by State, but that is----
Mr. DeFazio. And that, obviously, has a major job impact
here in the U.S.
Mr. Levenick. Absolutely.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you.
Mr. Hanley, quickly. One point I was surprised you didn't
make in responding to Mr. Hanna was the fact that there--can't
we say that there is a tremendous net benefit to highway users,
particularly in urban areas, from having diverted people from
being in single-occupancy vehicles, adding more to congestion
and delaying people more? Would you--you want to address that
briefly?
Mr. Hanley. Well, I couldn't have said that better. You
know, again, we found out some of that--some of the effects of
congestion in Fort Wayne, New Jersey. You know, the fact is
that if transit riders stopped riding transit tomorrow, this
country would come to a standstill, and the same impact will
occur if we don't plan ahead for the next two appropriation--I
am sorry, the next two authorization periods, because the
population in our cities is going to explode: 80 percent of the
people in this country live in cities, and the population of
many of those cities is going to grow by 30, 40, 50 percent. So
it is--there is a much longer answer, obviously, to what the
Congressman asked me, but the fact of the matter is that
transit riders pay more than their fair share for their
systems.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you.
And Mr. Bucshon is recognized for 5 minutes.
Dr. Bucshon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for the time.
Thank you, panel, for being here. It is very much
appreciated.
I wanted to focus on Mr. Hanley. Following up with Mr.
DeFazio and Mr. Hanna just talked about. And I think the mayor
said this, well, that everything should be on the table. I
mean, if we are going to fund infrastructure, then everything
should be on the table. And as you are aware, in MAP-21, as it
passed out of committee, transit was separate. It was separated
out from the gas tax. And we are not going to get into that
debate today.
But the point is, is that people on the committee here are
struggling to find ways to do exactly what you want for your
workers. Because--exactly what Caterpillar wants, exactly what
the mayor of Atlanta would like to have. And that is more money
for infrastructure. I think we can all agree on that. So if we
are going to have everything on the table--and I know you said
the people that ride mass transit are paying their fair share.
And I have lived in Chicago; my son goes to Emery University in
your great city. And, in fact, I just flew through your airport
coming here. I love Atlanta.
But that said, if everything is going to be on the table,
tell me how you would think that the workers that you represent
potentially would be harmed by looking at having that support
on the table as a way to overall fund infrastructure, not
just--not just mass transit, but as a part of a bigger equation
to find more money for our whole intermodal system? Why would
your workers be against something that we might try to find a
way that transit could support the Federal highway and transit
program? I am just trying to get my arms around that.
Mr. Hanley. I am not sure I understand the question.
Dr. Bucshon. Well, I mean, the gas tax is a user fee.
Mr. Hanley. Right.
Dr. Bucshon. Is there a user fee--Federal user fee for mass
transit?
Mr. Hanley. No. But----
Dr. Bucshon. That is the basic question. I am not saying
there should be. I am just saying if everything is on the
table, what I am trying to understand is why your workers or
your industry would be against having that on the table as a
part of a way to help us find more money. Because we are--my--
our struggle is finding more money for infrastructure.
I mean, I totally agree last time, you know, we funded a 2-
year bill--it is not long enough--we used other revenue from
other areas of the Government, because the user fees, our
revenue is dropping because of inflation and no indexing of the
gas tax, blah, blah, blah, we all know what the problem is.
I just can't wrap my hands around the--on the transit side.
And this is not a partisan issue because we have bipartisan
people that did not want that separated out--why finding some
money in that area is something that would hurt the workers
that you represent. I just don't understand that.
Mr. Hanley. But you have it. I mean, I think if the goal is
to say that because people who ride in cars pay gasoline taxes,
and some of that goes to transit, then therefore there has to
be some special Federal taxation on transit riders because they
ride transit--I think that is what you are saying.
Dr. Bucshon. I am just saying it seems--don't get me wrong,
I am not for or again--I am just trying to have a conversation
here about if we are going to have everything on the table.
