[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
STRUCTURALLY DEFICIENT BRIDGES IN THE UNITED STATES
=======================================================================
(110-67)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
----------
SEPTEMBER 5, 2007
----------
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
STRUCTURALLY DEFICIENT BRIDGES IN THE UNITED STATES
STRUCTURALLY DEFICIENT BRIDGES IN THE UNITED STATES
=======================================================================
(110-67)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 5, 2007
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
37-652 PDF WASHINGTON : 2007
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For Sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; (202) 512�091800
Fax: (202) 512�092104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402�090001
COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota, Chairman
NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia, JOHN L. MICA, Florida
Vice Chair DON YOUNG, Alaska
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
Columbia WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland
JERROLD NADLER, New York VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
CORRINE BROWN, Florida STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio
BOB FILNER, California RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana
EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi JERRY MORAN, Kansas
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland GARY G. MILLER, California
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania Carolina
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
RICK LARSEN, Washington TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts SAM GRAVES, Missouri
JULIA CARSON, Indiana BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York Virginia
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois TED POE, Texas
DORIS O. MATSUI, California DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington
NICK LAMPSON, Texas CONNIE MACK, Florida
ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio JOHN R. `RANDY' KUHL, Jr., New
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii York
BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, Jr.,
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota Louisiana
HEATH SHULER, North Carolina JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
MICHAEL A. ACURI, New York CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
JOHN J. HALL, New York VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
JERRY McNERNEY, California
VACANCY
(ii)
?
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HIGHWAYS AND TRANSIT
PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon, Chairman
NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
JERROLD NADLER, New York DON YOUNG, Alaska
ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana
JULIA CARSON, Indiana GARY G. MILLER, California
TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York Carolina
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
HEATH SHULER, North Carolina Virginia
MICHAEL A ARCURI, New York JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
JERRY MCNERNEY, California CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
BOB FILNER, California TED POE, Texas
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington
BRIAN BAIRD, Washington CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, Jr.,
DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois Louisiana
DORIS O. MATSUI, California JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
STEVE COHEN, Tennessee CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
ZACHARY T. SPACE, Ohio THELMA D. DRAKE, Virginia
BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa, Vice Chair MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
VACANCY JOHN L. MICA, Florida
JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota (Ex Officio)
(Ex Officio)
(iii)
CONTENTS
Page
Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vii
TESTIMONY
Cox, William G., President, Corman Construction, Inc............. 98
Ellison, Hon. Keith, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Minnesota................................................... 76
Herrmann, Andy, P.E, Hardesty & Hanover, Managing Partner........ 98
Kaniewski, Donald, Legislative and Political Affairs Director,
National Construction Alliance................................. 98
Kavinoky, Janet, Executive Director, U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
Americans for Transportation Mobility.......................... 98
Kerley, Malcolm, Chief Engineer, Virginia Department of
Transportation................................................. 78
Lynch, Tim, Senior Vice President, American Trucking Association,
Washington, D.C................................................ 98
McFarlin, Bob, Assistant to the Commissioner for Policy and
Public Affairs, Minnesota Department of Transportation,
accompanied by Dan Dorgan, Bridge Office Director, Minnesota
Department of Transportation................................... 78
Miller, Susan, County Engineer, Freeborn County, Minnesota....... 78
Novak, Hon. Kathleen, City of Northglenn, Mayor, Northglenn,
Colorado....................................................... 65
Peters, Hon. Mary E., Secretary, U.S. Department of
Transportation, accompanied by Hon. J. Richard Capka,
Administrator, Federal Highway Administration.................. 11
Rosenker, Hon. Mark V., Chairman, National Transportation Safety
Board.......................................................... 46
Rybak, Hon. R.T., City of Minneapolis, Mayor, Minneapolis,
Minnesota...................................................... 65
Scovel, III, Hon. Calvin L., Inspector General, U.S. Department
of Transportation.............................................. 46
Steudle, Kirk, Director, Michigan Department of Transportation... 78
Webb, George, County Engineer, Palm Beach County, Florida........ 78
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Altmire, Hon. Jason, of Pennsylvania............................. 116
Arcuri, Hon. Michael A., of New York............................. 119
Ellison, Hon. Keith, of Minnesota................................ 120
Engel, Hon Eliot L., of New York................................. 122
Hall, Hon. John J., of New York.................................. 124
Lipinski, Hon. Daniel, of Illinois............................... 125
Mitchell, Hon. Harry E., of Arizona.............................. 127
Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota............................ 131
Walz, Hon. Timothy J., of Minnesota.............................. 134
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Cox, William G................................................... 136
Kaniewski, Hon. Donald J......................................... 144
Kavinoky, Janet F................................................ 149
Kerley, Malcolm T................................................ 162
Lynch, Tim....................................................... 179
McFarlin, Robert J............................................... 184
Miller, Susan G.................................................. 197
Novak, Hon. Kathleen............................................. 201
Peters, Hon. Mary E.............................................. 206
Rosenker, Hon. Mark V............................................ 228
Rybak, Hon. R.T.................................................. 242
Scovel, III, Hon. Calvin L....................................... 246
Steudle, Kirk.................................................... 267
Webb, George T................................................... 277
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Kerley, Malcolm, Chief Engineer, Virginia Department of
Transportation, responses to questions from Rep. DeFazio....... 173
McFarlin, Bob, Assistant to the Commissioner for Policy and
Public Affairs, Minnesota Department of Transportation,
responses to questions from the Committee...................... 191
Peters, Hon. Mary E., Secretary, U.S. Department of
Transportation, responses to questions from the Committee...... 213
Rosenker, Hon. Mark V., Chairman, National Transportation Safety
Board, responses to questions from Rep. DeFazio................ 239
Scovel, III, Hon. Calvin L., Inspector General, U.S. Department
of Transportation, responses to questions from Rep. DeFazio.... 264
Steudle, Kirk, Director, Michigan Department of Transportation,
responses to questions from the Committee...................... 271
Webb, George, County Engineer, Palm Beach County, Florida,
responses to questions from the Committee...................... 280
ADDITIONS TO THE RECORD
American Public Works Association, William A. Verkest, P.E.,
President, written statement................................... 282
American Society of Civil Engineers, Andrew Herrmann, Board
Member, written statement...................................... 286
American Traffic Safety Services Association, Roger A. Wentz,
Executive Director, written statement.......................... 294
Colorado Municipal League, Mike Braaten, Colorado Counties,
Inc., Chip Taylor, slide presentation on ``Local Government
Transportation Needs''......................................... 295
State of Connecticut, Hon. M. Jodi Rell, Governor, written
statement...................................................... 314
Florida Department of Transportation, Stephanie C. Kopelousos,
Secretary, written statement................................... 316
Rhode Island Department of Transportation, Jerome F. Williams,
Director, written statement.................................... 319
San Juan County Commissioners Bruce Adams, Lynn Stevens and
Kenneth Maryboy; and Navajo County Supervisors Percy Deal and
Jesse Thompson, joint written statement........................ 322
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STRUCTURALLY DEFICIENT BRIDGES IN THE UNITED STATES
----------
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
House of Representatives,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in Room
2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. James Oberstar
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
Mr. Oberstar. Good morning. The Committee on Transportation
and Infrastructure will come to order.
I want to thank all of our witnesses for making time to be
with us today. In the interest of expediting the proceedings,
we will limit opening statements to four--myself, Mr. Mica,
Chairman DeFazio, and Ranking Member Duncan--in order to
accommodate the Secretary's schedule.
Madam Secretary, we greatly appreciate your adjusting your
schedule to be here today. We know you have to be out of town,
I think it is--or you have at least another commitment that
requires you to leave here at around noon, and we want to
accommodate that to the greatest extent possible.
The collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis
demonstrated powerfully once again the need to make a
commitment to invest in maintenance and in major reconstruction
in our Nation's infrastructure, not just bridges but highways,
waterways, airways, railways. This Committee has been at work
doing that since the beginning of this session. We have moved
$104 billion in investment in the Nation's infrastructure that
is under the jurisdiction of this Committee in separate items,
separate bills that have moved through the House--one at least
through conference and another through Committee--and we will
bring that major aviation bill to the House floor the week of
September 17.
Many of our facilities are stretched to the limit of their
design life and even beyond. This is not the first inquiry into
this subject matter. Twenty years ago, on December 1st and 2nd,
1987, I held hearings on bridge safety--not this entire volume
but the last third of it--on the issue of bridge safety 20
years after the collapse of the Silver Bridge between Ohio and
West Virginia--46 lives lost--to assess the state of bridge
safety in this country and what was being done at the Federal
and State levels.
A remarkable observation by one of the witnesses was of a
structural engineer testifying for the Center for Auto Safety,
who said in 1987, bridge maintenance and inspection is in the
Stone Age. There are 594,101 bridges in the national bridge
inventory. That is a very large number. It is 200,000 more than
in 1987 when I conducted those hearings; 26 percent of those
bridges--one in four--is structurally deficient or functionally
obsolete. The U.S. DOT has reported that more than $65 billion
could be invested immediately, cost beneficial, to replace or
otherwise address bridge deficiencies.
An area where we need strong Federal leadership is for
those bridges on the National Highway System. That is a
162,000-mile network. It includes the interstate highway system
of 46,700-plus miles. It is our strategic highway network for
military mobilization. It is 1 percent of the Nation's mileage,
but it carries 26 percent of the traffic. The NHS is 4 percent
of the Nation's mileage, but it carries 45 percent of vehicle
miles traveled and 75 percent of heavy truck traffic, 90
percent of tourist traffic on our National Highway System.
There are 116,172 bridges on the National Highway System;
55,000 of those are on the interstate; 6,175 of those bridges
have been rated structurally deficient; and half of those are
bridges on the interstate, over 2,800. The DOT reports that the
current National Highway System backlog of investment in bridge
structures is $32 billion, and that includes $19 billion for
the interstate system alone.
Addressing the needs of bridges is critical to public
safety, to regional mobility, to national mobility, to economic
competitiveness. It demands a national response. For over 20
years I have paid attention to bridge issues, attempted to move
here, to move there, to increase our funding in bridge
structures, to provide increased capacity in investment through
our highway trust fund, but we obviously have not done enough.
In the wake of this tragedy, I said not again, not another
set of hearings, not another long inquiry, not a commission to
study, obfuscate and delay, but an action program. I proposed
the National Highway System Bridge Reconstruction Initiative as
soon as we completed action on this Committee, and I thank Mr.
Mica for his participation in moving that emergency response
bill through Committee. Mr. Duncan, Mr. DeFazio, and all of the
Committee responded as one to move that legislation. That was
an emergency response. We need a targeted, high-priority action
on the bridge issue as a whole. Of course, the NTSB--and we
will hear from them later--will in due course provide us an
analysis of what happened in their usual thorough, meticulous
way. We do not have to wait for that to take on a challenge
that is crying for a response.
The proposal I have set forth will provide dedicated
funding to States to repair, to rehabilitate, to replace
structurally deficient--just structurally deficient--bridges on
the National Highway System. We will inject accountability into
bridge inspection, repair, replacement. We will have a data-
driven, performance-based approach to systematically address
structurally deficient bridges on the core National Highway
System. This proposal is not business as usual. As I said a
moment ago, that would be to establish a commission, to have a
plan, to muddle through, to dangle our feet over the edge, and
to find ways not to act. We do not need a plan. We do not need
a commission. We know what the problem is. It has been there,
and it is hanging over our heads, and we need an action program
to deal with this issue of structurally deficient bridges.
I have received letters of support for this proposal from a
broad range of governmental and business industry, highway user
organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; the
Transportation Construction Coalition; the Associated General
Contractors; the Road and Transportation Builders Association;
the National Construction Alliance. That is the laborers', the
operating engineers' and the carpenters' unions; the American
Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials,
AASHTO; the American Highway Users Alliance; the Bus
Association; the Association of Equipment Manufacturers; the
Associated Equipment Dealers; the National Asphalt Pavement
Association; the National Ready Mix Concrete Association.
Madam Secretary, in your statement, you say, "The I-35
bridge collapse was a tragedy and a wake-up call." It is not a
wake-up. It is a reawakening. You said, "There is no
transportation infrastructure safety crisis." You also say, "It
is inaccurate to conclude the Nation's transportation
infrastructure is subject to catastrophic failure." It was a
catastrophic failure for Minneapolis. There are 740 other
bridges like this that were built at the same time throughout
the country.
In this hearing of 20 years ago, I said the purpose of our
inquiry is to find those bridges and to attack problem bridges
that do not have redundancy, where there has not been
sufficient inspection to find structural deficiencies. It has
not been done sufficiently. We do know there are 73,000 bridges
that are structurally deficient. We do know there are 6,175
bridges on the National Highway System that are structurally
deficient. We have produced maps that have been prepared by the
Bureau of Transportation Statistics at DOT and have distributed
those maps to all of the Members of the House.
The DOT, your Department, Madam Secretary, has identified a
backlog of $32 billion of bridge investments, cost beneficial,
that would make improvements in the Nation's bridge inventory
and that could be done promptly. The question is how to pay for
it. I do not think that America wants the Congress to say,
well, we will have a bake sale for bridges. They want us to
take action to fund that bridge backlog of strategically
deficient bridges.
Now, I was disappointed in the Secretary's testimony as I
read it meticulously last night and again this morning. It
never once addresses my proposal. It, rather, goes on in the
administration's repeated song of tolling, congestion pricing
and--I read into it--public-private partnerships; never
explaining how tolling is going to be administered, how it is
going to ensure that the worst safety problems are addressed
first, how tolling is going to address the needs of bridges.
The Secretary does call for the data-driven, performance-based
approach. Now, if you will take a look carefully at my
proposal, you will find it does that.
One, the initiative will significantly improve bridge
inspection requirements. That is what we needed 20 years ago,
and we need it again today. I would be morally deficient if I
did not take this opportunity to move ahead and propose
something concrete and specific in legislative language, and we
do that. We require the Federal Highway Administration and the
States to significantly improve and to develop consistent,
uniform processes and standards for the inspection of
structurally deficient bridges, and inspector training. We
cited that as a need 20 years ago.
Second, the initiative establishes a National Highway
System bridge reconstruction trust fund for dedicated funding,
separate from the highway trust fund, to finance the repair,
the rehabilitation and the replacement of structurally
deficient bridges on the National Highway System. The
initiative distributes the funds based on public safety and
need by requiring the Department of Transportation to develop
an administrative formula for distributing all funds, for
prioritizing bridges by State in order of need of replacement,
reconstruction and rehabilitation, and it will subject that to
review by the National Council of Engineering and the National
Academy of Sciences. So there is an independent review, and
there is total transparency.
I want to know: Do you oppose efforts to have a dedicated
funding stream? Do you oppose efforts to distribute funds based
on public safety and need? We provide accountability in this
measure by prohibiting deviation from that list through
earmarks by the executive branch or by the legislative branch,
by the U.S. Congress, by the U.S. Department of Transportation,
by State Departments of Transportation. I do not think you want
to oppose an initiative of that kind.
While the terrible events of August 1 have sounded an alarm
note around the country, many have questioned the way we
operate the system, the way it is financed. But we have to make
a decision. We have to decide we are going to attack this
problem, and it would be irresponsible to say we are going to
do it without a means of funding it. So I have set forth a
proposal in which we can fund this separate bridge trust fund
in the way we have done our Federal aid highway systems since
the days of Dwight Eisenhower. If it was good enough for Dwight
Eisenhower, it ought to be good enough for this administration
and for this Congress as well.
I have asked Subcommittee Chairman DeFazio to have a second
hearing specifically on bridge inspection and technology issues
within the next 2 weeks. I hope that, following that hearing--I
expect that after that we will have what I hope at least will
be a bipartisan bill to address the National Highway Bridge
Reconstruction Initiative, and we will consider that
legislation in markup in Committee in October.
Many years ago, I cited this work of Thornton Wilder, The
Bridge of San Luis Rey. I cited it in a hearing 20 some years
ago: "on Friday, noon, July 20, 1714, the finest bridge in all
Peru broke. It precipitated five travelers into the gulf below.
The bridge was on a high road between Lima, Cuzco, and hundreds
of people passed over it every day. It had been woven by the
Incas a century before. Visitors to the city were always led
out to see it. The bridge seemed to be among the things that
last forever. It was unthinkable that it should break. The
moment a Peruvian heard of the incident, he sighed to himself
and made a mental calculation as how recently he had crossed it
and how soon he had intended crossing it again. People wandered
about in a trancelike state, muttering. They had the
hallucination of seeing themselves falling into the gulf.
Everyone was deeply impressed, but only one person did anything
about it, and that was Brother Juniper. By a series of
coincidences so extraordinary, one almost suspects the presence
of some intention. This little, red-haired Franciscan from
Northern Italy happened to be in Peru, converting the Indians,
and happened to witness the accident, and in that instant,
Brother Juniper made the resolve to inquire into the lives of
those five persons at that moment, falling through the air and
to surmise the reason of their taking off."
His was a teleological inquiry about the last things. Ours
is a pragmatic inquiry about the present things and about what
we can do about it. And we have an opportunity to do something,
and I am not going to let this opportunity pass. There was a
commentary in the International Falls Daily Journal--if our
person can call that up on the screen--shortly after the
collapse of the bridge. Maybe not. He cannot find that.
We will conclude there, and I yield the floor to Mr. Mica.
Mr. Mica. Thank you.
First of all, I appreciate, Mr. Oberstar, that you have
called this hearing, because today is important. We are
addressing a very important responsibility as part of our
Nation's infrastructure; one particular area, bridges. I was
pleased to work with you, Mr. Oberstar, and with others on your
side of the aisle when we did, unfortunately, experience the
national tragedy in your home State and locale with the
collapse of the St. Paul-Minneapolis bridge, and Congress did
come together in a bipartisan fashion to address the
replacement of that bridge; and I said I wish every
infrastructure project we did in this country could be replaced
in the time frame that we will be replacing that bridge. That
would solve probably half of our problems. I understand that
bridge will probably be up sometime and operating at the end of
its replacement, operating at the end of next year. If we could
do that with all of the projects, we would probably have a lot
less of a need across the country because we would be replacing
those bridges in record time and putting that infrastructure in
place in record time.
Since taking over as the Ranking Member and having--I see a
large group of suspects in the audience. Most of them have been
in your office and in my office, Mr. Chairman, talking to us
about some of their needs; but they represent not just bridges
but highways, rail, airport, transit infrastructure. Many of
the folks have come to the hearing today, and they all have the
same thing that they tell us, that our infrastructure is aged.
Some of it is obsolete, and it needs repair. And it is not just
bridges.
That is what led me to the conclusion some months ago to
begin a national campaign to try to see if we could develop a
national strategic transportation and infrastructure plan that
would address the needs of every mode of transportation and
incorporate the expertise and the resources of both the private
and public sectors in that effort. Here, focusing or setting up
one more fund to address one problem that unfortunately has
come to our attention in this tragic manner is not the way to
go. I will not turn this into a knee-jerk reaction. I think it
is a responsible action that we will take in again addressing
the infrastructure needs of our country, but I would like to do
it on an even broader basis. Picking out just bridges is not
the way to go.
The other thing that we need to do is to look, as the
Chairman has indicated, not only at a plan but at a way to
finance that plan. I would say that, if we would just take
bridges and we would set up a separate fund and a mechanism of
funding it, it would kind of like be taking a 60- or 70-year-
old house with a crumbling foundation, a collapsing roof and
obsolete plumbing, and repairing just the driveway. It would
not make much sense. We have got a much bigger problem at hand
that we need to address.
So I think we need to reevaluate how we also fund these
programs, because not only is the infrastructure broken, but
the mechanism for funding these programs is also broken with
each passing day: the concept of basing a majority of our
revenues for financing these infrastructure improvements or
replacements.
The revenue stream for highways and transit programs on gas
tax is becoming more obsolete. Every passing day, it becomes
outdated. That is basically for two reasons: because, vehicles,
we are requiring them to be more efficient with their fuel and
we are also requiring that they use alternative fuels; and we
are also having more and more vehicles with alternative fuels
on the road. I understand we have about 8 million of those
vehicles. Just today, I saw one this morning as I was crossing
the street--"hybrid" was marked on the back of the vehicle--in
my own neighborhood.
A debate on our Nation's future transportation plan should
also include a debate on what our Federal role should be in
financing, building and maintaining our transportation system.
We need to leverage the private sector expertise/resources both
to maintain, expand and finance our transportation system.
While government funding will always play a major role in
infrastructure financing, we need to draw from the experience
and also from the efficiencies of the private sector. Many
people think the Federal highway program has grown too big and
too broad.
The Florida DOT and our Secretary could not make it. She
asked, Mr. Chairman, if I would submit her testimony--Stephanie
C. Kopelousos, Secretary of Transportation. I would ask
unanimous consent----
Mr. Oberstar. Without objection, it will be included in the
record.
Mr. Mica. She told me that Florida's DOT has over now 700
funding program codes to accurately track Federal highway
funding in Florida. We have now grown to over 100 Federal
programs from an original four, and I think you will hear the
Secretary also say--if she does not say it today, I have heard
her say it--about how much money of that is diverted. It is a
staggering amount of Federal funds that does not actually go
into bridges and highways and infrastructure.
We also need to narrow the scope of the Federal program to
better focus our Federal resources so that our critical
transportation needs are met first, and we also need to think
about a maintenance of effort to make certain that if we
increase Federal spending that States and localities do not
decrease their transportation spending. Also, as to raising up
revenues, why should some Federal taxpayers reward lax
taxpayers, so to speak? We have to have a system that is fair
to everybody.
It is important also to mention that there is an existing
highway bridge program--it is funded at approximately $4.3
billion this year--and before we go out and create another new
program funded by a gas tax increase, I think we should look
pretty carefully at what we are doing with the existing program
that has failed us and try first to correct that.
So I have some concerns about Mr. Oberstar's proposed
approach to our Nation's bridge problem and, again, just
creating another fund or source of raising revenues for that
single effort. I am committed, however, to looking at repairing
and replacing not only our bridges but also the system that
finances it. My home State of Florida has an exceptional bridge
program, and it has only 306 structurally deficient bridges out
of approximately 12,000. Under the Chairman's proposal to raise
the gas tax 5 cents to create a new bridge program, Florida
would contribute more than $490 million--a half billion dollars
a year to this--and receive back $27 million. It does not sound
fair to me to penalize a State like Florida or other States'
Members who are represented here to fund those who have not
done their due diligence or have stepped up to the plate. In
fact, some States with the highest number of deficit bridges in
the country, such as Pennsylvania, have decided not to use all
of the funding allocated to it under the Federal bridge
program. Instead, it transferred bridge funding to other
highway programs.
We had a debate in this Committee about rescissions, and we
failed to give, in a vote in the House, the States the ability
to decide where Federal funds were to go in that rescission,
and I know in the past that has been granted.
We have also sent very conflicting signals, even from this
Committee, to States seeking public-private solutions. For
example, Governor Mitch Daniels, who sold some of the State's
infrastructure, used that money. I know, because I went and
looked at some of the bridge replacements that were being
considered with funds from his public-private partnership.
Instead, the message from this Committee was do not do
anything, and especially not in public-private partnerships,
until we say a blessing on it.
Finally, when you do not act or when we do not set the
policy, somebody else sets the policy for us as we found out
this last August when Congress did not act. Of the 435 Members
and 100 Senators, many of them had earmarked projects that were
their priorities. Some did not choose bridges as priorities;
some chose other infrastructure, but they chose as the elected
Federal Representatives. When we passed the continuing
resolution, as you may recall, all of those earmarks were
eliminated, and some of you Members may want to listen to this,
particularly those who were here last year and who participated
in this.
As a result, $835 million was distributed by the
administration. That was almost all of the discretionary money,
all of that earmarked money, to hundreds of projects designated
by Members. Instead of distributing it to hundreds of Members,
it went to five jurisdictions, basically, and this is the
earmarking by bureaucratic fiat, but they set the policy
because Congress did not set the policy. So, while you were on
vacation, the administration took that $835 million. It was
fairly evenly divided. About half went to Republicans. New York
City got the biggest chunk--about $350 million--for Mr.
Bloomberg and his proposal, basically to put in tolling. That
was a congestion mitigation solution that they came up with. So
that is where your money will go. The priority is set by the
administration.
The second biggest amount--well, it is sort of a tie. Ms.
Pelosi got some for San Francisco. The Chairman got a nice
chunk for Minnesota, and Ms. Murray got some for Washington,
about $130 million to $150 million, and the Ranking Member even
got some $62 million. It is not my district, but it is for the
State of Florida.
Now, that is the way your money was spent. I do not know if
you know that, but I am pleased to convey that when we do not
set the policy, somebody else sets it for us, and that is based
on the preference of the administration, which is congestion
mitigation and congestion pricing as their priorities.
So that is my little part of the information I am providing
today, and I look forward to hearing from the Secretary. I want
to also hear more from the NTSB on the cause of the bridge
collapse, if they know that, and I look forward to the hearing.
I thank you for calling it, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Oberstar. I thank the gentleman for his remarks. We can
have a very lively debate on each of those issues, and we will
in due course.
The provision in my bill, though, requires the maintenance
of effort by States to match available Federal funding in the
bridge program. Secondly, it prohibits earmarking by the
executive branch as well as by the legislative branch at the
Federal or State level.
Mr. DeFazio.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for calling
this hearing today.
Just in response to the Ranking Member, we do have and we
will hear in December from the National Surface Transportation
Policy and Revenue Study Commission, which was charged with
developing a national strategy that both goes to needs,
investment and means. So, hopefully, we will receive something
that can be a starting point as we move toward the 2009
reauthorization that will look across transportation more
meaningfully and will provide more strategic investment.
Secondly, I actually share the Ranking Member's concerns
about the one note we are hearing out of the administration,
which is congestion pricing will solve everything. We are not
investing enough. The roads are becoming more congested. Well,
let us price people off of them. That is their sole solution,
and they have taken $800 million that could have been spent on
bridges or any other critical infrastructure to push this
ideological agenda written by the Heritage admin--no. Well,
they are not the administration but are the Heritage
Foundation, but they act like they are the administration, and
they seem to have gotten a playbook from them. That is not
going to solve America's problems.
We have not, you know, increased the amount of Federal
investment in 15 years. Yet the price of construction has gone
up more than 100 percent during that time. So the Federal
effort today is less than half of what it was 15 years ago in
terms of meeting the needs of our country. We have
extraordinary documentation right here that I am certain the
Secretary is familiar with and has read every word of, the
Conditions and Performance Report from the Department of
Transportation, issued in 2006, dated 2004, essentially in
terms of data. The conclusions are extraordinary.
Just to maintain the cosmetic nature of the system, it is
$78.8 billion a year. We are investing $70.3 billion. All
right. If we wanted to maintain the current level of
congestion, we would have to invest $89.7 billion a year. We
are investing $70.3 billion. If we actually wanted to enhance
and to improve the system, making it safer and less obsolete,
it would be $131.7 billion a year. We are spending less than 2
percent of our GDP on our surface transportation
infrastructure. China is spending 9; India is spending 5, and
the answer is congestion pricing.
The answer is not congestion pricing. We are not going to
price Americans off the road. Workers do not determine when
they go to work. You say, oh, $22. You can be in that
underutilized lane there that is taking up a precious right-of-
way with the other limousines to drive in to D.C. during rush
hour. And for workers who have to get here or who are, you
know, at a little lower level, well, gee, I do not know. Sorry.
Too bad. Maybe you had better move. Oh, no. They cannot afford
to live in D.C.--it is too expensive--and that is going to be
repeated around and around and around the country.
Congestion pricing is not the answer. Let us get off this
one note, and let us talk about a solution. God forbid we
should talk about the need for investment, because--guess what?
That is the "T" word. We might have to tax somebody. We might
have to have a user fee. Well, when bridges fall down and
people die in the United States of America--the greatest Nation
on earth--when the cost of congestion is $100 billion a year,
when 120 people die a day and probably a third of those die
because of obsolete or undermaintained infrastructure,
according to good statistics. We are not doing our job, and the
country has to lead at the national level. Then, yes, the
States need to perform, too.
Again, back to the Ranking Member, he has fought our
proposal to make States take the recision proportionately from
all accounts, and he has fought for State flexibility. Well,
that is what Pennsylvania used, State flexibility. Divert the
money from bridges, and a bunch of other States have done that,
too. Not my State. We went out and issued $1.3 billion in
bonds, and we are not a very rich State to deal with our bridge
problems. My earmarks are disproportionately bridges. I knew
the problem was there. The Chairman knew the problem was there.
The Secretary of Transportation certainly knew the problem was
there. It was an accident waiting to happen. And to say there
is no critical problem is not right, and to say we are going to
solve it with congestion pricing is not right.
Let us come together, as we did way back in the 1950s with
the great vision of Dwight David Eisenhower, and talk about
what is the next century going to look like in America for
surface transportation. Let us stop quibbling around the edges
while people are dying.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Oberstar. I thank the gentleman for his statement.
