Transcripts For CSPAN2 Transportation Secretary Testifies On Infrastructure Law - PART 2 20220725

Secretary pete buttigieg. After a release the Infrastructure Committee and hearing with more on high speed rail investment, Port Infrastructure, Highway Safety and real estate investment. This part runs about three hours. Calling back to order. inaudible to allow the airport to meet its growing needs. However, as you know, a series of challenges hindered progress and as a result the airport is seeking to scale the project and focus solely on the 24th street overpass because the obligation date for the grant is rapidly approaching, the airport is at high risk of losing these critical federal funds. Mr. Secretary, this project is important to the city of phoenix and sky harbor future growth. Will your Department Support the eligibility for the grant and work with the airport on this modified project so it does not lose these critical fund . Our goal is for every grant recipient to succeed when funds are awarded. In this case, it was 2019 funding. I believe the issue here had to do with meeting the obligation deadline with the proposed scope and change, well be happy to follow up and engage your staff or do anything we can do to the context. And i appreciate working with you to retain the important funds. Arizona is one of the Fastest Growing states in the nation, and to meet the needs of the growing population with the highway. Interstate 10 between phoenix and tu san and yet theres a large section only two lanes, creating traffic bottle necks for more than 110,000 vehicles per day that utilize it and we need new highways to move commerce and people like interstate 11 to link the last two metropolitan areas in the country, phoenix and las vegas, that are not connected by an interstate. Arizona has committed resources to the next phase for the environmental work for interstate 11, and is investing 400 million in interstate 10 to expand capacity to address safety concerns, improving the movement of goods and people and to increase access to the gila river community. And they need a strong partner. Do you that the mega grant should focus on this size and scope like the construction of i10 and i11 that cannot be done by the state alone with the annual formula dollars to assure that the federal government is a full partner on projects to have impacts on regional and National Mobility and commercial . Thank you, certainly, the intent of the mega program and our goal in administering it is to make sure that projects that are too large or too complex in scape to be supported through traditional means very much are too large to be shouldered by a state alone. Get the federal support to see them through. While taking care of course, not to prematurely comment on any application, i would certainly say that we intend to be supportive of as many qualifying projects as we can, knowing that the scales that you see with some of these efforts are exactly why it was necessary to have additional source of funding as provided in iaja overand above what weve worked with in the past. Mr. Secretary, i want to talk about one other issue, Passenger Rail, phoenix is one of the largest cities without access to Passenger Rail. As other cities gained access to Passenger Rail, and theyve significant opportunity. My state unfortunately has missed out and im hoping that will change. Amtrak proposed connecting arizonas two large and fast growing metropolitan areas, phoenix and tucson, with frequent and reliable Passenger Rail service. Mr. Secretary nyour opinion, what can we do to best support the tu san, phoenix, west valley rail lines . Well, the frame work, that i think will allow us to support efforts like this is the fact that the overall funding for Passenger Rail includes a set of funds that is specifically for looking beyond the northeast corridor. Of course, a lot of the attention is on the northeast corridor, but a lot of the need is elsewhere. So theyve issued a framework for a corridor identification and Development Program that came out in may and the first project pipeline should be issued within a year so next may and thats one of the places, i think, would be natural to look in the context of the federal state partnership that got extraordinary enhanced funding through the Infrastructure Investment and jobs act, and i had the pleasure of arriving by train in flagstaff and certainly understands why theres a need and appetite for this. Thank you very much, mr. Secretary. My time is completed so the next up will be congressman babin. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And Ranking Member grays. I want to thank you for your time, mr. Secretary. Mr. Secretary, despite the administrations best efforts, oil and gas dont seem to be anywhere, but higher. So, if you really wanted to help americans move and move our transportation goods, i would think that you might want to consider right now, as working with the president , to combat high gas prices. Thats number one. And doing something doesnt mean blaming president putin of russia or begging the Saudi Crown Prince for relief or calling the oil and Gas Companies of america evil and stifling their production. However, instead of calling on the president , who is your boss, to do everything in his power to address skyrocketing gas prices ive heard you prioritize the use of taxpayer dollars to push a message of social justice, fighting racist highways and equity in transportation, im struggling to square your priorities with the economic reality in the United States. You say communities of color are oppressed by racist roads while at the same time youre ignoring the fact the says people are disproportionately oppressed by rising gas prices and its fair to say that this administration is directly burdening low income families taking the brunt of massive economic challenges that were facing today and mr. Secretary, youve recommended that americans who cannot afford 6 a gallon of gas should buy an electric vehicle and im going by the kelly blue book of 55,000 that even at your statement a while ago at 39,000, im not sure how you can justify making that ask to folks who can barely provide for their families, especially black and hispanic households, bringing in an average of 45 and 55,000 respectively per year. How on earth would they buy a car that costs almost as. As they make in one year. I really think if you want to do something, i think we need somebody who is serving as secretary that would be laser focused on supporting transportation capabilities and not pushing social agendas in this country. From your position. We have serious issues going on in the United States. Flight cancellations, worker shortages, sky high fuel prices, unprecedented supply chain challenges, but unfortunately, i see more headlines by your positions and stances on abortion and on your thoughts on gun rights than i do on plans to improve our transportation and our infrastructure. I think americans want lower gas prices and policies that will end this inflation and this Economic Hardship that we have today. Not a woke social agenda such as a billion dollar Pilot Program that you launched last month to combat, quote, combat racially disconnected roads. Thats a billion dollars and thats a billion dollars right out of the taxpayers money. And i think americans know that your administration, that the Biden Administration have mismanaged much of this of our natural resources, our Economic Activities and sound policies, which has caused this inflation and pushed us to the verge of recession which were teetering on right now. And certainly appears to be a dereliction of duty on the part of many in this administration who favor foreign nations over our own. Frankly, i dont think the price of gas is an accident. I believe that its part of an agenda designed to fundamentally change the way our transportation and Energy Sectors Work Together and unfortunately, thats an agenda that leaves american superiority in the dust and an agenda that empowers, china and russia and the middle east. And i have a few questions that ill submit for the record because were just about out of time. Thank you for being here, i appreciate that and i think that the American People deserve a lot better than what were getting right now with our economy. With that ill yield back. Thank you, i was giving the secretary a minute to respond if youd like to. Id like to address this factual inaccuracy in your question that i think is important. You began by saying that gas prices have only gone up, youll be relieved to hear that they have gone down every single day for the last several weeks and i believe thats connected to the aggressive actions that the president has taken to reduce gas prices for americans. Of course, we want that price to go lower, it needs to, were all feeling the effect at the pump. Thats why we dont agree with the idea that its okay to let putin off the hook for his activities, or to let oil and gas executives off the hook for their stated inattention of not increasing production at this time of profits. And i never suggested would be easy for all americans to afford electric. Point out the first ev i had was 14,000, but we think that policy measures can make it more affordable and we hope that members in this body will reconsider their opposition to making evs cheaper through tax credits. Thank you very much. Next up, congressman carson. Thank you, chairman. And thank you, mr. Secretary for participating today, also representing the great Hoosier State quite well. Im curious, mr. Secretary, im very proud to represent beech grove, indiana, which is one of the most important rail maintenance facilities in the country and unfortunately, there have been more reports of efforts to effectively down size or outsource maintenance to improve the quality of passenger service. We need to improve amtraks national fleet, no doubt about it. Im certain, and id love for the committee to hear your efforts, sir, to continue to support and strengthen the great work thats being done at beech grove and oppose any efforts to outsource those works. Are there updates or insights you can share, sir . For anything considering the operational outlook for amtrak, id have to refer you to amtrak leadership, but certainly recognize the important of the work that workers at this facility to do to keep our trains operating and operating safely and would welcome any opportunity to work with your office on providing further information about how some of the funding coming toward amtrak from the Infrastructure Investment and jobs act can be applied in ways that will create a lot of work opportunity, as well as a lot of improvements for passengers, both in terms of the Rolling Stock and as maintenance and then of course, in terms of the daytoday service. Yes, sir. Also, were looking forward to working with you on our targeted outreach for the bipartisan infrastructure bill especially through the black caucus brain trust in the fall. We want to make sure the historic investments you mentioned reached disadvantaged communities and minorities businesses and i know our staffs are working together on those details. Secondly and lastly, im very concerned about the worsening problems much black rail crossings, especially in places like downtown indianapolis where major intersections have been blocked for hours. This is a very serious safety concern that really impacts urban and rural areas. I believe there is more that has to be done statutorily, do you agree that those could help alleviate the frequency of blocked crossings and what we could do. Thank you, we would work further on the issue of rs crossings and the effects of what happens when theyre blocked and safety. And i want to thank you for the infrastructure that provides for the Railroad Crossing elimiNation Program. Were hard at work getting those ready and we know that thats going to have a benefit as you mentioned both for rural and your been communities alike, where people have had that experience of being blocked or delayed by a crossing, but also, in addition, of course, to the economic inconvenience, and the simple safety dividend of having fewer such crossings, Highway Railway crossings and have contributed to fiscal year 2021 alone. And so we want to do everything we can to prevent trainvehicle collisions and use the resources that we have to create fewer places where the conflicts can happen in the first place and would certainly appreciate continued attention from congress on this. Thank you very much, mr. Secretary. I yield back. Thanks, congressman graves from louisiana. Thank you, mr. Secretary, for being here. Good to see you again. Mr. Chairman excuse me, mr. Secretary, you and i have spoken in the past about strong concerns we have related to how the administration is prioritizing the allegation of grants and you have large programs that raised a Million Dollars each. And i had written much of the amendment and negotiated with others the amendment that puts in law the right criteria for prioritization and came out with Environmental Justice and enhancing Union Students were going to be the driving factors, i had strong concerns because those are things that you all are just deciding are priorities, theyre not things that are actually in the law. And so, then i said okay, well wait and see how the grants are actually allocated and decided if theyre a problem or not. Mr. Secretary, remind you i represent south louisiana, we have one of the most atrisk states for sea rise. We have one of the highest africanamerican populations in the nation, the bottom of the largest watershed taking in run roof from montana, condition da, and everything in the water and if you go and look at the criteria, we should be number one, two and three really at the top yet when you allocated funds under the infra program, i think its 15 of the money, 15 went to the state of california. You had about 555 million with the blue states and only 350 million went to red states. Under the rays program, 162 million went to bike and pedestrian paths. So i want to ask you a question. If you look at tomtom, the navigation companys assessment of most congested areas in america, they said new york was number one, said that los angeles number two and miami was number three. Do you have any idea what number four was or is . I dont. So it would be the metropolitan of baton rouge, louisiana and puts it ahead of chicago, San Francisco and a number of other significantly larger places. 62 hours, 62 hours a year, time lost just sitening traffic. No one would have expected that that would be the case so if you look at the two grant programs, a billion dollar each. I would think that with us being the state that should be performing top under the criteria, top under the criteria that i wrote because im incredibly biased yet we got one grant and this is what it was, 18. 5 million to improve fare collection for new orleans transit. Thats kind of hard to understand, really hard to reconcile. I tried to get to find a better snapshot on google maps traffic, but its normally dark red. This is the bridge. Only place in america where it funnels down to a single line and its not because its innovative and came up with a good idea nobody could think of. Its idiotic, but 62 hours to waste in traffic and here is the last slide, its just a picture here showing the bridge that looks like a parking lot because people are sitting there, i10 connecting california to florida. And i want to ask, how are you prioritizing and how can projects like this not get funded when youre putting money toward bike trails, putting money toward, lets see the Transit Systems got 263 million under one of the programs, over a quarter of the funds, whenever we transit tens of billions during the covid relief package. The highways didnt get anything. Im trying to understand what are we doing and why arent we putting money to true relief, improving time saved in traffic and other things we would share. Our shared priorities i think are wellserved by things we funded in the intra program and rays, and for every project that we gave up 10 applied. There are worthy projects im sure from your district and your state and all around the country which qualified, but we had to were only able to, would with the funding we had. Thanks fot infrastructure and jobs act we have more funding than before which means well be able to say yes more often and we love nothing more than saying yes to a good project or a good program. I think if we start ranking how much is going to highways, we need to include the highway formula fund in that, which is the bulk of the dollars that go to the purposes and cmax by the specifically the very core of program directed to. Congregation and why that couldnt be a benefit coming off a rays grant or piece of legislation. One of the things we tried to do is really make sure that these dollars and infra, for example, got around the country regardless of, certainly regardless of politics and one thing were proud of, i think there was a 25 floor for rural projects. We did almost double that. We were in the 40s on supporting rural communities. I know that for every project were able to say yes to, there are several more that would be, folks would be disappointed, but im out of time and appreciate you being here, and look forward to following you up with that and ask, mr. Chairman, if you could provide the committee with the metrics how youve measured the four criteria. Next up, congresswoman titus. Thank you, mr. Chairman, thank you, mr. Secretary. I want you to know that in nevada we share your enthusiasm for the funding that is going into infrastructure. I just point out a couple of things that were doing, weve got 2. 5 billion for our roads and highways. 225 million to fix our falling down bridges, 100 million for our nevada connecting with the information and 5. 