Needs to be addressed. We invite you to share your voice by going to your website, cspan. Org campaign 24, recorded a 32nd video telling us your issue and why, voices 2024, be a part of the conversation. Up next, transportation secretary, pete buttigieg, the former mayor of suppan, indiana, talking about were they can improve their policies. Thank you mayor for the warm welcome and thank you to all of you, and welcoming back, it feels good to be amongst americas mayors, and those of you from around here, appreciate you being here from the midwest, i appreciate you expressing your instincts, real snow, its all relative. And i really do feel at home more than anywhere else. And occasionally on the street, someone will say mayor pete and like theyve said something wrong, i say that we wear that. And elected after the of the nomination of the party, for mayor in my city, a couple of days later i got an email of a 10yearold boy, say congratulations, and let you know there is is intersection close to where i live, sometimes i wait to get a ride. And i wrote it back in and sure how he got my email address, and thanks so much for getting in touch. And i still have to win a general election, looking for to do everything i can to make our streets safer. And sure enough i won the election, the very next day i got an email. And said congratulations on being elected. With an office and understood how the form of public works word, as the city engineers to have a process for this, and turned out it was justified, and found the kids in the two of us installed the stop sign at the corner at south bend. [ applause ] the kind of things that you know is mayors what it is like, to have that incredibly Immediate Impact and the importance of your work readily intelligible to a 10yearold child. And and Public Administration today, and navigating, with the City Government can do, and washing with my mistress and colleagues under President Bidens leadership, trying to make your job a little bit easier. Especially at a time like this, the more i see division of the national and global levels, the more convinced i am that salvation comes locally. In many ways, the most meaningful measure of our success in the administration will be how communities are doing at a local level. Or to put it another way, whether we are making your jobs easier as american mayors. And i hope you will agree that we are. You face so many challenges that have been more fierce and more ferocious than when i was sitting at this table with the mayors, six or seven years ago in this room. And it wouldve been nice, and the one . 2 trillion investment, coming into every city in the united states. Most concrete terms, using it to succeed, and this place, to better reflect what is great about americas communities. When i was running for president , and 5 years ago this week. Often said that. Erved if washid a little more like americas best run cities rather than the other way around. And i believe that even more strongly now. So what i wanted to do with our time together is share a few examples of how we have followed the lead of americas mayors. And americas great communities. Especially when it comes to transportation. What that could mean for what youre trying to do. Ill start with bipartisanship. One of the things i love and miss about the city level which is especially important to highlight during the chaos of an Election Year like this is that partisan considerations and loyalties done dominate Everything Else thats going on. When i was mayor i was just as likely to forge meaningful, cooperative relationships with republicans as democrats without pretending to be any more politically conservative than i was. And i was just as likely to be challenged by democrats as republicans. Through this body, the u. S. Conference of mayor, politically conservative than i was and i was more likely to be challenged by democrats. I came to work with and trust fellow mayors without considering or in some cases without even knowing their party considerations. I am addressing one of the only rooms left in america were hundreds of senior elected officials in america gather with shared priorities and purpose and actually like each other. And that is a powerful thing. I would be lying if i said we have gotten anywhere close to that culture on a routine basis here in washington, but i have been struck by how much work we are dealing with. Not just bipartisan but partisan in its character. Take the bipartisan infrastructure lot which we passed with your help and support. A number of republicans were willing to Cross Party Lines and work with democrats and President Biden to get it done, even though the idea of a bipartisan anything law was greeted with mockery one President Biden first took office. The obituary of that legislation that we cannot imagine not having. That obituary was written dozens of times by people saying the president was on a fools errand by trying to get bipartisan cooperation even though it has no delivered results in every part of the country, red, blue, and purple. Sometimes it means eliminating dangerous railroad crossings. We were in georgia recently were trained that could be more than two miles long pass every day and cut off a half of town from the other half. I was out there in december to celebrate a grant to fix the crossing to make it easier and safer to get around town. We are doing that time of work. At the same we st coast time, in new york in s last fal we signed a final Funding Agreement to extend the Second Avenue subway to 125th street and east harlem, which they have been waiting at least 150 years to get done. Every state, every region of this country, red, blue, and purple, has seen historic investments. Airports, trains, and transit. Often the longest Community Investment they have seen in a lifetime. I also need to mention by the way that we got a reprieve today in the form of a continuing resolution, but we are really going to need some sense of bipartisan problem solving to prevail in order to get the budget that we need to keep this workup. And here too, i wish the spirit of americas mayors would