Mr. Duncan.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be brief
because I know you want to get on to the Secretary and to other
witnesses. I do want to thank you for calling this hearing, and
I commend you for your leadership on this.
In fact, this is my 19th year in the Congress, and very
seldom have I seen such unity between business, labor,
technical experts, and Members all saying that a substantial
amount of work needs to be done. And the I-35W bridge collapse
last month in your home State of Minnesota made the term
"structurally deficient bridge" almost a household phrase. And
I think you were right in pointing out that this Committee can
be justifiably proud in the quick action that was taken in
regard to the tragedy in Minnesota and the legislation that we
passed so quickly.
I also want to commend Ranking Member Mica, and I agree
with him in that the problems we face are much bigger than
bridges, and I agree with his call for a national strategic
transportation plan.
I am pleased that my home State of Tennessee has just
slightly over half of the national average in structurally
deficient bridges. We have 6.6 percent, with the national
average being over 12 percent; but, unfortunately, we had to
learn from past problems, because in 1989 we had a bridge
collapse in Tennessee that killed eight people. The NTSB
determined that a shift in river channel resulted in the
deterioration of the timber piles that were originally buried
and not really designed to be in water in the first place. The
NTSB sided with the State of Tennessee in 1979, and a lot of
work was done, unfortunately because of that tragedy that
occurred in my State in 1989.
You know, there has been some talk already here this
morning about increasing the Federal gas tax. It may be that at
some point we will be forced to do that. I understand, though,
and I have read that we are spending $12 billion a month now in
Iraq, and over the last 10 years or so, we have spent mega-
billions doing military construction projects all over the
world for a military that is only about half the size that it
was a few years ago. And my preference would be that we take
some of the hundreds of billions that we are spending in other
countries around the world through all of our departments and
agencies--and primarily through the Department of Defense, but
all of the other departments and agencies as well--and take a
small portion of that money and spend it on our infrastructure
in this country.
It has been pointed out that we are devoting just a little
over $4 billion to our bridge program in this country at this
point, and I do not think it would be asking too much if we
diverted a very small percentage of the hundreds of billions
that we are spending in other countries to take care of our own
people here. Our first obligation should be to the American
people, and this is a very important way in which we need to do
what is right for our own people.
I thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Oberstar. I thank the gentleman for a very succinct but
very hard-hitting statement. I totally agree with the $44.5
billion we have committed to infrastructure in Iraq that is
blown up or otherwise immobilized almost as soon as it is
built. If we had that money at home, we would not be talking
about a gas tax increase. We would have that money to invest
right here with American labor and American jobs.
While I agree with Mr. Mica on the need for a comprehensive
plan, in that same set of hearings, our former colleague, Mr.
Clinger of Pennsylvania, and I developed a capital budgeting
approach. We had several days of hearings on capital budgeting.
We moved legislation through the House. We established a
capital budget for the Congress to assess the needs of all of
the infrastructure investments that we have to make. By the
time it got through the Senate and the Reagan administration,
it was whittled down to an annex in the Federal budget. And
this is it, number 6, Federal investments at the end of the
budget.
Now, if the gentleman would join with me and elevate this
to the----
Mr. Mica. Ready to go.
Mr. Oberstar. --status that it needs, then that is where we
will start.
Mr. Mica. Let's go.
Mr. Oberstar. We will do that. All right.
Madam Secretary, you have been very patient, and we welcome
your testimony.
TESTIMONY OF HON. MARY E. PETERS, SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
TRANSPORTATION, ACCOMPANIED BY: HON. J. RICHARD CAPKA,
ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL HIGHWAY ADMINISTRATION
Secretary Peters. Mr. Chairman, thank you so much.
Chairman Oberstar, Ranking Member Mica and Members of the
Committee, I am honored to be here with you today. Accompanying
me is Rick Capka, our Federal Highway Administrator, who has
spent a good amount of time on the ground in Minnesota
following the tragic bridge collapse.
America, all of us, were stunned on the evening of August
1, 2007 when the I-35W bridge over the Mississippi River in
Minneapolis collapsed. Numerous vehicles were on the bridge at
the time, and at the end of the day, there were 13 fatalities
and 123 persons injured.
On behalf of the President, I would like to personally
extend our deepest sympathy to the loved ones of those who died
or who were injured in this tragedy.
I also want to note, in the four visits that I have had the
opportunity to make to Minneapolis since the collapse, I have
been impressed and inspired by the response of the many
dedicated public servants from all levels of government to this
terrible tragedy. We do not yet know why the I-35W bridge
failed, and our Department is working with the National
Transportation Safety Board, who you will hear from a little
later in this hearing, as they continue their investigation to
determine the cause or causes.
In the interim, we are taking steps to ensure that
America's infrastructure is safe. I have issued two advisories
to States in response to what we have learned so far, asking
that States reinspect their steel deck truss bridges, and that
they be mindful of the added weight construction projects may
bring to bear on bridges.
I have also asked the Department's Inspector General, who
you will also hear from later in this hearing, to conduct a
very rigorous assessment of the Federal Aid Bridge Program and
the National Bridge Inspection Standards.
In the aftermath of this tragedy, many are calling for a
renewed focus on our Nation's highway infrastructure, and I
certainly agree with the calls that have been made and applaud
people, including the Chairman and the Ranking Member and
others in this Committee, who are truly thinking about the
long-term viability of the Nation's transportation system. It
is imperative, however, that when determining what our future
transportation system should look like, we actually focus on
the right problem.
Since 1994, a percentage of the Nation's bridges have been
classified as "structurally deficient," a phrase that I would
agree is not correct and does cause people to be more concerned
than they should be about these bridges; but that percent has
improved from almost 19 percent to 13 percent, and our latest
data indicates that that is now 12 percent.
While we can and should and will do more to improve the
quality of our infrastructure, it would be irresponsible and
inaccurate to say that the Nation's transportation
infrastructure is anything but safe. More accurately, what we
have is a flawed investment model, a model that is not
allocating resources efficiently, and what we have is a system
performance crisis.
Increasing Federal taxes and spending would do little, if
anything, to address either the quality or the performance of
our roads. Instead, we need a more basic change in how we
analyze competing spending options and manage existing
resources more efficiently. Because tax revenues are deposited
into a centralized Federal trust fund and are reallocated on
the basis of political compromise, major spending decisions
increasingly have little to do with underlying economic or
safety merits.
For example, the number of designated projects has grown
from a handful in the mid-1980s to over 6,000 in 2005, valued
at a staggering $24 billion, or nearly 9 percent of the total
program. The true cost to States, however, is much higher given
that, on average, earmarks only cover approximately 10 percent
of the total cost of a project.
As a former State DOT Director--and you will hear from
other directors later in this hearing--I have had firsthand
experience with the difficulties created when Washington
mandates override States' priorities. While it is certainly
true that not every one of these investments could be called
"wasteful," virtually no comparative economic analysis is
conducted to support these spending decisions. In other words,
scarce dollars are spent on earmarks, and special interest
programs are not available to States for important expenditures
like bridge repair and maintenance.
It makes no sense, in my mind, to raise the gas tax at a
time, as the Ranking Member pointed out, when we are rightfully
exploring every conceivable mechanism to increase energy
independence, to clean our air, to promote fuel economy in
automobiles, and to stimulate the development of alternative
fuels and renewable fuels as well as reducing emissions. We
should be encouraging States to explore alternatives to
petroleum-based taxes, not expanding a company's reliance on
them by increasing the gas tax.
The I-35W bridge collapse was both a tragedy and, I said, a
wake-up call, Mr. Chairman--you say a reawakening--to our
country. On that fact, we absolutely agree. Our Nation's
economic future is tied in large part to the safety and to the
reliability of our transportation infrastructure. However,
before we reach the conclusion that additional Federal spending
and Federal taxes are the right path, we should critically
examine how we are spending money today. What are we doing with
the money that is already sent to Washington?
According to the Conditions and Performance Report that was
cited by the Subcommittee Chairman, FHWA has estimated that it
would cost $40 billion a year to maintain current conditions
across all of our transportation system or surface system, and
it would take $60 billion a year to substantially improve that
system. The 2004 total U.S. capital investment for highways and
bridges was $70 billion.
Ladies and gentlemen, Members of this Committee, it is not
that we do not have the money. It is where we are spending the
money that is important that we examine in the aftermath of
this crisis, but I recognize that we may have different
opinions. I very much look forward to engaging in that
discussion with you and throughout the administration but, most
importantly, with the American people that we all serve.
I will be pleased to answer any questions that you may
have.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
At the outset, I want to express once again, as I have done
publicly and personally, my appreciation and that of the people
of Minneapolis and the Mayor of Minneapolis for your prompt
response. You were on the phone, readily available--and
Administrator Capka as well--and we had a very constructive
discussion that led to the quick passage of the emergency
response legislation. And for that, I am very appreciative. You
and the President made a visit to--you actually made two. The
second one was mainly for a fundraiser for a Senator, but he
did come twice to the State in the aftermath.
You said that you raised questions about where we spend
that money. On page 4 of your testimony, you say failure to
prioritize spending in the disturbing evolution of the Federal
highway program--this program has seen politically designated
projects grow from a handful to more than 6,000 in SAFETEA-LU.
But in signing that legislation--and I was there on August
10, 2005 on the property of the Caterpillar earth moving
equipment company in Illinois--the President said, "This
transportation act will finance needed road improvements and
will ease congestion in communities all across the Nation. Here
in Illinois, as the Speaker mentioned, one of the key projects
that he has been talking to me about for quite a while is what
they call the ``Prairie Parkway.'' I thought that might be in
Texas, but no, it is right here in Illinois." People applauded
and laughed.
``Good folks understand what it means to the quality of
life around here when you have a highway that will connect
Interstate 80 and Interstate 88. The Prairie Parkway is crucial
for economic progress in Kane and Kendall Counties that happen
to be two of the fastest growing counties in the United
States." That is about the speed at which he said it, too.
"but the United States Congress can be proud of what it has
achieved in the Transportation Equity Act, and I am proud to be
right here in Denny Hastert's district to sign it."
What has changed since then?
Secretary Peters. Mr. Chairman, I was there as well, and I
think what has changed since then is, while we have seen
marginal improvements in the condition of our Nation's
transportation infrastructure and marginal improvements in the
safety of that infrastructure--and those two are very closely
related--what we have seen is a significant decline in
performance and a misallocation of resources not being spent
where they could and should be.
Mr. Oberstar. It was all in the bill, Madam Secretary. It
was all right there. If the President did not like it, he could
have vetoed it. He thought it was a great idea then. It is a
great idea now. This administration started out with a $247
billion package, and your own Department recommended, as
directed in TEA-21 to report to Congress on the performance--
that is, payment conditions, congestion, safety--and recommend
a new level of investment, and you recommended $375 billion.
Mr. Young and I introduced that bill. It would have had $5
billion a year for bridge construction, reconstruction,
rehabilitation, replacement.
The administration's package, ultimately, would have been
$3 billion less overall. Now, we negotiated upward from the
administration's $247 billion to $286.3 billion. That gave us,
roughly, $4 billion a year in the bridge program. It should
have been $5 billion.
So, over the past couple of weeks--I am just looking at
remarks you have made about my proposal and the bridge
situation--you said only 60 percent of trust fund revenues are
used for road and bridge purposes. I see no credible data. We
have searched high and low for a backup for that figure. There
is no credible data to back it up. Roughly 20 percent--18.5
percent to be precise--goes into transit of the total trust
fund authorizations. That is as close as you can come to
something to back that up. I do not know where you get that
information, but I want you to respond specifically to the
provisions of my bill. I want you to respond specifically to
raising the standards for the determination of what is a
structurally deficient bridge.
What is wrong with that?
Secretary Peters. Mr. Chairman, I do not disagree with
that, and in fact, I have asked the Inspector General to do a
very rigorous review not only of the bridge program funding,
but of the bridge inspection program itself. I have asked him
to not only examine whether or not that program is sufficient
and rigorous enough, but how decisions are made as a result of
bridge inspections and ratings and whether or not that
information is, indeed, used to prioritize the expenditure of
funding.
Mr. Oberstar. Okay. That is 25 percent.
We establish a bridge reconstruction trust fund dedicated
to funding just those structurally deficient bridges and a 3-
year sunset.
Secretary Peters. Mr. Chairman, where we disagree there,
sir, is along the lines of what the Ranking Member said as well
and the figures that I gave you a few moments ago. We do not
disagree that we need to ensure that we are prioritizing
bridges that need to be repaired or replaced. Where we do not
agree is that we need to raise the gas tax to do so.
Mr. Oberstar. A separate trust fund to do it, do you
disagree with having that?
Secretary Peters. Sir, we have dedicated funding for
bridges today.
Mr. Oberstar. But it is not enough.
Secretary Peters. Well, it is also not being used in all
cases for those----
Mr. Oberstar. Well, we gave the States the authority to
flex 50 percent of that bridge fund, and they have done that.
In my home State of Minnesota, they have taken 42 percent of
their rescission out of the bridge fund.
Secretary Peters. Mr. Chairman, our data indicates--and I
can ask Administrator Capka to expand on this if you would
like--that approximately $600 million from other funds,
primarily STP funds, are flexed in to the repair and to the
replacement of bridges. And I am a big fan of the flexibility
that States are allowed in order to meet their divergent needs
by having the flexibility to flex those funds as long as we
maintain standards to which the bridges and the highways need
to be kept.
Mr. Oberstar. All right. The standard issued is that the
initiative would distribute funds based on public safety, need,
requiring Department of Transportation to develop an
administrative formula for the distribution of those funds----
Secretary Peters. Mr. Chairman, I think----
Mr. Oberstar. One that will be independently reviewed and
have all of these structurally deficient bridges evaluated by a
new standard, a new higher standard, and then rated by States
for distribution.
Secretary Peters. Mr. Chairman, I think that those, again,
are viable terms and certainly could be used within the
existing programs or to modify the existing program.
For example, right now there is a perverse incentive to not
keep your bridges in good condition because you get more money
based on the percent of your bridges that are not sufficiently
rated today. And so I think that there are certainly
improvements that we can make, and I, certainly, anxiously
await the results of the Inspector General's investigation into
that program.
Mr. Oberstar. Would you agree with the idea of
prioritizing----
Secretary Peters. Oh, absolutely; data-driven, performance-
based.
Mr. Oberstar. --of setting higher standards where we are at
50 percent?
Accountability, prohibiting earmarks by Congress, the
administration or the States and requiring the National Academy
of Sciences independently to review that prioritization, do you
think that is a good idea?
Secretary Peters. Mr. Chairman, I think those are very good
ideas, and again, they could be used to improve existing
programs and the existing funding.
Mr. Oberstar. We are not far apart. That is 75 percent. You
disagree on a mechanism for funding it.
Secretary Peters. That is correct.
Mr. Oberstar. Well, you cannot have a bake sale to fix
bridges. If we take our troops out of Iraq, maybe we have got
$50-some billion we can deal with at home, as Mr. Duncan
suggested; but, absent that, which is not going to happen in
the foreseeable future, President Eisenhower saw the need to
have a dedicated revenue stream, creating the highway trust
fund.
In that first year in 1956, Congress passed legislation to
establish a 3-cent user fee--a gas tax. It passed
overwhelmingly. A year later, after the States had been
underway and the Bureau of Public Roads--as it was called
then--evaluated it, it said we need more money. Another cent
increase in the user fee was recommended. Do you know it passed
the House on a voice vote?
I do not think we can pass a prayer anymore on a voice vote
in this Congress. But it passed then because people had vision,
they had determination. They had a sense of destiny, of what
was needed in this country; and that if we did not invest in
this interstate highway program, we would be killing 100,000
people on the Nation's highways. We had to do this. Congress
understood it.
Well, there is the same urgent need today to target the
bridges, to do this in a 3-year period, to sunset it in 3
years, to establish a prioritization system that will be
independently evaluated, and to make it earmark-proof. Public
trust and accountability.
Secretary Peters. I like the earmark, sir.
Mr. Oberstar. All right.
Secretary Peters. Mr. Chairman, let me, if I may, respond
very briefly.
Mr. Oberstar. Yes.
Secretary Peters. When President Eisenhower and the Clay
Commission recommended the program that they did to build the
Nation's interstate highway system, it certainly was visionary
and certainly was important and certainly did lead to the
establishment of the premier transportation system in the
world. But I think, as was said earlier, we need to examine the
Federal role today and determine what the Federal role should
be. And as the Subcommittee Chairman indicated, there is a
commission working on that that will report to Congress by the
end of this year.
But again, to continue our dependence on a gas tax when we
have said we want more fuel-efficient vehicles, when we have
said we want cleaner burning fuels and when we have said that
we want to lessen our dependence on foreign oil, and when the
technology is there today to do those things, I think it is
contrary to those very important public policy decisions that
many in Congress and in the administration agree with to
continue dependence and to therefore increase the use of fuel
taxes when we have other alternatives to bring funding to the
table.
Many think that I say that simply public-private
partnerships or private investment is everything we need. I
have never said that. I have always said that there will be
portions of our road system that have to be funded by public-
sector revenues, but I do believe that we should take every
opportunity to bring other available revenues to the table,
such as Florida has done, such as California has done, such as
Indiana and Chicago have done, to help supplement public-sector
revenues.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you, Madam Secretary. We will continue
that dialogue----
Secretary Peters. Indeed.
Mr. Oberstar. --as we go through this year into next year
in preparation for reauthorization.
Mr. Mica.
Mr. Mica. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
We have a current Federal bridge program, and I just want
to spend a minute and take that apart and see if it is
something we can fix. It is based on, as I said and you have
said, a flawed system or a system with every passing day that
becomes more obsolete in raising the revenues that we need. So
we have got to fix the way we fund all of our infrastructure,
highways and bridges. We agree on that.
Let us look at the fund that we have now. $4.3 billion, is
that enough or not? It appears we have made some progress in
bringing down the number of bridges that are structurally
deficient. Is the overall number enough or does that need to be
increased?
Secretary Peters. Mr. Ranking Member, I do believe that we
probably have to look at what the criterion are that we are
using to allocate that money today.
For example, since 1970, Congress has provided $77 billion
to help reconstruct or rehabilitate over 85,000 deficient
bridges. And of course these bridges, particularly in States
that have older portions of the system, continue to age or
continue to wear during that period of time.
I think what we need to do is very carefully examine the
criterion that we are using to determine which bridges need to
be repaired or replaced and then determine whether or not we
have sufficient funding but to do that very rigorous analysis.
Mr. Mica. So funding--is the dollars available is the first
question.
Now I heard Mr. Oberstar and Mr. DeFazio talk about
diversion of funds. Usually when I find the problem, the
problem is us. Either we haven't funded it--for example, I love
to get the list of request of earmarks, of how many were for
deficient bridges. You have to have money or we request that
money as representatives. But both Mr. DeFazio and Mr. Oberstar
have talked about diversion of the money, and one of the
examples used is Pennsylvania, 50 percent. We said that, by our
policy, that that amount can be diverted. What would be the
appropriate amount?
Now, you spoke also to having standards that had to be met
for that diversion, so how would you either reconstruct or
better construct that policy so that the money goes where it is
supposed to?
Secretary Peters. Mr. Mica, what I would do is establish
standards to which the bridges had to be maintained. If a State
did not demonstrate they were meeting those standards, they
could not divert money out of that dedicated program. That is
what I would establish.
The situation in Pennsylvania is more complex, and at your
pleasure I could ask the Federal Highway Administrator to talk
more about what has happened in Pennsylvania per se.
Mr. Mica. We have not gotten into other ways of financing,
for example, public-private partnerships, which I have
advocated and I think the administration has and others have
advocated as a possible solution. We have not really defined
that policy.
For example, I use Mitch Daniels in Indiana where he sold
some of the infrastructure; and specifically it was for bridge
either construction or replacement, the bulk of that money. Do
you think we need a definition of that policy? What is your
opinion? How should we define that? What do you recommend?
Secretary Peters. What I would recommend is having
standards to which the National Highway System, interstate
highway system, those things that are truly in the Federal
interest need to be maintained. And if a State such as Indiana
or cities such as Chicago chooses to accept private sector
investment that they would have to insure that they are
maintaining that infrastructure to those standards so that
there could not be any demission of the standards as they were
operating through a public-private partnership or some
concession wherein a public asset would be leased out. I
believe that we need to have a rather light touch in terms of
the Federal Government so we can allow this money to be made
available in a broad manner.
As you mentioned, Governor Daniels in Indiana had fully
funded a 10-year transportation program as a result of a long-
term lease of the Indiana toll road. So one could argue that
the citizens of Indiana are appreciably better off today than
many other States that do not have that funding.
Mr. Mica. Finally, the question is States' contribution,
State or locality. For example, in Minnesota, I believe the
Governor had vetoed a couple of measures for increasing
revenues. I was surprised.
I visited Texas to find out that Texas has a $0.20 gas tax.
That is, $0.05 goes for education and $0.03 goes towards law
enforcement. Now law enforcement I could see as part of the
highway. But, again, people can say they have a gas tax, but it
does not fund infrastructure, it funds other things. And the
Chairman has said his proposal tried to take into consideration
some of that.
Isn't that important that we see what an actual
contribution is from the State or the locality in this process?
Otherwise, like I said, you have taxpayers paying for lax
payers or those who are not willing to pay their share.
Secretary Peters. Yes, sir. Both you and the Chairman have
indicated that this maintenance of effort on the State level I
think is very important as we go forward in determining the
Federal role and what the contribution should be. GAO has
completed a report that did indicate there was a substitution
effect. When Federal revenues increased in a period of time,
State revenues went down during that same period of time.
Mr. Mica. Thank you.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank the gentleman.
Before you break your arm patting yourself on the back for
Governor Daniels, he has a 75-year lease and 10-year program
for highway investment.
Mr. Rahall.
Mr. Rahall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Madam Secretary, I appreciate very much your time being
with us today and want to commend you as well, especially our
Chairman of our Full Committee, Mr. Oberstar, for the manner in
which he responded to the tragedy in Minnesota, the depth and
breadth of your knowledge and the manner in which you tackled
the tragedy. If we learn nothing from the events of the
Minnesota tragedy, that, too, would be a tragedy in itself.
While I commend you for your depth and breadth of your
knowledge--certainly we would agree on the problems that exist
and the statistics are all there--we may not agree on the
manner in which we address it. My biggest frustration is to
hear this administration and previous administrations--and it
is not something with which I disagree--but to hear them say
all options are on the table when it comes to rebuilding and
defending allies abroad and/or companies that produce so much
oil vital for our interest and yet not making the same
statement, especially this administration, when it comes to
addressing the same problems that exist domestically here in
this country. I would like this administration to say all
options are on the table for defending us internally and
rebuilding America as well, but I have not heard this
administration say that, and that is perhaps my biggest
frustration.
Secretary Peters. Well, you certainly make valid points.
The incident that occurred in West Virginia in 1967 in which
numerous people lost their lives was the tragedy that gave
birth to the bridge inspection program, so I think certainly
you speak from an experience base in West Virginia about how
important it is to maintain our bridges.
Mr. Rahall. Well, I appreciate you bringing up that
tragedy. I was going to bring it up as well.
Let me turn to a question specifically in regard to your
testimony. You state that there are 40 special interest
programs that had been created to provide funding for projects
that may or may not be a State or local priority, end quote.
What are these 40 special interest programs?
For example, is the Appalachian Development Highway a
special interest program because it primarily serves
Appalachia? Is the New Freedom Transit Program a special
interest because it serves the disabled and elderly--as
recommended by the administration and the Chairman informs me?
Is a Safe Routes to School Program a special interest program
because it promotes a healthier lifestyle for school children?
What are these 40 special interest programs?
Secretary Peters. Let me give you an example of one of
those programs, the Historic Covered Bridge Program. Historic
covered bridges are important, but when compared with improving
infrastructure and what Americans believe they are paying for
when they pay those fuel taxes, I believe that is an example of
a diversion of funding programs----
Mr. Rahall. Do you know what percent that is?
Secretary Peters. I do not right offhand.
Mr. Rahall. Okay. Again, I say I think from the way I
interpret the 40 special interest programs--obviously, you can
tell from the thrust of my question it is not something I
consider special interest when it comes to spending monies on
behalf of these particular programs that help particular
segments of our population. I do not think the groups that are
served by these programs would call them special interest
provisions that need to be cut or diverted as well.
Secretary Peters. Congressman, I think what is important
and what I have said in my testimony and repeatedly is we need
to use economics and safety in determining where and how we
spend money first and make sure that we are doing everything we
can based on economic analysis, data-driven asset management
approaches to take care of our infrastructure.
Certainly there are many, many worthy purposes included in
those 40 additional programs, but the question that I would ask
and that I think we owe the American people to ask is, are we
spending money first on the highest priorities? And only after
we have satisfied those priorities are we taking care of
other--how laudable those purposes may be, first is to take
care of our Nation's infrastructure.
Mr. Rahall. Well, I would not agree with that last
statement, that the first priority is to take care of our
Nation's infrastructure. Where I would disagree is in looking
at taking care of our Nation's infrastructure there are areas
in which perhaps Members of Congress, both bodies, have a more
acute knowledge and are able to discern where meeting those
needs can be accounted on a local basis and addressed on a
local basis; and it is a very small percentage of the overall
picture, I might add. I would say we need to look at both
priorities--all priorities, I should add.
Secretary Peters. Understood.
Mr. Rahall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time is up.
Mr. Oberstar. I thank the gentleman.
The matter of historic covered bridges is one of the long
history of transportation in New England and was an issue
championed by Senator Jeffords in ISTEA.
Mr. Duncan.
Mr. Duncan. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
This past May I was asked to chair a conference on growth
because we are almost being overwhelmed with our growth in east
Tennessee, and Secretary Peters was kind enough to come and
headline that because transportation is such an important part
of that. And then we toured and she visited with State highway
officials concerning the most expensive highway project in the
history of our State that we are doing in Knoxville at this
time. And Secretary Peters just wowed and impressed everybody
and that conference of 750 people there and all the highway
officials; and, Madam Secretary, I want to say again how much I
appreciate your coming.
In your testimony today you say the percentage of the
Nation's bridges that are classified as structurally deficient
has gone from 19 percent in the mid '90s to 12 percent now.
What do you think has been the main thrust or has done the most
to lead to that improvement and can we keep on decreasing of
these numbers of these bridges with some of the lessons we have
learned since that time?
Secretary Peters. Congressman, thank you first for your
comments.
I do believe we can. What we need to have is a continued
emphasis on how the bridge inspection program and the bridge
funding, dedicated funding made available, are connected and
used properly. That is precisely why I have asked our Inspector
General to look at how we might make improvements both in the
inspection standards but also in how the inspection data is
used to prioritize the repair or replacement of bridges.
Certainly the highest classification of bridges, those that
carry the most traffic such as the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis,
should come to the top of the list. We do not know yet what
caused that bridge to collapse. I think it would be presumptive
to say it was a lack of ongoing maintenance, because that does
not appear to be the case at all.
Mr. Duncan. Well, you have very accurately pointed out that
the term "structurally deficient" is not synonymous with
unsafe; and I am a little curious as to why are there
categories such as satisfactory, good, even very good and
excellent ratings included in structurally deficient bridges?
Why would we say that a bridge is excellent and yet still call
it structurally deficient?
Secretary Peters. We generally should not and would not
make that comparison. I would ask the Administrator to address
that more fairly.
I think you make a very important point. When we say to the
American people a bridge is structurally deficient or
functionally obsolete, it causes concern. I think the use of
those statements and perhaps the connotation of those
statements inaccurately has caused concern certainly in this
case. That is something I am asking the Inspector General to
give me benefit of his knowledge in that.
Generally speaking, a bridge that is rated excellent should
not be considered structurally deficient. What structurally
deficient means in a more of a working definition is it showing
signs of wear, that the bridge needs to be inspected or
repaired more frequently, watched more closely. But not in any
way does this connotation mean that bridge is unsafe.
Rick does a good example of using a pair of shoes that I
will ask him to explain in a moment, but functionally obsolete
means basically that it no longer meets today's minimum design
standards. It met design standards when it was built but may or
may not today. The congressman from Arizona may remember the
Gila River bridge in Arizona on I-10 that is functionally
obsolete but still indeed functions and carries hundreds of
thousands of vehicles every day.
If I may ask the Administrator----
Mr. Duncan. Before you go to the Administrator and before
my time runs out, I just ask the Administrator not only to
respond as you have requested, but I do have one question I
wanted to ask the Administrator.
The Federal Highway Administration estimates it will cost
approximately $40 billion a year to maintain the highways,
maintain our Nation's bridges and approximately $60 billion a
year to improve those bridges, but the March--the 2006 DOT
conditions and performance report cited costs of really about
twice that high. Would you explain what the discrepancies are
there? Because you are talking about a mega-billion-dollar
difference there.
Mr. Capka. Thank you, Mr. Duncan, for the question.
