The Senate Environment and public works Works Committee held a hearing on how infrastructure legislation can help the economy recover from the coronavirus pandemic. Senators and panelists discuss the best way to fund road and bridge projects. Good morning. I called his hearing to order. Before i discussed todays hearing i want to say a few words about what is happening in communities across the country today. This is a time of great pain and unrest for our nation. Americans are truly outraged by recent killings. Anyone who watched the video the murder of george floyd has to be horrified and heartbroken. The resulting peaceful protests about police abuse against any american citizen are important and necessary. They listen to the voices of africanamericans about police brutality. Some of the peaceful protests were hijacked by filing criminal, distraction, looting and arson stop. Those who commit these crimes dishonor the memory of george floyd and dishonor the cause and the Peaceful Pro
Good morning. I call this hearing to order. Before i address the topic of todays hearing i want to say a few words about whats happening in communities across our country today. This is a time of great pain and unrestfor our nation. Americans are truly outraged by recent killings. Anyone who watched the video of the murder of george floyd has to be horrified and heartbroken. The resulting peaceful protests about police abuse against any american citizen are important and necessary our nation needs to listen to the voices of africanamericans about police brutality. Every american citizen deserves justice under the law. Some of the peacefulprotests have been hijacked by violent criminals. The destructing and looting and arson must stop. Those who commit these crimes dishonor the memory of george floyd and dishonor the cause for which the Peaceful Protesters first took to the streets. Now in a moment of americans to come together to listen and to heal. The goal of this hearing today is to
Fast act provides a certainty and reforms necessary to improve our nations infrastructure and spur economic growth. The fast act was a significant bipartisan achievement showing once again the senate is back to work for the american people. This committees work, which accounted for more than half of the text of the bill, helped to enhance safety, increase transparency, reform regulatory structures and improve planning for free with reforms covering everything from railroads to cars to trucks to ports as well as research and technology, this legislation was a True Team Effort to reduce congestion, protect passengers and improve our nations multimodal supply chain. Protect lives on our nation roadways by promoting Greater Consumer awareness and Corporate Responsibility for safety. Im please that had the whistle blower act is now the law of the land. This law which i introduced with Ranking Member nelson and others incentivize to blow the whistle when manufacturers sit on important safety
Changes provided for under the fast act including processing procedures and an application dashboard. And finally something that goes hand in hand with all of the departments efforts is research and innovation. In march we began the competition for utc grants which allows students and faculty to Work Together towards innovative transportation solutions. Weve received 212 applications for the 35 grants available. Im proud of the work the department has accomplished in such a short period of time. But this is just the beginning. And it would not be possible i would like to repeat without the work of this congress on a bipartisan basis. We will continue our aggressive schedule to execute the reforms you put into place because if our nations going to have the type of Transportation System tomorrow that is better than it had today, wasted time is something none of us can afford. So with that, mr. Chairman, i want to thank you and i look forward to your questions. Thank you, mr. Secretary. A
We werent able to achieve it, but on the other hand i think youve been able to work with mayors and transportation directors for State Government and aarp and other stakeholders. If you could just give me a quick update on how were moving along with respect to this because whether the statute read exactly how i wanted it to or in the compromise version, i think the key is implementation at the sort of administrator level so i want to know how were doing and i know you have a special perspective having been a mayor. Yes, sir. I think were moving along fairly well. We did initiateing . E something that brought 200 mayors from across the country together to share best practices on how to implement essentially complete streets designs. Our federal Highway Administration is also creating greater flexibility in the design of federal aid to highways so that theres at least the possibility that states and local governments can use those roadways in more innovative ways for all users. I think t