5 million for ev charging stations, that put a lot of people to work or it will and help us to grow and develop and we invite you to come out and see any of those projects in the works. You know, we had the highest unemployment in the country at 35 , but were recovering now at a rapid rate thanks to investments like this. So i hope well see you in nevada. My question though, id like to go back to my colleague to phoenix from talk about inner city Passenger Rail. I want to just be sure i understand how that Partnership Grant program is going to work. So much of the investment in rail goes to the northeast corridor, but we need to investment in the southwest as well. They need improvement and we need greater availability. So i want to be sure that this would enable a Public Entity like nevada to apply for a grant and partnership with the private intercity Passenger Rail company. Second, whats the timing for when that application will occur, and third, will you help us and work with me to see that regional impacts as opposed to just local impact, plays a role in the determination of who gets those grants. Thank you. To take the last question first, we certainly want to think about the regional effect and how any given vision for expanding Passenger Rail fits into an overall vision for a first rate Passenger Rail network serving the entire country and i know theres a great deal of interest in this, in the region you represent. I want to emphasize that under the annual funding of the partnership, the state federal partnership which gets 36 billion in advance appropriation over the next five years, that not more than 24 billion in the northeast corridor and we understand and share the goal of congress to make sure that no one region monopolizes the funding riechlt now fra is working for the fiscal year 2021 partnership funding, but will later this year be able to make the funding available for the fiscal year 2022. They issued just a few weeks ago in late june the notice of approach to developing the nec inventory. They issued the notice of approach to developing the inventory. But, again, the non nec program will be made clear. The parameters of that will be made clear later on this year. We certainly welcome the opportunity to work with you and work with a project if you lookre at i 15 from ls angeles to las vegas, on weekend its like a parking lot, one direction or the other. We believe a speed train along the same corridor would carry people in both directions. When just be a gamblers train. People would go south on the train to los angeles. It would become a commuter train, get cars off the road and to improve the air quality improve. We have been studying this for a long time and were close to making some progress so we hope to work with you and see that that happens. I thank you very much. You can come out there for the groundbreakingo come house that . We would love it. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you very much. Next upp will be mr. Lamalfa. Hello, mr. Secretary. Good, welcome toward little vt here, thank you. We will launch right in here so i a member from california, northern california, and in my home state we have had this project that was initiated 2008 by a vote of the people for 9 billion worth of bond funds to go to the highspeed rail to complete a project from l. A. So over the years we have found that fall farther and farther behind and the price goes up and up and up. It was sold to the voters then in 2008 as h eight as a 33 billion project with possibility of adding also a sacramento in san diego. For a little money later. It has fallen way behind. It was supposed to be completed in 2020 actually was the original sale that the voters were given. Ll and now they hope to have one segment done by 2023. The price has skyrocketed from the 33 billion that the voters saw on the ballot to a number around 105 billion and was also supposed to draw in a lot of private investment to make up between the difference of 9,000,000,033 at the time. So the been able to lead handson or identify a number some around 20, 25 billion maybe over via capandtrade and other things are 105 billion project. We are 80 billion short of being able to build it out. The federal government has put forward recently about 2 billion in recent iija and about 3. 52009 billion stimulus act of 2009. And so and so here we find yourselves ed billion short to build out whatever todays price is here of a project that currently, if they can complete it ater a certain amount of yea, who knows, would go from not San Francisco to l. A. But shafter, california. Im pretty tireded of this projt not meeting any promises and going way over and such, but it want you to be aware, mr. Secretary, that a simple thing like the landme acquisitis that are happening in the route, which they have identified the whole route yet. They know the s easier part through the valley and south bay linking up to the north valley. They dont know how theyre going to get it through to l. A. , but they are not even paying people for the land that they have taken from them through eminent domain. Are you aware of that situation . You are saying people have not been compensated for x appropriation for the land . I would want tot see more detas about the case. Be happy to supply that to you. Can you support a federallyly backed project with more federal nexus taking property without providing thent compensation . Cay backed project of taking property without providing the composition . Any federally funded project would have to comply with all of the law with regard to everything from title six to making sure people are appropriately accommodated. I would want to know more, is this subject of a federal complaint to your knowledge . Anyways, we will look into. It we will get back to you, sir. Thank you. As the prices go up, when does the value become not there for the thing . I can see on the east coast, hide ridership and density of population, that works out more or less, but here we are decades behind by the time we build it out. And, the price has at least tripled, if i had a bid for getting my roof done and they told me 33,000 and they showed up and started changing shingles and said, now it is 105,000 i would say, i need a different bid. What is the end point . What is right for the taxpayers on this . The way we view it is that decision is not entirely up to the federal government. That is largely up the project sponsor and the people of california. As you have noted there ares federal money in this, especially from the 2009 2010 funds, but also the state in its recent budget agreement has committed another 4. 2. What we really want to do is make sure that we are getting the greatest bang for our federal buck while partnering with the state and proceeding as they see fit. Theyll be looking to the feds for a lot more, because were about tapped out at the state level. Let me shift, cares sorry, time moves fast. The ap five implementation, that boeing california that is basically taking small truckers out of business or operating as an employee of a larger company. He provided any guided to the truckers in the state of how are gonna comply with 85 and just a pleat laws of those truckers on the supply chain issues we have . Well, certainly, a priority for us is to improve employment and trucking. Weve seen that is grown substantially. In this, case weve been able to engage with a different players. Linda emphasize also that when it comes to the litigation going on over this, the department is not a party to that. Were talking owner operators, not necessarily employees. Owner operators, do they have a place at the table anymore . Say that again . To the owner operators have a place at the table anymore in d. C. . We think owner operators are an important part of the future in d. C. , just as they are in the future. Thank you. We have anyway, thank you mister, chairman i yield back. Thank you, next up will be congressman hoffman. Thank, you mister chairman. And mister secretary, great to, see you welcome back to the committee. Let me just say how much ive been enjoying your testimony and your answers to questions. Like, you my starter ev was a c max, not much of a head turner but very practical. I appreciate your sensibilities and also appreciate the calm and factual way you have debunked a view of the things that have been thrown at you by our colleagues. But there is a price tag of evs or conspiracy theories about government taking with her compensation. We appreciate your leadership. One of the great things, coming from a California Coastal district, that i believe is on the infrastructure law is the historic investments that allow communities to build greater resilience and adaptation. Of course, my district is on the front line of climate impacts. So, this includes a 0. 7 billion dollars from the newly created protect grant program, as well as new eligibility in the national Highway Performance Program to mitigate against sea level rise. Projects that mitigate sea level rise. So, in my district, thats really important. Because it allows state and local transportation officials to plant, design and build differently. Instead of highway widening project from the 1970s, it asks them, invites them, to anticipate impact we know are coming in the next 20 to 30 years. But it does require a change in approach. Some institutional changes, to shift away from doing things the way theyve always been done. And i just wanted to ask you about that. Its a department of transportation helping to guide or plan with local and state transportation officials . To make sure that they are looking decades down the road, and not building projects from the 1970s. I do realize that the chair asked you about whether youre forcing states the locals to build certain ways, and i appreciate your answer that you are not. But are you offering guidance and help for them to plan in the way we need them to plan . Thank you for the question. Its especially timely given what were seeing, in terms of climate impacts on american infrastructure. We know, when we are building something new, that we or the project sponsor might be making 30, 40, 50 plus year decision. Which means weve got to be prepared for the world as it will be, not the world as it has been. So, for that reason, we are stepping up our efforts to collaborate with different project sponsors on being able to take those kinds of considerations that you raised into account. I also want to stress our appreciation for the robust funding in the protect program, specifically dedicated to enhancing resilience. That is a 0. 3 billion dollars over five years. And 1. 4 of that in this fiscal year. Thats under the Formula Program plus a Discretionary Program to, that we look forward to rolling out soon. All of which we think will help to put our money where mouth, is as a country. And the idea of deliberately restructure and preparing for the impacts ahead. Appreciate you mentioning the protect program. And you said rolling out soon, is there anything more you could tell us about the anticipated timeline for that . Lets see, i brought my little table of upcoming notices of funding opportunity, because i knew this would be of interest. I dont have a hard date, but i know that its one of the Priority Programs were looking forward to announcing shortly. And as soon as we do have a day, it will make sure to make that known. We look for to hearing about that. In the time i have left, mister secretary, i want to ask you about Ev Charging Infrastructure, another important element of the bipartisan infrastructure law. There been some recent reports of tesla opening up its Supercharger Network to nontesla evs. Theyre already doing this, i guess theyve been required to do this in the european union. But im seeing some accounts of that change now coming here. Can you talk about whatever update you may have on that, and how significant that would be to our aspiration of having ubiquitous, high quality Ev Charging Infrastructure, so we can accelerate this transition . Well, it would make a big difference. We are working hard to reach the president s goal of half 1 million charging stations built out in a nationwide network by the end of this decade. Its never been the vision that all of those are for most of those, our governmentowned and operated. Tesla has built an extraordinary, wide ranging and highly Effective Network of charges that are available, of course, three years for the owners of those cars. I have heard tesla leadership, including in meetings with me and other oh ems, discuss their vision for using some kind of adapter equipment to make them available to drivers of other vehicles. Havent seen any concrete timelines or steps in that direction, but its certainly something we would welcome. All right, thank, you i yield back. Next up is mr. Jimenez. Thank, you mister chairman, good to see you, mister secretary. Secretary, on september 6th, 2019, at a campaign, stop the president in New Hampshire said i want you to look into my eyes. I guarantee you, were going to end fossil fuel. Do you support that . I certainly support a transition to domestic, clean energy in our lifetime. In your lifetime . What is the timeframe for that . In my lifetime . Only god knows the answer to that question, sir. What steps are you taking to bring this along . Do you want to see the demise of fossil fields in the United States . We want to see the rise of domestic, Clean Energy Production. Its creating a lot of jobs alongside fossil fuel industries, which are of course still a very important part of our economy. We recognize that we are running out of time when it comes to the consequences, in terms of the destruction of american property and lives from the burning of fossil fuels in transportation applications and energy. We are pursuing a policy thats going to create more domestic, Clean Energy Production because we think that will lead to a better economy and it will save those lives in that property. If others estimates of the world will need additional fossil fuels for the next 50, 60, 70 years. Do you think that should be american fossil fuels, or that should be saudi fossil fuel or venezuelan fossil fuel . Our preference, again, is american made, domestic, Clean Energy Production. You keep saying clean energy. Excuse me, you keep saying clean energy. Im talk about fossil fuels. Talk about natural gas, talk about gasoline, et cetera. Are you in favor of additional production here in the United States would you want to see that limited . Well, as you know, weve proposed, for example, that Oil Companies that have decided not to produce right now be faced with a choice. They can either produce on the premise that they have or they lose access to those. Thats an example, i think, of the administrations recognition that, at least in the short term, we are working with what we have. Even as we are seeing a transition to. On a different pack, i looked at the f150 is said, but the electric in the gaspowered one. Theres a difference about 20,000 between one and the other. When you have 20, 000, if you have made about 20 miles a gallon, its going to take about, in todays prices, about 80,000 miles an order for you to break even. Im not even talking about charging costs, just talking about no charging costs. If you actually put that down to about 2. 50 a gallon, which is the price of gas before the Biden Administration, you dont break even until about 160,000 miles. If the Biden Administration actively pursuing High Energy Prices in order to force americans into electric vehicles . Of course not. I also want to emphasize that be you dont have to wait that 80,000 160,000 miles or however many would be to break even if you dont pay for the vehicle in cash. The great thing about an auto loan or lease as you can realize the savings in terms of less maintenance and less fuel, even while the initial car payment may be higher. Right . So, youre coming out ahead right out of the gate, instead of having to wait many years for a payback. Unless, of course, you are buying a vehicle in cash. I mean, your finance cars are going to be, it depends if you lease it et cetera, but the finance at the end of the day, youre going to be paying 20,000 more have you cut it. At least. And actually, if you finances, youre gonna be paying more because youll be paying interest. So, at the end of the day, again, were going to take either 85 a gallon, 80,000 miles breakeven. Then, by the way, if you figured in the tenure lifespan of a battery that have to change . Yes, we have. The estimates are showing that this is reaching parity and pointing towards savings, depending on the models, they do account for things like that. But youd agree that, the higher the price of gas, then the faster you reach that parity . Of course. The more pain that we are all experiencing from the high price of gas, more benefit there is for those who can access electricals. Thats why were hoping you and your colleagues might reconsider opposing the reduction of av upfront prices with tax credits. So, youre saying, the more pain we, have the more benefit were going to get . I think thats when i heard you say. The more pain thats what you heard me say . I know you want me to say it so bad. But honestly, sir, what were saying is that we could have no pain at all by making evs cheaper for everybody. And we would love to have your support on that. Evs cheaper by subsidizing them . Thats part of it. That doesnt make them cheaper. Actually, it does. You have a market it makes it cheaper because that Market Making investment gets you pass a tipping point. Current estimates actually are that the u. S. , as we cross that 5 to sales level, is starting to hit what endless typically consider to be that tipping point. But the more we stimulate the production of the clean cars, the more you hit the economy that scale that makes them cheaper to produce in the first place. Which means that you wont need as many subsidies in the future, thats why we believe in this policy. That is a subject of debate. Thank you very much, my time is, up i yield back. Congressman payne . Thank, you mister chairman. Secretary, thank you for being here today. Always good to see you. A couple notes. The funding you mentioned going to long beach, in reference to the rail expansion along the ships to remove the need for trucks. We might want to look at that for around port newark as well. Im always throwing things that, you by the way. Also, in february, i lead 34 other members in asking d. O. T. To get nearly seven billion dollars at the door quickly, to advance investments in the northeast corridor. The dreaded northeast corridor. Under the departments current timeline for establishing the northeast corridor inventory, states and others are not likely to see this money until 2023. If our aids delay is unacceptable. What is your department doing to expedite the delivery of these funds to answer our demand for a better Passenger Rail . So, we recognize the importance of working swiftly to prepare these investments. While also making sure that these investments that you only get to do ones are well considered. The northeast Corridor Commission is working through the next steps. And weve been consulting with them. On june 25th, the faa published a notice of approach