There is some pretty good information that C&P report
focused on the cost to maintain and also the maximum economic
investment.
With respect for bridges, the latest C&P report identified
$8.75 billion a year as the cost to maintain. That would be
invested over a 20-year period. The total amount that would
need to be invested right now in 2004 dollars--the backlog, if
you will--is about 65--a little over $65 billion. We are
investing today--I mentioned that $8.7 billion annual
investment over 20 years. We are investing today about $10.5
billion. That might go a little bit to explaining why the
improvements that we have been seeing in the condition of the
bridges has been moving in a positive direction.
I would also point out that the maximum economic investment
that the C&P report turns out is about $12.4 billion. So that
10 and a half is nestled in between and I think goes a long way
to analyzing why we have been seeing improvements.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank the gentleman for his comments and his
questions.
Mr. DeFazio.
Mr. DeFazio. I point out to Mr. Capka--and I may not want
to say this--the administration did not support those higher
levels of spending, objected to them, would have cut the
program.
Madam Secretary, I hope we can find something to agree on
here. We are reexamining the Federal role. We have what we call
the National Highway System. It is 162,000 miles. 46,000
interstate, strategic highway network, military mobilization
and other major highways. That is only 4.1 percent of the
mileage in the country, but it is 45 percent of the vehicle
miles, 75 percent of the truck traffic, 90 percent of the
tourist traffic. I mean, is this what we are talking about? We
are talking Federal interest. Do you believe we should maintain
or enhance the 162,000 mile National Highway System, including
the bridges? Simple answer, yes or no?
Secretary Peters. Yes.
Mr. DeFazio. So, now, look at the map up there. See all the
little dots? I know it's a little hard to see. These are the
6,175 National Highway System bridges that are structurally
deficient. About half of them are on the interstate and the
rest are on the rest of the system.
So you say there is something we can do other than gas tax
or Federal funding to take care of this pretty widely
disbursed, very major problem. What is that alternative? Are
you going to put tolls on all those 6,172 Federal bridges? Is
that the idea? Or we can ask the private sector to rebuild them
and let them toll them and lease them? I mean, what is your
solution here?
You are saying, can't have any more Federal investment. We
are not going to have more Federal investment. You have drawn
the line. You are not going to raise user fees. So what is it?
Secretary Peters. Mr. DeFazio, I believe the solution is
examining where we are spending money today, using economic
analysis; and the numbers that I indicated earlier are that
there is enough money today if----
Mr. DeFazio. Let me ask you another question. As far as we
can tell the source for the 40 percent number, there is nothing
credible out there except someone named--and he is not
credible--Ronald Utt at Heritage. He came up with the 40
percent, Mr. Utt, which I think is 1/1000 of 1 percent. You are
talking about concerns about congestion and concerns about the
system and these are diversions. Twenty percent, half of his
number, is transit. So should we do away with transit? Would
that not make congestion worse? Do we believe by putting people
in transit we are avoiding congestion?
Secretary Peters. Mr. DeFazio, I do not think we should do
away with transit.
Mr. DeFazio. Well, then you should not talk about this 40
percent diversion like there is money out there to be grabbed
back. Because half of it, according to this expert, Mr. Utt, is
transit. And you can go down through other programs----
Secretary Peters. Mr. DeFazio, one of the things I have
said about that 40 percent is that I think Americans who pay
fuel taxes when they pump fuel into their vehicles, most of
them are not aware that only 60 percent of the taxes that they
pay go directly--and I emphasize directly--to highways and
bridges.
Mr. DeFazio. I think, Madam Secretary, what many Americans
are concerned about is safety. They do not want to die on a
bridge collapse on the way home from work.
The daily beef is congestion. Let's get down to congestion
and the levels of investment we are talking about here.
Now I am very puzzled, and perhaps Mr. Capka can help us
out here. You talk about this 40 billion, 60 billion, but when
I read the conditions and performance report they have three
levels. One is the current level that we are putting in, which
is $70.3 billion total investment, which means we are not even
keeping up with the physical condition and we are not dealing
with congestion. If we go to--according to your own conditions
and performance report, if we go to $78.8 billion, we will keep
up with the current levels of congestion and good conditions.
If we want to begin to deal with congestion, you have to move
the number up to at least $89.7 billion in the future to
improve congestion; and you could, according to the cost
benefit analysis, invest up to $131 billion. There you have the
cost benefit analysis.
I do not know what the 40 to 60 is, but by all accounts we
are not even keeping up with the current congestion levels in
the system and we are not keeping up with the physical
maintenance. But you are very sanguine about it and say private
sector will take care of it, and then we will have congestion
pricing.
Is the idea of congestion pricing somehow congestion goes
away? Where do those people go when we squeeze them out of the
system? Do you do think these are all people just out there
driving around for fun? They are not on their way to work and
they can just stay home and the roads would not be congested?
How does congestion management solve this problem if the
Federal government does not invest in the States or the
localities don't invest? Mr. Capka?
Secretary Peters. You probably should talk about all the
conditions and performance and all the rest of the issues.
Mr. Capka. All right.
As far as the C&P report is concerned, you are correct. The
cost to maintain is $78.8 billion. The investment is $70.3,
with the maximum----
Mr. DeFazio. And it's good to explain that to the humans
out there. That means--cost to maintain would mean today's
levels of congestion on good road surfaces and safe bridges.
Mr. Capka. That is correct, Mr. DeFazio.
The other thing the C&P report pointed out this year is
that there are other investment mechanisms that are available
that should be considered, mechanisms that will help better
operate the system that we have, more efficiently operate the
system that we do have and perhaps take the peaks off the
demand times during the course of the day, which would then
lessen the demand for the new investment that would be made. So
there are some other things pointed out.
Mr. DeFazio. But if you take a peak off, it is either
discretionary travel or you have to provide an alternative, is
that correct?
Mr. Capka. And I think the data shows there is a
considerable amount of discretionary travel made during those
peak times. So I think there is room to improve the operations
of the system which would have an overall beneficial impact on
the resource demands on the system.
Mr. DeFazio. You are saying we have to squeeze it. We do
not need to invest in more capacity. We have to get people off
the road. We have to tell them get off the road. Just let a
Lexus go by paying a buck a mile.
Secretary Peters. If I may, in terms of a very recently
completed household travel survey, it does indicate that more
than half--in many instances, more than half of the people who
are on a road during commute times, during peak periods of
time, are not commuting. They are doing other things. My sister
is picking up her dry cleaning.
Mr. DeFazio. Taking their kids to school?
Secretary Peters. It could be.
Mr. DeFazio. Well, that is not discretionary for most
people who work for a living.
Secretary Peters. Since 1991, transportation spending has
more than doubled.
Mr. DeFazio. In real dollars?
Secretary Peters. In real dollars. If I am mistaken, I will
come back and correct that.
But during that same period of time congestion has gotten
substantially worse. Condition of roadways has marginally
improved as has safety marginally improved. Where we are seeing
a big degradation in the system is in performance.
Mr. DeFazio. The bottom line is you think we do not need
more Federal investment. We need congestion pricing, force
people off the road, and we need more private-public
partnerships. That is your alternate financing that you are
talking about?
Secretary Peters. I wouldn't say it exactly like you did.
What I would say is we need to make a better, more efficient
use of the----
Mr. DeFazio. Would you agree that there is any need for
more Federal investment, just a smidgen?
Secretary Peters. Sir, there may well be. Our first
obligation to the taxpayer is to spend the dollars we have at
the highest priority level.
Mr. Oberstar. My proposal will do that. We have agreed on
75 percent.
Mr. LaTourette.
Mr. LaTourette. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and, Madam
Secretary, thank you for being here and thank you for the
administration's response to what happened in Minnesota and
thank you for your service.
I also want to thank the Chairman of the Full Committee.
After the events that occurred in Minnesota on August 2nd, the
Chairman was kind enough to send around a list, map of the
bridges in our districts that were labeled as structurally
deficient.
And it gets me into the point that Mr. Rahall made. I had
two in my district, and I am happy to report that one has been
repaired pursuant to an earmark in TEA-21. When I was home, I
drove under the second one that is being repaired thanks to an
earmark in SAFETEA-LU. So I do subscribe to the theory that
there are good diversions and bad diversions. It really depends
on whose ox is being gored when you determine what an
appropriate diversion is.
And then the covered bridge issue. Ashtabula County in the
northeastern corner of Ohio is the home of probably more
covered bridges than anywhere outside of New England.
I always viewed the highway bill and the highway program as
something that not only takes care of our infrastructure, roads
and bridges but also enhances the quality of life in areas that
we live.
I know that some people chafe about the fact that there are
diversions for scenic highways and covered bridges and
diversions for the transit program, but I would suggest that
what we have is a 1956 model wherein we funded our Nation's
infrastructure, at least at the Federal level, through the
Federal excise tax on gasoline when most people probably had
one car, most people did not have cars that were getting 30
miles per gallon, and now on the drawing board we have cars
getting 60 miles per gallon. If we bring turbo diesel into this
country, we are going to have 85 miles to the gallon.
So the model, that we're going to say that that 18.4 cents
is sufficient and that is going to be the Federal investment--
quite frankly, as a long-time Member of the Committee who has a
great deal of respect for you and the administration, my
greatest disappointment in the 13 years I have been on this
Committee was the fight we had with the administration over the
highway bill.
When the Department of Transportation said that the cost
should be $375 billion over the 6-year period of the bill and
we had to fight for 2 years, the bill was delayed for 2 years,
getting between 256--can it be 289? Can it be 301? And all the
while our infrastructure was lacking.
I would just hope--and I know you do not get to make all of
the calls. There is a reason the administration's approval
rating is down in the polls. There is a reason that the U.S.
Congress' approval rating is down in the polls. One of my
favorite lines in this Congress was Senator Trent Lott said
this Congress cannot pass gas. And the reason for that is
people expect us to do better.
I think Mr. Rahall's point is right on the money. To say
that all things are not on the table, whether it is increased
gasoline taxes, users' fees, public-private partnership,
whether it is a re-examination of our bridge program and
privatization, I think cheats the American motoring public; and
I would hope that the administration would rethink its position
and work in a way to finally get a bipartisan success.
Mr. Oberstar could write a bill that would never get the
administration's support, wouldn't get a lot of Republican
support. The administration could do vice-versa. But that is
not why we are here. I think we are here--my constituents when
I am home saying mixed views on what is going on in Iraq, but
they do say, how come their roads are in better shape than our
roads? I think that is not an appropriate place for us to be in
in this country.
I am happy to say I think you are doing a good job, but I
would hope at least part of the administration's message on
this bridge crisis that we have in this country would be that
we will consider all options. You do not have to promise to
accept any option but that you would consider all options as we
move forward.
Because, quite frankly, I saw when Tom Petri was the
Chairman of the Highway Subcommittee as the SAFETEA-LU bill was
being drafted, I saw the projections of what $0.05 a gallon
would get. It really doesn't fix the problem. So you cannot get
there from here just by looking at the gasoline tax. It will
take a blend of things. And I hope that the administration will
work with the Chairman and those on our side of the aisle and
come up with something that fixes the problem, rather than
figuring out we cannot fix the problem.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Oberstar. I thank the gentleman for enunciating the
formula by which we will proceed in the future. Thank you.
Mr. Capuano.
Mr. Capuano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Madam Secretary, you said you think you have enough money
to fix all these 6,000 structurally deficient bridges.
Secretary Peters. Sir, what I said is if we were spending
money appropriately there is enough money in the total amount
that we are collecting today, yes.
Mr. Capuano. And do you have enough money to fix the other
66,000 structurally deficient bridges that are not part of the
National Highway System?
Secretary Peters. Sir, I do not know that. That is
something I would have to analyze.
Mr. Capuano. If you fixed all the structurally deficient
bridges, would you have enough money after that to then deal
with the structurally deficient bridges that deal with mass
transit or rail?
Secretary Peters. That, sir, is covered, I believe, in the
conditions and performance report for transit that I do not
have with me.
Mr. Capuano. If we just do structurally deficient bridges,
is there enough money left over to deal with anything else? I
am trying to prioritize in my own mind structurally deficient
bridges for mass transit, structurally deficient bridges for
rail.
Secretary Peters. For rail and for mass transit, I will
differentiate the numbers that I will give you, but the numbers
that we have used is, according to FHWA estimates, it would
cost $40 billion a year.
Mr. Capuano. I know the numbers.
Secretary Peters. This is all infrastructure. This is all
highway and bridge infrastructure.
Mr. Capuano. Well, I am trying to prioritize. There are
highway bridges, there are mass transit bridges, rail bridges.
We have not talked about tunnels. Do we have any money to even
inspect tunnels? Since we do not inspect any tunnels in America
right now that we are required--do we have money to do that?
Secretary Peters. We need to look at what was left of the
money. You are correct. The Federal government does not inspect
tunnels. The State governments do.
Mr. Capuano. If we inspect those tunnels, would we have any
money left to fix anything we found that was wrong in any of
the tunnels across America?
Secretary Peters. I would prefer not to speculate.
Mr. Capuano. If we did all the bridges and all the tunnels,
would we then have any money left to deal with the dangerous
intersections? According to the NTSB, it has 19,000 accidents
per day, killing 43,000 people per year. Do we have enough to
deal with those intersections.
Secretary Peters. Sir, the data I have in front of me today
is for highways and bridges; and we could maintain it to
current conditions for $40 billion, improve it for $60 billion.
There is a total----
Mr. Capuano. And we have enough money to do that.
Once we are finished with the bridges, the tunnels--just
the structurally deficient ones, we are not talking about the
80,000 obsolete ones. We are just talking about the
structurally deficient ones. Do we have enough money to deal
with the typical highway maintenance problems that we have
across this country?
Secretary Peters. Yes, sir, I believe we would.
Mr. Capuano. We would have money to then deal with the mass
transit and rail maintenance issues?
Secretary Peters. Those are separate funds. I will give you
those.
Mr. Capuano. Do we have any money left to do any of the
expansion that some of us want to do with mass transit or rail
anyplace in this country?
Secretary Peters. Sir, the figures that I have for highway
indicate that we could substantially improve for $60 billion.
We are collecting greater than 70 today.
Mr. Capuano. I look forward to getting the numbers, because
I am not sure--I look forward to getting them, but it strikes
me as almost unbelievable that you think we can deal with all
these issues with the current funds that we have.
I understand fully well that you may not want to add
additional funds. I respect that. That is a fair philosophical
commentary. But I think it is also fair to tell the American
public the truth. I am not suggesting that you are fudging at
the moment. We will wait to see the numbers. But it will be
amazing to me if we can deal with those priorities. We're not
even talking about the obsolete bridges, and we can even leave
out any expansions of mass transit or any of the other things
we want to do. Just the 72,000 structurally deficient bridges
across this country. If we can get enough money to do that, I
would love to see it; and then I would like to see what we have
left over.
Because I have a particular interest in tunnels, as Mr.
Capka knows. That has been completely overlooked by this
country, and it is a disaster waiting to happen somewhere in
this country. When it does, you will be back; and we will talk
about it all over again.
That does not talk about all the other things we need to
do. That is why I believe we need to add more money to this
system. I do not believe you can make these numbers work. I
hope you can. I hope it is not done with any interesting
accounting. Money is not that fungible. States, cities and
towns do not have the money.
I have 21 structurally deficient bridges in my district,
just national highways. I will tell you I have asked for
earmarks for several of them, and it kind of bothers me that we
do not have a prioritization on those things.
I totally agree, we should prioritize. We shouldn't be
spending Federal taxpayer money without setting those
priorities, and I look forward to doing it, but I also believe
it is not the only thing we should be doing.
I honestly believe when everything is said and done, that
is all the money you will have, you will not be able to fix
72,000 bridges when the DOT IG said it will be $65 billion just
to fix the 6,000 NHS bridges. We will see, and I look forward
to those numbers.
Mr. DeFazio. Will the gentleman yield?
We really need a point of clarification here. You keep
throwing out 40 and 60. When I was questioning, Mr. Capka
agreed that just to keep the current levels of congestion on
well-maintained roads would be $78.8 billion a year. What is
the 40 and 60 and how does that relate? You are saying for 60
we can improve everything. He is saying 78.8 just to maintain
the current levels of congestion. How do those numbers----
Secretary Peters. Mr. DeFazio, the 40 and 60 refer to the
condition. They do not refer to the performance. We have in the
most current version of the C&P report begun to address
performance. But what we are talking about of the numbers that
I am citing----
Mr. DeFazio. What is 78.8? I thought that was current
performance, i.e., congestion and meeting the maintenance
needs; and she is saying there is something else. She is
saying, for 60 we can fix everything. You say, for 78.8, we can
just keep up with what we have got.
Mr. Capka. Mr. DeFazio, the C&P report conditions and
performance includes investment in both, and what the Secretary
is referring to is the investment in the conditions.
Secretary Peters. Conditions only.
Mr. DeFazio. It is a little narrow, so we are not dealing
with performance.
Secretary Peters. Mr. DeFazio, this is precisely why we
choose to use the discretionary money that was made available
to us this year to address congestion, because we do see we
need to improve performance.
Mr. Oberstar. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. LoBiondo.
Mr. LoBiondo. No.
Mr. Oberstar. Not right now.
Mr. Moran.
Mr. Moran. No.
Mr. Oberstar. Mr. Brown?
Mr. Brown of South Carolina. Thank you, Mr. Chairman; and
thank you for holding this hearing today.
Thank you, Madam Secretary, for coming to be a part of this
discussion.
I applaud the Chairman for bringing this meeting, because
of the tragedy we had in Minnesota. But, Madam Secretary, you
know that as we look at the overall performance of our highways
we are losing some 40,000 of our citizens every year to tragedy
on the highway. I would hope that we would not look at this in
the narrow view, but the broad view to come up with some kind
of overall policy that will address the total safety of our
highways. I know we have got a lot of congestion, and that we
are losing a lot of dollars on the road, but public safety is
certainly a major concern of mine.
I was just wondering how we are proceeding with the
SAFETEA-LU commission. How is that coming along and when do see
that we might get some response from that? Not only a response
over the overall view of the highway system but maybe some
alternative funding.
We might want to look at a different way of funding our
bridges and our highways other than a gas tax. Maybe there
should be some other designated funding sources that we could
use that would be more consistent with the continuing needs in
the transportation system.
Secretary Peters. Congressman Brown, thank you for the
comment.
The 1901 commission which was created by SAFETEA-LU has
been actively working for a little over a year right now.
Secretary Mineta was the original chair of that commission. I
now chair that commission, and we do intend to have to Congress
reports by the end of this year.
Safety is one of our primary concerns. It is a critically
important issue, and we need to address and certainly are
addressing that, as well as condition, as well as performance
and as well as looking at what the Federal role should be and
the Federal contribution should be.
We are looking at a number of alternative revenue sources,
including gas taxes how to meet those needs. It would be
premature for me to give you any idea of where we are going to
come down on that, since there are 12 independent
commissioners, all of whom are contributing significantly to
that report.
The second commission, the commission that we call the
11142 commission, I met with the chairman, Mr. Rob Atkinson,
yesterday. They also are progressing on a more narrowly
tailored focus, that of financing mechanisms; and they also are
making good progress. I hope to have a report out in early '08.
Thank you, sir.
Mr. Brown of South Carolina. Thank you very much. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank the gentleman.
Ms. Brown.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you for hosting this meeting; and welcome, Madam Secretary.
I just returned from a trip, from Spain, London and Paris;
and I was asking them how do they majorly fund their
transportation needs. And they told me it was not through gas
tax but through toll roads. This is how they fund their major
transportation system. How would some similar system work here
in the U.S.?
Secretary Peters. Congresswoman Brown, thank you, by the
way, for your Chairmanship on the Rail Subcommittee and for the
work you have done on rail safety.
You are correct. In Europe and many other parts of world
they have used a much greater dependence on tolls than we have
in America. Generally, the application here in America I
believe would to be attract private-sector investment and
recoup that investment through tolls or congestion pricing in
our most congested areas.
As I said before you had the opportunity to join the
Committee meeting, there are roads that simply will not meet
that test. We will not be able to use towing or congestion
pricing, and they will require other public investment in those
roads.
Eventually, we may go to a mileage-based system of pricing
where when we use the road, time of day, how congested it is,
how many occupants in our vehicle, all is concerned in
determining the cost in a utility model which has merit and has
been tested in Portland, Oregon, I believe.
You learned a lot on your trip, I hope, and would love to
talk with you more about that.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Absolutely. One of the things in
downtown London, for example, they charge $10 a day per car
for--excuse me, sir, I cannot see the Secretary. Mr. Chairman?
Excuse me--Mr. Kagen, I am sorry.
They charged $10 a day per car to drive in the city. So it
is actually a physical charge on a car to come to like downtown
D.C. Per day.
Secretary Peters. That is accurate. That is not only being
in done in London but also in Stockholm and in Singapore. In
Stockholm, it was done on a trial basis, and the citizens were
asked if they wanted to continue it, and they did.
Here in the United States one of the urban partnership
agreements that we awarded in August, as was referred to
earlier, Mayor Bloomberg in New York has also proposed such a
congestion pricing matter in New York City. It remains to be
seen whether or not a commission that was established by State
legislature will vote to move that forward. But it is something
that we think does have tremendous promise in given areas, as
long as it is looked at very comprehensively; and we are very
anxious to see what the Mayor and citizens of New York want to
do in terms of going forward.
The money that we allocated to them is contingent on their
ability to move forward. If they are not ultimately able to get
the authority to move forward, that money will come back and be
reallocated to other congested areas.
Ms. Brown of Florida. The spin-off is that it just drove up
the ridership on the mass--train, and that is the key. It
helped congestion, pollution. It was just a win-win for
everyone.
One other question, have you received any feedback yet on
the inspection of the 750 steel arch bridges and the
conditions?
Secretary Peters. We have, and I will ask the Administrator
to give you that information.
Mr. Capka. Yes, ma'am, we have. We hope to have all the
information in by the end of November, but now we have better
than 50 percent of reports in from the States, and the reports
are coming in with bridges in very good shape. We have not
uncovered a systemic problem at all with the reports coming in
thus far.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Can we get a tentative update of
where we are?
Mr. Capka. Yes, ma'am. We will provide that to you.
Ms. Brown of Florida. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will yield
back my time.
Mr. Oberstar. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from North
Carolina, Mr. Coble.
Mr. Coble. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have been tied up
with a Judiciary hearing. I apologize for my belated arrival.
It is good to have you all with us.
For the past 5 or 6 years, Mr. Chairman, each time I speak
to a civic club back home or a public group, I always have
directed attention to our aging national infrastructure,
including bridges. Unfortunately, my words were prophetic; and
I am sure others have uttered the same thing here.
Secretary, let me ask you a question. If that was asked
prior to my arrival, I apologize. Some of the structurally
deficient bridges in my area and I'm sure in the areas of my
colleagues are very costly as far as repairing them and working
them up to snuff. Previously, we granted States the ability to
transfer dollars dedicated for bridge funding to a National
Highway System or surface transportation program. I am applying
hindsight now, Secretary. That is always 20/20, as you know.
Should we continue to grant this authority, place a greater
emphasis on using dedicated highway bridge funding for its
intended purpose or permit States to transfer funding into a
highway bridge program to address the deficiencies?
Secretary Peters. Congressman, what I believe we should do
is be sure we are establishing the proper standard for which
bridges should be maintained and only allow a transfer of money
out of those dedicated accounts if the State can demonstrate
that their bridges are meeting those criterion. This is part of
what we will be looking at in the review of the bridge
inspection program that the Inspector General, who you'll be
hearing from a little later, is looking at.
I believe it is based on standards. You are meeting the
standards and have the ability to transfer the money to other
purposes. If you are not, you may not. You must meet those
standards.
Mr. Coble. I thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Oberstar. Mr. Braley.
Mr. Braley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Madam Secretary, I was very pleased to learn that in your
opening remarks you identified your firsthand experience as a
former State DOT director, and I appreciate that very much.
Have you ever had an opportunity to work on a bridge crew?
Secretary Peters. Sir, I have not. I have done flagging, I
have done a variety of things but not on a bridge crew per se,
I have observed it being done.
Mr. Braley. I had the good fortune to work on a bridge crew
for 4 years, and one of the things that we often don't focus on
in these discussions is that thousands of men and women put
their lives on the line every day to build and repair our aging
infrastructure all over this country.
One of the things you learn very quickly when you are
working on those jobs is that there is a lot more to putting
together our aging infrastructure than just dollars and cents.
One of the things we know is when we commit to reinvesting to
an infrastructure there are ripple affects far beyond safety,
far beyond transportation and goods and services and into the
economy and all over the country.
One of the other things you quickly learn when working for
a county road department is there are ripple effects with
highway projects that are being done at a Federal level and
then Federal right of way gets abandoned to States on existing
Federal highways that are no longer subject to the same type of
road use and then those States end up abandoning to county
government, and all this gets passed on and on and on.
The cost of maintaining many of these structurally
deficient and obsolete bridges is borne by lower level
government agencies who many times do not have the resources
that we do here in Congress. So as someone who represents a
State that ranks number four in terms of overall structurally
deficient bridges as a percentage of its population, this is a
very acute concern to the Highway Department of Transportation
and to many county supervisors all across our State in 99
separate jurisdictions.
So what I would like you to do is talk about your
perspective as a former State DOT director and how our Federal
system of highway repairs and funding is impacted by all of
these decisions we are making that are important not just from
a safety standpoint but from the other areas.
Secretary Peters. Different States do things differently.
For example, in Virginia, they are responsible for the entire
system on primary and secondary roads. In other States and my
home State of Arizona, that responsibility goes to county
governments and ultimately to city governments as well.
The national bridge inventory and national bridge
inspection standards apply to all of those bridges. This was
something after the tragedy in West Virginia that was pointed
out how important it is to apply those standards to all
bridges.
The funding in the Federal aid highway program is intended
primarily for those who are federally aid eligible. States also
have funding sources and can make those discretionary funding
sources available to county and city governments. In Arizona,
we allocated approximately half of the State discretionary
revenues to local governments to use on their system.
If there was a case where the Federal government was taking
a bridge or road off that system and it was no longer part of
the Federal aid system and National Highway System, perhaps
then it had to be in good operating condition before it could
be then allocated to a county government or to a city
government. So before any transfer was made, it was insured
that that infrastructure, whether it be a roadway or a bridge,
was in good operating condition.
Mr. Braley. But I want to clarify that. Because we have
already talked in this hearing about the fact that many of
these bridges that are classified as structurally deficient
does not necessarily mean that those bridges are unsafe. So
when you are talking about the classification of being in good
operating condition, does that mean that they cannot appear on
a structurally deficient listing or functionally obsolete
listing?
Secretary Peters. In my experience, sir, that was the case.
I do not know if that is the case in every State. I know you
will be hearing from county officials a little later who may
give more clarity to that. But I did always feel as the person
responsible that we should not put problems on county or city
governments who had even fewer resources to deal with than we
in the State level had.
Mr. Braley. One of the other questions I had relates to the
rescissions we have been talking about. One of the things I
have not heard you or the Administrator discuss is whether or
not you think the policy that is currently in place with the 50
percent allocation is working, and I would like to hear from
both of you on whether you think it needs to be adjusted.
Secretary Peters. I will give you my thoughts and then
certainly ask the Administrator to give his.
I believe what we should do in the aftermath of this
tragedy and looking over the bridge program is to establish
standards, ensure those standards are accurate to which the
bridges need to be maintained and not allow transfer of money
out of those accounts unless the State can demonstrate they are
maintaining their bridges to that level or to that standard.
Rick, please, you work more closely with this.
Mr. Capka. Yes, sir. In the transfer in the rescissions
that States have been dealing with, many of the States--in
fact, if you take all 50 and the District and Puerto Rico in
aggregate, there are more funds transferred in from some of the
other programs into the bridge investment than there are
rescissions and transfers going out. I believe--and you will
have an opportunity to check with some of the State officials
later on--that the transfers and rescissions are made to create
a more flexible ability to use those funds. In the aggregate,
they get rolled back up into the bridge investment.
I do think there can be some improvements made. Right now,
the allocation of the bridging dollars, the apportionment that
is done is based upon the condition of the bridge, as opposed
to other characteristics which are just as important, the ADT,
the average daily traffic demands on the bridge, the
maintenance requirements and the maintenance investments, these
preventive maintenance investments being made on bridges, the
asset management programs that are in place are all very
important to ensure investments are made wisely and
effectively. I think we can expand the criteria against which
these apportionments are made for bridge funding.
Mr. Braley. Thank you.
Mr. Oberstar. Gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. LoBiondo?
Mr. Boozman.
Mr. Boozman. I really do not have any questions.
The only thing I would say as we go about this, we are
talking specifically about bridges, but I think more than ever
that we really have to--the rail, the highway, the waterways,
it is an entity now, and as we do not repair it or locks and
dams and things like that--we can have a whole separate hearing
and hopefully we would not have a tragedy that brings that
about, although we have our normal hearings--but as those go
into disrepair and not being used, and that forces that traffic
onto the highways.