There are some people in Congress that think transit should not
be in this highway bill, should be subject to annual
appropriations--and I am not saying I am for or against that,
but that's what passed out of committee last time. So, in our
discussions, you know, how can--you can help convince us when
we need more money that we should keep that in there and--and
everybody else should have their taxes raised like you--you
pointed out, like the general fund, say just for argument's
sake, the millionaires--and that is a direct quote from you.
Mr. Hanley. Billionaires.
Dr. Bucshon. Millionaires, billionaires, that is the
talking point. And, by the way, I was disappointed that you
used the national talking point of the bridge from New Jersey
to New York in part of this discussion. I thought that was
inappropriate.
But the fact of the matter is how can you convince people
that, OK, we should do that and we should use those general
funds to pay for transit, which, as Mr. Hanna pointed out, it
is--in fact, I rode--in Atlanta, my son took me to--drove me to
one of your train stops on the North Side and rode it
directly--I love mass transit; I ride it any chance I get. I am
just trying to get my hands around how you can convince us that
if everything is on the table, that that that isn't.
Mr. Hanley. I think we have to walk for a minute through
history and consider the impacts of the Eisenhower highway
program on mass transit and on mobility in America. You know,
prior to that highway program, people got around by using
trollies, trains, buses. That is how they moved around the
United States of America in our cities and between our cities.
And this Government made a choice in the Eisenhower highway
program to change radically the way Americans lived, to create
suburbs, to drive people out of cities or to encourage people
to get out of cities. It was a completely subsidized operation
by this Federal Government to move Americans from their cities
out to suburbs. And there came a point in the 1960s where all
of the transit systems were going broke. The ones that were not
taken over by the auto industry, the national city bus lines,
which was a creation that was pursued by the Justice Department
for ripping up trolley systems all over the country. This is a
fact, this is what happened. So then what came about is in the
1960s, mobility in American cities was in collapse. Bus
companies were going out of business, train companies going out
of business, until the Federal Government finally had to step
in. This was really the mirror image of the highway program,
where the Federal Government had to step in and subsidize
transit to get it back up and running in order to keep our
cities moving.
Now what is happening is the exact opposite phenomenon of
what happened in the 1950s is occurring, not because of a
Federal Government program but because young people are saying,
no, no, I don't want to live in the suburbs, I don't want to
have a 4-hour commute every day. I want to live where I work.
And there are other factors obviously involved in that. But
these are societal changes. And I just don't think we can
attempt, rationally, to isolate where Federal taxes come from
for a particular program. I think that is a failed strategy,
and there are many reasons why but I know I am out of time.
Dr. Bucshon. OK. Thank you.
I yield back.
Mr. Shuster. Only thing, Mr. Hanley, I would say I disagree
on is the Federal Government does provide dollars for the
highway system, but it is a user-based system. So if you use
it, you pay for it, and that is what Mr. Bucshon, Mr. Hanley,
again, we need to look at everything. And, you know, I am a big
rider now on the train from Harrisburg to Philadelphia. And the
State put in $100 million for Amtrak, and they reduced the
time. And, you know, I have said many times in this committee
room and many times across this country, every time I get on
that train and I look at the ticket price and the figure on the
back of the envelope, I should be paying more for it. Prime
time, they are not making money. I think they have inched it up
some. But when I do the back of the envelope, on gas, tolls,
parking, and then my productivity goes from zero in a car to
100 percent productive, you know, sometimes I think we are not
looking at that in transit systems. As we said, there are a lot
of rich people that are riding--I think Mayor Bloomberg rides
the transit system.
Mr. Hanley. Not really.
Mr. Shuster. OK.
Mr. Hanley. I have been there.
Mr. Shuster. I believe you. But I think, you know, we have
got to be looking at those kinds of things and how we can make
transit systems--look I don't believe they are ever going to
pay for themselves, but to get them paying more for themselves
so that everybody is going to benefit by it. Because your
argument is right, the logic is clear. People that get on
trains and transit aren't in their cars. And that would cause
us a huge, huge congestion explosion if we did that. So we have
just got to be thinking about different ways. And I think Mr.
Bucshon is trying to get at that. What do we think about how do
we get around it? That is the key to it.