to develop the an easy project inventory and opened up a Comment Period to get input from the stakeholders on the commission. We want to continue that consultation with the commission, that process has won, again, that happens not without its insurgency. So, we remain on track to publish the inventory by the statuary deadline, which is november 15th of this year. I am taking over the chairmanship of railroads, pipelines and hazardous material, found that the f r a, there was no dbe program in the federal railroad administration, theyve studied of discrimination exist in the Passenger Rail industry. I can answer that. Which would suggest the need for disadvantaged Business Enterprise programs. Its critical that the study is completed both thoroughly and promptly, so that, if i need is shown for the f r a dbe program, congress can respond quickly to guarantee that the iija rail funding its a fair Playing Field for disadvantaged businesses. When do you expect the disparity study to be completed . And do i have a commitment that this remains, as you told us last year, a top priority for you . Yes, it is very important to us to deliver on this priority, and, we have undertaken a number of actions to move hoped forward with this program. We provide congress with a package of material for consideration. I can tell you that the team is working hard to complete the study, it is a topic every time i sit down with our f r a administrator. As soon as it is fit for delivery we will have it in your hands. Thank you. Well, i think that is all i have, i yield back. Thank you. Next i believe mr. Mast. Thank you, mr. Paton you couldve yielded me your time. Mister secretary, thank you for being here today, i want to ask a very specific question. That is about hours of service for truckers. Do you feel as though you are endangering the lives of any american on the roadway with the hours of Service Waivers that are be given for truckers that are hauling something related to covid . Clorox, automobile parts . We think the waivers are justified away would not enact them, i think that overtime we are going to learn from the data that come back on what effect, looking back on these years, the waivers will determine to have, but of course if we did not believe that they were a responsible way to strike the balance we would not pursue them. Agreed with you, if we did not believe they were responsible they would not be in place. There are hours of Service Waivers for truckers who carry food, fuel, products to fight covid, livestock, car parts, a host of things on that list. And they can basically set their own flexible driving schedule that they otherwise would not be allowed to, as long as they take a ten hour break each day. It is far more simple than what they otherwise fall under without that waiver, sell, i would say in this way, i think you and i can agree that a trucker is not a safer driver because they are carrying frosted flakes that might be on the waiver list, versus laundry detergent. That would be an agreeable statement . I think so, obviously we recognize there are certain differences in cargo but not all of those differences are the same as the ones that qualify you for the waiver. An example, frosted flakes will be labored so that you can just have a ten hour break. Wanted to target would not. That would not make a difference in the quality of the trucker or how they perform their duties or safety . I hope not. I would hope not as well. Likewise, we could not see that they are better because they are carrying clorox wipes versus baby clothes. The list could go on and on. The request is, for our truckers, the administration is clearly determined that this kind of flexibility for truckers is not a major safety threat. To say the truckers, hey, if you are carrying covid related items or clorox rights, all you need to do is make sure you have a ten hour break. We do not need all of these other things that go on in those hours of service. The lack of flexibility. It is not a threat, we agree on that, we have determined it, the goods being carried to not determined the threat. Largely, obviously, there can be Hazardous Materials. Even when we talk about Hazardous Materials we can say that fuel is on that waiver list. Probably one of the most Hazardous Materials that could potentially be involved in a collision. That is on the waiver list we look at this and we say. The Trump Administration had the policy for about nine months, the Biden Administration has now had the waiver policy for about a year and a half. So, the request is, lets make it permanent and extend those protocols to truckers that are carrying anything, they should not have to go through the red tape of determining whether they are carrying frosted flakes or laundry detergent, or clorox wipes, or baby clothes, or whatever. If it is not a safety threat, as we have determined it is not to give them those ten hours, you get ten hours of rest, it is not a safety threat, lets let them not have to waver this i think the response to this has hanging on the waiver to believing something has a responsible balance and has no safety impact at all. We are agreed that it was a responsible way of striking the balance. Especially and responding to a crisis that has claimed the lives of million americans. I would want to see more data suggesting that there was no safety impact it all before i could endorse the conclusion that you are speaking to. I do think it is reasonable to say that anytime, even if it arises out of an emergency, that we gather data from some kind of flexibility being introduced, we should learn from that and included in our decisionmaking for the future. I just would not say we have reached a point where we think that in any way justifies releasing those safety requirements wholesale. I can appreciate you wanting to look at the finer data points of this. It would be wrong for us not to do this. But, again, just to close that, we can see that we are assessing there is not a big enough safety threat to get rid of it. It has gone on for nine months under trump, a year and a half plus, two years under biden. It is not a big enough safety threat to be doing that, we should be looking at that for everybody. People carry a host of Different Things. Just one final point, here. This comes from people that have to deal with the faa a badge office. I have an understanding that there are a number of very disrespectful people in the s a badge office the people in d. C. Are not happy to have to deal with in that office. If you could address that in the way that they treat people that come through that batch office, it would be greatly appreciated by some people that i. No i will look into that right away. Thank you for letting me know. Thank you very much. Chair recognize mr. Lowenthal for five minutes. Thank you, mister chair, mister secretary i represent the port of long beach. I am the cochair with windy weather from texas of the congressional caucus on sports. Thank you for being here, thank you for visiting the ports. Really becoming so knowledgeable about our ports. I appreciate your efforts to ease port congestion. And to reduce the cost for all american consumers. The iija Port Infrastructure program is among the most critical tools to make movement more efficiently, to strengthen our supply chains, and tackling the shipping cost. In addition to the legislation, measures like expanding eight hours imports, popup container storage sites, ensuring more transparency, and data for freight exchanges have been super important. There are important signs of progress, for example, freight rates from china to the west coast have fallen almost 50 in the last two months. I want to stress how critical it is that we ensure that the p i gdp is allocated as quickly as possible. And that these funds support the electrification projects needed to increase efficiency, and to reduce the Environmental Impacts, which are higher freight flows at the head of our climate and our frontline communities. We also need to prioritize the funding available under section 11402 of the iija to reduce truck idling at borders. Mister secretary, can you share more about what the administration is doing to prioritize these critical projects, to coordinate multi modal freight flows, and when can we expect funding to be awarded . Thank you very much for the question and for the attention to the importance of and efficiently and smoothly moving through freight through our ports. As you mentioned, we have seen a lot of games in terms of sharp productions in the number of ships that have anchored. And in terms of improvement of shipping rights. Although they are still higher than they are precovid levels. There is more work to be done. Specifically with regard to the poor infrastructure Development Program, we are working to advance the 2022 funding as quickly as we can. We released the notice of funding opportunity for that Program Within 90 days of the infrastructure law passing. Consistent with the president s call to move quickly as part of the action plan. And, we have also issued the amendments to incorporate the funding from the appropriations act for 60 days of that legislation moving through. We have the applications and, we are working diligently to reveal them and anticipate being able to announce early in the fall. We look forward to the difference that could make in terms of our capacity and readiness in our ports. In the meantime, of course, we are not waiting for a longer term infrastructure upgrades in order to continue trying to drive progress in this regard. I would point to measures like the creation of flow, free, logistics operation. That is a data sharing platform. It is not mandatory, we are not ordering anybody to share anything. It is voluntary, those different players including private sector actors in different parts of the supply chain who contribute data and then get access to the benefits of participating in that system. We think it is going to make a big difference and were looking forward to having a prototype of that later on this year. Our ports envoy, general Stephen Lions continues to work with all of the different players at the ports to spot and identify any and all issues that can be addressed in the near term. Whether it is through federal action within our authorities are just getting the right players at the table. Thank you, mister secretary. I yield back. Thank you, the chair recognizes representative johnson for five minutes. Mister secretary, first off, i would thank you for the positive comments you have made about the ocean shipping reform act that mr. Garamendi and i helped assure through the house, thank you for your support of that, we have talked a lot about ports so far today and i think that will help. It is not a Silver Bullet but it will help. When you appeared before this Committee Last year you when i had a productive conversation about citing, and about how the same type of project would take two years to get sighted in a highway project in france or germany on average, would take seven and a half years in america. Which is clearly not evidence of american exceptionalism. Makes it harder to have american exceptionalism present itself. You talked, then, about some things we could do. I think you said move aspiration an action, or making any progress on that front . Do you see room for additional leadership by this congress and helping make it easier for things to do large projects . First of all let me acknowledge, thank you for your work on the bipartisan ocean format, it is Something Else i should have mentioned just now, my earlier answer of something we have made progress on when it comes to shipping and supply chains. To your question, yes, i think we have made projects and yes i agree there is much more work to be done. The comparisons to europe are especially important, i think, because we are talking about countries that are certainly rigorous in their labor standards and their Environmental Standards. And yet, consistently seem to be able to deliver projects at a lower cost to a swift timeline then tends to happen in the u. S. Some of the things we have done in this regard include increasing our visibility on what is going on with permitting, so the permitting dashboard is our main tool for doing that. And an act in the one federal decision provisions that were in the act. That has included matching up the category four exclusions that our department can join to with other agencies when there are some inter agency questions. And, making sure that we have a game plan for how to hit those averages called for, the two year average for the kinds of Environmental Review that many of our projects ourselves subject to we recognize this is going to be a big ship to turn. We welcome all activities and opportunities for good faith collaboration for how to do this without diminishing Community Voices or environmental, or other important policy considerations. But, having a pace and a cost of getting through these processes which is what most americans would expect. Yes, one of the things i struggle with, and this is true whether were talking high voltage transmission lines or highways. People talk about how long it takes to get something cited. I will tell them, okay, bring me the specific knob we could turn. I am sure you ask the same question, because there are so many factors that slow down these processes it can be hard to figure it what button you push or lever you pull. It is a bit of an unfair question for me to ask you but, as you review all of these myriad things that make it difficult to get big projects done in this country, is there one piece that we should focus our collective fire on . One or two specific things we could be working together on . As you noted, there is not a Silver Bullet here, i do think there are a few directions that will be productive to work and, one is the capacity of the project sponsor. Making sure that they have the tools they need to navigate these processes. Especially because if we are successful in bringing investments to jurisdictions that have not had much before. Maybe small and rural jurisdictions or low income areas that have not done much of the federal process. We can except not expect them to know how to navigate it on day one. I think the support and Technical Assistance is going to be important. Second is to make the processes simpler in the first place. It is one of the reasons you see us combining some of our notices of funding opportunity. Even combining the Selection Process just to have less paper and fewer steps involved. By virtue of having fewer programs on parallel tracks. I think visibility matters and that is why we have the dashboard. I know it is a readout and not a mandate but i think it could play an Important Role because it will help us to spot some of these issues. We are trying to make sure we are combining the final d i. S. And the record of decisions. Making sure theres not a big gap between those, we have also pursued the integration of some of the permitting processes. We think some of those things can travel together. Im a frayed i do not have a sense of one or two things that would make all of the difference. But, anything and everything that we can do, consistent with our bedrock commitments, we are certainly open to exploring. Mister secretary, thank you, mister chairman, by way of closing i would note that this is a serious problem. Nobody would suggest that European Countries float over isil or labor standards. They are able to get it done in two years, frankly, america should be able to get it done in that kind of timeframe as well. I think a secretary for his efforts. Thank you so much, chair recognizes mr. Lynch for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Shannon and welcome mister secretary. I represent the port of boston, thank you for your recent visit. It sounds like you have been getting around to all of our ports, that is a great thing. I want to thank you for the support of the Biden Administration and your office recently, we received 62 million to try to rebuild the terminals in logan airport, those are from 1974 era terminals, we really appreciate the opportunity to update those, i also want to thank your office for working with us on the north jetty. We have one of the oldest ports in the country and some of our infrastructure dates back to preworld war i. We are trying to repair that and your office has been very helpful. In addition, we have had some problems with the n b t a recently and federal Transit Administration has been very helpful in terms of coming up with guidelines that allow us to operate that system. Not at full capacity but safely, we appreciate the thoughtful and deliberate approach to that. One of the other positions i hold is by his share of the quiet skies caucus. We are having difficulty in and around logan airport. Logan airport was originally built in the 19 twenties by the United States army. They laid out the runways to favor the wind direction for those planes, back in the 1920s, the did not have much thrust. Unfortunately, as a city has ground those runways nastier planes directly over many Environmental Justice communities. Not only that, but with the advancement of next generation systems, we have thousands and thousands and thousands of planes flying over laser guided air vectors, over the same homes, repeatedly. It is causing Health Problems for the people in those areas next to the airport. I had tried to persuade the faa to look at an approach where they would adjust the configuration of the runways. We have an entire port area where they could be bringing in flights and having flights take off. Completely over water, not flying over these densely settled Environmental Justice neighborhoods but, i have had great difficulty in persuading them to do so. I am wondering if your administration and your office would be willing to work with us on that. We obviously have a great need in the area, but, this is critical to the quality of life of the people in my district. I want to recognize your leadership of the quiet skies caucus. Certainly we recognize that as the faa moves to modernize national air pace there is a risk that these efforts can result in changes to the flight pattern. It effectively could concentrate the loud and concentrate the noise. This concentrates the impact on the residents who live directly under them. I would be humbled by attempting to venture anything specifically runway configuration here. I know that it is very top technical and has to do with things like the direction of the wind and other