Also, our rivers and things could stand a lot more traffic.
So, again, as we think about these things besides--and I
think I would echo what was said earlier, I think everything is
on the table. We really do have to look at all these things.
But, also, I would just encourage you to think in those
terms of it being a total system. Some of our interstates--we
could have north, south corridors that are not finished. We
need to look at that.
The other thing is, besides potential tax increases or
things like that, I think we really need to look at incentives.
How do you incentivize people not to do it in a positive way
rather than--and, again, I think everything is on the table.
But the other thing we have got going on in this country is
a tremendous amount of obesity. We are in poor health as a
country, and a lot of that is due to the fact that everybody in
the family has a car now. I mean everybody from the teenage
kids--when I go to church, many times we will have four cars
there. Because I will be there, my wife sings in two services,
my two daughters will meet me from someplace else. A few years
ago that did not happen.
So, again, that's just kind of for what it is worth. Thank
you.
Mr. Oberstar. I think the gentleman.
I just want to pick up on Mr. Capka's response to Mr.
Braley. You suggested broadening the criteria. That is a very
valuable contribution. It is what I do in this bridge proposal.
To include vehicle miles traveled on bridges, mobility,
regional and national mobility, that is what we will do in this
new iteration.
Mrs. Napolitano.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you very much. I, too, was
unfortunately delayed. Pleasure seeing you, Madam Secretary.
I certainly agree with my colleagues in some of the
questions about the bridges. There are 15 in my area alone, it
has been covered.
My concern at this point is into railroad bridges. I have
not heard anybody mention those. You have no jurisdiction over
them. There is no accountability for maintenance and their
upkeep. I know we have not heard of any catastrophes, but most
of them were built in the '30s.
Mrs. Napolitano. And with the increase in traffic and the
increase in the weight that they are bearing, how are we going
to be able to say to the general public, "You will be safe,
even with the rail bridges in your backyard, from a
catastrophic release of chemicals," if you will.
What are you doing? What is being planned? Are you going to
have something that is going to address getting the railroads
to comply with an upgrading and the standards of the new
technology?
Secretary Peters. Congresswoman Napolitano, you raise a
very important question, and others have asked about this. But
to be more specific about what is happening, as you mentioned,
FRA does not have regulatory authority over the railroad
bridges. We do, however, have the ability to establish safety
policies for bridges and are moving forward to doing so.
A recent GAO report cited the fact that we needed to do
more in working with the railroads to improve rail bridges, and
therefore, FRA is already working to develop appropriate
criteria to better ensure that potential bridge safety risks on
railroads are properly identified, evaluated and dealt with.
The FRA has also--I am sorry--soon will be issuing a formal
safety advisory on bridge safety issues, as well; and the
administrator, Administrator Boardman, in June of 2007
initiated a railroad bridge safety roundtable to begin
discussions with the railroad industry to ensure that we are
having proper follow-up--proper evaluation and proper follow-
up--to ensure bridge safety on the rail lines, as well.
Mrs. Napolitano. Are you setting aside program money to be
able to do the reports of the requests for the intensive, in-
depth analysis, if you will?
Secretary Peters. Congresswoman, I do not have that data
with me. I would be happy to look that up and get that back to
you. I am thinking they are, since we are moving forward with
this, but I would rather be accurate on the record.
Mr. Oberstar. If the gentlewoman would yield----
Mrs. Napolitano. I will do so.
Mr. Oberstar. --Mr. Cummings and I and Mr. Mica in the last
Congress asked the GAO for a report, an in-depth analysis and a
report, on rail bridge safety. That report was delivered just
last week, and we have not been able yet to get enough copies
to distribute it to all Members on the Committee. But it is
available online, and the Committee will provide the
gentlewoman with a copy of it.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, sir.
What really is also, I would say--important to all of us, I
would believe--is that we have a plan that is going to help us
address some of the issues and ensure that those bridges are
structurally safe, given their age and especially in an area
like mine----
Secretary Peters. Yes.
Mrs. Napolitano. --where we have increased traffic and
expect more--tenfold, I understand--that they are going to be
sufficiently well-structured to withstand that additional load
and the increase in traffic; and those are some of the things
that I had in mind.
Are you going to create any regulations? Do you believe
that it is a necessity to be able to do that?
Secretary Peters. Ma'am, on the rail bridges, we will be
looking at that. We have not yet arrived at that decision and
want to work first with the rail industry to determine what we
can voluntarily do together, and I think that it is our first
course of action, but we have not conclusively reached a
decision yet.
Mrs. Napolitano. Do you have any reports of any accidents
or any damages from any failure of rail bridges?
Secretary Peters. Ma'am, I do not have that data with me.
To my knowledge and in recent history, I do not; but I do not
want to say that without getting the data, and we will do that
and get back to you.
Mrs. Napolitano. I would really appreciate it.
Then there was a question that one of my colleagues left
with me. We are having the hearing because of the bridge safety
issues, and the question he left was, what responsibility are
you and the administration willing to accept for the condition
of our bridges on the National Highway System?
Secretary Peters. Ma'am, I do think there is, indeed, a
Federal responsibility--or a Federal interest, more
accurately--in ensuring that the National Highway System, which
includes the interstate highway system, does have adequately
maintained bridges, and I think as we move forward both in the
Committee deliberations--or in commission deliberations,
rather--that I am having now with one of the commissions
established in SAFETEA-LU, it is important to work with you
during the next authorization period so that we do address
those issues.
Whether or not all of the funding has to come from the
Federal Government, I think remains to be seen, but certainly,
it is in the national interest to make sure those bridges are
maintained appropriately.
Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you very much.
I yield back.
Secretary Peters. Thank you.
Mr. Oberstar. Mr. Diaz-Balart.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I, first, want to thank the Secretary for her service.
Also, as a Representative of south Florida where we are
benefiting from the urban partnership, I want to thank you for
that. It is great to see, Madam Secretary, that you are clearly
thinking outside the box, and south Florida is one of those
areas that I think will benefit dramatically from this
innovation.
And I think everybody agrees that Florida DOT is innovative
and that it is doing a great job. When you look at, for
example, bridge safety, there again, while some States have
gotten some of that money and have spent it elsewhere, Florida
has done, I think, a very good job. And the numbers speak for
themselves in that they do emphasize bridge safety. It should
come as no surprise when you look at the fact that in Florida
the bridges are not only transportation, but they are also
evacuation routes for hurricanes.
My concern, Mr. Chairman--and again, I state this up
front--it is unfair because I have not had the chance to look
at the Chairman's bill in depth, but I would be very concerned
at anything that would penalize States like Florida, because
they have done a good job, if all of a sudden the funding is
going to go to those where the bridges have not been taken care
of.
You are clearly disincentivizing and hurting those who have
done a good job, whom we should be incentivizing and not
disincentivizing, number one.
Number two, I agree with what Mr. Mica said, which is, I
think we have to look at the overall plan. We cannot just focus
on the very important tragedy du jour or problem du jour, which
we are going to have continuously. And we also need to focus on
that--and this Congress did; with you, Madam Secretary, and
your leadership and the Chairman, in particular with, for
example, the bridge collapse. But, again, we need to make sure
that we do not lose sight of the entire issue, number two.
Number three, I, for one--I do not know about you all, but
people in Florida are hurting with $3 a gallon. And at this
moment, to be looking at increasing gas taxes--when I talk
about looking at the overall picture, we also have to remember
the user and the payer, which is, frankly, what it is all
about; and I think increasing gas taxes now, frankly, would be
a huge problem.
And particularly--and again, as I said, this is an unfair
criticism because I have not had a chance to look at the bill
in depth, but in a cursory review, it looks like, for example,
Florida would be paying in a lot more than it would be getting
out because it has been doing a good job.
I am concerned about what the rate of return would be. I am
also concerned about creating a new program as opposed to
fixing a program that already exists.
Lastly, are we making sure that the States are using their
funds correctly? Florida seems to be doing that, obviously, at
least better than most States. Are other States not doing that?
If not, what can we do to fix that?
Madam Secretary, I think you have mentioned that time and
time again. I appreciate that. I just want to make sure that we
do not take any steps that, frankly, disincentivize the ones
who are doing a good job, and incentivize or continue to
incentivize those who are not doing a good job.
I support State flexibility, but I need to make sure that
that flexibility is accompanied by some common sense, and that
if States are supposed to be using those funds for bridges and
they are not, that they are not then compensated or given
incentives to doing that in the future. And that is my concern
with what seems to be in this bill.
I agree with the Chairman that about 75 percent of the bill
sounds really good. As to the other 25 percent, in a cursory
review--and again, I state that, Mr. Chairman, overall, without
having the opportunity to obviously spend too much time on it--
I am concerned with some of the issues that I just brought up.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Oberstar. All right. I thank the gentleman for his
observation, and I respect his concern.
And out of concern for that very issue raised, we have a
provision requiring the maintenance of effort by States, that
is, taking into consideration the degree to which a State is
willing to match the Federal funds, the degree to which States
have participated in the bridge program in the past, to which
they have transferred funds out of the bridge program; and
those will be factors that we consider in the prioritization
and in the allocation of funds.
The matter of return on equity was something that we have
debated diligently since ISTEA in 1991, TEA-21 in 1998 and with
SAFETEA. We have gotten much closer to a fair return on equity
in the SAFETEA legislation. This is a 3-year sunsetted
proposal, however, targeted specifically to structurally
deficient bridges, and it is limited to that purpose alone. So
it is a different category than the overall surface
transportation program which we will address again in 2009, and
I expect the gentleman to be a part of that discussion.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. And I look forward to working with the
honorable Chairman on all of these issues. These are important
issues.
I want to thank him for bringing up the debate. It is
important. I have some concerns, but that is what the process
is all about.
Mr. Oberstar. Great. Then I invite the gentleman to give
further consideration as he has had an opportunity to evaluate
the bill.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Oberstar. Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, as I have listened to my friends from this
side of the aisle and as I have heard it in listening to some
of the debate in my office, there seems to be a discussion, Mr.
Chairman, with regard to dealing with transportation issues in
general. And I think we all know, in being a part of this
Committee, that we have a lot of issues with regard to
transportation.
Well, one of the things that concerns me so often is that
when things like what happened in Minnesota happen--Mr.
Chairman, you have been quoted as saying that this is a very
critical moment, and it highlights that we need to be
addressing a problem. What I fear is that without the efforts
of the Chairman and the kinds of things you are doing, we will
debate the debate and do nothing, and then another catastrophe
will happen in 3 or 4 years, and then we will go through the
same cycle again.
One of the things that concerns me, Madam Secretary, is the
whole idea of inspections and whether we have enough
inspectors. The Chairman spoke just a moment ago in reference
to a matter that was raised by Mrs. Napolitano, that we had
requested this rail study of tunnels and bridges. One of the
things that it said in that study was that there were only five
FRA inspectors for bridges. This is with regard to rail. And in
a few moments, we are going to have folks from DOT, their IG,
and the NTSB talk about inspectors for our highways, and I am
just wondering, what is our situation with regard to
inspectors? Because certainly, if we do not have the man- and
the womanpower to inspect those bridges--you know, we can do a
whole lot of things. We can talk from now until forever, but if
they are not being inspected, and we do not have the personnel,
I am just wondering, you know, whether that is something that
you are concerned about.
Secretary Peters. Congressman Cummings, I am concerned.
First of all, let me acknowledge your leadership on this
issue, particularly on tunnels and particularly after the very
tragic incident in the Baltimore area where there was a fire
for a long period of time.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you.
Secretary Peters. I do think we need to do a better job,
and we need to look at our standards. And we are in the process
of establishing standards for tunnels, largely as a result of
your initiative, which I compliment you for, and I also
compliment you, by the way, for the "man- or womanpower" in
terms of inspecting those bridges or those tunnels.
In terms of FRA, I do not have that information right with
me, sir, but I would agree with you that we can have the best
standards in the world, but if we do not have an adequate
number of inspectors out there, they are not going to do us any
good.
And those are some of precisely the issues as it relates to
this tragedy in Minnesota, that I would like the inspector
general to look at. How are we inspecting today? Are we
inspecting in the right way? Are we using the data that we get
as a result of those inspections in the right way? Are we doing
an adequate job?
I look forward to reporting back to you when that report is
complete.
Mr. Cummings. I look forward to your response then.
Let me just ask you this, Madam Secretary, if in the
meantime--and you know, things around here happen slowly. In
the meantime, if you were to find that we have insufficient
inspectors, are you prepared to act or to--do you follow what I
am saying? I do not want something to happen in the interim
between your getting your information and then possibly coming
up with the personnel--I mean, then something happens, and then
we have got a problem.
Secretary Peters. No. You make a very good point, sir, and
I absolutely am prepared if, in the short-term, we learn that
we are not doing an adequate job of having the right number of
personnel out there to act. In fact, in our budget submittal
with the FRA, in particular, we ensure that we are not reducing
the numbers of inspectors, but more to looking at making sure
that we had everyone we needed out there.
But let me go back and look at the data. I will get you
numbers. But absolutely, yes, if we do not have the right
number of people doing the job, then we must deal with that.
Mr. Cummings. Just very briefly, the inspector general of
the USDOT has written in his testimony that the Federal Highway
Administration cannot really provide data on how much Federal
funding is actually spent on structurally deficient bridges.
Do you intend to implement a system that will allow such
expenditures to be tracked?
Secretary Peters. Sir, if I could have the administrator
answer that question.
Mr. Capka. Yes, Congressman Cummings. I was aware of the
inspector general's observation there, and it is a matter of
taking the data that we do have within our national bridge
inventory and, in a way, manually right now cross-checking it
with bridge codes that we do have.
So it can be done, but it is a very laborious task of
making that match. I think the requirement is for us to adjust
the database that we do have to make that kind of analysis very
easy to do.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Oberstar. I thank the gentleman.
Mrs. Miller.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I certainly want to commend you for holding this hearing.
It is of a critical nature, certainly, and it is very
appropriate that we dissect all of these issues today.
You know, I guess the reality is--the brutal reality is,
our Nation just has not invested enough in our Nation's
infrastructure over the years; and it is not only a question of
safety, but I think it is a question economically as well. You
can always think about how economics has followed the
transportation grid throughout our history, whether they
followed the wagon trains out West or the railroads or the
interstates, now the aviation links, et cetera.
Oftentimes, as well, to be very brutally frank, we have
wasted incredible amounts of money on projects that maybe were
not so necessary. You know, I do not know about the Big Dig,
and I will not go through all of these things, but there are a
lot of areas where we could have spent money more
appropriately.
I have not had a chance, Mr. Chairman, to look at your
recommendation, your proposal. I certainly want to do so. I
will say, coming from the State of Michigan that is a donor
State--it has always been a donor State--we are always very
hesitant about any idea raising the Federal taxes, the
transportation taxes, because we do not get our fair share as
it is. And so we do have that hesitancy, and we think about
whether or not it would be better for us to raise our own money
internally, and at least we can spend it where we think we need
to have it spent.
I will just make a couple of observations and then ask a
question as well. I just want to mention--and I am sure every
Member of Congress has one. I have my report here from my
Michigan Department of Transportation. I am looking at all of
these little green dots all over the State of Michigan of
structurally deficient bridges that have been identified by
MIDOT, and I have my own PowerPoint here in my own
congressional district.
Actually, I-94 and I-69 both have their genesis in my
congressional district. At the beginning of both of those
interstates is something called the Blue Water Bridge, which is
actually the second busiest commercial artery on the northern
tier of our Nation. I cross over it often. They have a bridge
authority, and so they are inspected annually, and apparently,
they meet--I should not say they meet--they exceed all of the
Federal requirements. However, they do have a dedicated revenue
stream.
Three days ago, I transited the Mackinac Bridge, which goes
between the two peninsulas here, which is about 5-miles long. I
think it is the longest suspension bridge in the free world,
and it is also run by an authority, inspected annually, and it
exceeds all Federal requirements.
So we were talking about toll roads, and I will just point
that out as some fantastic examples of bridges that do not have
problems.
I have a little bridge literally by my home, and we live on
a river. Our local road commission is closing this bridge. It
is the only way to transit in a huge area, and we are all, you
know, obviously very exercised about that, but the local road
commission--I do not think MIDOT has even worked with them on
this, but they have put a weight restriction on the road, and
now they only have a single lane that can transit, et cetera.
And I guess I am pointing out some of these examples
because there is a question that has already been asked, but I
think it is so important that I am going to ask it again
because, Madam Secretary, you just outlined, I believe, an idea
essentially saying that there should be some mandating from the
Federal level--I do not want to mischaracterize you, so I am
going to ask you this question--that the States would utilize
the bridge funding and could only move the dollars if they
could demonstrate some overriding need. And I guess my question
would be, again, how the Federal highway has actually
encouraged the States to make sure that they are expending the
funds for bridge work appropriately.
Also, has the administration actually made a formal
proposal, since the tragedy in Minneapolis, about this? If not,
can we have some expectation of looking at a formal proposal,
whether that is requiring legislation or promulgating rules or
in the statute, what form might that take?
Secretary Peters. Congresswoman Miller, we have done
several things since the tragedy in Minneapolis.
First, we issued two advisories to the State. The first of
those was to inspect all similar bridges, bridges which have
fractured critical Members, which the engineer at the table
here with me will explain in more detail if necessary. The
second advisory was to be mindful of how they were loading
construction materials and equipment in the event that they
were doing construction on bridges.
These were issued with an abundance of caution based on
discussions that we have had to date about the particular
bridge that collapsed, but I want to reiterate we do not know
yet why it collapsed, and we do not want to jump to any
conclusions.
The Chairman of the NTSB certainly can talk more about that
than I could, but what we are doing is asking each of our
division administrators--the Federal Highway has a division
administrator in every State--asking them to take these
inventories such as you have, go to their States, talk with
them about what they are doing. If they are flexing money, why
is it a higher use?
Those are things that are going on right now; and several
of the State DOT Directors, I believe, are here and might talk
a little bit more about that on a subsequent panel, and Rick
can as well. But in the long-term, ma'am, we do want to look at
the bridge inspection program. We want to look at what did
happen in Minneapolis on the I-35W, and we likely will make
recommendations, but--I would rather have that data in hand,
but in the short-term, if we have any concern that a bridge is
not safe, it would either be load-controlled, meaning it could
only carry lighter loads, or it would be closed. And that is
standard practice. No State DOT secretary, no county engineer
or city engineer and certainly not the administrator, nor would
I ever allow what we deemed to be an unsafe bridge to stay in
operation without some modifications.
Rick, is there anything you would add?
Mr. Capka. Madam Secretary, that is a great summary. And,
ma'am, I also wanted to emphasize that we do have structurally
deficient bridges that we are looking at, but it does not, as
we have said before, equate to unsafe. And there are certain
things that attract a State Department of Transportation's
attention immediately when they are doing an inspection and a
critical finding, and it does not have to wait for an
appropriation to provide resources to fix that immediate
problem.
Those critical findings really jump to the top of the
priority list in any event, and they are handled very
expeditiously. Sometimes it is a posting of the bridge.
Sometimes it may be a closing of the bridge until the correct
remedial action can be taken, but that is the process that we
have in place to ensure that the public is not put at risk when
they use our infrastructure.
Mr. Oberstar. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
Mrs. Miller. Thank you.
Mr. Oberstar. Madam Secretary, I know we had a time limit.
We have only two Members remaining--Mr. Hall and Ms. Fallin--if
you can spare a little more time for them.
Mr. Hall.
Mr. Hall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Madam Secretary and Administrator Capka, thank you for your
testimony. I am looking forward to the results of the report
when it comes out. Just quickly, I want to ask a couple of
questions.
Are the current intervals between inspections too long to
prevent failure? Does finding a deficiency trigger a more
frequent inspection to monitor any possible deterioration?
Secretary Peters. Sir, in terms of the duration between the
inspections right now, we do not have any evidence to date to
indicate that that is not sufficient. However, again, I have
asked the inspector general to look at that as part of his
analysis, and if there are any issues that cause concern, even
outside of the normal inspection interval, State or Federal
highway personnel in the State can ask for an inspection out of
cycle, a more current inspection to happen; and that would be
very important, I think, in terms of making sure that we are
doing what we need to do.
We certainly will, as a result of this in-depth look, look
at the inspection program, come back and make further
recommendations, but there is no indication to this at this
point in time that the regular cycle, with ad hoc inspections
as warranted, should happen.
Mr. Hall. Thank you.
As the Congresswoman from Michigan, I am sure, knows,
bridges and other infrastructure in my district face a
challenge from a diversity of weather that States such as
Florida may not face, so we see 100-degree temperatures, and we
see zero-degree or lower temperatures. We see deicing and then
sand and salt and all on the heaviest traffic bridges on the
interstate system and other Federal highways.
Should the inspection regime be modified or has it been
modified to require more frequent inspections in such areas of
extreme weather?
Secretary Peters. That has been a factor in determining the
frequency of inspections, Congressman--again, Rick, if you have
anything more detailed on that--but it is something again we
are looking at, at the robustness of the bridge inspection
program as part of this analysis, and certainly would make
recommendations.
Another factor that you have in your district, as well as
Congresswoman Miller, is that your infrastructure, on average,
is older than that in the Sunbelt States as well. Not only does
it have the weather extremes, but generally it is older
infrastructure. That factor is absolutely taken into account in
terms of determining the frequency.
Mr. Hall. Thank you.
The only other question I had is whether the Department is
considering or any of the technical people on your staff are
considering, with bridges that have deficiencies, limiting in
high-traffic volume times access to the bridge so as to avoid a
full load of vehicles standing on the bridge or moving at very
low speeds, bumper to bumper, on the bridge--you know,
providing a load that may be in excess of the actual bearing
capacity of the bridge. You see this with some highways where
there will be a gated red-green light on it, an on-ramp to
prevent the density from rising above a certain amount. I do
not know if there is a way to do that on a bridge, but it is an
idea.
Secretary Peters. The process you are referring to is ramp
metering. It is often used on freeways to meter the number of
vehicles that go on so that traffic can be kept moving or free-
flowing. To my knowledge, I do not know that it has been used
on a bridge. Bridge calculations, in terms of the weight that a
bridge must be able to support, assume that it is fully loaded
with vehicles, and given whatever type of bridge it is, that
mix could be both passenger vehicles and heavier commercial
vehicles. That weight would be static, and bridge loadings
determined with those things in mind.
I am going to let my engineer talk to you because he is
smarter than I am on those issues.
Mr. Capka. Yes, sir. That is a very good question.
One way of controlling that kind of, I would say, posting
load on the bridge, where you want to limit the bridge, is to
close lanes; and the State DOTs and local engineers do that if
the bridge requires a posting. The inspection cycle for bridges
is 2 years, and many bridges are inspected on an annual basis
and more frequently, depending on the specifics of the bridge.
That is probably a more frequent cycle than you will see in
many of the nations overseas.
So we are looking at that very carefully, and as the
Secretary said, the inspector general has that on his list of
things to observe and will provide us some recommendations.
Mr. Hall. Thank you, sir.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership and for
holding this hearing. I have a statement I will submit for the
record. I yield back.
Mr. Oberstar. Without objection, the statement will be
included in the record.
Ms. Fallin.
Ms. Fallin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate, too,
your holding this hearing for us.
Thank you so much for joining us today, both of you, and
for giving us good information. I, too, am very concerned about
our bridges in our Nation. Of course, in Oklahoma, you might
remember back in the mid-2000s we had a bridge collapse. Of
course, it was through an accident with a boat hitting one of
the pillars of our bridge at River Falls, and I was actually
the lieutenant governor of the State at that time, and was
involved in the reconstruction of that bridge as the Chairman
is going through right now in his State. So it hits close to my
heart when we experience bridge deficiencies in our Nation.
I was looking at our chart for structurally deficient
bridges in the United States, and I see that Oklahoma appears
to be ranked the highest, which does not please me, but I had
the opportunity to meet with our Department of Transportation a
couple of weeks ago and survey some of our bridges in our
State. I am happy to say, Mr. Chairman, that our Oklahoma
legislature has put forth some money, has seen the wisdom of
allocating money in our State funds to match some of our
Federal funds so that we can start rehabbing our bridges in our
State and making that a priority. And I appreciate the
Chairman's comments, and I am looking forward to studying your
proposal on how we can address the needs of our bridges in our
Nation and looking at the States' investing in equity and
matching the Federal share and looking at some innovative ways
that we can encourage our States to participate more, because I
have seen my State do that.
I will just say that I am concerned about how we fund that.
I know that, Ms. Secretary, you tried to address some of the
funding issues here in this meeting, and I hope in a minute you
will continue to discuss how we can use the money that we have
right now with our taxes to meet some of the rehab needs. I
will just say, in my State, we had an initiative several years
ago to raise the gasoline tax, and if I remember right, it fell
by 78 percent, and with the cost of gasoline being as high as
it is right now to our citizens and to our businesses, I know
that that is a big concern. So I hope to work with the Chairman
in looking at what are the alternatives and what are the
innovative ways that we can look at meeting the needs of our
Nation.
I was especially pleased, Mr. Chairman, to hear you
discussing setting priorities in donor States. Oklahoma, of
course, is a big donor State to our transportation fund, and I
know that Secretary Peters has visited with me about how we can
look at some innovative ways for States to get some of that
money back to prioritize their own needs, but my question is:
You had stressed about our need to analyze the competing
forces for Federal transportation spending and how to manage
our existing transportation systems and programs more
efficiently.
Would you agree, in light of the discussion we have had
today on rails, on tunnels, on congestion, that we need an
overall transportation plan for the Nation, not just for the
bridges, but to look at the big picture of how our money is
allocated and what we can do innovatively in our States and, of
course, in working with the Chairman on these ideas.
Secretary Peters. Congresswoman Fallin, that is exactly
what I have been saying this morning.
As important as this issue is--and there are ways in the
short term that we can reprioritize and make sure that we are
making our infrastructure safe and ensuring our infrastructure
is safe, in looking at the condition of that infrastructure.
But I do think we have to look holistically at how our program
is structured today, where and how we are spending money today
and ensuring that we are using data, performance objectives,
benefit/cost analysis, things like that, for determining how
and when we spend our money before we ask Americans to take
more of their hard-earned dollars and pay more gas tax. I think
we owe it to them.
Much like each of our families would do, if we had an
unexpected emergency, we would not immediately go to our bosses
and ask for a salary increase. We would probably say, "How can
we ensure that we are using all of our money in the best way
possible before we go to outside sources?"
That is something where I absolutely applaud the Chairman's
initiative in putting this important issue in front of us. As
he has said, we agree on many things, but I do think we owe it
to the American public to first determine if we are spending
their money wisely and well before we ask them for more money.
Ms. Fallin. Mr. Chairman, I probably should disclose that I
may have a vested interest in the cost of gasoline. I have two
teenagers who are driving, so it is really hitting me hard.
Secretary Peters. Ma'am, I do remember. I was at River
Falls, Oklahoma, the day after the bridge collapsed there due
to a barge hitting the bridge pier. Six people lost their
lives--it was very tragic--and your leadership at the time in
helping reestablish that important infrastructure was integral
to making it happen.
Ms. Fallin. Thank you.
Secretary Peters. Thank you.
Ms. Fallin. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Oberstar. I thank the gentlewoman for her observations.
Mrs. Capito.
Mrs. Capito. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I will defer
questions to the next panel since I just arrived.
Thank you.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you.
Secretary Peters. I would be happy to answer questions on
the record, ma'am.
Mr. Oberstar. Any questions that Members have can be
submitted, and they will be sent to the Secretary for inclusion
in the Committee record.
I just have to observe that, amid all the hand-wringing
about the high price of gasoline and adding 5 cents for the
user fee, I did not see the President jaw-boning OPEC to bring
their price of oil down. There is a lot of jaw-boning about 5
cents that will stay in America for American jobs--American
steel, American cement, American asphalt. For the good jobs,
send the kids to school and pay the mortgages and buy the
snowmobiles and the ATVs.
I do not understand that dichotomy of thinking, but here is
how it looks from the heartland of America. This is from the
International Falls Daily Journal, their editorial a couple of
days after the bridge collapsed and our governor, who twice
vetoed an increase in the user fee passed by the State
legislature, Your Tax Cuts At Work, a tragic commentary on the
state of policy toward investment in infrastructure.
Madam Secretary, you have been most generous with your
time. You have been a very patient and enduring witness. I
thank you for your endurance at the witness table.
Secretary Peters. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Oberstar. Mr. Capka, thank you very much for being with
us.
Now I will proceed to our second panel. The inspector
general of the Department of Transportation, the Honorable
Calvin Scovel; and the Chair of the National Transportation
Safety Board, the Honorable Mark Rosenker.
Welcome, gentlemen.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE CALVIN L. SCOVEL, III, INSPECTOR
GENERAL, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION; AND THE HONORABLE
MARK V. ROSENKER, CHAIRMAN, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY
BOARD
Mr. Oberstar. Mr. Scovel, we will start with you.