With that, Ms. Edwards is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you, very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you to our witnesses today. You know, I have been so intrigued
but these conversations about transit riders subsidizing the
transit for what we put into gas tax with the roads. Because I
can think of a number of public goods that--public good that we
get from having transit in place, not the least of which is
taking so many people off the highways so that our trucks and
commercial vehicles can travel more safely and more
efficiently.
I can think of the public good of improving our air and
water quality because we are not having all that, you know,
sort of oil dripping down into our waterways. And we experience
that in Metropolitan Washington. I can think about the
contributions to strengthening the quality of life when people
can get home to their families, get to their jobs on time, and
take away that stress. So if we are going to begin to quantify
things, I hope we begin to quantify some of those things when
it comes to asking whether transit is a net positive or a
negative.
And, frankly, sometimes people in my district and my State
ask me why, when we are such a thriving State in a thriving
metropolitan region that is contributing a lot to the economy,
why we are subsidizing roads out in the middle of nowhere? And
I say, you know what? It is because we are Americans, and we
make an investment in a national system. And so the folks in
the rural areas get their roads, and in our metropolitan area,
we get our transit.
So I hadn't planned to go there, but this conversation has
just been so fascinating. I listened earlier as well. And
thought from the perspective--and I want to ask about this,
about workers. Because I think about the workers who work for
Caterpillar and other manufacturing companies who are going to
be charged with building the equipment that will improve our
infrastructure. The workers in communities like Atlanta and
here and this region who build the roads, maintain the highways
and bridges and maintain and operate our buses, our Metros and
our commuter rail. And I am no Mayor Bloomberg, but I have been
known to get on our Metro system and get on our buses and, of
course, the workers, who ride, drive, and commute.
And so my question really goes to Mayor Reed and to Mr.
Hanley asking about wages and benefits and things like transit
benefits that go to workers so that they get off the roads. And
whether we are paying prevailing wages so that the jobs we are
creating actually enable people to take care of themselves and
their families and build that kind of thriving economy. And I
wonder if you could comment about the importance of those kind
of policy initiatives as well when we consider reauthorization.
Mr. Reed. Well, I would start by saying that the
reauthorization bill is going to help drive construction, which
in my community took a 50,000-job hit during the worst of the
recession. And the city of Atlanta is one of the biggest actors
in the construction space in the region and the State. So we
are in the middle of building a $1.2 billion football stadium.
We have a $6 billion capital program at the airport. We have $2
billion more to spend in water and sewer----
Ms. Edwards. You prevailing wage standards that apply to
that, especially of course when----
Mr. Reed. We don't have prevailing wage standards that
apply to that, but we have initiated a mentor program, and we
do provide benefits to businesses that hire locally. So we
don't have prevailing wage program. But I will tell you this, I
have been mayor of Atlanta now for 4 years. And without any
kind of program, I have raised the salary in the city of
Atlanta for every single employee to $10 an hour or more.
Because I made the decision as the leader of my city that
nobody was going to have a full-time job with my city and be in
poverty.
Ms. Edwards. Could I get a comment from Mr. Hanley before
my time runs out?
Thank you, Mayor.
Mr. Hanley. There are many, many hidden subsidies involved.
There are many hidden subsidies involved in highways and cars.
And one of the ones Congresswoman Duckworth joined us in
pointing out and that is the fact that we have this need for
oil, which creates a need for wars, which creates a need to
American kids to lose their lives, their limbs, and their
heads. And that is something that is never factored into this
public discussion about the importance of public transit. And
the question was then about wages also?
Ms. Edwards. Yes, wages.
Mr. Hanley. Well, the fact--I recently had a meeting with
about 30 new presidents of locals in our union throughout the
country and Canada. And one of them got up from Ohio and said
he has members who work full time and work overtime and qualify
for food stamps. And that gave me pause. And I said: How many
presidents in this room can say the same thing? Every one,
except the Canadians, said that they have workers in their
union working full time qualifying for food stamps.