engineering considerations. Certainly i would welcome further dialogue with your office on how to make sure those Community Impacts were managed as responsive light as possible. And, that any mitigations that can be identified responsibly are pursued. I know that the faa has to add resources in terms of community engagement. Anytime that is found wanting i welcome the chance to work with the Congressional Office to form that dialogue up. That is great, thank you, mister secretary. I want to point out that periodically we do have to redo the runways. We just had one of them, one of the major runways redone. Over a year ago now. We shut it down, we move the flights to another runway. Logistically we could do this if we had i have had dealings with the faa. On some things theyre great. On other things they are impervious to public input and impervious to congressional persuasion as well i would appreciate your cooperation on that. I am thankful for the work that you have done in the port of boston and i appreciate what the Biden Administration has done as well. Mister chairman, i will yield back. Thank you, the chair recognizes mr. Balderson for five minutes. Thank you, mister chairman, secretary, thank you for being here. I was on the same flight to columbus on friday night with you. It is good to see you into the airport and getting on a plane. Thank you. I was a strong supporter of the act when the committee marked up the infrastructure bill last year. This Program Creates a pathway for cdl holders between the ages of 18 to 22 participate in interstate commerce after completing substantial safety training, while i had Major Concerns with the Infrastructure Investment and jobs act, i was happy to see this important Pilot Program included in the final bill, can you discuss the current status of this apprentice Pilot Program . I want to recognize your work on us and also recognize that it happens in the broader context of making sure that we have the strongest and best possible workforce in trump driving, it has been estimated that the gap is as high as 80,000. Although it is closed to some extent. The question that this Pilot Program speaks to is if there is a way to engage younger drivers without any kind of detriment to safety. I think a Pilot Program has provided us with a responsible way to determine that. In january of this year we announced the establishment of the program to the federal register. That was the first step to get the details out about the pilot. They are now completing some of the other administrative tasks. Just because it is a new program. I do believe we will be able to began to accept applications into this program by the end of summer of this year. We will be watching closely to see how it unfolds. Ultimately, we will gather the data that will tell us whats, if any, safety impact there has. Thank you very much, i appreciate that answer. Mister secretary, last month i sent you a bipartisan letter signed by 67 of my colleagues regarding several issues facing Motor Vehicle characters and those transporting Hazardous Materials. One of these issues is the costly background check redundancies within the transportation worker identification credential Hazardous Waste endorsement and the tsa precheck programs. I have heard from across industries that streamlining or harmonizing these credentials, which are largely part of the same information, would go a long way in reducing cost and unnecessary burdens on drivers. I understand this issue is under tsas jurisdiction. Since you are the cochair of the supply destruction task force and you are the primary regulator of the Trucking Industry is secretary of transportation, im curious if you have any thoughts on this matter or if you have heard anything from tsa or dhs on efforts to reduce these redundancies . I do not want to preempt the process of reply into your letter because i want to make sure we coordinate with dhs on that. Let me affirm that the general principle, whatever the government is gathering information from the same person twice we have an opportunity. Provided we can find ways to meet this concern that do not have any adverse effect on safety and security, we are very open to examining what we can do. Okay, thank you very much. Anytime you are in columbus, ohio, again let me know. I could do enrichment for you. Thank you, sir. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you so much, the chair recognizes representative carbajal for five minutes. Thank you, mister chair. Secretary buttigieg, welcome, i commend you and the Biden Administration for your leadership in helping us to advance the historic bipartisan infrastructure law. This represents some of the Largest Investments to bring our nations roads, bridges, transit, broadband, and waterways into the 21st century. And, at the same time, great good paying jobs for many americans. My district has already begun to benefit from these federal infrastructure donors in so many ways. Currently, they sent about a county association is working towards improving the u. S. Highway 101. Which is one of two critical and major north to south arteries in california, this may they apply for federal omega in 4 to reduce congestion along the portion of the u. S. 101, encouraging from a mode of transportation, strengthen job accessibility, and reduce harmful pollution from Greenhouse Gas emissions. I worked on this project when i serve in local government on the Santa Barbara county board of supervisors, i can tell you this project is a win, win, win. Not only for our local region, but for the entire state transportation system, there is 800 and 10 million, almost a billion dollars in state and local funds, yes, i said local funds currently pledged to this project which means approximately 80 of this project is coming from non federal sources, i think it is fair to say that it is time for the federal government to step up. Can you provide an update on the timeframe for when your department will making determinations on this applications . Thank you for the question, certainly we recognize that the former mayor recognizes that the state and local jurisdiction has been asked to shoulder too much for too long, it is part of why the Infrastructure Investment jobs act is so welcome. Part of it will be sought to do with the particular programming referencing with the combined in for a omega rural to position ourselves to deploy these dollars as quickly as we can, when the deadline closed for this combined funding opportunity we had more than 450 applications. We are working through those right now. We should be able to announce selections in the fall. Looking forward to funding as many deserving applications as we can. This will certainly get full and fair consideration. Great, thank you, again, 80 funded with non federal dollars. As a member of the Climate Solutions caucus i supported the inclusion of the Carbon Reduction Program in the bipartisan infrastructure law. How are you working towards reducing harmful Carbon Emissions . The Carbon Reduction Program is going to give us 6. 4 billion dollars in resources to help communities, states, and jurisdictions with this work, we are looking forward to seeing the plans as they began coming through on how states aim to use that, i should emphasize the bulk of this is formula dollars that the states can program as they see fit. Providing it is consistent with the basic outlines of what Congress Calls for in the legislation. Of course, that is not all there is to it, the opportunity to do this infrastructure law in just about anything we do in transit, almost by definition will be to produce carbon pollution, that is doubly true for the well bust program and other things that help transit, which is already presumptively carbon reducing to also operate on a cleaner basis. I think across all of the programming you see, even or especially when we are meeting places like enhancing supply chains are giving commuters and passengers a more convenient and efficient experience, we are going to be making a major difference as well. Thank you, let me just close by reiterating my standing invitation to you to visit my district. As you can say, that 101 major product is a very significant effort going on in my region, but there are many others and i hope you will consider coming out, i know my constituents with love to showcase all that we have done and continue to do in regard to transportation infrastructure. Please come out, some of us call my area paradise on earth, which she would be remiss to not come out and say thank you. I would love it, thank you. He does have a very nice district, the chair assists to that, we will now recognize mr. Katko for five minutes. Thank you, mister chairman. I would just like to collect a record saying syracuse, new york, is paradise on earth as well. Thank you very much for being there today. Last time i saw you i think we are in the white house a year ago, the oval office in february. Speaking by the construction of a small group of individuals by the president , Vice President. What has happened since then and i am thrilled to say that im the very first republican to cast my vote in favor of the Infrastructure Investment and jobs act. This combination of many years of work on my part and others. And, started back in 2017 with the Problem Solvers caucus, the chair of the subcommittee of that issue with the infrastructure report. We recommended 21, we presented it to a group of governors, senators, members of congress, and it caught fire and went from there. So, i am thrilled we finally got across the finish line. I am glad to be able to talk to you about that today. In central new york, as you know, a major beneficiary of this acts along interstate 81. The bill of the city, and, that money is fully needed. Across this country. Providing stable and defend dependable federal funding for infrastructure was one of the reads that can be congress. I wanted to make that a reality by supporting this infrastructure bill. In addition to supporting billions of dollars for a wide array of other infrastructure possibilities, new york is seeing an increase in its proportion meant a federal aid under this law, which is welcome news. From major highway projects to address a winter on roads, this makes a huge difference, top to bottom, across our state. Fortunately, along with many of my constituents, im concerned about how far this money is going to go in the near future, due to the dramatic rise in inflation. I want to note that the infrastructure bill is not the problem here, its not the driver, theres not an expert who says it is. In fact, according to experts from the American Enterprise institute, the infrastructure bill actually actually eases inflationary pressures in the long run because a focus on improving productivity over the next decade. However, as we all know, so not the only bill that Congress Passed last year. We now find ourselves at a point where inflation reached a 40 year high at 9. 1 last month. Which is the most ive seen since i was a young man, in the carter administration. Inflation has impacted prices at every sector but of specific interest to our conversation today is the price of Construction Materials and fuel, which are through the roof. The states on localities tried to budget for demand, road and bridge projects, sustained inflation is going to make it even more difficult to structure these infrastructure dollars to cover the projects that congress intends to. Its a, result we end up focusing the a on sustainability charges this bill is best to address. A few quick questions for you, if you can help me with the might appreciate it. First of all, what steps are the Department Taking to ensure that the purchasing power of the infrastructure act is remaining intact. Second of all, you can take these either or do you like, can i assume that the department of transportation is focusing their efforts are committed reforms to the infrastructure act to help the cost and delays for these projects . With that, i yield back. Thank you, let me recognize your support and leadership when it came to this infrastructure law coming together. I strongly agree with you and the economists who have indicated that seeing it through is going to ease inflationary pressure. For that, region we feel a great sense of urgency about making sure that we effectively use these taxpayer dollars. And theres no question that the increased cost of input to Building Infrastructure represents a challenge for us in implementation. This is true, whether were talking about supply chain constraints contributing to raw material costs or whether were talking about workforce shortages impacting labor costs. So, several things that we are able to do and one thing i would point to is the collaboration that we have with project sponsors to share best practices, from what weve seen around the country and even around the world, on how to effectively keep those costs under control. Use Technical Assistance to provide that kind of support. And, of course, continue working the root causes of the issue through efforts like the supply Chain Disruptions Task force. We also see certain flexibilities that do exist within the legislative framework. And, when they are there, we will pursue them in order to make sure projects once or succeed. Were of course always open to working with congress on other measures we can take to ensure that we really get that value, at 1. 2 trillion dollars worth, of economic and other benefit to the American People for the taxpayer investment thats being made here. Thank you very much, i yield back. Thank you so much. I will recognize myself now. Let me start, mister secretary, setting a couple of things straight. Im sure youll agree with me that every american should have the freedom to buy whatever kind of color they want. Agreed. But when more people buy evs, the overall demand for gas goes down. Right . Which means the price of gas also goes down for everybody who is still exercises their choice to buy a gas guzzling car. So, this is a winwin, i dont understand why this has become a partisan or tribal issue in america. Then, when it comes to gas prices and putin. I remember the days immediately after russias invasion of ukraine, virtually all of my republican colleagues were taken to the airwaves, demanding that President Biden ban russian oil. Every single speech on the house floor, committee hearings, confronting Administration Officials coming to brief us and all of us knew perfectly well that this would result in gas prices going up. You cannot take the worlds number two exporter of oil off line in a day without having that effect. In those days, i drafted a House Resolution that would have urged President Biden to do exactly that, to ban russian oil. But in the text, acknowledging that there would be economic sacrifices for the American People. Hoping that we could come together, as democrats and republicans, patriotically urging the president to do the right thing but taking common responsibility. And i couldnt find a single republican to sign on to that resolution, because apparently some people wanted the president to do it and then to blame for the consequences. And unfortunately, were still seeing that today. With that, i want to ask you what i always ask you about, which is the Gateway Program for new jersey and new york. Weve made such extraordinary progress working with you and your team. We ended the trump era policy that made it harder for states to finance their portion of rigged Infrastructure Projects, we finally got the Environmental Impact statement done for the tunnel. We secured an improved project rating from the federal Transit Administration. He signed a full Funding Grant agreement to replace the portal north bridge and will be breaking ground on that essential project in the coming days. And just two weeks ago, new jersey and new york agreed on how theyre going to split the costs of this incredibly important project at the state level. And then, of course, we pass the infrastructure bill that will fund this. But just as i pushed really hard to get us to this point, im going to push just as hard to get this done faster. And i understand, these projects are complicated, they dont get built under overnight. But im sure you wont be surprised to hear michael statutes wont be happy to hear statements like this could go until 2035. Its not going to be acceptable. I actually want to echo mr. Johnsons question to you about why Infrastructure Project delivery in the United States takes so long and cost so much in comparison with other wealthy countries that have equally strong labor and Environmental Standards as the United States. When were going to do about it . And how can we apply those measures to this project, the gateway project for new jersey a new york . Thank you. Thank you. First of, all let me show you enthusiasm for making sure the gateway project is a success. It holds the potential to ease congestion, provide Better Service to create redundancy for intercity rail and a whole number of other issues that will be very important for the northeast corridor and represent such an economically significant set of transportation activities, the entire country will benefit. In particular, i want to applaud the agreement that was reached between new york and new jersey, and that is never a small or easy thing for two states to agree on cost sharing. I called governor murphy and Governor Hochul to express my appreciation for their leadership on that. It isnt a it is a project or a set of projects that will test us regarding our ability for the cost it takes to deliver a project in the u. S. And the cost you see in a lot of other western countries. While i cant point to any single factor that explains the difference, there are a number of things that we know contribute to it. Part of it is the complexity of aligning the different parties, so that is why were so pleased to see the states collaborating in this regard. Also, the Gateway Development commission now has its executive director named, its also, we think, a very positive development. Because you can see the unified leadership that you need. We also want to inventory best practices from other countries, we think that with the right level of intentionality , we can book the trend of very large, very complex projects to go longer and cost more than they should. Tank you so much. I yield back my time and will now go to mister westerman. Thank you Mister Buttigieg being here today. Count me among one of the members of congress whodidnt vote for the Worlds Largest infrastructure