prevail. You deliver water and you need water to live so you cannot shut down. The federal government ought to have the same mentality as well. The second thing that i appreciate and sometimes miss about local government is the relentless and unmistakable focus on reality, on facts, on data that cannot be ignored. Local leadership is just more rooted in reality, largely because you are held accountable for it. Everywhere from local media to the grocery store. Dont get me wrong. I know that rumor and misinformation can happen at every level, but the truth is never that far away. If you are mayor and there is a hole in the road and you do not fix it, you cannot say that is fake news because people know that that hole is there. We need to found that out at the national level, and that is what we seek to do at u. S. D. O. T. Making each form of transportation better than we found it. We follow the fax. And we follow the fax to see where results are happening. On supply chains, specific shipping has fallen more than half their peaks during the pandemic. And following the events in the red sea, we are with carriers on the red sea to monitor supply chain. American companies have more leverage thanks. Shipping costs which in turn we know have contributed to we know intern it has contributed to lower inflation for the american people. We also know because of strong investment in transportation and infrastructure and the construction and manufacturing that goes with it, we have an extraordinary by many measures unprecedented period of Economic Growth taking place right now. We are also holding ourselves accountable to make sure that that continues to reach every american. In air travel, just a few years after observers were asking if we were seeing the death of commercial aviation as we knew it during the pandemic, we are now seeing some of the busiest travel seasons on record and we ended 2023 with the lowest cancellation rate in the past 10 years. That translates to millions more people getting to where they need to be. We did that with a lot of work in faa and a lot of pressure from airlines which responded to that pressure by improving their operations. When it comes to roadway safety, we are very closely following the inescapable and troubling numbers that we see around the country. We are living through a crisis of roadway safety. Something i have been partnering with americas mayors to confront. I just had a conversation on safe streets for all grantees around the country taking steps deploying federal dollars from the u. S. D. O. T. But also from your own Political Capital in order to help guide the people who trust you with your lives and constituents. I know that is not always an easy conversation to have, but we are here to support with everything from data and Technical Information to over 1. 7 billion that has now reached over 1000 communities. The reason this matters is because of the life saving potential of addressing this crisis. We are finally seeing the number start to come down and early indications that we are reversing the rise in roadway deaths. But 40,000 a year. That is comparable to gun violence. The implication is that we have a 1 reduction, we are saving 400 lives right there. The equivalent of two or three fully loaded 747 aircraft. This is the power of the decisions being made at the local level and reaching the federal level. Another thing that i think every mayor understands is the important connections, symbolically and literally. The importance of unifying other people to go, social, or even a political sense. Off on foryour specific visionr enhancing a parks trail or Reimagining Development or reimagining a s street scape embodies what we would do well at the federal level to think about which is part of how you keep a Community Connected in the social sense. That is helping to connect it in the literal physical sense. Mayors understand that physical mobility is inescapably connected to social mobility, but we are going to support you in this too. A couple years ago i was in a southside chicago neighborhood called roseland discussing extending the redline further south so that the community could access downtown. I cannot help but use a mental map because it was a Community Called roseland, indiana, near south bend where i grew up. It was about 90 miles away but if you were in roseland, indiana, and you had a car you can get there more quickly than if youre in the roseland neighborhood in chicago than if you dont have a car. We are changing that. We are changing that to make sure that kind of mobility is not a barrier to people getting the kind of good paying job that will help them build up their families. And we were in buffalo last year were half a century ago funding was part of the problem. As the kensington expressway was cut off. I know you have seen this played out in just about every community in the u. S. We are working to change that. I met an extraordinary woman named Stephanie Margaret peter who is working with restore our Community Coalition and thought to restore that neighborhood for the better part of her life, and before she sadly passed away a few days ago, she saw the commitment of federal and state funding she had been seeking her entire life to deck over that highway and create connections were there had been divisions. Along with that, anything that break you mayors are able to access. New land for community benefit. It would help with this administration. Transportation infrastructure is one of those realms that every person in this country interacts with every single day, and as mayor you understand how much depends on delivering the basics. Those unsexy things that mayors spend a lot of time thinking about. Not just transportation but water, and wastewater, and trash, and police and fire departments. The combination of the human hierarchy of needs, starting with safety. Safety, by the way, is why our department exists. That is why we are making sure we elevate roadway safety as i described a little bit earlier. And, with that, i want to lift up the partnership we have with mayors now represent over 70 of our population