Mr. Scovel. Chairman Oberstar, Ranking Member Mica and
Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
testify today on FHWA's National Bridge Inspection Program.
The collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis
has heightened concern about the safety of our bridges
nationwide. Along with the President and the Secretary of
Transportation, I saw the wreckage firsthand; and I join with
you and the Nation in mourning the lives that were lost.
While it is the responsibility of the National
Transportation Safety Board to determine the probable cause of
the Minneapolis collapse, my testimony today will focus on
overall bridge safety inspection and is based on work done by
our audit and engineering staffs over the past 3 years,
including a detailed report issued last year. Our work in this
area is continuing. I would like to briefly highlight three
major issues.
First, Federal oversight of bridge inspections and funding
for bridge rehabilitation and replacement are and will remain
significant issues for DOT. Second, FHWA must continue its
efforts to develop an approach to bridge oversight that is
driven by data and based on risk assessment. This should allow
better identification and targeting of those bridges most in
need of attention. Finally, FHWA can take action now, today,
that will strengthen the National Bridge Inspection Program.
First, oversight and funding. The safety of our Nation's
bridges, which has been a high-priority issue for 40 years,
depends on a complex web of local, State and Federal
activities. States are ultimately responsible for the safety of
their bridges, while FHWA oversees the States and provides
expertise and guidance relating to inspection, repair and
maintenance. Bridges that are part of the National Highway
System--and there are about 116,000--carry over 70 percent of
all bridge traffic nationwide. About 5 percent of these, or
6,100, are currently categorized as "structurally deficient."
The term "structurally deficient" does not necessarily mean
dangerous. However, many in this category can continue to
operate safely if they are properly inspected and their maximum
load limits are correctly calculated and posted. Our written
statement includes a breakdown by State of the number of
structurally deficient bridges in the National Highway System.
Congress has long provided States with funding to correct
structural deficiencies. In 2005, $21.6 billion was authorized
through 2009. However, the need for funding is great, and the
FHWA report issued in January of this year estimated that about
$65 billion could be invested immediately to address current
bridge deficiencies. We will be evaluating funding issues as
part of our ongoing, comprehensive review of the agency's
oversight of the bridge program.
Second, the importance of a data-driven, risk-based
approach: As we reported last year, based on a statistical
projection, more than 10 percent of the highway system's
structurally deficient bridges may have had inaccurate load
ratings. To combat such issues, we recommended that FHWA
develop a data-driven, risk-based approach to address bridge
problems most in need of attention.
FHWA has initiated specific action to improve oversight of
structurally deficient bridges, which we commend. These include
updating guidance to its engineers and to its bridge program
manual, implementing new inventory reports intended to identify
problem areas and load-rating data, and promoting greater use
of computerized bridge inspection management systems. Yet, more
is needed.
As these initiatives advance, it is essential that FHWA, as
part of its overall risk management process, ensure that its
State division offices are conducting rigorous and thorough
assessments of potential risks related to load-rating and
posting practices. As high-risk areas are identified, the
agency must quickly follow up and ensure that actions to
mitigate these risks are taken without delay.
In addition, FHWA needs to reexamine the responsibilities
and time constraints of its division office bridge engineers.
In many cases, we found that the time that these engineers
devote to bridge oversight is limited. For example, an engineer
in one large State said that he spends only about 15 percent of
his time on bridge inspections. The rest goes to other duties.
Third, FHWA can immediately take action to strengthen the
bridge inspection program. The agency needs to be more
aggressive as it moves forward. The success of its initiatives
rests with its 52 division offices, and FHWA will have to
monitor their progress closely. Actions that FHWA can begin to
take now include, first, finalize and distribute the revised
bridge program manual to division offices as soon as possible,
and ensure that bridge engineers make better use of existing
Federal and State data during compliance reviews.
Second, identify and target those structurally deficient
bridges most in need of recalculation of load ratings and
postings using a data-driven, risk-based approach.
Third, ensure that division offices conduct complete,
rigorous, thorough assessments of potential risks associated
with structurally deficient bridges, and define how they will
respond to identify high-priority risks.
Finally, our audit work on these issues will continue in a
comprehensive way, focusing first on assessing the corrective
actions that FHWA has taken in response to our March 2006
report; second, studying several aspects of Federal funding for
bridge repair, including how effectively these funds are being
used and what the funds are being used for; and finally,
reviewing FHWA's oversight activities for ensuring the safety
of National Highway System bridges.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I would be happy
to respond to your questions.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you very much for your comments, and
your complete statement will be included in the record.
Chairman Rosenker.
Mr. Rosenker. Good afternoon, Chairman Oberstar, Ranking
Member Mica and distinguished Members of the Committee. Thank
you for allowing me the opportunity to present testimony on
behalf of the National Transportation Safety Board.
When transportation tragedies occur, the Safety Board helps
restore the public's confidence in our transportation systems
by conducting thorough, objective investigations and making
safety recommendations so similar tragedies will not happen
again.
You will recall a little over a year ago when Congress
turned to the Safety Board to investigate the collapse of
ceiling panels in the Big Dig tunnel in Boston because of our
reputation for thorough, independent accident investigations.
What resulted from that investigation radically changed the
thinking in the highway construction industry about the long-
term structural properties of epoxy in overhead applications.
We intend to do that same thing with our investigation of the
bridge collapse in Minneapolis; that is, find the cause,
propose solutions and help restore public confidence.
Forty years ago, a bridge collapsed in Point Pleasant, West
Virginia, killing 46 people. As a direct result of the Board's
recommendations, the Federal Highway Administration, along with
congressional leadership, established national bridge
inspection standards for locating, inspecting, evaluating, and
correcting bridge deficiencies.
Since then, the Board has investigated every major bridge
collapse in this Nation. In each case, as a result of our
recommendations, improvements have been made.
For example, after the 1983 I-95 bridge collapse into the
Mianus River in Greenwich, Connecticut, the Federal Highway
Administration established a fracture-critical inspection
program. After the 1985 Chickasaw Bogue Highway 43 bridge
collapse in Mobile, Alabama, the Federal Highway Administration
established an underwater bridge inspection program. After the
1987 New York Freeway bridge collapse into the Schoharie River
in Amsterdam, New York, the Highway Administration established
a scour inspection program.
Now let me turn to the issue at hand, the August 1st
collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis. As you know, the
Safety Board seldom rules out any potential causes of an
accident during its initial phases of an investigation until we
have had the opportunity to thoroughly investigate all
potential causes. Much of the bridge superstructure is still
under water, so there is still considerable work remaining for
us to determine why it collapsed. That said, let me tell you
what we do know and, perhaps more importantly, what we do not
know as of today.
First, we know that the bridge was 40 years old and that it
was considered structurally deficient because of a relatively
low rating of its superstructure. We do not know yet whether
the age or the condition of the bridge caused it to collapse.
We know that the deck truss bridge design is now considered
obsolete, and newer bridges no longer use this design because
of the inherent lack of redundancy in the structure. We do not
know yet whether the design of the bridge was a factor in its
collapse.
We know that the bridge is composed of steel beams, held
together by flat gusset plates and that a failure in one of
these plates could have catastrophic consequences. We have not
yet recovered all of the gusset plates, but we have observed
damage in some of the gusset plate locations that warrants
further investigation. We do not know whether these locations
represent primary or secondary failure points.
We know that deck bridge resurfacing work was taking place
at the time of the accident and that 287 tons of construction
materials and equipment were on the span. We are interested in
this additional loading, and we are conducting a very detailed,
finite element analysis of the structure so as to understand
the effect of loading on each component. In addition, we must
complete a sequencing study to determine the earliest
identifiable fracture area or areas.
Finally, we know that 190 people and 110 vehicles were
involved in the collapse; 13 people were killed and 144 persons
were injured. More than 50 agencies initially responded to the
accident, and the Safety Board would like to express our
gratitude to all of the organizations that continue to assist
the Board in this investigation, especially the Federal Highway
Administration, the Minnesota Department of Transportation, the
Minnesota State Patrol, the Minneapolis Police Department, the
Hennepin County Sheriff's Department, and also the folks, the
good folks, of the United States Navy, whose divers were able
to recover the victims that happened as a result of this
accident.
Also, if I can leave my script for a moment, I want to
thank and congratulate and applaud all of the first responders
and civilians who came to help those people. Without their
help, more people would have died. More people would have been
seriously hurt. So I want to thank them, Mr. Chairman, the good
people from Minneapolis and Minnesota who came to help.
Mr. Oberstar. If the Chairman would yield, in fact, the
House is doing that this afternoon in a resolution sponsored by
the gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Ellison, in whose district
the accident occurred. We have a resolution echoing the
Chairman's comments.
Mr. Rosenker. Thank you very much. It is well deserved, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you.
Mr. Rosenker. The Board is still in the initial phases of
its investigation, and as you can see, there is still much work
to be done. As new and significant developments occur, we will
be sure to keep the Committee and the public informed.
NTSB investigators are still on scene today in Minneapolis,
and they are likely to be there until November or however long
it takes for the critical bridge components to be recovered.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, and I would
be delighted to respond to any questions.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you very much for your testimony,
Chairman Rosenker, and for the splendid work on site of your
investigative team. I had a very informative and in-depth
review on my tour of the bridge site as soon as Congress
recessed, exactly a week after the bridge collapsed. As always,
I am greatly impressed with the quality of NTSB personnel.
Mr. Rosenker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Oberstar. Mr. Scovel, in your testimony, you say that,
while the Federal Highway Administration tracks bridge funding,
the agency is unable to track how much money is spent on
structurally deficient bridges.
Can they do that? Is it beyond their capacity to do that?
Are there problems?
This is money that is going out of the Federal Highway
Trust Fund. The FHWA ought to be able to track that money.
Mr. Scovel. Mr. Chairman, there are problems with that, as
you heard Mr. Capka testify on the previous panel. He mentioned
that while the overall Federal funding for structurally
deficient bridges is tracked, it cannot be tagged bridge by
bridge. That requires a laborious, essentially manual process
to match codes against funding streams; and that is very
manpower- and time-intensive.
Our staff has run into the same problem in connection with
our March 2006 report, and it is one of the areas that we will
be exploring going forward in the second phase of our overall
audit project that we have promised for the Secretary and for
the Congress.
Mr. Oberstar. Well, how then do they assign--"they," the
States--assign bridges to the national bridge inventory system
as structurally deficient or functionally deficient? If they
cannot track where the money is going, how can they track which
bridge is structurally or functionally deficient?
Mr. Scovel. Well, Mr. Chairman, those bridges are
identified in the national bridge inventory, but it is FHWA's
financial management system that is deficient in its ability
readily to identify what funds are going to what bridges. So it
is not really the bridge inventory that is posing the problem.
It is really FHWA's financial management system.
Mr. Oberstar. Twenty years ago in these hearings, we
identified that same problem, not I, but my investigative staff
did. Witnesses did. Mr. Molinari, who was a Member of the
Investigation and Oversight Subcommittee, raised very serious
concerns about it at the time. Mr. Clinger did, the ranking
Republican on the Subcommittee. We raised those very same
issues. Do you mean there has not been any progress since then?
Mr. Scovel. It does appear to be a problem, sir, and as I
mentioned, we are running into it even as we speak.
The first phase of our audit project will evaluate FHWA's
response to our March 2006 report. Phase two, as we promised
the Secretary, will explore in detail Federal funding to
correct structurally deficient bridges.
Mr. Oberstar. Well, in the proposal I have set forth, a key
element is to evaluate all of the structurally deficient
bridges and to prioritize their condition State by State.
What would you recommend as methodology for the States to
achieve that objective? If they cannot track where they are
sending the money now, how are we going to be able to do that
in the future?
Mr. Scovel. Well, as you know, I am not an engineer, and I
would have to rely on engineering expertise in order to make
some of those decisions that you ask for.
Our findings illustrate the value of a risk-based and data-
driven approach, as we customarily find in many areas that we
audit throughout the Department of Transportation where
oversight is the key. How is progress to be monitored? How is
effectiveness to be evaluated? How can lessons learned be
shared, in this case, between the States? What works and what
does not?
That needs a risk-based and data-driven approach. We would
rely on our engineers, I would suspect, to evaluate those and
to identify for us those conditions on those bridges that are
deemed to be most dangerous. That priority list can then be
organized in that fashion.
Mr. Oberstar. That is fair, but I would welcome your
recommendations after you have had an opportunity to fully
evaluate the proposal that I have set forth on how we achieve
that vital objective. One of the issues 20 years ago and 20
years before that was the effectiveness of bridge inspections.
Mr. Rosenker, the NTSB has been at the leading edge of this
issue. A witness at our hearings in 1987 said, "Eyes are the
best inspection tool." Hmm. But we have Eddy-Current technology
which is used in aviation inspections, in the inspection of
hulls of aircraft, to detect cracks and the propagation of
cracks of 25,000ths of an inch to see what is happening with
them each time the aircraft comes in for inspection.
The same technology is available for bridge inspection and
was referenced 20 years ago. Ultrasound, Eddy-Current, mag
particle, and dipenetrant technologies that were available then
are still available now. Over-bridge snoopers that look at the
underside of something, we simulated way back then. Yet, we
find State DOTs with a device dragging a chain over the bridge
and listening to it and hearing how that chain sounds on the
bridge. Now, engineers assure me that that really works. It
sounds a little like snake oil, but you had an opportunity,
both of you, to evaluate bridge inspection technologies.
What is missing? What are States doing/not doing? Why does
a gusset plate fail? Why is it so hard to do an inspection on
steel when the manual on the steel making of the United States
Steel Corporation--the making, shaping and treating of steel--
cites all of these technologies?
This was 35 years ago. They said, "Here is how you inspect
the steel that we produce," and it appears to me that States
are not using the available technologies to determine the
structural integrity of steel members on a bridge.
Mr. Rosenker. Sir, you are right. All of what you said is
there.
Now, as it relates to the specific investigation of the
bridge in Minneapolis, we are going to be looking at all of the
procedures. We are going to be looking at the technologies that
were used, the processes that, in fact, were used to inspect
that bridge. We have already gotten all of the reports that
have been made through 2007. We have asked now for the
preceding 10 years of reports so that we can understand the
kinds of things that were done in the actual inspection process
and then, of course, what happened afterwards. What was done to
follow up from the deficiencies that had been seen in the years
prior?
But all of that is under part of our investigation process
right now, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Oberstar. The first element of my bridge proposal is to
raise the standards by which we determine the structural
integrity or the deficiency of bridges and establish a national
uniform standard that all States can use.
Do you think that is a useful advance on bridge safety, Mr.
Scovel and Chairman Rosenker?
Mr. Scovel. Yes, sir, I would. I would think that would be
most useful.
If I can refer back to our March 2006 report----
Mr. Oberstar. Yes.
Mr. Scovel. --and I do not mean to say that we examined
this question in depth, but--we were primarily focused on
FHWA's oversight, but in reaching that step, we did examine
States' inspections of bridges, and we found at that time, and
we concluded, that they were generally accurate, complete and
adequate.
That is not to say that there cannot be technological
improvements; and I anticipate that when we get to that phase
of our audit for the Secretary, it will comprise a
comprehensive overview of the entire National Bridge Inspection
Program, and we will be examining those points that the
Chairman mentioned.
Mr. Oberstar. Chairman Rosenker.
Mr. Rosenker. We, as part of our investigation, will be
taking a look at the standards that have been created under the
national bridge inspection program. While the Inspector General
does his independent investigation, we, too, will be doing a
thorough, independent investigation and an assessment of those
standards. If we believe that some of those standards are not
robust enough, we will be making recommendations.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you very much. I welcome that.
These are non-cost. This is separate from any issue of
trust fund or increase in user fee. These are things that we
need to do in the short term and for the long term.
Mr. Boozman.
Mr. Boozman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
With your permission, I would like to defer my time and go
ahead and move down to Mr. Baker.
Mr. Oberstar. Mr. Baker.
Mr. Baker. I thank the gentleman and thank the Chairman for
recognition. I really have more of a comment than a question of
the current panel unless, of course, they wish to respond in
some way.
Mr. Chairman, I certainly understand the timeliness and
importance of this hearing and of the extreme nature of the
problem in your State that warrants this detailed level of
analysis, and I hope we can come to an appropriate resolution.
However, with regard to the underlying proposal that I have
reviewed and that you have laid out before the Committee, I
wish to suggest a modest expansion of the scope of that
proposal.
Without regard to the revenue increases that may ultimately
be considered, I think it highly appropriate we assess that
need, but in my own State's case, we have two unfortunate
engineers who, every year, ride every mile of the State highway
and conduct a subjective and objective rating system that
results in a point-driven rating criteria for all construction
projects contemplated that is subsequently reviewed at highway
district level public hearings, which means they go around the
State, which then leads to the construction of a program to
which the legislature may not add projects that have not been
subjected to the review process. They may delete a project if
for some unknown reason they find it to be unwarranted.
I would suggest that your type of prioritization that you
have in mind for bridges be made applicable in a broader
capacity to infrastructure generally, but that a significant
component of that evaluation be the public safety. If we were
to analyze bridges only, you would to a great extent obviate
the ability to repair elevated roadways, which in my State are
a significant number of miles which would, in essence, have the
same structural deficiencies that a bridge would have. I do not
know under the Federal definition as to whether an "overpass"
and a "bridge" are viewed as strategically the same where you
cross a rail with an elevated roadway, but those are concerns.
Beyond that, in Louisiana, as the Chairman well knows, we
have a number of roadways subject to significant inundation or
tidal surge. We lost the twin spans across Lake Pontchartrain
as a result of that very fact. Those factors need to be
considered in determining what best serves the public interest,
and I would hope, in going forward with the Chairman's
insightful proposal, that we may perhaps construct this around
best serving the public safety of the motoring public on
existing roadways, not just necessarily to go after increased
capacity, or to do commercial development type things, but
really focus on the significantly underfunded public safety
issues that are across the entire transportation network.
Lastly, we have two very high-utilization interstate
corridors that intersect, and because of Katrina, we believe
there has been an extraordinary influx of high-loaded 18-
wheelers which have caused repetitive accidents and loss of
life in an unparalleled frequency. Those kinds of safety issues
should also be, I think, considered.
And there are remedies. We would simply take those trucks
off of that roadway and provide an alternate path if the road
were sufficient to withstand the load.
Mr. Baker. So I am very supportive of the Chairman's
direction and want to be helpful and supportive in any way that
I can. I come to this with the view that the underlying
elements of requiring the States to prioritize is absolutely
essential. The disclosure of where those resources are spent
certainly need to be made public at the Federal level, for the
State to defend or brag as appropriate about the utilization of
those resources. I certainly see no objective reason why
someone would find that not to be an appropriate step,
particularly where we may ask the motoring public to pay more
for the service they should be able to clearly see and evaluate
as the rate payer as to where their resources are going. So I
would hope, Mr. Chairman, as we continue to investigate this
matter, that perhaps a slightly broader view of the problem may
be incorporated, and we can enthusiastically join together in
moving something forward that would have a distinct and
measurable impact on public safety generally. I thank the
Chairman and yield back my time.
Mr. Oberstar. This is why we have hearings, for issues of
this kind to surface.
The gentleman referring to the causeway, for example, in
the vicinity of HOUMA----
Mr. Baker. Yes.
Mr. Oberstar. --the elevated roadway.
To be more specific, where we have roadways which they
cannot be built below sea level and we know that in a landfall
of a major storm those roadways are going to be inundated, it
may not be financially viable to elevate, but there may be
alternative routes provided to get people out. Because what we
saw in the contra flow between New Orleans and Baton Rouge,
where thousands of people sitting in vehicles running out of
gas with nowhere to go and no alternative to get off the
interstate, they were literally locked where they were, those
are the public safety issues which should be folded into our
evaluation. If there is a way to do it, great; if not, we
explored it, and we tried, and there is no alternative.
Mr. Oberstar. I think there is a compelling case to be
made, as the gentleman has outlined. Having driven over those
causeways, those elevated structures, I certainly concur. What
we learned in the hearings of 20 years ago was that scouring of
bridge piers is the single most important threat to bridge
integrity; and you have that in spades when you have storm
surge, which often is more powerful and more damaging than wind
damage of hurricanes.
Mr. Baker. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Oberstar. I certainly concur in that.
Mr. DeFazio.
Mr. DeFazio. Just following up on that line of thought,
first, Mr. Rosenker, on the daily fatalities which you
mentioned in page 1 of your testimony, basically we are looking
at 120 people a day dying on our highways. Now in the testimony
from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce they would attribute a third
of those deaths to poorly maintained roads. I assume--I have to
ask them whether they mean functional obsolescence, dangerous
or poorly maintained. Do you have any data of that aspect?
Mr. Rosenker. No, other than a third of them are alcohol
related.
Mr. DeFazio. Right. You can certainly have a--in this case,
we have something unexpected and so dramatic in terms of the
bridge and the immediate loss of 13 lives is an extraordinary
event that causes us to rethink a lot of what we are doing. But
you also look at 120 people a day. For those individuals and
their families it is an unexpected event. It does not get the
media attention because they were not all in one place at one
time and it was not as spectacular.
I guess what I am getting at here is the broader focus that
the gentleman at the other end of the aisle raised, Mr. Baker
raised, other things that really go to critical safety issues.
It seems to me in the case of bridges functional
obsolescence may be leading to loss of life. You do not have
merge lanes and things like that on an incremental basis that
we have come to accept which we do not need to accept. I'm
trying to get at all the underinvestment and all the needs, but
you do not have any fix on that right now so----
Mr. Rosenker. Mr. DeFazio there are 7 million accidents
that occur a year, 3 million injuries and the 43,000 or so that
die every year. We have begun to look at things at the NTSB as
preventive measures. Mitigation has been done fairly well; and
I must applaud the work of the Congress, NHTSA and the
Department of Transportation in mitigating by making better,
stronger automobiles, the safety belt use laws that are in our
State, both primary and secondary, the air bags in our
automobiles and now NHTSA's most recent regulation dealing with
rollover electronic stability control and rollover mitigation
being a requirement by 2012.
Mr. DeFazio. We have been doing substantial progress in the
capsules with which we travel, but the lack of investment and
what may be causing those accidents to happen where you might
be in a safer car today but still there are fatalities, so
anything you could provide that would address the idea of how
much functional obsolescence contributes to the problem also
would be of interest to me as we address----
Mr. Rosenker. I do not think we have done that type of
work. It normally comes from the direct result of an accident.
Mr. DeFazio. Maybe it is something we could get from the
very State.
Again, in relation to the gentleman from Louisiana, we do
not have the hurricane problem, but we have the earthquake
problem, which could also, obviously, where a bridge is not
earthquake proof can cause--we had the California instance and
luckily it was at a time of day when--I mean, a number of
people died, but it could have been a lot worse in terms of the
collapse of the overpasses.
Again, if we are looking at preventative things, I think
that is something else that we need to look at in the bridge
program. How many of--in earthquake-prone States, how many of
these bridges have been upgraded for that?
Mr. Scovel, the Secretary made a point of talking about how
people should not be alarmed at all if bridges are rated as
deficient; and I guess I find the gross scale rating not to be
tremendously helpful. I understand there is a more detailed way
of rating. But when you look at saying, okay, you are going to
four and below on a scale of 10 is structurally deficient if it
applies to one or more of three components of the bridge--
you've got superstructure, surface, substructure.
Now I can understand why you would be concerned about
surface in terms of puddles, travel and accidents and/or long-
term problems with the bridge because of infiltration if the
deck is bad. But it seems to me in the short term the most
critical factor is for structural deficiency. Either go to
supporting superstructure or substructure of the bridge, do
they not?
Mr. Scovel. Again, I am not an engineer. My staff has not
had an opportunity to examine that in detail. A layman's
opinion would be to agree.
Mr. DeFazio. Right. In looking at it I don't quite agree
with the Secretary that people should not be concerned to hear
that this has been a--because when I read 4, which is the
highest of--the best of the structurally deficient, it says
advanced section loss, deterioration, spalling or scour. That
does not sound good to me. Then we get down to 3, loss of
section, deterioration, spalling or scouring, serious effect of
the primary structural components. Local failures are possible,
fatigue cracking and steel or sheer cracks in concrete may be
present.
Again, I think the traveling public should have some
concerns, so I hope in reviewing the criteria you dig into, so
to speak, these--what things we are rating and which present,
like decking, long-term problems that you want to deal with, it
is serious, but which present immediate problems of potential
failure and have it look toward a different rating scale in the
future.
Mr. Scovel. We will, sir. That is one of the areas the
Secretary has asked us to look into.
Another slant on your question perhaps might be whether the
American traveling public has the information it needs to make
decisions regarding their travel, particularly over
structurally deficient bridges. The term "structurally
deficient" raises a red flag in the minds of many laymen.
Hearings like this, reports like those prepared by my staff
last year, and our upcoming reports, certainly the NTSB's
report and investigation into--specifically into the 35W
collapse, all of those are important in getting information to
the American public. But I would suggest that a key element
ought to be greater visibility, transparency, accessibility
through FHWA data to the American public.
Mr. DeFazio. I think that is an excellent suggestion. In
fact, we might post every bridge. The bridge ahead is rated 4
on a scale of 1 to 10, it is structurally deficient, and this
is your last opportunity to exit before you reach that bridge.
I mean, it is a little bit humorous, but it isn't, really.
People do not know. People are driving over a bridge--I mean,
on their way home, on their way to a ball game----
Mr. Scovel. You are right. What they encounter--if I may--
oftentimes they will encounter a load posting, 10 tons, 15
tons; and that does not really register with, I think, the
American public that what they are encountering is a
structurally deficient bridge that has safety problems.
Mr. DeFazio. They think it was built that way, not built
actually for 40 tons and we have downgraded it to 10 because it
has some real problems.
Mr. Scovel. Right.
Mr. DeFazio. I think education would both help us as
policymakers in terms of generating public support for the
investment we need, but I think it is something consumers
deserve. We have--on the Oregon coast now, we have posted all
these signs that you are now driving through Tsunami area and
expect people to become familiar with what they might do if
there was a Tsunami and every motel room has little directions
of where to go and how to go and all those things. I am not
saying we have to go that far with bridges, but I think we need
certainly need a higher level of understanding on the part of
the American people, and I applaud you----
Mr. Scovel. Agreed.
Mr. DeFazio. --for whatever you might be able to do.
One last question if I could, Mr. Chairman. The staff
prepared a question where they say there was a study from FHWA
in 2001 talking about the visual inspection, and they found in
this study only 4 percent of the inspectors could correctly
identify fatigue cracks, and many identified non-existent
problems. Are you familiar with that study?
Mr. Scovel. I am not.
Mr. DeFazio. I would urge your folks to be in touch with
ours and see if you can find that. Because that goes to the
issue raised by the Chairman about these kind of primitive
methods that are being used.
Again, in Oregon we do not know until one very alert bridge
inspector found a number of stress cracks in our cast-in-place
concrete bridges on Interstate 5 that we were experiencing
virtual simultaneous failure of a large percentage of the
bridges on our system because we used a pre-1960 form of
construction. And no one knew that it would lead to these sorts
of failures in a relatively short period of time almost
simultaneously, but one very alert inspector found that. We
want to give people the tools so this does not take one really
good inspector to discover it. Obviously, it had been going on
elsewhere and on some of these other bridges, but this one guy
found it.
Mr. Scovel. Right. Our comprehensive review of the bridge
inspection program will tackle just that.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Oberstar. As always, the Chairman is on the right
track.
Before I recognize Mr. Shuster I just want to make two
heart-breaking observations. One, our colleague, Paul Gillmor,
was found dead in his apartment this morning. It touches me
very much because Paul and I left the Rayburn building at the
same time last night. He drove one car length ahead of me.
And Jennifer Dunn, a former Member of this Committee who
served on the Ways and Means Committee and retired from
Congress, collapsed yesterday.
Mr. Boozman just passed that information to me. We keep
them, their families and loved ones in our prayers.
Mr. Shuster.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I first want to associate myself with the remarks of Mr.
DeFazio on the ratings that we use, especially for the general
public. You know, when you say structurally deficient or
functionally obsolete, it sounds terrible. And in some cases it
is terrible and in some cases it is not quite as bad. So I
would encourage us as we move forward to try to figure out a
way to give it a pinpoint to be better to rate these bridges
so, as Mr. DeFazio said, the traveling public, the public at
large knows what the bridge is like and so the political will
back in our States is raised to say we need the funding, we
need to divert the funding or fix this bridge or replace this
bridge. Because, as I said, to me it is confusing and, in some
cases, alarming.
The question--and we talked a lot about the bridge
inspections, the safety, the Federal, State and local working
together. Where is that coordinated and who is charged with the
responsibility of coordinating all of that so that we don't
miss things, we don't have lapses?