package in history of the world , one that was more than enough money to build the interstate highway system in todays dollars. The big issue, not only did not come before this committee, it went before no committee and had no markup in the house of representatives but it is the law now and as we look to do oversight on it i noticed last friday fhwa had a proposed rulemaking touro require state transcendence to establish target and develop a system for mitigating Greenhouse Gas emissions. This is in line with the president s executive order 2021. However, nobody voted on this and it wasnt in there so in light of the Supreme Courts recent ruling on the epa authority over fire plan emissions, do you have any concerns the Administration May be overstepping the law in putting this out and plus the amount of time. This is a big issue and ive already had my state d. O. T. Contact me about not having enough time to comment on it. We are confident in Congressional Authority for this rule. It dates back to 20 2012 which provides for the administration to put out t performance measures. We use that authority or i should say the department has census before my time but the department has used that authority on a number of different issues and this is part of that tradition and i think one that comes at an important time. The clear, obviously the evidence on Climate Change and destruction of american lives and property is due to Climate Change without a doubt. We know the largest sector in the economy contributing to greenhouse emissions is the transportation side and weve been mindful of the limits of enteral authority to craft this rulemaking or example it doesnt mandate any targets. Its about the states being able to track their progress. But with this being such a central issue of importance for the world and the American People, what would it say about us if we couldnt even measure it . Were trying to get those basic standards in place and if your state dot has any concern about their ability to comply this is the time to make them known but also would be happy to engage. Thank you and you talked about climate and carbon as something that i work on, i work on a lot of natural Climate Solutions but you had mentioned earlier, i dont know if you bought into the goal of placing half the fleet by 2020 or half of the new car sales and you mentioned transportation was the largest sector of Carbon Emissions. What percent of the worlds Carbon Emissions does the United States account for . At this point we remain in the top two if i recall correctly and are in the neighborhood of 15 percent. And that transportation being the largest part of that, what percentage is that . Depending how you count, Something Like a third. I think the number is so larger to 20 percent but thats all transportation. How much of the transportation are passenger cars responsible for . I would say surface is the biggest percentage. I just know its something were responsible e for every piece that were responsible for, shame on us if we dont do something. If you go through the math you find out every electron going through an electron vehicle is all passenger cars for electric vehicles, youre offsetting less than one percent of higlobal Greenhouse Gas emissions which is fnothing to laugh at. Its just not the panacea i see. Left claiming it is and its a huge cost to our country. Do you think theres other areas maybe with all the challenges of electric vehicles. I heard you talk about how were developing elements, the copper wire, the lithium. Youre saying that and im a Ranking Member on the National Resource committee and i see bill after bill withdrawn mining from federal lands where these resources lie. If we are developing them in the country i sure want to know where we are developing them and we are relying more heavily on china and other countries to provide the minerals and elements we need and were not developing here so it looks like theres a miscommunication between the administration and what members of congress are working towards. And it is kind of in opposite directions so i yield back. If youd like to respond. Just to endorse the idea theres going to be a lot of Different Things we have to do at the same time hawe think anything were responsible for especially using technologies that exist so American Workers are building making moneybuilding right now are those that show the most promise. Thank you. The chair recognizes miss already forfive minutes. You mister chairman. I want onto thank chairman defazio for holding this hearing. Secretary buttigieg, thank you for coming to dallas and saying some of the things we have going on there. Ive want to thank the department for getting this historicfunding out as quickly as we have. These are making already a monumental impact toon my community and communities across texas. Last month the texas in department of transportation built out and Ev Charging Infrastructure throughout the state. To support 1 million electric vehicles but thanks to the i ij a the state is expected to receive 407 million over five years to do that. Asyou know , texas is a big state. Its got some big distances involved. I wonder how you propose working with state d. O. T. s similar totexas as they build a Reliable Network of stations that address range , anxiety and maybe some consumers sito make this a success. We recognize for your community and communities across texas the ability to successfully participate in any new revolution to get the fuel savings that come with owning and ev are only as fugood as your opportunities to charge them and especially your work for your commute requires you to cover long distances on a regular basis we got to make sure it is as certain that youll find chargers where you needed but also gas stations where you need them. With the funding that congress has provided we have 4 million going to every state. This, your slice of that 615 million to make sure there is that backbone across the Highway Network and ill say this was crafted with a lot of regard for the differences between thestates. We dont know what the right way is to lay it out in every particular so we passed the states to preparetheir plans and file them m with us by august 1. The ones that meet the legal requirements and look forward to seeing what texas and other statesauprepare for us. I think its exciting. In a former life i was an nfl player and im interested to see in the last super bowl every car commercial is for electric vehicles. This is what people are ciexcited about but for states like texas to move into that future we need a charging infrastructure so sti think its an incredibly important aspect of this bill. I want to talk about aviation. As you know, fhws and the aviation sector where home to the largest airport in the w,world Dallas International airport and they received recognition heas the first airport to become carbon neutral. Recently the asw received 35 million to increase terminal sustainability and net zero emissions goal by 2030 and im wondering how the department envisions using the Airport Improvement Program funds from iija to build capacity with the airport if these will help us with the latest that ive been hearing but im also experiencing most weeks in cancellations. Yes, we were very pleased to support the fhw application thats going to help them with the power plant and yield not only air Quality Improvements also i think cost savings between the airport in the long run which means whatever those feeds to go to are more likely to be passenger facing. Which we certainly welcome. H you mentioned the other program, the Airport Improvement Program which is funded to the tune of 3. 35 billion in fiscal year 23 budget request and those are dollars that we can help enhance capacity of those safety, security andother concerns with airports. That will be part of the staff alongside the other sets of aviation funding that can help us on everything from Physical Plant improvements around the airport, the runway, the brain, the gates to things like air Traffic Control facilities that as you allow them to deteriorate can also become a limiting factor not to mention qualityof life issue for ourhardworking air Traffic Controllers. All those call for investment and were glad were able to deliver so much of it. Absolutely. I know im almost out of time. Im happy to hear recently you plan to use the funds from iija to establish highspeed rail demonstration projects in the country and if you can briefly elaborate how the Department Plans to deliver on that goal and how much of the funding do you plan to allocate towards highspeed rail . In a nutshell its enough not to build out a highspeed rail project but to demonstrate the us can do highspeed rail as effectively as they want and reporting rward to as many routes as possible and it will probably be a handful staff alongside the other real needs but enough to show that america can be here as well. With that mister chairman i yield back. We will go to mister allen for five minutes. Thank you mister secretary for being here. Part of the genius of the Founding Fathers is this some of checks and balances. Congress has a duty to oversee the executive branch and members of Congress Deserve answers to questions they pose to the executive branch. My office have written several letters to you and we have not received a response on them. I sent you a letter on may 2 asking you a simple question about whether the Biden Administration supports maintaining a preferential nofly zone for disney. Did you ever receive that letter . I believe we have it. Mind you, no other r Amusement Park enjoys restrictions on airspace including competitors like universal studios. These nofly zones are usually reserved for highsecurity targets like the white house and are most sensitive military facilities like Nuclear Launch sites. I would like to add no executive agency wrote to congress about the National Security need for this nofly zone which is thelicustom. The Obama Administration faa administrator testified that disneys nofly zone does not meet the standard requirements and would not be in place had congress not enacted specific legislation, a process that was done out of uncouth lobbying so what is the administrations stanceon a preferential treatment for disneys nofly zone . Fundamentally we simply have to apply the law and in this case as you noted this set of flight restrictions the faa maintains, we do so because its part of a congressional legislation enacted in 2004. And then we codified those in notices to the commission. Io i know that we have had increased votes from members of congress from time to time and industry and ultimately any changes to that policy would be for congress to put forward just as the policy itself has come to congressional statute. Fair enough and i will be pursuing just that here in the next congress. Could you please just in one word described america to me in one single words, what would that be if you could describe america in one single word . For me, i guess all. Just a few weeks ago rthis is our President Biden described america in one word. Could you please tell me what that word means . This one right here. Could you even say the word . Im not in the habit of trying to read transcriptions. I bring this up to you sir because you yourself questioned Donald Trumps mental state of mind in september 2019 when you stated to cnn i quote, if our presidency is not in good shape than our country is not in good shape and mister secretary i could not agree with you more. Im going to repeat what you quoted. If our presidency is not in good shape than ourcountry is not in good shape. Inflation at 9. 1 percent, gas prices are through the roof. Our adversaries are exploding our weaknesses across the world and our southern border isnonexistent. This administration of the American People last. The last and the Dishonest Media which in my humble opinion is the greatest threat to this country, be Dishonest Media began crushing up President Trumps mental state back in february 2017. A month into his presidency. We now have President Biden in office for 18 months and recently see the Mainstream Media questioning President Bidens mental state and for good reason. Sadly he shakes hands with ghosts and imaginary people. He falls off bicycles. Even at the white house easter celebration the easter bunny had to guide him back into his safe place. You part thats a sit here or end of speech which he actually says, that is if he stays awake. So my question for you is sir have you spoken with any other cabinet members about implementing the 25th h amendment on President Biden . First of all im glad to have a president who can ride a bicycle at and i will look beyond the insulting nature of that question and make clear to you that the president. Of course not. Have you spoken about implementing the25th amendment on President Biden . Have you emailed any members of the executive branch about the president s health . The president of the United States is as vigorous as i have had the pleasure of working with. What about the political appointees. The gentlemens time has expired. Will yield me one minute . Absolutely not. If you had to yield the secretary sometime to answer the ridiculous question you il might have gotten some. We will now. Another question. We will turn to mister garciafor five minutes. German, thank you mister chairman and Ranking Member for convening this hearing and thanks to secretary buttigieg. The i iga is one of the most important bills that funds our policy needs. As the chairman reminded us last week as his portrait was being unveiled the house has to truly name changing transformative bill that we called the invest act. Establishing Greenhouse Gas emissions and the fit that first and agenda and massive investments in Environmental Justice initiatives to name a few. Even though we werent able to advance the invest act or the build back better at i am heartened that under your leadership mister secretary the us dot has begun to implement parts of this Progressive Agenda under its existing authority. Still, more must be done and how we implement the i i ja is absolutely critical. For far too long the policy has been disconnected from the broader social justice debate yet it determines access to jobs, clean air, clean water, Affordable Housing and the fate of our jclimate. Mister secretary i represent a workingclass immigrant community in chicago in the cook county suburbs and chicago is a hobbit or rail, air and truck transportation. Our communities deal with the good and bad effects. My neighbor had has some of the highest asthma and ou respiratory diseases in the country and pollution from our transit corridors plays a big role in that. We have to be honest about the policies that led us here anddeliberate about setting a new path. Mister secretary, how much of iija money is going to advance highway links . I have to pull the exact funding and some of that will depend on how the states and project sponsors choose to allocate funding that could go towards transit or highways in the former case and on the discretionary side could go towards projects that are more or less highway intensive but what ill say also is this legislation is us the means to look beyond the 1970s, 60s mentality that transportation often really subjected any mode other than single occupancy vehicles to the back burner and when we do as you wisely bunote, the benefits is not only in terms of more convenient, equitable ways to get around but also physical health of people who are subjected to as many emissions ndand wideranging options for people to get around including active transportation. Excellent point. Mister secretary the ghd performance measure is a great step but what else is d. O. T. Doing to make sure that the i. I. J. A. Is part of the solution to emissions and Climate Change . I would point to the Carbon Reduction Program which provides dedicated funding for the purpose of making transportation investments that reduce the Carbon Intensity of the us transportation sector but thats far from the only set of resources that are going en to make a big difference. Pretty much any investment you make in transit is likely to reduce Carbon Emissions but its not much more so on investments like the low and go bust program which helps local jurisdictions and transit authorities to acquire clean efficient electric or otherwise low emission buses for their graphs saving taxpayer money in the long run when they do so. We got 7. 5 billion for building out the electric charging infrastructure across the country including importantly 2. 