Ms. Edwards. Let me just, very quickly, because my time has
run out. When we reauthorization surface transportation, do you
think it is important for us to make sure that we maintain
strong prevailing wage standards when it comes to spending
Federal dollars?
Mr. Hanley. It is absolutely vital.
Ms. Edwards. Mr. Chairman, if you could, if we could get an
answer from the panelists here about the idea of tying tax
rates to construction inflation like we do in Maryland in terms
of strengthening the Highway Trust Fund. Not raising the gas
tax, but tying increases to construction inflation. Florida,
Massachusetts, and Maryland are three States that do that. And
if we are looking for other revenues to strengthen the Highway
Trust Fund, I would just be curious, particularly, you know,
from our friend in Caterpillar, if you would respond to that.
Mr. Levenick. Well, sure. I think--I think that is a
legitimate question to ask. Like I said before, I think there
are going to be multiple ways that we fund this. One of the big
fallacies with or the big disadvantages with, you know, the
1993 highway bill was that it was never indexed against
inflation or fuel efficiency. And I think correcting those gaps
in whatever we do going forward will be a big step going
forward.
Ms. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shuster. I thank the gentlelady.
And the gentleman.
With that, Mr. Meadows is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And thank each of you for your time. I think I am last up,
but you are going to get to go home shortly.
Mayor Reed, I just want to compliment you on your
bipartisan way, and it has real effect. I live very close to
Atlanta. I am probably closer to Atlanta than I am Charlotte.
My other favorite mayor is now Secretary of Transportation.
Mr. Reed. Good friend of mine.
Mr. Meadows. I consider him a great man in the spirit of
what you have shared here today. But in a bipartisan way, you
have my commitment to work on this.
I want to thank the chairman for being proactive in working
on this ahead of time so that we can get truly good policy as
it comes forth and we address this particular issue.
Mayor Reed, I would be interested--you serve the Atlanta
metropolitan area. And yet much of what you have talked about
here today is looking at transportation from a holistic point
of view, from the ports, obviously, to the city. How do you
sell that to your constituents that will make a decision every
4 years on whether you are going to represent them again?
Mr. Reed. I think we sell it because my constituents
understand competitiveness. And they understand that in order
for me to make sure that they have the kind of opportunities
that allow us to have the fourth largest concentration of
Fortune 500 businesses, that we have to have global access and
global connectivity and that we have got to be competitive
around the world. And so most people in the Metropolitan
Atlanta region know someone or related to someone that has a
job that is tied to one of our major businesses or major
industries. And so that is how we sell it.
Mr. Meadows. So putting more of an emphasis just on light
rail or MARTA or whatever it might be is only one component of
transportation in terms of those that benefit the constituents
that you represent.
Mr. Reed. You are right. And you have to make the
competitiveness argument. And that is really what carries the
day for us. That is how you cut through the partisanship.
Mr. Meadows. Thank you.
Mr. Hanley, in your testimony, you mentioned a GAO report.
And in that report, it also made--that same report made
mentions of really the private sector working on public
transit. And the benefits. But yet in your testimony, as I have
listened, I guess, to some of the question and answer, you
don't believe that the private sector really has a strong role,
I guess, going back to some of the demise from the 1964--I
don't want to misquote you, but I think that characterizes your
testimony.
So you agree in part with the GAO study but not in
totality.
Mr. Hanley. Well, that would be fair. But are you asking a
question about our views on the private companies and transit
generally?
Mr. Meadows. Well, I guess my--how do you pick and choose
what parts of GAO study you are going to support? You mentioned
it in your testimony. So you pick the part that you like. And
the part that you don't like, you kind of throw out, so what
matrix do you use to qualify what is a good recommendation from
the GAO and what is a bad recommendation?
Mr. Hanley. We don't have a matrix. We just layer our
thoughts and views and our knowledge on what we read in the GAO
reports. And sometimes they are right, and sometimes they are
wrong.
Mr. Meadows. But, I mean, guess, how do you make that
determination? I mean, for me as a Member here, I am trying to
figure out, OK, how do I value that? And so does that come from
a personal bias or where does that come from? How----
Mr. Hanley. Years of experience.
