That representation Transportation Safety issues along with my Ranking Member senator cantwell let me welcome our Signature Panel of witnesses and thank them for this hearing. Well hear from the department of transportation including neil szabat ron brinks and straygur of the federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and deputy minister of traffic and safety. Welcome to each of you. Fixing americas surface transportation act of 2019 better known as the fastback rasterized the administrations responsible for ensuring the safety of our surface transportation paid sns and fra. Identifying issues this committee should consider as we prepare for reauthorization. The fastback places a greater focus on our nations Multimodal Network that includes establishing the emperor Grant Program. This program and others such as formerly tiger grants are critical to improve our nations transportation infrastructure. I hope the winces will provide the committee with an update on efforts to improve our i
Watch the cspan cities tour of trenton, new jersey, saturday at 5 00 p. M. Eastern and sunday at 2 00 p. M. On cspan3. Working with our cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. Transportation secretary elaine chao gave her first testimony before congress on the trump administrations plan to address the nations infrastructure challenges. The Senate Environment and public works hearing runs about two hours. I call this hearing to order. Today we are welcoming the secretary of transportation, the honorable elaine chao, to testify before the Senate Committee on environment and public works on our nations infrastructure needs. Madam secretary, welcome to the committee. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has always taken the lead on infrastructure issues in the senate. When unveiled, other committees infrastructure proposals will increase funding and provide streamlining requirements for the construction of pipelines, rail, housing, and large urban projects of
Sunday on American History tv on cspan3. Working with our cable affiliates and visiting cities across the country. Transportation secretary elaine chao was on capitol hill today to talk about the administrations 1 trillion infrastructure plan, which would airportsways, produce and transit projects over a 10 year period. The Public Works Committee hearing runs for two hours. Or all this hearing to order and we are calling for the honorable elaine chao to testify on our nations infrastructure need. Welcome to the committee. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has always taken the lead on infrastructure issues in the senate. Committeesed, other infrastructure proposals will increase funding and provide streamlining requirements for the construction of pipelines, rail, housing and large urban projects of various kinds that maybe privately financed through publicprivate partnerships to name a few of the issues. However, our highways, roads and bridges should be a central compo
People reach for yield now, and is an impetuous toward bubble creation and certain Asset Classes . It can be. Thats why we are watching very carefully. Is there any one particular air yaur worrying about right now in terms of asset bubbles . I mentioned leverage lending and corporate debt markets, especially lower rated companies. I think we are seeing deterioration in lending standards. We are attentive to risks that can develop that banks or others may be taking on Interest Rate risk. If Interest Rates, when Interest Rates ultimately begin to rise, that if firms or individuals have taken risks and arent adequately prepared to deal with them, that can cause distress. Among the institutions that we supervise we are certainly looking at management of Interest Rate risk. We are using stress testing in this latest round. We had specific scenarios designed to look at how large banking organizations would fare if Interest Rates were to increase rapidly. And were focused on how firms are man
The bigger banks that were diversified didnt fail. We did it anyway. The big banks didnt want to do it because it was a cross subsidy to the small state banks. The savings loan refused to go along but they refused to take their own and ensured next year. The second thing is we tax equity before you can pay the equity holders. This is a huge incentive for all the banks. To leverage as much as possible. And so the bank capital went down from 20 to 5 , the regulatory minimum, immediately. And those sentives still exist today. So in the postwar period, america was on the winning side of the war. We had a lot of economic stability. In the 60s, the homeowner ship rate, to act 65 . Totally funded by private savings loan deposits and mutual savings banks. Now, the homeowner ship at the time was considered a very good thing. There were no political incentives that we can speak of. America was the land of opportunity. Either they had the zipging house or they continued to save. They didnt take c