5 billion which is allowing us to make Community Charging investments. Knowing there are some places, often low income where fuel savings might mean the most to a family making needing access in ev but it might not be profitable to install one so we need to buy down the difference and stimulate access to evs and multi family loans and dense neighborhoods just as were building up at Network Across the us on longer stretches of highway so just about every corner of odinfrastructure policy holds the promise of helping us combat the climate challenge and were committed to making sure we do everything the law provides for us to do in thatregard. Absolutely. As you know the transportation sector is one of the most unionized sectors in the country. Can you how us puts those principles and practice. Yes, we know that its vitally important to do so y. And i think that what we really need to make sure of is to engage all of the players ,who have an opportunity to participate in the workforce of the future because this is not just a question of fairness although thats reason enough to ensure that we are ringing in people backgrounds who been excluded tfrom these labor opportunities in the past and supporting highpaying jobs on with the opportunity to join a union but its also simply necessary for us to get work done because this will require more of the American People at the American Workforce and perhaps any national undertaking since world war ii. Thank you mister secretary and i yelled back. The chair recognizes miss van dyne for five minutes. Thank you mister chairman. I appreciate you being here today and its good to see you again. Thats how i know you. I appreciate you coming to the dfw airport and im glad you were able to meet with my colleague from texas. Dfw airport just smack dab in my district so next time you come to town more than 24 hours notice it would be appreciated to makesure that im actually there. Interesting comment about the ev earlier from my calling from new jersey. The quote was made that as more people by ev, the price of gas goes down. Correct me if im mistaken but weve got more people driving evs now than we ever have in our history and i havent seen anything but gas prices go e up. Part of the concern is as we see the incentives for ev seem to be getting a free hiride on our highways even though because of their weight over gas guzzling to use that quote other vehicles that there they are no doubt causing more damage to the roads. Are you concerned the weight of the ev and their lack of paying lifor the roads there driving on . If less people are paying gas taxes because were getting that pastor evs are causing more of the damage and were not going to have maintenance on it. Theres two sides of the coin to think about. On one hand as you point out, evs dont pay, its a fully electric vehicle, youre not paying the gas tax which is how we funded Highway Trust Fund and on the other hand we know ultimately there will be less expense to medicaid for example for fewer children offering from asthma as a consequence of living areas would have a lot of traffic with traditional vehicles. We know that there are very real dollars and cents costs to allowing Climate Change to continue to accelerate. Im concerned right now on paying for our infrastructure bill that we just passed and you just took away the pay for it if youre incentivizing that pay to drive ev, we have no pay and theyre causing a considerable amounttoof damage on the roads. One as you know the y i. I. J. A. Sought to use other sources of funding to make those investments possible but two, this legislation falling in line with previous transportation bills created pilots for states to look at alternatives for how they want to fund their roads for those that rely on gas taxes as many states to. We recognize different states will come up with different approaches. I think its relatively early in the process but were interested to see. The problem with it being early in the process isweve already passed the bill. Why do we set up these test projects and we got no pay for it. Its not that we have no pay for it, its just that we will have less revenue from electric vehicles into the particular pay for it thats been favored in thepast. So were going to have to find it somewhere else in the budget. Typically its been general funds and thats one way to do it. In many instances, you are empowered and directed by congress to ensure federal laws reject transportation workers. Consistent federal standards help to protect interstate commerce and prevent estate or Circuit Court from making decisions that would impact the entire country or from creating conflicting standards around the country which would make compliance confusing or unnecessarily costly. Are you concerned about the challenges that apartments federal authority that would create a patchwork of state regulations and specifically im talking about california. Theres always a balance that we know has to be struck. Principally between congress of course and the states on what ought to be of federal power and went up to be a state power. We think that often things seem to go best when the federal standard amounts to a floor, not the ceiling and then some states who want to make sure that there receiving the wellbeing of their workers or for help or whatever particular thing is that they regulate. Im sorry, my time is rapidly going down but do you know how many registered d. O. T. Workers have only one truck . Its about 300,000. As we continue to see crisis after crisis with our supply chain what would happen to these Small Business centers if the us were to bantheir ability to work as independent contractors . We certainly will find a way for them to work effectively if not in the traditional models and in new ones but thats something thats been resolved between the courts and the state. So you dont think the d. O. T. Has any play in whats n, happening to our supply chain countrywide . Of course we have a lotof play. Were just not party to the litigation. Are you planning on getting involved . Were working on dozens of things related to truck driver ability abilityability but were not party tothat litigation. The gentlemens time has expired. Five minutes , mister hawkinggloss. We appreciate your engagement in this hearing and to me as somebody whos worked in the future of mobility in the private sector and Public Sector in academia its so heartening to have the transportation secretary, a former mayor who took on parking minimums who understands the need to move our infrastructure away from planning and development and towards a four former humans structured availability. After the passage of the d infrastructure bill i held oneonone meetings with every city in my district to hear about their infrastructure priorities but one overarching one is expanding rail access and in newton massachusetts the commuter rail, they are the stations that comprise it are not ada accessible. As your department compares to issue your notebook for the Accessibility Program can you discuss both the timeline for applications as well as the criteria that you use esbeyond local state federal alignments . . All stations Accessibility Program is going to provide unprecedented dedicated resources to upgrade legacy stations for people with disabilities and its worth noting that a great many legacy rail stations would go before 1990 and ada are not accessible. In fact about 25 percent so that 927 stations across 17 systems remain inaccessible. One of the reasons why we extend a sense of urgency about putting these dollars to work, this years slice of the Program Based on the Funding Congress provided would be about 350 Million Dollars and we are close to being able to put out the notice of funding opportunity. I think by the end of the month we will be able to do that. Its a new program and anytime we have over 40 new programs it takes time to bring together new iterations of the program have been there all along but i still believe we will be able to work make it work by later this year and we will have more information about how were going to prioritize. We know the need is very great. Secretary, id welcome you in the district and see the opportunities inherent in improving it. Id like to also ask you about micro transit. This technology itself transforms communities by providing affordable and flexible Transit Solutions by ensuring critical connections to train hubs and unfilling transit deserts and underserved rural areas. Earlier this year 14 of my ccolleagues urged you to provide flexibility from the i. I. J. A. Programs for the inclusion of ondemandtransit. Id be curious to hear you as you implement the i. I. J. A. Weve seen how beneficial and how filled with potential micro transit is. Its safe to say it wasnt what folks had in mind when most of our us Transportation Priorities were set up so part of what were trying to do is find ways to flex funding within existing programs to make clear when the law will allow for it that jurisdictions, a good example is the congestion mitigation air quality funding thas reflects eligibilitys. But working with federal highways we can do that in a number of existing programs like the Highway Safety Improvement Program and working into some of the nuance were bringing online the safe streets for all act. Weve seen successful microbial Mobility Programs including in cities where i think people easily imagine hooters or green bikes being used but also in rural areas from alabama to delaware. And we also have some fda research and demonstration funds. And i think this really is part of the answer for the long run on how that first or last mile works so people are acting with the Transit System going forward. I know will do everything we can. I would add in addition to microability ilondemand transit as well is critical. I want to give you the last 30 seconds to talk about airline traffic. Youre frustrated and im frustrated with the cancellations youve been on top of it and can you explain what youreworking on . We were concerned after the Memorial Day Travel weekend disruption and its clear that while we welcome t the fact that passengers are going back on those vacations that they put off either because of financial or direct concerns or both, were seeing now they are prepared to meet that demand. Also weve seen a number of steps since those conversations that i had with Airline Leadership that are very positive release and increased pay including a lot of regional carriers which i struggle to hold onto pilots. Weve seen more attention going into Customer Service and staffing. And on the faa side were working on anything we can do to make sure that the Traffic Control research and resources are allocatedin ways that are helpful. I have to cut you off there to talk about airline staffing but i yelled back. The gentleman yields back. I recognize mister rouse or for five minutes. You madam chair. Great to see you. Its good to have you here in person in the committee. I think this might be one of the First Committee hearings weve had where the witnesses have been here a lot. So thank you for being here. Ill get right to the point but ill preface itwith this. You know, we all understand that you need to have rules for. The road. But you dont necessarily need a stoplight every 10 feet. And thats kind of sums up my philosophy as it relates to regulatory structure and to that end, i know that according to the council of Environmental Quality that average time for an eis for Environmental Impact statements under the neva process was more than seven years for faa and federal Highway Administration projects before the Trump Administration streamlined neva in 2020. But of course as you know this administration has reversed those efforts as it relates to the above so i just curious, how do we reconcile the immediate need for big Infrastructure Projects with the administrations efforts to prolong and really delay important projects. Time is money there are a number of us that feel like the reforms were very much needed and very helpful. Had they been allowed to nobe implemented fully instead of being reversed. We think we can deliver projects promptly and swiftly without throwing environmentalists or other concerns of the window and we are committed to finding ways to make sure the process goes as smoothly as possible. The bipartisan infrastructure law provides a lot of terms for doing that including starting a short process that we met awithin 60 days on categorical exclusions as well as things that are going to work longterm measures to make the process easier to navigate. I do want to point out that on our transportation certainly our federal highway programs 98 percent of them all under categorical exclusion which means we usually turn that around in about a month but theyre all those longer eis and ea process where l as you say time is money and its very important while we have these requirements in law making sure the process it is followed that theres no unnecessary delay overtime. And i think again infrastructure sets us up for that by calling for that twoyear indian or average. Were going to make sure were on track for that and other measures that i think will help to. All that sounds good r but i dont really think in practicality thats truly the case but for times sakei need to move on to a couple of other things. With regard to the short line freight Rail Industry couple of things as it relates to this. Obviously youre familiar with the consolidated Rail Infrastructure and safety improvements rent program. The infrastructure bill i planted some more resources s for that. Can you comment on the departments commitment towards using that particular program to invest in key safety goals like allowing short line freight rail to upgrade and make important repairs and then a quick followup to that, the you agree theprogram helps line railroads improve the efficiency of the supply chain . I think shoreline railroads are more important than ever as weve seen in context of the renewed attention to the supply chain we need to make sure were supporting them. Around the time we will let the grants we had the pleasure of visiting one in michigan and there are similar once across the country so when it comes to the program which our last round was 368 billion and we will have that much more funding thanks to the infrastructure law we certainly see that this is going to be a very important source of support 68for all railroads certainly to include shoreline. Given that the case im a little bit perplexed anthat the department has moved forward with the new crew staffing rule that would require overhead to hire more personnel or operate more people in the train that is necessary. If that goes forward over time it could force hundreds of Small Business shoreline freight railroads to make artificial and efficient Economic Management decisions. Instead of putting those resources into Capital Improvements or track for example structures that are criticalfor the efficient movement of goods and services , why is us d. O. T. Forcing these businesses to hire workersthey dont need when frankly its hard to find a worker anyway . The reason for the rule is safety and i dont want to preempt whats coming. Any day now in terms of rpm but the intention is to make sure that we continue to meet our anfundamental obligations to ensure that we have safety for workers and anybody coming into contact with our rail system. While being as straightforward and as reasonable as possible for the benefit of goods movement. Again, that sounds good but i dont necessarily think , in fact i know thats not necessary. They want to be allowed to invest their resources in areas where its going to create more efficiency and allow for supplychain challenges madam chairman my time has expired. The gentleman yields back. I recognize miss bordeaux, you are recognized for five minutes. You so much and thank you madam chairman, Ranking Member for holding todays hearing and thank you terry buttigieg for being here today. I want to thank you for visiting our congressional district. Its a pleasure to show you viall the work going onaround Autonomous Vehicles and electric charging. Last year members of the Community Came together to pass the Infrastructure Investment in jobs act, the historic once in a Generation Investment in our nations ethical infrastructure. Like many of my colleagues i was proud to support this legislation and im grateful for theadmin stations partnership and getting the money out the door to our partners on the ground. Theres a lot to talk about here but just to focus on a couple issues thatare important , georgias seventh congressional district. One is micro transit and the other is electric vehicles. I know that you have already answered some of my questions about micro transit when some of my other colleagues asked them. I want to reiterate its important. My district is urban community and its been hard to get consensus around bus Rapid Transit and other forms of transit so micro transit is helpful for our cities which form the important tops all over the district and i hear from people all the time about how much they really appreciate the micro transit weve been able to get and how much more they would like to see of that particular innovation in our community. Talking about electric vehicles, im very proud of the National Electric vehicle Infrastructure Program and glad to see the state of georgia received nearly 20 million in fiscal year 22 as part of 135 million over five years to support efforts to expand ev charging across the state. So just touching on it for a few minutes could you talk about what are the best hurdles getting the new National Electric vehicle Infrastructure Program off the ground and then also how the ministration has prioritized Consumer Experience to ensure it is easy consistent and mirrors their current experience if possible . Thank you for the great visit we had to georgia and at an impressive thing both in terms of policy and in terms of technology on the ground. And as your question hits, theres tons of opportunity but a lot of challenge in getting it hiright with this selection vehicle infrastructureespecially because weve not had Something Like this at scale in the us. Its very different from the infrastructure of fuel and gas cards and we need to be mindful of that as we go. One thing were thinking about in particular with regard to the Consumer Experience is making sure that these charging stations are interoperable and are available. You can imagine if youre taking a road trip and every third or fourth gas pump didnt work or if you had to be a member of a particular gas station chain in order to even use the pump. That would not be ora positive or deficient experience but in some places and in some cases in the past thats what some ev drivers have faith so we need to make sure were getting the dots in the right place but also paying attention to the quantity as well as quantum quality of these charging stations, especially those that would be supported with taxpayer funds. Those are some of the things on our mind as we work in close collaboration with my colleagues at the department of energy and i have to say its in my view or remarkably positive example of interagency cooperation. To see how the department of energy has teamed up with the d. O. T. To work with these issues. Some areas they have more expertise but we put ourheads together and get a good plan going. Just a followup on that. We recently had a company roll out some Innovative New charging infrastructure that could be easily deployed to gas stations or Convenience Stores but that challenge is the grid and the ability to in plug in to the grid deso we can get the basic technology on the ground. What is going on with that . How are you thinking about integrating an overhaul thats required to support electric vehicle charging . Theres no way were going to be in to run tomorrows cars on yesterdays grid and thats one of the ways were thinking about the infrastructure law supports upgrades for infrastructure and here ill yield to the department of energy which has more of the daytoday expertise on this work but were integrating it with our work on the ed side and we know that finallyimportant because we need to have the electric , the backbone of electric infrastructure to support the charging infrastructure where funding. The gentlemans time has expired. I recognize miss steel for five minutes. Thank you madam chair and thank you writing member graves. Once again our state has 40 percent