Mr. Meadows. OK. Years of experience that the private
sector is not the best solution is what you are saying.
Mr. Hanley. I know what happens. I know what happens when
you inject profit into public transit. I know what happens to
workers. I gave you the example of a French company run by the
social security system.
Mr. Meadows. Right.
Mr. Hanley. Taking away pensions. The problem in a study
like what the GAO has is it ignores that. Those facts were not
brought up. I would be happy to sit down with the GAO, and they
would come out with a much different study if they talked to
us.
Mr. Meadows. No doubt.
Mr. Hanley. There are some facts----
Mr. Meadows. Here is what I would like each one of you for
the record if you could give me three areas that would perhaps
be painful to absorb or handle in terms of a--what you most
would like not to see happen in a highway bill that is coming
up. And what I would like you to do is identify those three
areas that are most problematic for each one you. And if you
would submit that to the committee for the record, I would
appreciate it.
And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shuster. Thank the gentleman.
And with that, Ms. Esty. She has been waiting patiently.
Ms. Esty. Thank you. It is so nice to be recognized over
here. There is a blind spot.
Thank you, Chairman Shuster. And belated happy birthday.
Thank you, Ranking Member Rahall.
And thank you, gentlemen, for--and departed Governor--for
being here and joining us today on this very important
initiative. And I am glad we are starting these hearings early.
This bill, I would agree with several of my colleagues that I
think this has the opportunity to be the most important piece
of legislation we work on this year, and we need to do it in a
bipartisan way, and your assistance in helping us do that is
much appreciated.
And look forward to continuing, Mayor Reed, our
conversation from last year on these important issues. And how
we grapple with the reality that the trust funds are woefully
inadequate to meet the needs that we have, even if we were all
dedicating those funds to the present needs.
My constituents span the rural to the urban. I have all of
that in my district. So I have to make that competitiveness
argument, that essential-need argument, each and every day. And
they are prepared for and want us to invest in transportation.
Just last week, the mayor of my largest city, in Waterbury,
Connecticut, announced an initiative to put up money on the
local side for a TIGER grant for a greenway, not necessarily
what you would think the most important issue is for a former
manufacturing center. But they see that as vital to this
integration of roads and rail and walkability to address the
demographic needs of young people. And I have three of them who
want to live in a city and don't want to drive cars, but they
want to be in a vibrant city. So we have to do better as a
society to the figure out how to integrate these needs. But the
same city of Waterbury is hampered by a notoriously congested
highway, I-84, which desperately needs to be upgraded and has
corrosion and is falling apart and is affectionately known as
the Mixmaster, so you get a sense of what those highways look
like.
So we need to have a long-term bill. You know it. We need
to convince the public and our colleagues of it. That long-term
investment is going to be essential to get the sort of
partnering of public-private money that clearly we are going to
need to leverage to address the needs.
So I would like you to maybe, Mayor Reed, to start with
you, to make the case as persuasively as you can as to why
these investments are so essential for economic development.
You know, unless we turn the curve so we are looking at a
growing pie in economic development, we don't get to the real
core issue, which is jobs, jobs now and job in the future. And
so if you can expand on the critical role that transportation
and the surface transportation in its myriad forms plays in
that, that would be helpful.
Mr. Reed. I would start by saying that during the worst of
times, we had a bill called the American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act. So it was a $784 billion bill. And no matter
how you feel about it, if you do an analysis of the verifiable
jobs that were created, there was about 10 percent of that bill
that was spent on transportation and infrastructure. It yielded
more than 30 percent of the jobs that could be verified. So no
matter how you feel about the overall bill, if you care about
jobs, there is no question that transportation and
infrastructure is where you create verifiable jobs. That would
be number one.
Number two, the long-term bipartisan nature of
transportation and infrastructure since President Eisenhower is
undeniable. So this is an opportunity that creates jobs for
Americans that has historically been bipartisan. So it creates
verifiable well-paying bipartisan jobs.