Mr. Scovel. That is a Federal Highways Administration
responsibility, sir. There are 52 offices, one in each State,
the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Each of those
division offices has an individual designated the bridge
engineer. That is his or her title. In larger States, he or she
is supported by staff as well.
Our finding--and it is outlined in our statement for the
Committee today--however, is that those bridge engineers, to
include their staff, are stretched very thin. We were told by
one bridge engineer in a large State with a very large number
of bridges that he was able to spend only 15 percent of his
time on bridge oversight and inspection duties. Given the
magnitude of the problem, a reprioritization by FHWA would seem
to be in order.
Mr. Shuster. Is that something that we can rate States on
their safety, that there are enough people in place to spend
enough time? Is that something we rate?
Mr. Scovel. FHWA does do that as well. My recollection is
that generally across the board nationwide FHWA is pleased with
the State inspection efforts. In fact, my own engineers when we
conducted our March, 2006, study found the same thing. At the
State level, inspections were done properly and accurately.
Where we took issue was with FHWA's oversight, what it did
with the data that was turned over to it by the States. And we
made a number of recommendations to FHWA, and that led to
really our overall conclusion that a risk-based, data-driven
approach to measure the process would be most beneficial.
Mr. Shuster. You feel comfortable and confident with the
inspections and the repairs that you've seen going on across
the board?
Mr. Scovel. At this point. But that will be another item
for comprehensive review that we owe the Secretary. We will be
completing that sometime next year.
Mr. Shuster. What tools or abilities does the FHWA have to
encourage States to tackle these deficient bridges?
Mr. Scovel. Very few in terms of a carrot or a stick, I
guess. There is goodwill, there is jaw boning, there are the
personal relationships established State by State through the
division bridge engineers and their State counterparts.
FHWA has little control, if any, over where States
currently spend their money. As you know, State can flex funds
out of bridges and into other programs, sometimes from other
programs back into bridges. We would encourage FHWA, if it has
serious misgivings about a State approach, to raise it at the
Federal level, certainly with you and Congress and the
Secretary of Transportation, in order to bring visibility to
what may be a serious problem.
Mr. Shuster. I see my time is running short.
I have a question for Mr. Rosenker. While you are doing an
investigation in Minnesota, what is the typical time frame? I
know it depends on the size. When do you expect to have a
finding on the Minnesota bridge collapse?
Mr. Rosenker. That is a question that I get on every single
one of my accidents. This is not unique. I wish I could give
you a finite time, how long it will take for us to understand
what happened, do the full analysis to guarantee that our
findings are correct and write that report. I am hoping that we
can do this within 12 to 14 months.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Rosenker. With that said, if we find any glaring safety
issues, we will make urgent recommendations to the appropriate
authorities, whether it be at the Federal or State or local
level.
Mr. Shuster. If you know there is something that fails and
there are a thousand other bridges you will make that
recommendation.
Mr. Rosenker. Immediately, sir.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you.
Mr. Oberstar. The question and response is appropriate.
The NTSB in its classic performance reveals information as
the investigation proceeds and shares that information. But, in
this case, there are 740 some bridges built at the same time,
under the same structural conditions as the I-35W bridge. Any
significant finding is of great national importance because it
will apply to the other structurally deficient bridges.
Mr. Shuster. A question. Did not the Secretary of
Transportation order those 700 so bridges to be immediately
inspected?
Mr. Oberstar. The Federal Highway Administration was
directed to step up its oversight of State review of those
bridges.
Mr. Shuster. Thank you.
Mr. Oberstar. Mr. Altmire.
Mr. Altmire. I thank the Chairman.
We all have stories to tell on these issues with our
districts and with our State. We heard from Mr. Baker about
Louisiana and certainly the troubles that they have had. The
Chairman certainly knows in his own State recently what can
happen.
Mr. Shuster and I both know in Pennsylvania we have the
highest number of structurally deficient bridges in the entire
country. Our own State Department of Transportation classifies
6,000 of our more than 25,000 bridges to be structurally
deficient, including 800 that are in need of outright
replacement. The average age of these bridges is 50 years old,
and in the six counties that I represent in South Western
Pennsylvania many are over 100 years old. It is not uncommon.
The number of structurally deficient bridges in the six
counties in my district which has over a thousand bridges in
the district, we have 29 with sufficiency ratings on a zero to
100 scale that are 10 or below. We have 566 just in my district
that are rated at 50 or below.
Insufficiency ratings, as you know, of 50 or below qualify
a bridge for Federal funding and require the regular
inspections that we are talking about today.
Two of the bridges in my district, the Koppel Bridge and
the Rochester Beaver Bridge, are steel truss bridges of similar
design to the I-35W span. And in particular the Koppel Bridge,
which carries Route 151 over the Beaver River in north
Sewickley and Beaver County, was constructed in 1915 and has a
current sufficiency rating of 8 out of 100.
So as the State with the most structurally deficient
bridges there is no shortage of examples in Pennsylvania or
even in my district of bridges that are in dire need of
rehabilitation, repair or even replacement. In total, the State
estimates it will take $11 billion required to update the 6,000
plus structurally deficient bridges.
So I just want to say, to start, that certainly Mr. Shuster
and I are more than passive observers coming from the State
which has the biggest problem of any State in the country.
I would look forward to working with the panel and the
Secretary in moving forward and want to be active in resolving
these issues, and we do need to find a revenue stream do that.
The Chairman has been a leader in that, and I want to offer my
assistance in moving forward in that way.
The question that I have on that zero to 100 scale, we
talked about bridges in my district that are in the single
digits. I know you touched on this briefly earlier. It would
seem to me if you are in the single digits on a zero to 100
scale, that is by definition pretty low. So at what point, as
Mr. DeFazio talked about, does the driver need to give a second
thought when they are crossing these bridges? When you hear
that low of a rating, what does that mean when you are at 8 on
a scale of 100?
Mr. Scovel. If I knew about it and were a driver in your
congressional district, I would be very concerned driving over
bridges of that low a sufficiency rating.
That said, assuming your State inspection program is
adequate and working properly and those bridges have been
inspected on the required schedule and load ratings have been
properly calculated as required, the decision as to posting has
been addressed, if it is not posted, then a driver should be
able to assume that the State's load for that highway can be
supported through and over that bridge.
Those are a series of assumptions, but based strictly on
the fact that there is a low sufficiency rating to begin with,
I would be concerned. If I were a taxpayer, I would like to see
it addressed.
Mr. Altmire. How confident are you at the U.S. Department
of Transportation that the States in general are doing their
job on that issue?
Mr. Scovel. Based on our review that led to our 2006
report, we are confident. Pennsylvania was not one of the
States we examined in detail. Those were Massachusetts, New
York and Texas. However, based on the data that we turned up in
those three States--and, again, we were focused primarily on
FHWA oversight--it gave us concern, however. So we expanded our
survey nationwide, and through statistical sampling we did
reach bridges in Pennsylvania as well as every other State and
the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico as well. Again, we
found throughout that State inspections generally were adequate
and accurate.
Mr. Altmire. I thank the panel, and I thank the Chairman. I
want to be actively involved in this moving forward, and I look
forward to working with you.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank the gentleman, and we certainly will
engage and enlist his support.
Mrs. Capito.
Mrs. Capito. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the
panel.
I would like to say my colleague from Pennsylvania
referenced that everyone has a personal story. Well, that
bridge that fell in 1967 was in West Virginia, the Silver
Bridge in my district. I was not representing the district
then, but I am sure the Chairman was around at that time.
Mr. Oberstar. I was on the staff at the time, yes.
Mrs. Capito. I thought that was a safe bet.
When the tragedy occurred in August, those folks in West
Virginia had a great deal of sympathy and empathy. It is a pain
that never really goes away from a small community
particularly, as in the case of Point Pleasant.
I am pleased to know that was the precipitating event to
then go forward with more detail and more precise ways of
inspection and safety.
Quick question to make sure I understand this. When you
talk about structurally deficient bridges, does the State set
the priority for where those dollars goes or is that done in
conjunction with the Federal Highway Administration?
Mr. Scovel. Currently, the State accepts those priorities.
Mrs. Capito. Let me ask you this. This is kind of--I do not
know if this is a "gotcha" question for somebody. When the
Federal highway dollars come down through the State and the
State is setting the priorities for bridge reconstruction or
bridge inspection, is there a competition for dollars in terms
of new construction, maintenance dollars and then the bridge
dollars?
Mr. Scovel. My office has not examined that in detail. It
certainly assumed, I think, that new construction is often more
attractive for a number of reasons, as opposed to
rehabilitation or extensive repair work on existing bridges.
Mrs. Capito. You stated earlier you really cannot say with
much detail how much of the Federal dollars are being spent on
what particular structure for reconstruction or repair.
Mr. Scovel. That is true. For structurally deficient
bridges in the Federal system, we have not been able readily--
as Administrator Capka and I spoke to earlier, we can't readily
track the dollars that may or may not be reaching those bridges
without a very laborious process.
Mrs. Capito. So I would be safe to assume that the pile of
Federal dollars that the State is using for Federal either
construction, rehabilitation or working on bridges is a little
fuzzy math sometimes that we are relying on.
Mr. Scovel. It can be, yes.
Mrs. Capito. Is that part of your report?
Mr. Scovel. We will be looking at the Federal funding of
bridges, both, as I mentioned, how we are able to track that,
if we can, and what recommendations we can make for improvement
there. But also the uses to which States put those Federal
dollars, how effectively and how efficiently those are made.
Mrs. Capito. Two other kind of quick questions.
We have heard a lot about--I think Congressman Baker
mentioned that there are two bridge inspectors that go all
through Louisiana. Would you think this is something we should
look at in terms of legislation, would be providing funding for
more inspectors? And I worry, too, also about the level of
engineering expertise that bridge inspectors are--I am sure
they have continuous study and updating, but is this part of
what your study would include?
Mr. Scovel. We will. But I'd like to say again that
inspections are a State responsibility. Our focus has been on
FHWA. Primarily, our concern has been on the bridge engineers
for each individual office and the amount of oversight they
have been able to bring to the bridge inspection oversight
program.
Mrs. Capito. My final question. Certainly going forward you
mentioned, Mr. Rosenker, that the construction of the Minnesota
bridge was of a particular type that might have ongoing
questions of 300 some other bridges built of the same
construction. In your history of investigating accidents of
this kind, what kind of impact has it had on further
construction and going forward trying to avoid these
circumstances?
Mr. Rosenker. When we talk about construction issues, a la
the Big Dig, we change the thought process as it is related to
the epoxy process and utilizing it in overhead panels. Each
time we do one of these significant accidents, whether it be at
a construction type of a scenario or whether it is a major
aircraft disaster or a railroad disaster, what we come up
with--because these are unique accidents for the most part, are
very unique. But we see some, in many cases, some general
information that has not been understood before. And when we
learn that, through our investigations, we either put it out in
an urgent recommendation or at the end put it out as a full
recommendation for regulatory change and operating change and
manufacturing change.
In the previous four accidents that I discovered, each one
of those represented an improvement to the way that we look at
inspections and design, and most of that goes to the Federal
Highway Administration. The first one as a result of that
catastrophic accident in '67 resulted with the good work of the
Congress in creating the National Bridge Inspection Program. I
believe the Chairman may have been on staff to help create that
good work.
Mrs. Capito. I thank you both.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank the gentlewoman for her observations.
The hearing I cited was on the 20th anniversary of the
Silver Bridge collapse. The hearing held December 1st and 2nd
of 1967--1987, it was on the 20th anniversary of '67 of that
bridge collapse, and we are reliving some of the issues raised
in that hearing that were not sufficiently addressed. So what
we are also reliving is the continuing saga of transfers out of
the bridge fund by States to their National Highway System and
Surface Transportation Programs.
The States asked for flexibility. We provided flexibility
for the States to shift dollars around on those various
categories of funding. It is not 60 categories as the Secretary
said, which I contested earlier today. It is more like 36
categories of funding. It used to be 60. We whittled those down
in ISTEA and TEA-21 to 36 categories of funding and gave States
flexibility.
Look what has happened in the last 10 years: $4,700,000,000
has been shifted by States out of the bridge fund to their NHS
and Surface Transportation Programs. In the case of West
Virginia, it adds up to $39 million. In the case of
Pennsylvania, the largest amount was $1,950,000,000 they
transferred over that decade, plus 10, 15 years of their bridge
money to other needs.
Well, we gave States that flexibility. But then you have a
bridge collapse, and it focuses all that attention again. And
the issue is not Member High Priority Projects, it is what the
States are doing with their money allocated to them under the
Highway Trust Fund.
A uniform, consistent approach to inspections, frequency of
inspections, shifting from 2 years to 1 year would be of
benefit, which I know both of you have cited, which is in my
bill. Uniform standards to show the data submitted and included
in the national bridge inventory is consistent among States
will lead to a data-driven, performance-based program.
Those are the key elements of Title I of the proposition I
have set forth.
Thank you very much for your testimony.
Mr. Boozman. Can I just say, first of all, I very much
support Mr. Oberstar's effort to provide leadership in this so
important area and is doing a tremendous job in that way.
I guess my fear as I was listening to the discussion, many
of the Members voiced support for prioritization program, which
makes sense. We have a limited amount of resources, and I guess
my concern is if we had a prioritization plan in effect I do
not know where this bridge would fall. I suspect it would be
fairly low or in the middle in the priorities.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania talked about the very low
ratings on many bridges, so what I would like to know is, what
are you all saying? In a sense, the process has broken down as
far as the inspection. In this, we are not talking about a lot
of money. It might be the methodology or whatever that we are
doing in the sense this bridge, because it failed, should have
been at 100 percent but was much lower on the scale.
So you mention putting all the materials on the bridge. I
had a friend who reroofed his house, and they stacked all the
shingles on one corner of his house, and it caved in that area.
Because of that, is that knowledge going out through the system
right now that we are not doing that? Do we have that in place?
Those are the kinds of things I would like for to you comment
on.
Again, the preliminary things that we are saying, I hope
that somehow there is--I know that your investigation will go
forward, but I would hope we have some way as these things
start to come up that we do not have a bunch of material
stacked on a bridge similar to this one.
Mr. Rosenker. Thank you. As a result of what we learned and
what we saw on that bridge, the Secretary of Transportation put
out an advisory to be sensitive to the maintenance workers,
State inspectors, the State Departments of Transportation. When
you are bringing materials on to a bridge, be careful how you
distribute the loads.
We do not know yet for a fact that this was the cause, but
it is clearly an area that we have a good deal of interest in,
along with the design of the bridge. Forty years ago, that
bridge was designed. What we're looking at, did the
construction adhere to the design? Were the materials specified
to the right design capability?
We are looking at calculations that were made when they
designed that bridge. We have the original plans. We are
checking those calculations to be sure they were done properly
to hold loads.
Then, of course, we are looking at the materials
themselves. When I say "the material"--the construction
material, the actual gusset plates, the actual bars, the actual
girders, much of which is still under water and we are trying
to recover.
So when we are able to pull all of those materials up and
we can do a visual and ultimately a very granular type of
examination, we will learn a great deal if it was an issue of
aging infrastructure or if it was an issue of something other
than aging infrastructure--poor design, load concentration or a
combination of factors.
But that is the problem we get when we begin--we try to be
as open as we possibly can when we talk about what we have
learned, but sometimes it takes us down areas that never pan
out and sometimes it does. But what we do not want is to jump
to conclusions. The answer that we ultimately will give you
will be the right answer. It will be one that has been tested
and we can guarantee with a great deal of confidence that is
what caused the bridge to fail. Other things then faused the
failure as secondary issues, but what was the real cause? We
will learn that as we go through this investigation.
Mr. Boozman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Again, what caused it to be number 50 rather than 99 or
100, that is kind of an underlying thing.
Thank you very much for your testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Oberstar. The gentleman's point is well taken. That is
why we have crafted this legislation, to raise the standards by
which bridges are evaluated on deficiency, structural,
functional, and in the case of this legislation structurally
deficiency. So there is a national uniform standard State by
State. The standards vary, as we said today.
Secondly, to have a priority rating system that will be
established to those new, higher standards and have that
priority rating system evaluated by the National Academy of
Sciences so that we know it is a valid rating system. That is
what we will attempt to accomplish.
I thank the panel for their contributions, very grateful
for your time before us today. Thank you.
We will proceed to Panel III: the Honorable R.T. Rybak, the
Mayor of the City of Minneapolis, and Kathleen Novak, Mayor of
the City of Northglenn, Colorado.
I would observe that our Committee colleague, Mr. Walz, is
now on the floor managing the bill reported from Committee to
honor the first responders; and our entire Minnesota
delegation, minus this Member, are on the floor paying their
tributes to those who responded with such alacrity and skill.
I might observe the Mayor of Minneapolis, our witness
today, had the foresight to engage the city and the
Metropolitan Council in a dry run in emergency response to just
such a tragedy; and that was the principal reason those first
responders were able to do what they did so effectively and so
efficiently.
I thank both of you for being here today.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE R.T. RYBAK, CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS,
MAYOR, MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA; AND THE HONORABLE KATHLEEN
NOVAK, CITY OF NORTHGLENN, MAYOR, NORTHGLENN, COLORADO
Mr. Oberstar. Mayor Rybak.
Mr. Rybek. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It is an honor
to be here to speak on this topic, and it is an honor in
general to be before your Committee. You have done remarkable
work.
We especially want to thank the Committee and all the
Congress for the swift response we had in addressing the
emergency funding that was required in this situation and will
obviously need to continue to work with you on that.
I wanted to share with you a few thoughts I had about the
situation in Minneapolis and the implications of what this
Committee now faces as you move forward. As you do that, I want
us to step back from this a moment and stop and think that
every day in Minneapolis and certainly in the United States of
America there are millions of us who cross paths without really
seeing who the other person really is. We may cross on a
sidewalk or in a shopping mall and not stop and look someone in
the eye. We may be on a busy freeway and not see who is behind
the wheel of that other car speeding by. We live in the same
places, but rarely do we really stop and think who the other
person really is.
And then something happens. There is that moment, that
realization when something occurs that you look up from your
daily life and recognize we are all really in one place. That,
of course, happened tragically in the City of Minneapolis on
August 1st at 6:05. At that moment, there were many people
moving in different directions.
There was an amateur baseball player, who was heading home
to his wife and two young kids.
There was an insurance marketing director, whose husband
and two daughters had dinner on the table.
There was an immigrant from Cambodia, a nursing student who
was pregnant at the time.
There was another immigrant who was there with her son with
Down's Syndrome. They were inseparable, in fact, even in their
death.
There was a vegetable salesman from Mexico, whose family is
now spread across two different continents.
There was a missionary who worked in the computer field.
There was a construction worker who loved ice fishing and peach
pie. All of them and six others are gone.
There were many others who injured, some of them very, very
seriously.
Thankfully, there were some on that bridge who survived,
including a school bus filled with children. All these separate
lives lived very separately are now forever tragically woven
together.
It is at moments like that that we recognize we really are
not all that separate after all, because all of us inhabit
common ground. I say that because the notion of common ground
should have certain resonance for those of us who are in public
service, because we are the providers of that common ground.
Roads and bridges are common ground and so are all the other
things that we provide service for, here in the Congress and
here in the city hall of Minneapolis, roads and bridges,
garbage collection, public water, the common ground for the
common good. That is what we do for a living.
There are rules as stewards of the common ground. I believe
there is a certain message that comes out of the tragedy in
Minneapolis, and it is a message that I hope you take closely
to you as you go forward in this work. The message is this.
When we invest in quality government, we get quality results.
When we do not invest, there are consequences.
In Minneapolis, we have invested in public safety and
emergency response. Over the past 5 years, we have invested in
a strong partnership with the Federal government, more that $50
million in emergency preparedness. We did, as you referenced
earlier, do a mock drill, a 3-day training for disaster in the
City of Minneapolis. We trained for that 4 years ago. We
learned from that. We purchased equipment on that, we trained
for that, and because of that training and because of that
investment we provided a quality response. This was a
horrendous tragedy, but because we invested wisely we prevented
it from being far worse.
When you invest in quality government, you get quality
results. When you do not invest, there are consequences.
It is clear in my City of Minneapolis and my State of
Minnesota and in the United States of America, we have
dramatically underinvested in transportation. We do not fully
know why this bridge collapsed, but we do know several things.
We know that the most recent inspection of that bridge in
June of 2006 showed some cracking and fatigue problems. The
bridge had a sufficiency rating of 50 percent, which was
referenced this morning, which is certainly a percentage that
should merit great alarm. In December of 2006, the bridge was
supposed to have undergone a $1.5 million steel reinforcement
project that was delayed by the Department of Transportation,
and they chose instead to move to inspections. Decisions like
that are being made in Minnesota and all across this country as
Departments of Transportation wrestle with underinvestment in
transportation.
When you do not invest in public infrastructure, there are
consequences. I say this as a Mayor of a city that is reacting
to a disaster that was not an act of God. It was failure of
man. For some time, we have known that our rates of investment
are falling far, far behind.
I say that also as a representative of the U.S. Conference
of Mayors. Because mayors around the country understand this.
Mayors from my conference have been before this group during
the debate on SAFETEA-LU. At that time, we supported the
congressional efforts to increase the Federal gas tax to extend
the Federal commitments and to put more money into
infrastructure. We mayors were also here last month when this
Congress looked at the transportation-related initiative
included in the energy legislation, and again we supported the
idea of increased investment in the infrastructure.
Now as we start the debate today I would like to draw your
attention to some of the issues that are leading to
underfunding of some of the local priorities. Mayors across
this country know that States, including my own, are
underinvesting in transportation with new revenue. I think, as
we were just hearing referenced, there has been also great
concern that funds for issues like bridges have been diverted
to other situations.
When people are struggling for money, they will do
desperate things. When you see that happen, mayors around the
country recognize that there are investments being postponed.
We understand there is no free lunch. Every day we face those
challenges in our cities. Look at what happened in Minnesota.
We really need to be honest about what happens when you
underinvest in transportation. In Minnesota, people are driving
more; and that is putting more pressure on our roads. Today, in
Minnesota, we are spending 31 percent less per vehicle on
transportation than we did in 1975. As a result, our roads are
dramatically more congested than 5 years ago. The average
driver in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region spends a full
workweek stuck in traffic every single year.
It is not like we do not know how to get out of this. We
have a good plan. But the problem is that it has been
dramatically underfunded, and we need both capital for that
program and also money for maintenance. To give you an idea of
the gap, the cost of catching up right now is estimated to be
$19 billion for Minnesota over the next 20 years.
We need to make a dramatic new investment in
transportation, and clearly we need to make a dramatic new
investment in maintaining our existing infrastructure. We
simply cannot choose between the two. This is why I am strongly
in support of Congressman Oberstar's proposal to have a Federal
gas tax to temporarily address these issues around the country.
I am also in support of a gas tax in the State of Minnesota and
have looked at the idea of regional sales taxes for pay for
transit in the metropolitan area of Minneapolis-St. Paul.
No one wants to sit before Congress or anywhere and
advocate more taxes in the State or in my city. Yet it strikes
me we pay now or pay later. We can invest now in the transit
solutions that we know are going to lessen our dependence on
foreign oil or we can watch as gas prices continue to skyrocket
further and further ahead as we become more dependent on
foreign oil. Pay now or pay later. We can invest now in
maintaining the transportation infrastructure we have or we can
pay much more later as the issues grow further and further and
become more and more dangerous. As we understand in
Minneapolis, paying on the issue of transportation
infrastructure can mean much more than dollars alone.
When you invest in quality transportation, you get quality
results. Let me give you two quick examples as I come to
conclusion here.
In 2004, the Hiawatha Light Rail Line was built in the City
of Minneapolis connecting the downtown area with the airport
and the Mall of America. Today, over 19,000 people ride that
line. We have reduced congestion, we have built 5,400 housing
units along that line, and we have seen $1.5 billion of
investment along that line. The only problem is the State's
dramatic underfunding of transportation means we will probably
only build a line about every 20 years. We are falling
dramatically behind.
In contrast, look at Denver. In November, 2006, Denver
opened its newest light rail line in the southwest corridor;
and their total investment now is $879 million. That is
resulting in a 19-mile line that has generated $4.25 billion,
which is really not a bad rate of return. They are able to do
that because Denver, unlike my State, passed a regional sales
tax that is putting $4.7 billion into that program. If you
invest in quality transportation, you will get quality results.
I want to finish by telling you a story about my experience
yesterday as I went to meet the students of Oxford College as
they opened their year. I welcomed them to the campus, and a
girl walked up to me afterwards. She introduced me. I met her
earlier at the funeral of her mother. Her mother was one of the
people who died on that bridge that day. I told her where I was
coming today, and I said I will try to do everything I can to
convince them that this should never happen again.
But I want us to think about that girl as she starts
college. I want you to think about her sister, who knew that
before the tragedy her mother was taking down all sorts of
information about how to plan the wedding. That girl will
graduate from college. That girl will go to the wedding. Their
mother will not be there.
It was not an act of God, it was a failure of man, and it
was a failure of our ability to invest in basic core
infrastructure. I hope we can think about that; and I hope we
can think, as members of the generation that we are, the
generation that was given an Interstate Highway System, and
look at ourselves now as a generation that has left billions of
dollars more to be invested and wonder if we can look that girl
in the eye and answer the question, whether we can say we have
done all that we can.
I say, as a person who represents a city who was gone
through a tremendous tragedy where lives have been broken, that
we need to step up and take that action. I call on Congress to
follow your lead, Congressman Oberstar, to make sure that that
girl gets the justice that is deserved to her.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you very, very much, Mayor, for that
powerful testimony, that compelling image of that young woman
who will have to face the future without her mother.
I lost my wife to breast cancer. Our three daughters have
had to face that situation. I know how heavy that is, how heavy
a burden it is. But when it occurs, a force that could have
been controlled, it is all that more painful.
Mr. Oberstar. We have 5 minutes remaining on this. Mayor
Novak, I will let you begin, but I think we may have to recess
before you complete.
Ms. Novak. Thank you. I understand.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee.
I am Kathy Novak, Mayor of Northglenn, Colorado; and I am here
on behalf of the National League of Cities, the oldest and
largest organization representing local elected officials in
America's cities and towns.
I appreciate the opportunity to present the views of local
elected officials on the state of our Nation's bridges and our
transportation infrastructure in general. We appreciate the
leadership of this Committee in protecting our Nation's
infrastructure, from water resources to bridge, highways and
our transit and aviation system. This Committee has
demonstrated your commitment to our Nation's economy,
environment and quality of life.
As our transportation infrastructure shows its age, local
elected officials want to work with you on a new commitment to
rebuilding a robust and safe infrastructure that both serves
our communities and keeps our economies moving. Under President
Eisenhower's leadership, this country created a national
transportation system that has become the backbone of our
Nation's development from coast to coast and spurred
unparalleled economic growth in our cities and towns, where
today seven out of every ten residents live in cities in
America.
The tragedy in Minneapolis reminds us that investment in
our transportation system cannot be assigned for the future.
Maintenance and continuous improvements requires a renewed
financial commitment at all levels of government and a long-
term, comprehensive national plan for the future.
Our transportation system, built to maintain through an
innovative Federal, State and local government partnership and
the private sector, continues to be and may now more than ever
be the key to our Nation's economic growth, business
competitiveness, quality of life and national security.
Federal support through the Highway Trust Fund has
sustained the governmental partnership, and current levels of
Federal spending fall far short of the actual cost of
maintaining and improving our Nation's infrastructure. The
shortfall is too large for local governments to make up on our
own.
Estimates of the cost of maintaining the National Highway
System. There is general agreement that the system is
deteriorating and needs a significant upgrade that can only be
achieved through a new national commitment to maintaining this
infrastructure.
The American Society of Civil Engineers gave our Nation's
infrastructure an overall grade of a D. Well, as the mother of
five children and an instructor at the university, I would not
be satisfied with that outcome, nor should we as a Nation be
willing to allow the first-class transportation infrastructure
we developed to disintegrate and risk harm to all of our
citizens.
ASCE's most recent estimates of the total cost needed by
all levels of government to update our infrastructure,
airports, bridges, roads and transit, brownfields, dams and
levees, drinking and wastewater and inland waterways is $1.6
trillion. In the words of the House Appropriations Committee,
it is well documented that our Nation's transportation
infrastructure is aging and the investment needs of our
Nation's highway and transit systems is significant. Without
additional revenues for transportation investment, the Nation
will be unable to reduce congestion, maintain aging bridges and
highways or expand capacity.
For my own State in Colorado, we confirm what ASCE and the
House Appropriations Committee are telling us. Colorado has
nearly 17,000 bridges, over 8,000 of which are part of the
interstate system. Of those, 580, or 7 percent, are
structurally deficient, two of them in my own city which bridge
I-25 and really keep us together as a community. If anything
happened to those bridges, there would be serious implications
for my city.
Ten percent of our bridges are functionally obsolete. As I
am sure many of you did when the Minneapolis bridge collapsed,
I thought about what the impact would be on my city and my
State. Of the nearly 7 percent of the interstate system bridges
that are structurally positioned, one is traveled by more than
139,000 motorists each day.