of the nations imported goods and 30 percent of the nations exported goods filtered through just two of its parts, los angeles and long beach. If implementing av5, a law that will worsen the supplychain crisis by abandoning the independent contracting model used by the Trucking Industry, mister secretary, as av5 would impact 70,000 truckers alone just in california, what is your department doing to lessen the impact vof this bill on our National Economy . The availability of trucking workers is a critically important part of the supplychain challenge and its one of the reasons weve been working on this from day one taking measures pp to help both recruit new Truck Drivers and to support the kind of job Quality Improvements that would help us to retain more Truck Drivers as a career. Our bureau of transportation statistics estimates the hundred thousand people leave the profession on a yearly basis and weve taken steps that we think can successfully helpto move the needle on some of those systemic challenges were going to continue those efforts. They are all in line with the president s trucking action plan and we will continue doing that as we wait for more information and guidance from the stateof california about state policies. But this shortage of drivers is part of it but not just the shortage of drivers but in california these independent truckers cannot really come in so you are cochair of the thsupplychain task force and i know that youve developed the trucking action plan but ive been seeing you and other members encourage the International Longshore union and tna Maritime Association to come to the table to keep deploying through la and long beach. Why are you doing the same for independent truckers . Because as of now we have so much shortage of drivers and these independent truckers can come in, thats going to reduce our supply chain crisis much more. Shso why shouldnt they get the same type of expansion that gig workers and entertainers get for the law . Again, to the extent this is a state law we respect the role of the state of california. Were in touch with them and we know that they have indicated that the California Labor agency is working with thosewho need assistance congcompliance and that they are looking at the supplychain factors to. That was one piece of the big puzzle and we are doing everything we can on the pieces that are up to us federally while respecting the areas of which we are not formally part of the process. So youre not really working with our government and youve never had a meeting with him that incurred a state of emergency so you know its going to loosen up a more of the supplychain prices so you never read did that and with the California Association that the Supreme Court refused to hear and thats going to be impactful for this supplychain crisis. Again, were not part of the lawsuit that you referred to. Were not a party to it. And it doesnt have the federal procedural role oin that sense. We are obviously continuing to monitor anything and everything that affects group in our courts or any part of the goods system in the us. We will work with any party that has ideas or has needs in order to make sure that the goods are moving stwhere they need to. My last question is you have to commission between the california Governors Office and parks to solve this problem. We will respect the role of the states but always be prepared to engage on anything we that would be supportive or helpful towards the goalof making sure theres. Thanks very much. I yelled back. The gentlewoman yields that. I recognize mister deason or a. Thank you for your extraordinary work on this. We miss, some of my colleagues have missed the historic nature of this and how important its been for administrations to getthis bill. I want to talk to you as somebody who served three the governor in California Resources for and california transportation commission. With we put a lot of time in the last 25 years in alternative fuels and our renewal portfolios. I was also the author of the conversation and legislature around the dmv dealt with the full expectation that thats where we would recover our funding. California has two percent of the ed and fuelcell market in the United States but we have a problem with infrastructure so i want to talk to you about that. It was i was very happy that the bill is a priority incorporated into the infrastructure bill, the clean cornerstone to provide this infrastructure. We have a portion proportionate amount of infrastructure but putting it in the right place to make it effective and we can see this in the private sector. And chair i like to submit for the record an article from Forbes Magazine thats entitled every automakers he plans through 2035 and beyond. Is been received. Thank you. Let me read this from Forbes Magazine written for my colleagues wonder where the marketplace is going and respect the marketplace, the marketplaceis clearly going away from internal combustion engines. Theres a place for it in this transition but this isnt high in the sky as somebodys been involved in this and realizes the frustration with battery technology. Just on the cost of exponential change on isaffordability and range and durability on battery electric so at the beginning sentence of this article in Forbes Magazine is and i quote theres no longer any doubt that the Auto Industry is going electric so to your point about brandeis and states the laboratories of discovery i , understand that differentyostates will have different pathways. We are as you ensure no in places like the bay area early adopters. Thats why removing to hathis. Not better or worse, its just the marketplace so how do we get this infrastructure to make it work. The chineseare adding 4000 ed stations a day. There adding over 100,000 ed and fuelcell stations a month. We have a little over 100,000 in the United States. So the private sector is going in and trying to fill. But when i talked to the private sector Car Manufacturers and energy manufacturers, we in california have our renewable portfolio standard is now going to 50 percent so well to wheel energy clean and efficient and point i think we miss here is the importance of our economy to transition this Energy Source and do it efficiently. How do we do that and a significant investment in this bill that youve been such a leader on and do it in ci a possible way. Those 12 states that represent 60 percent of gdp in the Vehicle Market in the United States with leadership under theclean air act, how do we specifically do this . I agree that the one thing is certain which is this is where industry is added. I think while that one thing is certain at least three important things are not. Will it happen quickly enough to meet our climate challenge, will it happen in a way that america leads and a way thats equitable for everyone and those are the considerations that guide our involvement with the federal support for charging. If we get right what will be doing is accelerating so that it helps us meet ourclimate goals. Presenting an american alternative to that chinese model as we mentioned is c and reach people who might otherwise be left out of the transition in these early stages knowing some of the upfront costs that are involved, knowing charging centuries and often available and lower income areas even though they cant afford to purchase or use ed, its low income drivers who would benefit most. So those are the principles that guide the way that where training both the 5 billion in formula on an estate will execute according to their plant and esthen the 2. 5 billion more discretionary work willeffectively fill in the gaps. And we think taken together we have the tools that will allow us to then emulate that much more private sector involvement to which can help make sure we actually do this as quickly as the company and climate need us to. Exciting andi yelled back. The gentlemens time has expired. I recognize mister weber for five minutes. Missed secretary its good to see you here today. I want to quote him of the things you said in your comments. We had the opportunity to improve countless lives and support good paying jobs, modernize our infrastructure for decades, and since americas position as a world leading economy all good goals and we recognize the ur administrations pain at reducing ghds coming down as many renewals as possible. From the gulf coast to texas we produce about 65 percent of our nations fuel and mice exports that i represent some energy for us is a big deal. Texas is the number one wind energy state in thecountry. I think you might have alluded or somebody else did, we are number two in solar panels were working on that. Well get there. So i appreciate you being here reading this all up. I want to bring a couple of projects to your attention that are called seaports oil terminals. What they do is they move product through the pipeline. Part of me. Out offshore it could be 20 miles, 15, 20, 30 miles so what happens, pardon me. The product cleaner. Were going to use oil and natural gas for a long time. Youre seeing whats happening overseas. Youve got to know the europeans would rather buy from us, from washington. What i tell people is fossil fuel is not the enemy. Greenhouse emissions are. And were able to produce it probably cleaner than most other countries in the world so we have a chance to move this product offshore. We move it faster so hegets too large crude containers offshore. Right now , the other countries odare building huge chips and they cant connect our channels into our ports so what has to happen is they take smaller ships and their having to go back and forth numbers of times while this these huge container sits out there idling most of the time nand then theyre going to have small ships that have to make three or four trips, again diesel engines idling so we can move it faster with less Greenhouse Gas emissions. We can move it safer, just a bunch of 18 wheelers on the road. I think you actually talked to mister graves about his district. And you have to know our allies across the world would like to benefit from our in balance of trade to move it around the world. With decades to come going to have a lot of natural gas, Clean Natural gas and you know this, ships are converting to lng but we want the stability. All that to say that a couple of these businesses have been in contact with your chief of staff, i believe its laura schiller. Oc because time is of the essence and we want to make sure we can reduce that permitting process time down to the least amount. Everybody wants a clean environment. You dont know about this but we have a lot of hunters and fishermen. We want good clean pristine lands to do all of those things and for our kids. Is giveould like to do you this is actually report on what we call spot, the Seaport Oil Terminal in the National Interest because we can produce it a cleaner, faster and helps with her and balance of trade and actually does a good job for the economy while protecting the environment. Cfi can follow backla up with yu in the coming days to see if you can can give me an update on where both of these projects are and any questions for you, weve got 23 seconds. Id be happy to do that. Weve got i know a lot of permits or license request in the Maritime Administration and i be happy to find out where these two said among those and certainly appreciate the complexity of the transition youre describing. Thank you, mr. Secretary. Thank you for being here. I yield back. Thank you, mister secretary. Thank you for being here, ill get this over to you and i yield back. Gentlemans time has expired. I recognize mr. Moulton for five minutes, you are recognized, mr. Milton. Thank you very much, madam chair. Mister secretary, good to see, you thank you very much for being here. The iija appropriated more money for investing in rail than ever before in our nations history. President biden vowed to, quote, make sure america has the cleanest, safest and fastest railed system in the world. Will this indeed be the administrations legacy . How will you fulfill the administrations promise, the president s promise . Thank you. We are enthusiastic about the opportunities here for Passenger Rail, as you know. In any other administration i might count myself the biggest enthusiast, but alone may ever be second place in this administration in terms of readiness and commitment to seeing america have the highest quality rail. As you mentioned, we have unprecedented resources to work with here. The most since the inception of amtrak itself. A lot of that is, candidly, dealing with backlog, dealing with the under investment that has happened in the past. Also opportunities for new high speed rail in the u. S. We think that seeing is believing. The sooner people can see successful higher speed rail deployed on american soil have made this case for a long time, i completely agree with you. And the main appropriations hearing on the d. O. T. Budget, you said that, through the iija, you have to establish high speed rail in, quote, at least two or three geographies. If you identify those quarters yet . So, i can tell you that f r a has been a dialogue with a number of projects sponsors or involved in some way in a number of highspeed projects. Certainly, of course, california, which has been discussed here. The west division, dallas to houston, those have all been on fra the desk in one way or another. But of course, were still early in the life of the deployment of the federal state partnership dollars and other resources that could make a difference here. And i dont to prejudice any upcoming applications. I understand. But were not early in the administrations timeline, here these projects take some time and i just want to emphasize that, if this is going to be President Bidens legacy, if President Biden is going to be known as the father of developing rail in the United States, not the oldfashioned rail that we have but high speed rail that is truly the envy of the world and that a lot of americans actually want to ride, then weve got to get cracking on identifying those quarters. Yesterday, dozens and dozens of flights were canceled on the northeast corridor, mine among them, because of a strange and unusual phenomenon called thunderstorms. The rest of the world would be able to get from washington to boston in three hours on a train every 20 minutes. With never a delay for weather. Not only are we not there, but we are moving in the wrong direction. And 20, ten interactive post reducing travel times in the northeast quarter to one hour and 36 minutes from washington d. C. York and one hour 24 minutes from new york to boston. Yet, seven years later, in 2017, trip time goals went up. From 1 36 to 2 10. And from one 24 to 45, almost three hours. Just a year later, they increased again to 2 29 and 308. So, were not only behind china and the rest of the world, were going in the wrong direction. At this point, the goals amtrak says ten years from now will be worse than how long it takes to travel that rollercoaster ride on the northeast quarter today. So, to meet the president s promise of the Fastest Trains in the world, we need a transformative investment. Not just preparing an old line that is too slow, by definition, by the way it was laid out in the 1830s. But actually building a new railway. The same way that we didnt just prepare route one, he built 95. So, how will you make that happen with a Discretionary Fund and the Infrastructure Investment in jobs act . With the dollars that we have in the northeast corridor, first there are some needs that need to be met in terms of safety and reliability for the long run. But we really begin to start getting minutes in a couple of ways. One is improving certain areas where there is, just because of the condition of the track, they need to slow down. The other, to your point, where you see the most possibility for games actual realignment. That, obviously, brings a lot of complexity with it. To meet the more aggressive and ambitious goals, we need to take with a dollars as far as they will go that direction. I know thats whats amtrak is working out right. Now lets make sure that we dont throw good money off the bat. Thats the key point here. If were gonna fulfill the president s promise of the Fastest Trains in the world, then they are not going to run on the oldfashioned northeast corridor. We cant spread funds out every state in the union. Weve got to pick a couple high speed rail projects that will succeed. Americans can see the value of high speed rail, whether you live in california or the northeast, or in texas, or in the southeast. You know, the most popular high speed rail corridor in the world is about the same distance as atlantas the chicago. Think about all the cities in between chicago and atlanta that you could serve with 250 mile service. It would be transformative for this country. Thank you mister chair. A gentlemans time has expired. I recognize miss you are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mister secretary, for being here today. I want to talk about this administration and new york citys latest scheme when it comes to that war on cars. This is a pure cash grab. It is the congestion pricing plan that was passed by the new york state legislator and signed by our governor and supported by the mayor. I am certainly a post. I think this is simply to try to impose a 35dollar fee, potentially, to connect, to drive within your own city, is just completely outrageous and adds to why new york is such a high tax state. Not only dealing with a high gas prices, the highest probably among, one of the highest in the nation, but high tolls. We have the skyrocketing costs of used cars, everything has gone up in terms of if you want to be a driver. People need to drive to get where they have to go. Particularly in cash starved communities. In new york city, we also have speed cameras. You name, it we have it. If its gonna collect cash, unfortunately. This is when i seem to believe is another cash grab by our city and state. Its going to be the first in the nation. Okay . With that i understand that also the federal Highway Administration has a responsibility to oversee an Environmental Assessment or an Environmental Impact statement. I believe that is going to be the first in the nation, we have the responsibility to do our Due Diligence and be conducting Environmental Impact statements versus a simple assessment. Can you be can you please talk about what you will be requiring for the empty and new york city to be conducting a full and thorough east as well