And, lastly, I would say to those folks, if you love
America and want it to be first and the leading economy in the
world, it has to have world-class infrastructure because the
rest of the world gets it, and they are investing in it. And
the fact of the matter is, is that we are losing. And the
example, my colleague from Caterpillar points that out more
sharply than anything else can. The fact that the ports in the
United States are so uncompetitive that 40 percent of
Caterpillar's traffic is being sent to Canada I think would be
persuasive to any person that cares about their own standard of
living. So those would be my arguments.
Mr. Hanley. Well, as I said earlier, there is no question
about the direct connection between transit--I am leaving
transportation broadly aside; I just want to speak about my
issue, I am selfish. But the connection between transit and
real estate development and real estate values is absolutely
clear and undeniable. And the investment that has occurred as
recently as the last few years in New York has shown that when
you make the investment, the real estate values go up, the tax
base gets better, the whole economy gets better when you do
that. And it is impossible again what--to have a short-term
bill and long-term planning. There is no way we can deal with
the problems your kids have unless we have plans that go out at
lest 6 years and probably longer. And, obviously, all of these
things end up creating a better economy and a better
environment. And they deal with every issue Americans have to
deal with today, including jobs and education. Just getting
kids to school is becoming harder without funding in transit.
Mr. Levenick. I am not sure could I add anything to what
the mayor said in very eloquent fashion. But I will take a
shot. And that would be that I think everybody probably gets
the jobs thing. I didn't realize that statistic on the stimulus
plan. But that is a good one. But that is pretty obvious.
I think the one that we have to have an adult conversation
about with the citizens of this country is the economic impact
on the future of country. In fact, most citizens don't have the
advantage that I have of traveling the world and seeing what is
going on in other countries and how far beyond we are falling
and what that really means. And I think the incumbent upon all
of us in plain English, plain language that people understand
what is at stake here. And it really is a standard of living
that we have come to expect in this country. And there is no
reason we can't do that. It has just traditionally been the
role of Federal Government to play a lead roll. There is a role
for States. And we have created, I think, a framework here that
provides some flexibility. But ultimately, this is about, one,
investment in the future, which we are going to get a return
on. And all you have to do is look back to the interstate
highway days and the Eisenhower program, investments we have
made in education and other big national things. It needs to be
funded in a way that is fair and flexible and recognizes those
who use the resource pay for the resource, and ultimately
create a national network that is long term, sustainable, and
provides the integration in a network that gives us a global
competitive advantage. And for its role, I think it is one that
has probably not has been as strong in the past as it is needs
to. American business is ready to step up and play a role in
telling that story and providing the anecdotes that explain it
in plain English to the citizens of the country so we can make
some progress.
Mr. Shuster. Mr. Levenick, I thank you. Your time has
expired.
I appreciate all three of you being here. And again, on
those words, I know all of you had a great close there.
Appreciate that. As was mentioned, this is our first hearing
moving toward the reauthorization. But I want everybody to
realize, too, that we have been having stakeholder meetings and
other types of meetings getting information from the
stakeholders. And all indicate clearly from every meeting we
have, and certainly from today, it is about certainty, long-
term flexibility, reducing regulatory burden. Trying to move
this bill in a bipartisan way I think is important for us to
do, being fiscally responsible. And I know you just said it at
the end, Mr. Levenick, and the mayor has said it probably
several times today, it is going to be important that those of
you that are stakeholders, those of us on this committee and
Congress, we need to educate, advocate, inform the American
people about the importance. Because they don't have the same
world view on what is happening to a big city if it is not
being connected or the different transit systems around the
country. And that is incumbent upon us to make sure we are out
there talking. And then as we move closer, making sure we are
talking to Members of Congress. Because, again, some Members of
Congress aren't clear on how far we are falling behind in the
transportation and infrastructure that we have out there.
So, again, thank you all for being here. With that, I ask
unanimous consent that the record of today's hearing remain
open until such time as our witnesses have provided answers to
any questions that may be submitted to them in writing and
unanimous consent that the record remain open for 15 days for
additional comments and information submitted by Members or
witnesses to be included into the record of today's hearing.
Without objection, so ordered. We stand adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:31 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]