participating in the program, and we have a new round opening up in february for the funds. Last year, i highlighted some of the cities that have already seen a year or more with zero traffic deaths. Hoboken, new jersey. Evanston, illinois. And, now, there are many more cities using safe streets for all funds for a zero death plan including arkansas, spokane, mount rainier, salinas, california salinas . Thank you. Hundreds and hundreds of communities benefiting from this. If you are not already part of this, i hope you will consider it. And we are working to make sure our Safety Mission benefits people in every mode of transportation. I have to remark as we near the oneyear anniversary of the real derailment in east palestine, the government has use the full range of our authority to improve rail safety nationwide, including holding railroads accountable, protecting rail workers, and there is a Bipartisan Railway Safety act sitting in congress waiting its turn right now. Lets not allow america to get to that one year mark and not have that Railway Safety act become law, and i think your voices need to be heard in this because mayors and your Emergency Services departments not be in the dark about what is coming to your communities. We are working with the authorities we have. Congress ought to be working. We are calling on congress not to get sucked into any of the other things that do not add value while this continues to set waiting its turn. I know traffic lights and bike lanes and potholes and some of the other things mayors work on are not always considered sexy, but they are profoundly important, and not just because potholes are the bane of every mayors existence, but because they are the foundation for Everything Else. That is why we need to keep a level of fidelity and philosophy towards public works that recognizes the intimate relationship between the most important and difficult things people have gone on in their lives. I would even say the meaning of life and the most work a day things at the municipal government takes care of. You make sure that these things get done so you do not have to worry about it. If the meaning of life for you is to be a good parent to your kids, you cannot fully be whole for that if you are not home on time because the road is not in good safe. You are not in position to concentrate if youre distracted by uncertainty about whether or not Drinking Water is poisoning your children. The meaning of life for you has something to do with entrepreneurship. You will not be able to fully live a life of your choosing and the public works are not available and you have to worry about working around them. Something even bigger is at stake right now which is the fate of our democracy. President biden often says the ability of democratic nations is being put to the test right now. When the basic economic, political, and social conditions of our state deteriorate, including our infrastructure, public trust deteriorates with it. On the other hand, when we deliver on those basics, including infrastructure, people feel the benefits of their democracy to a better quality of life. That is why filling holes in the road or in the National Ev Charging Network are in our supply chain are all investments, not just in u. S. Transportation but in the durability of our democracy. A fellow former mayor of mine, andy barkett, just once put it that Good Government tears down the obstacles that stand between people and a life of their choosing by making sure that people have the basics taken care of. You are helping to preserve their very freedom. There is always a lot at stake for americas mayors and americas cities, just as it is in washington, but that is exceptionally true in our time as the nation struggles to deliver on its promise. And as americans sometimes question whether democracy can deliver for them, so much depends on your work and hours. But we are now here to support that work with resources that have not existed in our lifetime to help get the job done. Yes, we are with the federal government and here to help. But, this time, we are backing it up with the funding as well as Technical Support as well as anything else you need. I just want you to know how energized i am by the excellent an extra ordinary work of americas mayors in this troubling, challenging, and even dark as a last 510 years has been. We are going to remember the 2020 thanks to President Bidens leadership. And if we get it right at every level from the federal to the local, we will look back at this moment on what we were able to do together, and i am with you every step of the way. Thank you for your great work and for the chance to do this. Tonight, here from white house budget director who provided more details about President Biden 2025 budget request earlier today before the na budget committee. The 7. 3 trillion proposal would raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy wall aiming to reduce th deficit by 3 trillion over the next decade. Watch thenre hearing at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan two. Or on our mobile app. Or online at cspan. Org. We are asking what the most important issue is the selection and why. Immigration. I think homelessness is an issue that needs to be addressed. We invite you to share your voice by going to cspan. Org campaign2024. Record a 30 second video telling us your issue and by. Be a part of the conversation. See spanish or unfiltered view of government and we are funded by these Television Networks and more. Including midco. Midco supports cspan giving you a look at democracy. The u. S. Supreme court heard argument on whether the new lot reires a requirement to notify a user at their coent was modified and by. Netchoice filed a suit in Federal District court to stop the law from being implemented. Bo ruled in favor of netchoice. Florida appeal to the nations highest court and the justices have issued a ruling. Texas passed a similar law and it too is being reviewed by the Supreme Court in a separate oral argument. This is almost 2 2 hours. We will hear arguments first this morning. Case 22 277 moody versus tcice. Mr