Allowing our bridges to deteriorate further is a national
calamity waiting to happen. 3,757 of Colorado's bridges are
owned by the State, and more than 4,700 bridges are owned by
cities and counties. Of those State-owned spans, 110 are
considered in need of replacement and another 375 are in need
of rehabilitation.
Ms. Novak. We spend in Colorado about $30 million a year on
bridge repair and replacement out of an annual transportation
budget of $1 billion. Locally, Colorado cities and counties
commit billions of dollars to roads, bridges and streets. In
2005, local governments--cities and counties alone--spent
$1,281,463,000 on these systems. The Colorado Municipal League
and Colorado Counties, Inc. have estimated a total of $31
billion for improvements, maintenance and preservation needs
through the year 2030. With an estimated $18 billion available,
this leaves us a shortfall of only $12 billion. We estimate
$1.6 billion for bridges alone over this time period. We
continue to raise local taxes, find ways to fund
transportation, but we cannot do it alone at the local level.
One of the challenges is, as we are updating our local plan
and transportation plan priorities from a 2030 plan to a 2035
plan, we need to cut $800 million out of that worth of projects
just due to increased costs.
Mr. Oberstar. Madam Mayor, I regret that I have to suspend
there. We are down to zero time remaining on the vote on the
House floor. We have a series of votes. We will recess for
approximately an hour, unfortunately.
[recess.]
Mr. Oberstar. The Committee on Transportation and
Infrastructure will come to order and resume its sitting.
My apologies to the witnesses and to panel 3 and to
subsequent panels. Unfortunately, the votes and the procedure
on the floor took longer than anticipated with commemoration of
the loss of the two colleagues that I mentioned in the
Committee--Mr. Gillmor, a current Member, and Ms. Dunn, a
former Member. Then Mr. DeFazio and I were committed to meeting
with the news media, and we did that on our way back, and he is
off to another hearing in another Committee, and he will rejoin
us later, but I am here, and I thank all of you for being here,
and this is a familiar situation over the 33 years I have
served in the Congress that, come late afternoon, the place
just sort of settles down, and there are only those with
endurance who remain.
So, Mayor Novak, that is a very familiar name in my part of
the country, Northern Minnesota. Novaks are Slovenes and
Croatian. They are also Polish. In fact, the current mayor of
Ely in my district is "Novak."
Ms. Novak. Well, I married well into the "Novak" name, but
I come from a long line of good, old Irish folks, so it does
not really fit the name.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you. Under any flag, you are welcome,
and I had to suspend while you were mid sentence, so you may
continue.
Ms. Novak. Well, you have my statement in front of you, so
I will just conclude by just reinforcing that, at the local
level and representing the National League of Cities, we
believe that your proposal to fund a separate bridge program is
a step in the right direction toward meeting our infrastructure
investment needs and national goals. A more comprehensive
approach to infrastructure and bridge repair is critical for
the long-term. We look forward to working with you and the
Committee to reauthorize Federal surface transportation
programs and to reenergize our national vision for a national
infrastructure program that keeps our citizens safe, helps move
goods quickly and focuses on safety, congestion relief,
protecting our air quality, and increasing energy efficiency
and conservation and accountability for the billions of dollars
spent on transportation programs and improvements throughout
our country.
As national and as governmental partners, we need to make
the preservation, maintenance and modernization of our
transportation system a national priority and a commitment, and
I thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of America's
cities and towns.
Mr. Oberstar. Well, thank you very much for a well thought-
out statement. It was well presented, earnestly, and was
sincerely delivered.
You heard testimony from previous panels--from the
Secretary and then from the Inspector General and from the
chairman of the NTSB. There was a great deal of discussion
about how funds are distributed and how they are allocated.
From the vantage point of a mayor, when you see dollars
distributed for transportation--for bridges, for highway
projects and for transit--do you feel that your city has a
voice, has a say, in the prioritization and in the distribution
of those dollars?
Ms. Novak. I have to say, from my perspective in the Denver
Metro area--and I am a board member for the Denver Regional
Council of Governments, which is our MPO--we spend a tremendous
amount of time prioritizing every single transportation project
in the Denver Metro area.
I think the funds that we get are used well. The difficulty
is that there just are not enough of them. For example, I-25
runs through my city. It is the major north-south interstate,
and it runs from Canada down to Mexico. It is projected that,
due to the growth and to the increase in usage, the capacity
needs to be expanded by 200 percent.
Right now, there are no funds available for at least 25
years. An extra 83,000 homes will already be built, will
already be impacted on a system that just cannot handle that
capacity. The difficulty--you know, I heard some previous
testimony in that there are bridge funds and that there are
congestion mitigation funds and that there are highway funds,
and that there are all of these different funding pots, but
when I have a bridge that connects this side of my city with
this side of my city over a major interstate, what is the best
way to do that?
Well, in order to meet the demands--current demands let
alone future demands--that bridge really ought to be expanded.
So where does the money come from? Does it come from the bridge
fund because it is structurally deficient? Does it come from
congestion mitigation? Does it come from capacity? Does it make
sense to just build that bridge with bridge funds and ignore
the roads on either side which happen to be State highways?
Whatever we get, it is never enough.
So, I think, in my experience in the Denver region, we are
very good at prioritizing those funds, and we are very good at
using the funds. The problem is the funds only get to the first
5 out of a list of 50.
Mr. Oberstar. So you have a council of governments that
works together, that is involved in the transportation
investment plan----
Ms. Novak. Yes.
Mr. Oberstar. --for the region.
Is that plan then folded by the State into the STIP, the
State Transportation Investment Plan?
Ms. Novak. Yes, it is.
Mr. Oberstar. Who then makes the final decision on
priorities? You have done your priorities within the TIP,
within the COG, and then that plan is submitted to the State,
and the State evaluates all of its needs. Who makes that final
decision?
Ms. Novak. We worked out a memorandum of understanding with
the State. As you have heard, there are donee States and donor
recipient States. The Denver Metro area is a donee. We donate
funds to the rest of the State, and we have an agreement that a
certain amount of those funds will be spent in the Denver Metro
area and that we work in connection with our Department of
Transportation, who has an advisory seat on our board, to
develop that plan. When we get the funds, the funds are spent
according to the priorities that we have developed together.
Mr. Oberstar. Are you aware that Colorado had the highest
percentage increase of funds in SAFETEA-LU of any State in the
Nation?
Ms. Novak. Yes.
Mr. Oberstar. 46.1 percent.
Ms. Novak. And we greatly appreciate it. Thank you. We also
are----
Mr. Oberstar. That's a very nice response. I like that.
Ms. Novak. Our local region also, as was mentioned by the
previous witness, chose to tax ourselves to the tune of $4.6
billion to build out a transit system. So we are working--you
know, the transit system will be great, but if our roads are
falling apart around it, that is not good. We need a
comprehensive approach that takes all of these pieces and puts
them together and funds them in a way that really makes sense.
Mr. Oberstar. The T-Rex project that I have visited on
several occasions at one point involved, over one weekend,
raising an entire bridge and shoring it up and, in effect,
rebuilding it from the base on up and putting it back in place.
That was an extraordinary engineering achievement.
Ms. Novak. And T-Rex has been a great success in Colorado.
As you know, under Tabor, we have some difficulties in bonding,
in long-term debt, in raising any kind of taxes without a vote
of the people, which is not a bad thing, but as many people
say, as wonderful as T-Rex is, it addressed a part of the
problem, and there are many that say that we borrowed money
from tomorrow to build a transportation system today that was
needed 20 years ago. We are that far behind, and even then,
with that kind of investment, the need is still tremendous.
Mr. Oberstar. You mentioned the bridge in your town--in
your city, I should say--of Northglenn.
Ms. Novak. Northglenn. Uh-huh.
Mr. Oberstar. Where is Northglenn?
Ms. Novak. We are a Denver suburb about 10 miles of
downtown Denver.
Mr. Oberstar. Is it north?
Ms. Novak. North, uh-huh, and we straddle I-25.
Mr. Oberstar. My youngest daughter moved back to Colorado
and her husband and daughter. They are in Fort Collins, but she
was a speech pathologist in the Cherry Creek Elementary School
system.
Ms. Novak. No doubt she went through my city.
Mr. Oberstar. Oh, yes. I have been out there many times to
visit.
In your setting, what are the stresses on the bridge
structure--vehicle miles traveled, weight limits or weight
pressures on the bridge? Is it functional concerns?
Ms. Novak. Yes.
Mr. Oberstar. Is it the freeze-thaw cycle? Is it salting or
de-icing?
Ms. Novak. Uh-huh.
Mr. Oberstar. All of the above?
Ms. Novak. All of the above. In addition, we have the
occasional semi which rams into the bottom of it, which is not
helpful either.
Mr. Oberstar. Ah.
Ms. Novak. That happened at another bridge where it
actually hit the bridge, and that bridge went from like number
300 on the priority list to number 1 and was able to get funded
and repaired, but yes, all of those things and capacity. That
is, you know, a big thing as well. You get more people driving.
The Denver area is just booming, and we are not keeping up. A
pay-as-you-go transportation system, which is what we have
traditionally done in Colorado, is not keeping up with the
needs and with the investments required.
Mr. Oberstar. What is the basis of the funding of
Colorado's share of bridge and highway and transit investments?
Ms. Novak. I do not know. I do not have that.
Mr. Oberstar. Is it from the State general fund?
Ms. Novak. Oh, yes, it is.
Mr. Oberstar. So you do not have the State equivalent of
the Federal Highway Trust Fund?
Ms. Novak. I do not believe we do, and out of that general
fund, of course, only about 25 percent is really available for
annual appropriations outside of the things that the State is
committed to, and so those, you know, transportation dollars
are competing with health care and higher ed and K through 12
and open space, which is huge in Colorado as well, and it is
not glamorous.You know, it is hard to make the case for roads
and bridges when it is easier to sell education and wildlife
and open space.
Mr. Oberstar. Well, that is where the Federal Highway Trust
Fund has been so effective and successful. People pay the tax
at the pump or the user fee at the pump, and they know it goes
into the fund that is reserved only for transportation
purposes. Even though, over time, funds have been withheld to
build up surpluses in the Highway Trust Fund, they cannot
physically be used for anything else. They can just be borrowed
against but not physically transferred; whereas, your general
revenue dollars are fungible. They can be moved around to other
programs.
Now, within the context of the Federal Surface
Transportation Program, we give States great flexibility to
move dollars around. They can flex up to 50 percent of their
bridge allocation to the National Highway System or to the
Surface Transportation Program, and they can flex money out of
those into bridges, but States have chosen to shift
$4,700,000,000 over the last decade out of the bridge program
into other needs, and then we have the Secretary coming to us
and saying, well, Congress has not prioritized funds and has
not done a good enough job. Well, wait a minute. We gave the
States, at their request, authority to shift dollars among
categories, and then they wind up with a deficit in their
bridge program. It is not our problem. It is theirs.
In the future, maybe we need to be more restrictive about
certain programs and how much money can be shifted about.
Ms. Novak. You know, I think it is difficult. The
flexibility is much appreciated, you know, as I gave the
example earlier. If a project is going to cost $60 million and
you do not have enough in this fund, this fund, this fund or
this fund or you partition it out, you cannot get the whole
project done, so it never gets started. If you do not have full
funding, it does not make sense to build the project. I have an
example in my city. We have got a road, and we have deferred
maintenance because we had other needs. We made other choices.
We had other priorities. Now the road is to the point where the
only way to fix it is to reconstruct the entire thing. The cost
to reconstruct that road is $10 million. My general fund's
annual budget is $20 million. I have no--there is nowhere to
get the money. We cannot raise it. We cannot raise taxes. We
cannot borrow. We cannot bond it without going to a vote, and
then how do you sell that against, you know, a recreation
center or a library? So we can partition it. We will do the
design this year. In 5 years, we will do phase 1, and in 10
years, we will do phase 2. Then by the time we get to phase 3,
phase 1 needs to be rebuilt again. It is a huge dilemma.
Mr. Oberstar. And the cost of the construction dollar
continues to erode?
Ms. Novak. Correct.
Mr. Oberstar. It has eroded 47 percent in the last 15
years, but we cannot build $1 highways for 43 cents.
Ms. Novak. Right.
Mr. Oberstar. It just does not make sense.
Ms. Novak. As we are updating our transportation plan in
the Denver Metro area from the 2030 plan to the 2035 plan, we
have to cut out $800 million in projects just because of the
increased cost projections, so those bottom ones--we just keep
lopping off the ones at the bottom in order to fund the
priorities that are identified at the top.
Mr. Oberstar. When a bridge is not available, as you
described a moment ago, there are economic consequences, are
there not?
Ms. Novak. Not only economic, but public safety. I only
have two bridges that cross my city. What happens when my
police officers are on one side and a citizen needs help on the
other? They would have to drive 10 miles out of their way to go
up to the next bridge to cross the highway to respond. So it is
a public safety matter.
Mr. Oberstar. And that is what is happening in Minneapolis
where Mayor Rybak--I know he had to catch a flight back to
Minneapolis, and the schedules have become more restrictive,
unfortunately. I had the same experience in flying back and
forth.
But the bridge collapsed, on the one side, on a lock
operated by the Corps of Engineers. On the other side is a
railroad. The lock moves 2 barges a day of aggregate, sand,
gravel and other materials, principally for construction. That
means 275 additional trucks on the highway daily because that
bridge shut down. On the other side, shutting off the rail,
that means another 40 or 50 trucks on the roadway to haul the
goods, and the trucking sector is strapped. They do not have
enough trucks to haul all of the goods. They do not have enough
drivers to move. The railroads do not have enough capacity, and
so you shut down the barge line and the rail line at the same
time because of a bridge collapse. That does not make economic
sense whatsoever.
Mayor, thank you very, very much for your patience and for
being with us today and for your contribution to our hearing.
We are very grateful to you.
Ms. Novak. Well, thank you for the time and for the
opportunity.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you.
Now, I am happy to welcome to the Committee my colleague, a
new Member of Congress from the State of Minnesota, Mr. Keith
Ellison, representing the city of Minneapolis, in whose
district this bridge collapsed and who responded instantly that
day. I remember when that story came out, and the gentleman met
me on the House floor and said, "I am heading back tonight." He
had his bag packed, and he was on his way.
So thank you for being here for the resolution that was
offered on the House floor today and that Mr. Walz managed on
behalf of the Committee, and thank you for your splendid
response to all of the needs of the citizens. I have heard many
comments about your care, of your concern, of your personal
intervention.
STATEMENT OF THE HON. KEITH ELLISON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MINNESOTA
Mr. Ellison. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It is, indeed,
an honor to be before the Transportation and Infrastructure
Committee.
I would like to start by thanking you, Mr. Chair, for
holding this Committee hearing, and also Ranking Member Mica,
and this is a very important and timely hearing on structurally
deficient bridges. I would like to recognize Mayor R.T. Rybak
for his tremendous leadership during the bridge collapse
crisis. Mayor Rybak and his fellow elected county and State
officials made Minnesota and our Nation proud with their strong
and steady leadership during this calamity. I also want to
thank Governor Pawlenty, Transportation Secretary Peters, and
the NTSB for all of their work.
Lastly, let me also thank the heroic efforts by first
responders--firefighters, police officers, emergency medical
personnel--whose heroism in the first minutes and hours after
the bridge collapsed saved many lives, many lives, and saved
many other people from more severe injuries that they would
have suffered.
Mr. Chair, I did take a moment to visit several hospitals
in the Twin Cities area and the people who were in the bridge
collapse, and many people had serious back injuries and others,
and I am glad that that quick action by our first responders
was able to minimize their injuries in many cases.
As you may know, the tragic collapse of interstate 35W
occurred within the 5th Congressional District, which is my
district. It has been widely reported that the interstate 35
bridge was "structurally deficient." In fact, according to the
U.S. Department of Transportation, one out of every eight
bridges across the Nation is in that same category of
"structurally deficient." In my home State of Minnesota, about
10 percent of the 13,000 bridges in the State were recently
rated as "deficient." So the problem of structurally deficient
bridges is not a theoretical one for any of us in America. It
is a very real issue that demands our attention today so that
other communities across the Nation can be spared the grief
that my district and State had to bear on August 1st when the
Interstate 35 bridge collapsed.
I also want to thank again, Mr. Chair, you and all the
Members of Congress who responded in a unanimous way to
authorize the money for the reconstruction of the bridge. Of
course, we have a little more work to do with the actual
appropriation, but I am confident we will take care of that.
As you know, Mr. Chair, we lost 13 Minnesotans. These were
good people, one and all. The individuals were mothers,
fathers, children, workers, good people, one child yet unborn,
still growing in its mother's womb.
Let me conclude, Mr. Chair, by respectfully asking this
Congress to regard this tragedy as a national call to action to
refocus on our domestic infrastructure. I want to join you in
your call for that same thing, Mr. Chair, and I want to
congratulate you on your bold efforts recently, but also on
your prophetic efforts over the last number of years, I
believe, even decades, when you, in a very prescient way, knew
that we were heading down the wrong path with respect to
investment in our basic infrastructure.
Quite frankly, Mr. Chair, I would have far preferred that
your good advice would have been fully embraced so that we
would not be in this situation, but your words were prophetic
when they were made many years ago, and I want to join with you
in your call to action for our Nation.
On August 1st, we, as a Nation, were united in grief, Mr.
Chair, for the victims, and later, were united in the recovery
and healing efforts. I, myself, went to several funerals. Now
let us be united in rebuilding our Nation's ailing public
infrastructure. For, if the Nation is a body, our
infrastructure is the skeleton that holds it up.
I will look forward to working with this Committee and with
other Members of Congress in making a new national commitment
to public infrastructure in America.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you very much for your kind words but,
more importantly, for your public service and for how you
conducted yourself in those tragic days after the collapse of
the bridge. You showed yourself to be a person of not only
compassion, but of action.
Mr. Ellison. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Oberstar. I said in the aftermath of the bridge, after
we had passed the emergency relief bill and began drafting the
proposal, that we have to act so that those who died will not
have lost their lives in vain, that Minnesota and the Nation
will have learned the lesson and will have acted on that
lesson.
In light of what I initiated 20 years ago on hearings of
bridge safety out of which we simply got a national bridge
status inventory, that is all it is, it would be immoral if I
did not act further. I was Chairman of the Subcommittee then,
of the investigative Subcommittee. We did not have legislative
authority, but we signaled the problem. We made
recommendations. We urged the Congress and the then Reagan
administration to take action 20 years after the Silver Bridge
collapsed, and we heard Ms. Capito talk about the effect in her
district. Well, now we have had another one, and by damn it, it
is not going to happen again if I have anything to say about
it, and I thank the gentleman for his contribution.
Mr. Ellison. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Oberstar. When we draft the bill, I will invite the
gentleman to be an initial cosponsor.
Mr. Ellison. Let me embrace that on the record.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you.
Our next panel includes Mr. Bob McFarlin of the Minnesota
Department of Transportation. He is the Assistant to the
Commissioner for Policy and Public Affairs; Dan Dorgan, who is
the Director of the Office of Bridges for the Minnesota
Department of Transportation; Kirk Steudle of the Michigan
Department of Transportation. He is the Director of the
Michigan DOT; the Chief Engineer for Virginia's Department of
Transportation, Malcolm Kerley; the County Engineer of Palm
Beach County, Florida, George Webb; and Susan Miller, the
County Engineer for Freeborn County, Minnesota.
TESTIMONIES OF BOB MCFARLIN, ASSISTANT TO THE COMMISSIONER FOR
POLICY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF
TRANSPORTATION, ACCOMPANIED BY DAN DORGAN, BRIDGE OFFICE
DIRECTOR, MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION; KIRK STEUDLE
DIRECTOR, MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION; MALCOLM
KERLEY, CHIEF ENGINEER, VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION;
GEORGE WEBB, COUNTY ENGINEER, PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA; AND
SUSAN MILLER, COUNTY ENGINEER, FREEBORN COUNTY, MINNESOTA
Mr. Oberstar. We are very grateful to have you
participating with us today. Thank you for being with us, for
your patience, and we will just start from left to right.
Mr. McFarlin, I regret that the Governor was not able to
participate or the Lieutenant Governor, but we have two people
of signal competence who represent the State of Minnesota.
Mr. McFarlin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Oberstar and Members of the Committee, thank you
for this opportunity.
August 1st was a tragic day for Minnesota and for the
Nation. Thirteen people died in the collapse of the I-35W
bridge, and many more were injured. We continue to mourn those
who died; we comfort their families, and we are tending to the
injured. We will not forget them nor this tragedy.
Our thanks go to you, Mr. Chairman, and to Members of the
Minnesota Congressional Delegation and to the entire Congress
for quickly authorizing $250 million in emergency relief funds.
The Congress' overwhelming bipartisan support has been
gratifying to Minnesotans. We also thank the Bush
administration and the Federal agencies for the outstanding
cooperation in helping Minnesota deal with this tragedy. Our
appreciation also goes to the National Transportation Safety
Board for its thorough approach in investigating the cause of
the collapse.
Today, there is one thing we know for certain. We do not
know what caused the bridge to collapse. Minnesota is confident
that the NTSB has the expertise to identify the cause, and we
have pledged our cooperation in every way possible.
Immediately following the collapse, Governor Pawlenty
ordered MNDOT to begin an accelerated program to inspect all
3,800 bridges on the State highway system by the end of the
year. 1,650 have been inspected as of August 31st, and the rest
will be completed by December 1st. The inspection program is
prioritizing bridges classified as "structurally deficient."
Current data shows 127 structurally deficient bridges on
Minnesota's State highway system. To date, 102 have been
inspected. Minnesota also has 230 fracture critical bridges on
State and local systems. MNDOT will inspect all fracture
critical bridges, and to date, 81 inspections have been
completed.
When the final victim was recovered on August 19th, MNDOT
began the debris removal process in earnest. Bridge debris is
being removed methodically under the direction of the NTSB.
MNDOT anticipates completing debris removal and site cleanup in
mid-October. Minnesota has also begun the process of rebuilding
this important regional connection. The I-35W bridge carried
141,000 vehicles per day, including 5,700 commercial vehicles.
The loss of this vital link is costing road users and the
regional economy in excess of $500,000 per day.
It is in the public interest to reconstruct this interstate
without delay. The new bridge, which will be built as a design-
build project, has a target completion date of late 2008.
Safety will not be sacrificed for schedule, and quality will
not be compromised in either design or construction. MNDOT's
preliminary design calls for ten lanes of traffic, two lanes
wider than the former bridge. This additional capacity will be
dedicated to future transit service, including managed lanes
and bus rapid transit. The bridge will also be built
structurally capable of carrying light rail transit in the
future. Principal funding for the rebuilding project will come
from the U.S. DOT's Emergency Relief Program. The current cost
estimate for the new bridge is $200 million to $250 million.
The project's RFP has been advertised, and MNDOT expects to
award the contract by the end of September with construction
beginning as soon as mid-October.
Mr. Chairman, this tragedy was especially shocking because
Minnesota has one of the strongest bridge programs in the
Nation. Minnesota currently ranks the sixth best in the Nation
in terms of the fewest number of deficient bridges. In recent
years, Minnesota's spending on bridges has consistently
exceeded targeted Federal bridge funding. Minnesota's total
Federal apportionments under the Federal-Aid Bridge Program
under the last 5 years have been $185 million for State, county
and local bridges. Our obligation limit under SAFETEA-LU has
been 85 to 90 percent, effectively reducing the spending
authority for this program to, roughly, $160 million.
Since 2003, MNDOT has invested $390 million in the
replacement or repair of State bridges alone, more than twice
the amount available from Federal bridge funds for all
jurisdictions. Minnesota routinely uses flexible funds from
other Federal funding categories--the NHS, Interstate
Maintenance and the Surface Transportation Program to pay for
bridge repair and replacement projects.
The NTSB investigation into the cause of the collapse may
take up to 14 months, as Chairman Rosenker mentioned. Until the
cause is determined, it is difficult to make specific
recommendations on changes to bridge design, construction,
inspection, and maintenance practices. Such changes, when they
occur, should reflect NTSB findings and also be based on
recommendations from organizations such as the Federal Highway
Administration and the American Association of State Highway
and Transportation Officials.
Again, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you and this
Committee, the Minnesota Congressional Delegation and the
entire Congress for so quickly coming to Minnesota's aid in
this tragedy. We are also grateful for the response and
continuing support of the administration and Federal agencies.
It is imperative that we continue to work together to maintain
the public's faith in the Nation's highways and bridges.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you for your testimony.
I was on the House floor, managing the conference report on
the Water Resources Development Act, which was the culmination
of 7 years of work. It had not moved through three previous
Congresses. We moved it through this Committee in 6 weeks. We
moved it to the House floor in the 7th week, and then it took
all the rest of the time to get it through conference with the
Senate. Just as we were concluding action around just a little
after 7:00 o'clock here, I got notice on my BlackBerry that the
bridge had collapsed in Minnesota. I could not believe it. In a
third world country but not in Minnesota.
So I sat that evening with Committee staff and drafted the
necessary language to remove the cap of the $100 million annual
limitation on emergency relief, a $100 million cap per State,
plus other provisions and the funding for alternative
transportation under the transit program of $5 million. We
introduced the bill that night. We had a markup scheduled in
this Committee the next meeting, the regularly scheduled
markup. So I am the Chairman. I can call it up. We moved it
through Committee, and then we had to get a special rule to
bring the bill to the House floor, and in 48 hours, we had that
passed. I have not seen anything pass that fast in this
Congress or in any Congress in a long time.
Mr. Steudle.
Mr. Dorgan, do you have separate testimony?
Mr. Dorgan. No. Mr. Chairman, no. I am just here to help
Mr. McFarlin answer questions.
Mr. Oberstar. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to visit
with you and with other members of the engineering staff of the
MNDOT.
Please proceed.
Mr. Steudle. Mr. Chairman, representatives, thank you for
allowing me the opportunity to testify today regarding the
state of our bridges and Chairman Oberstar's National Highway
System Bridge Reconstruction Initiative.
My name is Kirk Steudle. I am the Director and the Chief
Executive Officer of the Michigan Department of Transportation.
First of all, I would like to express my sympathy to the
families who have suffered because of this tragic collapse of
the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis. When a tragedy like this
occurs, it ripples across the transportation industry. It might
be a big country, but we are also a small community of
transportation professionals. Believe it when I say that we
transportation professionals take that very much to heart.
Now, more funding for bridges is clearly needed, and I
strongly urge you not to stop there. Additional funding should
be combined with sound, long-term, data-driven, asset
management practices. I emphasize that because Federal road and
bridge funding programs have not kept pace with the state of
the practice of asset management, and the rules that govern the
use of those funds are not always compatible with good asset
management practices and principles.
For example, in the past 2 years, MNDOT has spent less than
90 percent of our Federal bridge funds, not because we were not
investing in bridges, but because the rules for those funds
were too restrictive, and they were not compatible with MNDOT's
asset management approach.
As part of that approach, we inspect bridges more
thoroughly and more often than required by Federal law. We set
strategic goals for road and bridge preservation. We manage our
network of bridges, slowing the deterioration with capital
preventative maintenance. In order to achieve our bridge goals,
we had to look outside the Federal Highway Bridge Program. We
made a choice to dedicate an additional $75 million annually in
State funds just for bridge preservation. Now, to put that in
context, our entire bridge program for the next 5 years
averages $190 million. $100 million of that is Federal funds.
$90 million of that is State funds, State funds that are
generated by gas tax revenues at the State level and
registration fees.
An asset management approach keeps bridges from
deteriorating and systematically upgrades those in poor
condition. In 1998, Michigan improved just over 100
structurally deficient bridges each year and added about 162
other bridges a year to that list. Fixing the worst first was a
losing proposition because, as we focused all of our attention
on the worst bridges, other bridges were still deteriorating.
We were in a hole that we could not easily get out of, but
today, as a result of our data-driven asset management choices,
we are making progress. We have completely reversed those
numbers, improving about 145 bridges a year off of the
structurally deficient list while only adding 86 onto the list.
If you put them in percentages, in 1998, we had 21 percent
poor bridges. Today, that number is down to 14 percent, all in
a time frame of when we had a significant amount of interstate
bridges that were built in the 1950s and 1960s that were coming
into that population and needing significant work. With MNDOT's
experience in mind, I would like to recommend that you revise
the Federal Highway Bridge Program to allow the full
expenditure of bridge funds under an asset management approach.
To do this will require some very specific changes.
First, eliminate the 10-year rule that prevents DOTs from
using Federal bridge funds on a bridge more than once in 10
years so that you can pursue less expansive and less expensive
preventative maintenance and bridge repairs so that you can
preserve the bridge before it deteriorates.
Second, eliminate the 100-point sufficiency rating system
and the arbitrary cutoff points for bridge funding eligibility.