as, it should be an Economic Impact study as well . Our responsibilities to make sure that a project that comes forward with local sponsorship and interest like that congestion pricing project meets all federal, legal requirements, including underneath. I cant say here whether waste, on sitting, here all the things that go into the determination of whether its the va track or the fully i. S. When i can say is that our department will bring its best judgment to making sure that it goes through the appropriate process. Our role is to make sure that all those federal hurdles are responsibly met. But recognizing and respecting that ultimately this is a local policy choice. Yes, but, first of all, there is bipartisan opposition among legislators and members of congress from the new york, new jersey area, as it will have a Significant Impact on our constituents who are already struggling to get by and make ends meet. Earlier this year, the empty h e figs echoed in general labor said in an interview that the told her they were going to fasttrack environmental process. Can you make a commitment that you will require an Environmental Impact study, a full and thorough review, being that this is the first in the Nation Program that is not all my constituents want to be guinea pigs we need to do this right. I believe we should be doing it at all. If youre gonna do it, do the Due Diligence in making sure we are dotting our eyes crossing our ts, and seeing with the actual impact will be on businesses, on the surrounding community, on the residents that lived in the Central District the other residents from the outer boroughs to have to commute in. I can commit to that review will be proper and throw. No unnecessary delays, but no cut corners either. Will you do an Environmental Impact study the, a complete steady, not just an assessment . Thats the real question. Again, the legal determination about whether it falls into an pa or any of us is not one that i want to make sitting here. I can tell you that the review, either way, it will be proper and throw on our part. If its gonna be proper and thorough, that would be the yes. Anyone looking at this is an observer. Lets move on to the public comments. How are you going to make sure that the public knows that this process is fair . That is transparent . That its not coming at a predisposed arrival but, a determination already . Again, our role here is procedural. It has to do with making sure the process has been met, and not preempting a local decision about what the right policy is. I know there are strong views on all sides that cut across party lines and even across state and regional lines when it comes to this price this project in particular. We recognize that the state and local role is distinct from the federal role. Ours is to make sure there is transparency and thoroughness. Okay. Lastly, the federal Highway Authority Administration Rather required emptier to answer 430 technical questions after they submitted their draft of the eight. These have not been made public or available to congress. Can you share those questions and answers that you received with the public . I will look into the right process for getting those out. All right, if we believe in transparency, we want to make sure we get that information out to the public domain. I would appreciate your assistance with that. My time has run out. Thank you. The gentlemans time is expired. I recognize mr. Fitzpatrick. Youre recognized for five minutes. Thank you, madam chair. Mister buttigieg, thanks for being here. Good to see you. I wanna start by thanking you for your collaboration on the bipartisan infrastructure bill. It was a lot of work, a lot of collaboration. You worked great with our office. I want to thank you for your role. I think its gonna really help america. Two questions. One, i dont think its a fair question, because we just sent this letter last week, but i want to bring it to your attention. An f r administrator bows and the public nuisance and safety risk posed by blocked railroads crossings. Ive had to deal with it in my district, im sure im not alone for sure. Upwards of an hour, these instances keep communities like mine and others across the country cut off from commercial government and even more significantly, emergency services, ambulances, fire trucks, whatnot. I want to submit this to the record, weve sent it to you, but i know how agencies work. It might not have made its way to you. Just to give a general update on the portal authorized by the i ha section 22404, to address mechanisms or formulas that could measure the real impact of obstructions at Railroad Crossings. Madam chair, do i have permission to submit this for the record . Accepted. My question, mister secretary, i want to discuss secondary measures. The tremendous work many years ago, most if not all those recommendations were adopted by congress and implemented as part of our commitment to say never again to allow terrorist in frustrated commercial airliner like a guided missile. Even though this was included as a requirement for new aircraft in the last faa reauthorization nearly four years, ago application this medic has been very slow and inconsistent, i can tell you myself and my Problem Solver cochair have been working very hard. Weve had frustrating results across multiple administrations, to be frank. We are hoping we can finally fix this. Since coming to congress, weve advocated for this, both of us. On 9 11, my constituent, capture he was the pilot of flight 175, the whole world watched him crashed into the second tower. I was just wondering, mister secretary, half 1 million or you are with this, how much you are tracking it amongst a lot of things you are dealing with . If youd be willing to work with us as well to get this done . This is a bipartisan issue. Its really incredible that decades after 9 11 the most basic safety precaution is not being implemented. Its been blocked for all reasons for special interests that dont want to for the wrong reasons. All of us have flown, weve watched the exchange when the cockpit door opens for a pilot to go to the restroom, or whatnot. All that is placed there in the current policies airline attendant. 20 years after 9 11, its really unacceptable. Such an easy fix. Its something thats already been approved and authorized in new aircraft. Would you want to work with us on getting that done and also getting retrofit for current aircraft . You havent either comments or the issue . Yes, we are following this policy. I know there is a great deal of impatience, which i share, about making sure that this is delivered, especially knowing that its called for a legislation met with advocates as well as experts on this. Its being taken very seriously. The faa is working toward getting that rule making advanced. Certainly, we welcome the chance to work with you to make sure the complexities are handled in the right way and that there is transparency around the timeline. Thank, you. Sir you, know just like all these tragic incidents, whether they be School Shootings or acts of terrorism, when we say never again, its got to be never again. The 9 11 commission did tremendous work. This is one of the few, if possibly the only one, the committees recommendations that has not been implemented. I fear that, you know, given how many years have passed since the last terror attack, to the credit of a lot of our National Security agencies have avoided, that that we are still vulnerable because human instinct is to drop your guard when youve kept it up for so long. Im fearful this is an instance in which we are exposed to a terror attack once again. I hope you are willing to work with us, which you said you are, and i appreciate. That if you could just like this for your people, i would appreciate. Thank you. Madam chair, i yield. Back the gentleman yields back. I recognize mr. Stauber for five minutes. You are recognized mr. Stauber. Thank you madam chair, mister secretary thanks for coming today. You are aware of the transportation issues. You know with the most inland port in north americas, or actually in the United States, is . Im guessing its in minnesota. Do you know where . The most inland measure from the coast, from the great lakes . The port of duluth superior. Im very proud to use represent that. A lot of commodities and economic value come to and from. I also appreciate your support from the selects, that money has got to continue, that helps the midwest. I want to talk to you a little bit about the chip shortage. As you know, we want to reshore it. I think when you reach or it, i think you also have to reassure the minerals. Youre aware, maybe im going to make you aware, that the biggest Copper Nickel find in america is in northeastern minnesota, which we call the iron range. The iran range has mind 80 , the irony or that makes 80 of americas steel. If we have buy america provisions, we have to have the iron range full steam ahead. Would you agree with that . I dont want to weigh in outside of my lane in terms of production. I certainly agree that we need to make sure we are on shoring or reshoring Raw Materials that are going and we have to keep our iron industry front and center, thats a strategic National Security. So, when you talk about the chips, you know the forward f150 gasoline has 300 ships. And the ev has 3000. When you take Critical Minerals off line, you will allow for an adversarial countries to mind that. Im gonna give you an example. Cobalt. The vast majority of cobalts mind in the congo using child forced labor. I think you would agree, wed rather mind those minerals in the United States under the best environmental and labor standards. With that be correct, mister secretary . Yes, if we have a chance to source any of these, we would prefer it be in the u. S. Your Administration Just took 234,000 acres of opportunity to mine Critical Minerals. Let me tell you about the duluth complex. Its 95 of our nickel reserve. 88 of our cobalt. Over one third of our copper. Other platinum metals. Your administration wont even allow an e i. S. On a project specific review. You were just talking about an east. You know, mister secretary, that the i. S. Is the highest look from the federal government . They wont even allow a project specific review of an e i. S. Uninviting project. When you want to transition, and when we transition to electric vehicles, why dont we have an administration that supports mining in the United States . And by the way, there is a project Labor Agreement in that. All union labor from northern minnesota. Hundreds of jobs and secondary jobs. I would just submit to you that we need to mine in the u. S. We hold the destiny in the palm of our own hands. The administration doesnt seem to understand that. I would ask you this, and i think i know the answer, you do not support slave labor, is that correct . Of course. Of course. A guy. This administration doesnt understand, we cant remove ourselves from child slave labor by mining in the United States and making sure allies get this Critical Minerals from countries like the United States. Amnesty international, nonpartisan, has said we have to stop allowing slave labor, child slave labor. I will submit to you, we are able, ready and willing, mister secretary, to mind these Critical Minerals. We have to have an administration that has the political will to do it. And it doesnt. In october of 2020, then candidate joe biden said to the American People, we are going to mind these minerals domestically. That was a breath of fresh air for northern minnesota in the iron range. Now, President Biden says we are going to source those minerals from foreign nations. That, mister secretary, is unacceptable. As what we talk about when we can on and use American Labor with the best standards of the world. I would ask you, to go back to your administration specifically, president of the United States, and allow us to mind is minerals here, in the United States. And i yield back. Thank you. Gentleman yields back. I recognize mr. Van drew, you are recognized for five minutes. [inaudible] your mic, sir. Thanks again for being here, now you can hear me. See, if you didnt say anything, i wouldve cut him a break. He couldve missed the whole thing. In my district of south jersey, the infrastructure law visiting the United States army corps of engineers was a major dredging project in new jerseys intercoastal waterway. The project will come at the clock maritime channels of the entire jersey shore. Little make my Community Safer and more prosperous. A lot is also provide funding for airports and roads, projects across my district. South jersey has many infrastructure needs. But i will continue to advocate for this infrastructure law, as it is implemented over the next five years. They supported this bipartisan infrastructure allow because it included conservative, conservative regulatory policies, negotiated by republicans. Including one federal decision. One federal decision cuts through red tape by requiring inter agency cooperation, limited paperwork and fixed permitting deadlines. This policy saves years of time and millions of dollars in the permitting of Infrastructure Projects. With inflation ravaging the country, it is in a critical situation that we need to reduce red tape. So that the funding increases and the infrastructure law is not outpaced. Thats why republican negotiators, including these conservative regulatory policies. My concern is that this administration is far more focused on spending money then on saving money. In that irresponsible mentality that irresponsible mentality could hinder the implementation of the infrastructure laws. One federal decision policy was put in place by President Trump in 2017, through executive order. President biden repealed it on his very first day in office, thanks to the infrastructure bill, one federal decision is now law. And it must be implemented. So, first question, mister secretary. You fully commit, fully commit, but youre proactively waiting to implement one federal decision in line with the letter of the law . Yes, we are. Thank you, first of all, for your support for this legislation. Want you to know that we take very seriously the one federal decision provisions. Some of those that we have been working on in this regard include establishing schedules that are consistent with the two year average for most eis, Environmental Impact statements. Issuing necessary authorizations, all necessary authorizations, within 90 days of completing nepa. Setting up a performs accountability system to track progress toward our goals and reporting to this committee regularly on the timelines of both the eis and the Environmental Assessments and categorical exclusions. As well as working with other agencies to ensure that those categorical exclusions are as efficiently managed as possible. So, well continue our work on this and, through the permitting dashboard, aim to be as transparent as possible about how we are actually tracking towards those goals. We would appreciate that. It could make a huge difference, thank you. Second question i have. And congressman stalwart touched on it a bit. Concerned about the batteries, concerned about the environmental aspects of the batteries. And im concerned that so much of it is controlled by china, so much is controlled in the congo, it is virtual slave labor. We say as americans that we are humane and humanity we care about life. Yet, we buy so many products from a country that absolutely has no concern about that at all. I dont understand how we do, that i dont understand how we byproducts made by the uyghurs. I dont understand how we we are going to be buying products from the congo, but the chinese controls the congo. And what scares me about that, mister secretary, its the control too much already. They are getting stronger and, im sorry to say, we are getting weaker. I know he may not have been one of your favorite president s but one of my favorite president s, ronald reagan, he says there is no country that has ever been attacked because its too strong. We have to get stronger, we have to produce our own goods and services. We have to produce our own cobalt, if were going to do this. We have to produce our own elements and minerals. And finally, we have to make sure, if we make standards for ourselves, internally, that we keep those standards for everybody else. You know its happening now . You do know this. China is creating tons of fossil fuel, russia is, indias, other countries are. They are not following the paris accords and most of europe. We are doing it in putting ourselves at a deficiency and diminishing ourselves and making ourselves weaker. That is unacceptable. Thats not the america i know, its not the america i believe in. And we have to stop, it mister secretary. Thank, you i yield back. Gentlemans time has expired. That concludes our your comments to been very informative. I ask unanimous consent the record of todays hearing we ren open until such time as our witness has provided answers to any questions that may be submitted to him in writing. I also ask unanimous consent the record may open for 15 days for additional comments, and information submitted by members for the witness to be included in thehe record of todays hearing. Without objection, so ordered. The committee stands adjourned. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] cspan edger unfiltered view of government. We are funded by the Television Companies and more including comcast. Are you thinking this is your Sikh Community center . Its way more than that. Comcast is partnering with 1000 Community Centers to create wifi enabled lift zones of students from low income families can get the tools they need to be ready for anything. Comcast supports cspan is a Public Service along with these other Television Providers giving you a frontrow seat to democracy. Heres some of our live coverage on cspan today. The white house gives an update on President Bidens health after he tested positive for covid19 last week. We will hear from White House Press secretary and covid19 Response Team coordinator. Thats at 3 10 p. M. Eastern. Later at five eastern former Vice President mike pence lays out his policy agenda. The discussion is being hosted by the Heritage Foundation in washington, d. C. Watch live today on cspan, on the free cspan now video app, or online at cspan. Org. Next, the two candidate for the democratic nomination in floridas 2022 gubernatorial race, representative Charlie Crist and Florida Agriculture commissioner nikki friede participate in a debate