If the State has an asset management program in place, it
should be able to use the Federal funds for the slate of bridge
projects to manage the whole bridge network, all of them
together, effectively preserving the bridge network. If you do
need to keep the sufficiency rating, at least give us more
flexibility.
For example, today, States are not allowed to use Federal
bridge funds to improve a structurally deficient bridge deck if
other elements, such as the superstructure or the substructure,
are still in good condition.
Let me give you a specific example. In Michigan, we have
608 structurally deficient bridges. 223 of those bridges are
because the bridge decks are poor. The superstructure and
substructure are rated in fair or good condition. Those 223
bridges are not eligible for the Highway Bridge Program funding
right now. 43 of those are serious. They are rated at a 3 going
back to that rating scale. So we are using the State funds to
replace those bridge decks. From an asset management
standpoint, this simply does not make sense because the
structurally deficient bridge deck actually accelerates the
deterioration of other bridge elements. It is like saying you
will not replace the shingles on your leaky roof until the
moisture has destroyed the drywall or cracked the foundation.
In conclusion, let me say that a short-term bridge program
is a good start, but I strongly encourage you to remember that
the same challenge exists for the entire transportation system.
They just have not been visibly and tragically demonstrated as
they were recently with bridges. Bridges are tied to the roads
that they connect. Many of Michigan's structurally deficient
bridges are on major freeways that are also in need of repair.
In many cases, we just cannot fix the bridges without doing all
of the major roadwork at the same time.
As you heard from the Mayor from Colorado, many of those
are massive, very expensive projects that, even at a State
level, we would have trouble pulling those amount of resources
together to pay for them.
So thank you, Chairman Oberstar, for bringing this
important and necessary debate on bridge funding and the
programmatic reforms to the forefront.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you very much for that very
enlightening testimony, which I will return as we get into the
questions.
Mr. Kerley.
Mr. Kerley. Good afternoon.
Mr. Chairman, my name is Malcolm Kerley. I am the Chief
Engineer for the Virginia Department of Transportation. I chair
the Highway Subcommittee on Bridges and Structures of the
American Association of State Highway and Transportation
Officials, AASHTO.
On behalf of AASHTO, I want to thank you for holding this
hearing and want to express our support for your proposed
National Highway System Bridge Reconstruction Initiative. I am
here to provide you and the public with the answers to some
critical questions that have arisen since the tragic collapse
of the interstate 35 West bridge.
What have the States done since the accident to make doubly
sure that the Nation's bridges are safe? How are States
investing their money? Are the current funding levels adequate
for the job at hand?
The State Departments of Transportation consider bridge
safety and preservation to be one of our highest priorities and
a responsibility we take very seriously. Every State conducts a
thorough and continuing bridge inspection and rehabilitation
program. America's bridges are inspected at least every 2 years
by trained and certified bridge inspectors. Conditions are
carefully monitored, and where deterioration is observed,
corrective actions are planned and taken. While we know all
States comply with the Federal bridge inspection standards,
each State has a responsibility to ensure that it develops a
more detailed program appropriate to its unique circumstances.
Since August 1, in compliance with the Federal request, every
State has reviewed, inspected or is in the process of
inspecting its steel deck truss bridges.
Based on reports from this review, it appears that all of
these bridges are safe. Nonetheless, of the almost 600,000
bridges across the country, roughly 74,000, or 12.4 percent,
are classified as "structurally deficient." This means that one
or more structural condition requires attention. This may
include anything from the simple deck repairs to the
reinforcement of support structures. Classifying a bridge as
"structurally deficient" does not mean that it is unsafe, but
it does mean that work needs to be done.
How are States spending their bridge funding? As age and
traffic take a toll on bridge conditions, States wage a daily
campaign to preserve them in good condition. The good news is
that, since 1990, States have reduced, by almost half, the
number of structurally deficient bridges on our Nation's
highways. Reports alleging a diversion of Federal bridge funds
are misleading because they focus only on the Federal bridge
program data and fail to look at the total picture of all
resources States commit to bridge improvements. The fact is
that States are spending dramatically more money on bridges
than is provided under the Highway Bridge Program.
In 2004, the Federal Highway Bridge Program provided $5.1
billion to the States. States actually spent $6.6 billion in
Federal aid for bridge rehabilitation. State and local funding
added another $3.5 billion for bridge repairs. As the FHWA
reports, in 2004, a total of $10.5 billion was invested in
rehabilitation by all levels of government. Transfers from
Federal programs are simply a project management tool used by
States and do not reflect actual levels of State bridge
spending. Once again, in 2004, $10.5 billion was invested by
all levels of government, and $5.1 billion was given to the
States through the Federal Highway Bridge Program.
Are the current levels adequate for the job at hand?
Clearly, the answer is no. A huge backlog of bridge needs still
remains. According to the U.S. DOT 2006 Conditions and
Performance Report, needed repairs on the National Highway
System bridges alone totaled over $32 billion, which includes
over $19 billion needed on the interstate highway system.
SAFETEA-LU increased guaranteed spending levels for highway and
transit by 38 percent over the previous bill, but for the
bridge program, SAFETEA-LU increased annual funding levels by
only 6 percent. That funding has been eroded by dramatic
increases in material costs--steel, concrete, fuel, asphalt--
which have increased an average of 46 percent from 2003 to
2006. Thus, we are left with a program that does not have
enough funding to overcome the system backlog.
AASHTO commends you, Mr. Chairman, and your efforts to
improve the national transportation infrastructure. This bridge
rehabilitation proposal is a good first step. We also recommend
streamlining processes that delay needed repairs on our
Nation's highway system and allowing the use of proprietary,
engineering-related projects that could spur innovation and
long-term solutions.
The tragic Minneapolis bridge collapse has rightly focused
us to examine our bridge programs nationally. AASHTO and the
State DOTs stand ready to act upon any recommendation of the
National Transportation Safety Board and to work with the
Congress to address the Nation's transportation investment
needs.
I appreciate the opportunity to be here, sir.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you very much, Mr. Kerley. Please give
my greetings to your commissioner----
Mr. Kerley. Yes, sir.
Mr. Oberstar. --Mr. Ekern, who served in Minnesota and in
my district, with great distinction.
Mr. Kerley. Yes, sir. I sure will.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you.
Mr. Webb.
Mr. Webb. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Members of the
Committee. My name is George Webb, and I am the County Engineer
in Palm Beach County, Florida.
Today, I am representing the National Association of
Counties and the National Association of County Engineers
where, this year, I serve as its President. County engineers
and elected county officials consider bridge safety to be one
of our top priorities and take this responsibility very
seriously.
First, I want to thank the Chairman and the Committee for
the opportunity to present a local government perspective on
the status and condition of bridges. In my county, an urban
county with a population of over 1 million, my highway and
bridge budget is about $140 million annually. We have 230
county bridges identified in the National Bridge Inventory
System, and we are very fortunate that only one is considered
structurally deficient, but we have 49 that are functionally
obsolete. This is due to the fact that, because of our
financial emphasis on system preservation and growth-related
investments, the majority of the bridges in my county were
built or rebuilt in the last 30 years. Statewide in Florida,
there are 260 structurally deficient bridges with 204 owned by
local governments and 56 by the State.
However, over the next decade or so, Palm Beach County's
bridges will be wearing out, in part because of the high
traffic volumes. Some of our bridges carry over 50,000 vehicles
per day, which is more traffic than many rural interstates.
Palm Beach County already knows that we face having to replace
three drawbridges in the next 10 to 15 at a cost of $50 million
each.
We simply do not have the funds for this. In contrast, the
State of Florida also needs to replace another three to five
drawbridges on the State system in my county, and they have
access to both State gas tax revenue and the Federal bridge
program to pay for these projects.
As regards to bridge inspection, I have three staff that
are certified to inspect bridges. More of my staff need to be
trained, but we find that the National Highway Institute
training programs, at least in Florida, have very limited slots
for local governments. Let me add that, nationally, the bridge
situation is more critical for local governments. Of the almost
600,000 bridges in the United States, about 50 percent are
owned by local governments. Of the 73,784 bridges rated
structurally deficient, about 70 percent, or 52,000, are owned
and maintained by local governments, mainly counties. 6,175
bridges on the National Highway System are almost all State-
owned. However, in 38 of the 50 States, a higher percentage of
local government bridges are deficient than State bridges, and
in 31 States, the total number of local deficient bridges is
higher than all State-owned bridges.
The National Highway System Bridge Reconstruction
Initiative proposes a trust fund approach modeled after the
Highway Trust Fund and financed through a dedicated source of
revenue. We generally support this concept for funding the new
bridge program. That being said, we do feel the reach of the
proposed legislation is somewhat limited and should be more
inclusive and expanded to include all structurally deficient
bridges, not just those on the National Highway System.
Non National Highway System bridges that are structurally
deficient do pose a threat to public safety and are often very
important to a regional economy. In addition, we would
recommend no requirement for a State or local match, which will
get the new funds out to projects much more quickly and will
not compete with other infrastructure needs by taking away
State and local matching funds that have already been committed
to other needed projects.
Finally, we are concerned as to what would happen with the
existing Federal Highway Bridge Replacement and Rehabilitation
Program in the next highway reauthorization if this new bridge
program becomes law. We wonder if this could lead to local
bridges' no longer being eligible for Federal bridge funds.
Finally, all levels of government need to continue to strive to
accomplish system preservation on our deficient bridges. System
preservation is not the replacement project of the major
rehabilitation, which seems to grab the headlines, but instead,
it is a containment program of inspection, maintenance and
minor repairs needed to both maintain and to extend the life of
the structure. We in local government have emphasized and have
remained committed to system preservation, but we need your
help in getting to a point where system preservation could more
effectively be accomplished. Therefore, we strongly urge
Congress to proceed on this new and, hopefully, expanded
initiative to restore our bridge infrastructure nationwide.
This completes my testimony, and I will be happy to respond
to any questions.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you very much for your comments. Again,
they were very thoughtfully delivered and carefully prepared.
Ms. Miller, welcome from Southern Minnesota.
Ms. Miller. Good afternoon, Chairman Oberstar and Members
of the Committee. It is an honor for me to be here today.
My name is Susan Miller. I am the Freeborn County engineer
in Southern Minnesota. Today, I am here representing the
National Association of Counties and the National Association
of County Engineers where, this year, I serve as its president-
elect.
Freeborn County is a small, rural county in the south
central portion of Minnesota, bordering Iowa, with a population
of about 32,000 people. We have 176 bridges, identified in the
National Bridge Inventory System, of which only 13 are
considered "structurally deficient," and we have none that are
classified as "functionally obsolete." We have submitted that
it will take about $3.5 million for us to replace those 13
structures. By comparison, my neighbor in the county of
Fillmore, with a population of about 22,000, has 165
structurally deficient bridges out of their total of 465
structures. Their county engineer estimates that that is nearly
$50 million of transportation investment needed to replace
those structures.
Freeborn County does not receive Federal bridge funds but
applies for bridge money from the State of Minnesota's local
bridge fund. Not all States provide an opportunity for funding
local bridges that way. NACO and NACE would like to determine
how much of the Federal bridge program funds get spent on
bridges that are owned by local governments. There has been a
lot of discussion here today about what money is being spent
where and on what systems, and NACE and NACO would like to
encourage the Committee to pursue that initiative with the
Federal Highway Administration tied on it by how much money is
being spent on which bridges, whether they are locally owned,
NHS bridges in a structurally deficient system.
Let me indicate how important Federal bridge funds are to
many local governments, though. Unlike Federal and State
governments that rely on user fees for highway funding, local
governments rely primarily on our own source revenue, or local
property taxes. Raising property taxes is often unpopular
politically, as you all know, and from the perspective of many
local citizens, the disconnect is there between raising
property taxes and improving bridges. They do not see a direct
connection. It is not a user fee-based system. While we
understand the National Highway System is the backbone of our
transportation network, I ask your consideration to not leave
rural local government out of increased Federal funding for
bridges. We just will not be able to raise property taxes
enough to meet all of the needs of our users.
I want to stress that, every day, even in our Nation's
rural areas, we face situations which could result in
catastrophic collapses of one of our bridges. Perhaps the most
amazing image captured after the I-35 tragedy was that of the
dangling school bus where, thankfully, all were safe. As a
mother of four wonderful kids, no picture haunted me more than
that image of that school bus on that bridge, especially with
yesterday being the first day of school and putting my kids on
a bus and knowing that that bus goes across bridges that I am
responsible for.
I also think about the economic importance of bridges in
rural areas. In my county, for example, renewable fuel
production has emphasized how vital our transportation system
is. We support one of the country's leading bio diesel
producers with an annual output 30 million gallons per year
and, additionally, two ethanol plants with an output of nearly
105 million gallons per year. A collapsed, closed or weight-
posted bridge can have a tremendous negative economic impact to
agriculture, mining or logging industries in our rural
communities.
We also have some observations on the bridge inspection
program and the adequacy of training for local bridge
inspectors. The current regulations note that State DOTs are
the responsible party for inspections of all non-Federal
bridges regardless of ownership. However, it should be noted
that some States delegate this authority to counties. The
opportunity, availability and affordability of training are
concerns to local agencies throughout the country. In some
States, no Federal funds are made available to local
governments for these inspections. The qualifications for
personnel implementing the inspection program require that the
State or a delegated agency must be accomplished by a licensed
Professional Engineer and have completed the Federal Highway
Comprehensive Bridge Inspection training programs. Many
counties in some States do not even have licensed county
engineers or licensed professional engineers and have very
limited staff. I believe the education and training package may
be appropriate, but it is very costly to local government
agencies, especially small ones.
The consideration of a tiered approach should be explored
based on the types of bridge structures inspected. Many local
agencies own bridges that are relatively simple structures. We
do not have a lot of lift- or suspension-type bridges or other
complex structures. Additionally, as noted by the previous
witness, the National Highway Institute training is offered
primarily to State agencies, and it is very difficult for local
agencies to be able to get one of those slots and attend that
training.
We continue to encourage the repackaging of the National
Highway Institute training and use the Local Technical
Assistance Program as an avenue to reach out to locals and to
get that training down to our systems in the most effective
manner.
This completes my testimony. I would be happy to answer any
questions.
Mr. Oberstar. Again, thank you very much for the view from
local government where the rubber really does meet the road in
a very direct and powerful way.
I want to welcome Ms. Drake, the gentlewoman from Virginia,
as acting Ranking Member. Thank you very much for being with
us.
Mr. Westmoreland, thank you very much for being with us
today, too. I am sorry. I did not notice you there.
Mr. Westmoreland. That is okay.
Mr. Oberstar. Okay. Now, what are the techniques that you
use to conduct bridge inspections? What I am looking for are
commonalities among the States and the counties in conducting
bridge inspections.
The reason I ask--it is quite transparent--is that, 20
years ago, we found that there were not common standards used
among the States for bridge inspections. One witness, the Ph.D.
engineer for the Center For Auto Safety, said bridge
maintenance and inspection is in the Stone Age. This was 20
years ago. We highlighted a number of the issues, the needs to
be addressed, and States have responded, but still, it is quite
apparent that each State has different practices. You heard me
describe earlier the statement of 20 years ago. Eyes are the
best inspection tool. Many people still believe that is the
standard, the use of a device to drag chains across a bridge
and then listen to the sound and see whether it sounds right or
it sounds odd. Many engineers have told me, "Oh, you know, that
is really a very reliable way of testing a bridge," and they
are on the front lines. They are doing it, but you have to
wonder about that. So I want to get your--I will start with Ms.
Miller and work our way to the right.
Ms. Miller. Well, Mr. Chair, when I became a county
engineer, that was one of my first issues or questions was how
effective is our bridge inspection program, especially in the
local system, and I will say that the Minnesota Department of
Transportation in Southeast Minnesota has been extremely
helpful and effective to the local engineers, and we did shadow
inspections to make sure that our folks were trained to inspect
bridges on the local system, are following the same procedures
through the National Highway Institute courses and doing things
the right way--following the old standards and the old
techniques that are there. So we still use and employ many of
those tools, and I do agree that your eyes are probably your
best set of inspection tools.
One thing I will add is there is a lot of technology that
is out there. There are many new strategies out there that we
can use for bridge inspection, but sometimes these can become
very cost-prohibitive to the number of bridges that are owned
and operated on the local system, and while we do not
discourage the use of these higher technology tools, we would
encourage that there be programs set up for sharing these on a
district-by-district basis throughout a State or a centrally
located set of tools that could be outsourced to local
governments. That would be a concern for local governments that
we have become so high-tech so fast that local government
cannot react sufficiently to that.
Thank you.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you.
As we go along, I do have a question that I am not asking
you to respond to now, but I want you to think about it, and
that is whether there is a better body of knowledge today on
which bridges are in actual risk of failure.
Do we have a better body of knowledge today than we did 10
years ago or 20 years ago?
Mr. Webb. I would like to second what Ms. Miller just said;
we have 230 bridges on the bridge inventory system that are
inspected by the Department of Transportation typically by
using consultants. So they hire consultants and do the
inspections in our county. We have another 60 that are smaller
than the 20 feet that are staff and specs. We have sent those
to the National Highway Institute Training. I agreed that eyes
are what we use, particularly on those structures which I am
comfortable with as far as the type and structures that we have
in our county and the newness of those structures. We have not,
as you have talked about today, touched on any of the newer
technologies. I think we are looking to see what is out there;
in fact, letting the State sort of guide us in that fashion.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you. Mr. Kerley.
Mr. Kerley. The State of Virginia pretty much controls all
the bridges in the Commonwealth, VDOT does. We have about 100
inspectors about 43 inspection teams throughout the State. We
do probably around 10,500 bridge safety inspections a year.
There are consistencies, I think, between all the States from
the viewpoint of utilizing the NBIS standards, the same
training courses everyone is going to.
We are fortunate our location, where Virginia is located
close to Washington D.C., Turner Fairbanks, which is the FHWA
Research Center in McLean. We have a research center on the
campus of the University of Virginia. So we have utilized some
of the techniques you talked about earlier, Mr. Chairman, mag
particles, nondestructing testing on those.
But I think I agree with the previous speakers that the
hands-on is the first initial to identify then what you might
come to do with a more expensive-type technique. We have also
used an infrared instead of dragging the chains on the decks. I
have some good people who will tell you that chain-dragging
works pretty well too. We try to utilize what we have in the
program that all the States are using and supplement that with
what technology can bring to us.
Mr. Oberstar. I cannot pass the opportunity to observe that
when Senator Warner--very, very dear friend of mine with whom I
have worked on a number of initiatives over the years--was
asked at his news conference what was he most proud of, what
accomplishment was he most proud of in his 30 years at the
Senate, he said the Wilson bridge. It was an earmark, by the
way.
Mr. Kerley. Yes, sir. It was a Federal bridge, too, until
we took ownership when the new one was built.
Mr. Oberstar. That bridge carries 1 percent of the gross
domestic product of the entire United States. That is how
important that bridge was, which is why I was happy to partner
with him to make that earmark happen.
Mr. Steudle.
Mr. Stuedle. Mr. Chairman, I will echo Mr. Kerley's
comments. We use the National Bridge Inspection program, the
NBI, that is to my knowledge used in almost every State. So we
use that same system. All of our inspectors are trained and
retrained and certified under that system. We have 21 bridge
inspectors who work in teams of two, and some other team
managers we have spread across the 83 counties in Michigan.
There are about 4,400 bridges that are under the direct
jurisdiction of the Department of Transportation in Michigan.
We really do agree with the last three speakers. The first
thing is you have to have eyes on the bridge. The first thing
we did on August 2nd was to send those bridge inspectors back
to four bridges in Michigan that have the same similar design
as the Minnesota bridge does and had them, first of all, get
different eyes on that bridge to make sure that what we saw 4
months earlier was exactly true. And we did confirm by late
Friday afternoon on the 3rd that what we had seen was in fact
what was happening on those bridges and there were not any
problems. There was one of those four bridges that was
structurally deficient because it has a bad bridge deck, but
the structure, the superstructure and substructure, were fine.
If there are things that those inspectors see, then we clearly
bring in more nondestructive testing, the magnet particle
testing and ultrasound and infrared-type technology. It is not
practical to use that on every bridge; there are just too many
and it would be too cost-prohibitive.
The single most cost-effective method would be to put eyes
on bridges on all the structural components. Guys down there
with a hammer; it is not real glamorous, but you can bang on
the concrete, there is a different sound. I have one of those
engineers who grew up in the Department and actually dragged
one of those chains across the bridge deck as well. It is not
glamorous, but there is a different sound there. It does not
need to be the end-all, but it certainly can be the canary that
says you need to look at this a little closer.
We think that is really one of the most important pieces.
You physically have to have someone there, looking at them, to
make that first assessment.
Mr. Oberstar. You are right. It does say seasoning and
experience, to have the ear to hear and the eyes to see. And I
do not denigrate those technologies at all. They have been used
successfully for years. But we need to back them up.
Mr. McFarlin, Mr. Dorgan
Mr. McFarlin. I will cover what we do in Minnesota, just to
give you an overview of that. Within the DOT itself, the State
DOT, we have 75 team leaders. They would all meet the
requirements of the National Bridge Inspection program. They
had a 10-day course on inspection. Occasionally they have
refresher courses within our State. That is mandatory every 4
years to go to a refresher course. In addition, those
inspectors would have 2 to 5 years' experience, 2 years for an
engineer, 5 for a non-engineer. That is on the State side.
Among the counties there would be one team leader in every
county, so an additional 87 team leaders within our county
system. And beyond that we have others that we call level 1
inspectors that are working towards the team leader. There are
154 of those.
So we have quite a large workforce that spends part of the
year doing bridge inspections both on the State and county side
and, again, refresher training became a requirement 2 years ago
for our inspectors.
A lot of comments have been covered by the others, but I
know you asked specifically about the technology. Earlier you
cited ultrasonic and some other means that were used. As others
have said, the first thing one of the inspectors uses is their
eyes to see what they can find visually. For steel bridges, it
goes well beyond that and very much so in the case of a
fracture critical bridge. Ultrasonic testing is regularly used,
mag particle and dye penetrants also. But ultrasonic is
actually what they are gravitating towards as the preferred
technology for really critical structures.
On our underwater inspections in addition to having divers,
every 5 years we do underwater inspections, but we regularly do
inspections with sonar, looking for scour holes looking for
scour within our rivers. So there is quite a bit of technology
used, and our equipment, we have four under-bridge snooper
trucks at the moment, and one on order. They are manufactured
in Duluth by Aspen Aerials; that is the vendor in our area. So
we have a large investment there in equipment, too.
And for our fracture-critical bridges, as County Engineer
Miller mentioned, counties do their own inspection with the
exception of fracture-critical, because our teams have the
ultrasonic equipment and some of the other things needed for
fracture-critical inspection. Those are all performed by the
State for the counties.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you very much. The snooper cranes were
stimulated by the hearings that we held 20 years ago and
highlighted a need for a more efficient way to get under the
bridge, and this technology was just coming under practice.
Mrs. Drake. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Mr. Kerley, it is
good to see you. Thank you for the work you do in Virginia for
us.
In regards to this legislative proposal that we are
discussing, extra funding, new funding for bridges, you used
the term "good first step" and then you also said innovation
and long-term solutions. Are there recommendations that you
could lay out for the Committee as we continue this discussion
in regards to how to deal with this particular issue?
Mr. Kerley. Well, reference to good first step is that
additional funding is needed in this particular area. I have
gone through and looked at some of the proposals in there. The
proposal of enhancing the inspection program, I think the
AASHTO States would be supportive of that. Every tragedy we
have had in the past has led to improvements in the inspection
program. So moving toward improvements in the inspection
program is something that all States would support. The concern
would be is the funding with the amount of inspections that we
are doing now and the time associated with that and those type
of things would have to be considered.
We would look to work with Congress and find out first what
happened in Minnesota, what happened that caused that, and then
try to improve the system so that does not happen again. And
then it gives us an opportunity to look at the whole program
once again.
Recently there have been changes in the inspection program,
increased requirements for inspectors, increased fracture-
critical inspection cycles, those things. We have to see if
they are working and what we can do to improve the program. So
AASHTO would be happy to work with the FHWA and Congress to
improve the program as much as possible.
Mrs. Drake. Can you also walk us through how Federal
funding for bridges is used in Virginia? How do we spend that
money, or what decisions--is there a way to try to maximize it?
Mr. Kerley. In Virginia we utilize all the Federal funds
that come in to the State. We have probably about $909 million
that we receive in Federal funds, about 94 million of that is
Federal bridge money. We utilize some of that in our
maintenance program now, but Virginia will probably spend, if
we receive $94 million in Federal bridge funds, we will
probably spend an additional $150 million in State funds to
supplement that. We have nine construction districts in the
State of Virginia and each one of those has a bridge section
who conducts the bridge safety inspections and is responsible
for the bridges in their particular construction area. We
oversee that from the central office. We utilize the reports to
establish priorities; and our State bridge engineer, working
with our Commonwealth Transportation Board, sets those
authorities. In 2004 the General Assembly put in budget
language that requires all the Federal bridge money to be used
on bridges utilizing the sufficiency ratings in determining
where the priority would be.
Mrs. Drake. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to ask Mr.
Steudle one question.
You mentioned part of the problem is the roads that the
bridges connect to, and you made an interesting comment about
this is bigger than just bridges. I do not know if you heard
the opening statements, but Mr. Mica was talking at length
about having a strategy and a strategic plan for
transportation. I wondered if you wanted to expand on that, if
there are others of you on the panel who agree with that.
I am wondering if it isn't a bigger issue, although bridges
we are all so concerned about because we know what could
happen, but if we should not take this opportunity to just do a
bigger strategy for transportation.
Mr. Steudle. You hit on that. Really, the key point is we
are focused on bridges because of the tragedy and because of
the fatalities that happened. It is hard to pinpoint how many
people died because of a pothole, but it happens. It happens
when someone loses control of their car. And it is because
there is one here and one there and maybe three over here that
it does not raise to the same level.
My point was while we are focused on bridges--which we need
to and I applaud you for going at that and I do not want to
take any steam away from that--I really want you to look at the
whole transportation system in and of itself. In some of the
questions this morning to Secretary Peters, the Members were
clearly thinking of how does this fit with the railroad
structures and how does it fit with other pieces.
That really is what my comment was driving at. We need to
look at the entire system--how we fund transportation across
all of the States in all the different modes. And then
specifically within highways, how do we do it; is there enough
for the road systems as well?
Now, the example I gave, we have got a big mega-project
that is a billion dollars for 6 miles of Interstate 94 through
the city of Detroit that has about 38 bridges on it that are
all listed as structurally deficient, and they have been on
there for 10 years. We have been trying to get it through the
environmental process, but even at the end, we end up with a
financial constraint issue that says we do not have enough
money to build this.
How are we going to repair these bridges that desperately
need to be fixed? We have been spending State money holding
them together while this other project is moving through the
system that would eventually widen it and put service drives
and modernize that interstate that, frankly, was one of the
first ones that was built. So it is a very, very old section of
Interstate 94. We have not figured out how we will be able to
fund that piece.
So when we look at just the bridge piece, that is only a
part, because we could throw a bunch of money at bridges, but
then the roads connecting them would still have a bunch of
deficiencies as well.
Mrs. Drake. Thank you, Mr. Steudle. Thank you, Mr. Kerley.
Mr. Oberstar. We have begun the process with this Committee
at the beginning of the year with hearings on the operation
effectiveness of the safety legislation in August of 05 and
laying the groundwork for the broader infrastructure initiative
and reauthorization in 09. This is a step-by-step process,
evaluating all the pieces. We will do a top-to-bottom review as
was done at the end of the interstate era with ISTEA. This will
be a major restructuring of our Federal aid highway and bridge
and safety and transit programs. Meanwhile, we have a high-
profile issue that we have to address and we need to--is that
the Grasho Road project you are talking about in Detroit? That
major mega-project?
Mr. Steudle. Grosse Ile?
Mr. Oberstar. Yes.
Mr. Steudle. No. It is about 4 or 5 miles apart.
Mr. Oberstar. It seems that has been under construction and
reconstruction forever, given the times I have driven over it.
Do you have something else you wanted to add?
Mr. Steudle. I want to emphasize the work that you are
starting for the reauthorization and understand that the bridge
piece is something that there is an opportunity to deal with
right now and I think we need to do it now. My comments really
are let's make that as the first step into the reauthorization
process that you are kicking off and starting as well. Let's
not give people the false impression that we have taken care of
the transportation problem because we have addressed some
bridges. Once it gets outside of the transportation industry,
people think you just worked on that, so it must be good for 20
years, when in fact what we did was preventive maintenance and
we kept it in good condition. A lot of that comes with funding
as well. They say, you just took care of that; you have enough.
Mr. Oberstar. Goodness, no. This is a dress rehearsal, if
you will.
Mr. Duncan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I will not have any
questions, I wasn't able to come for the testimony because Mr.
Mica asked me to meet with some Texas transportation officials.
But I would like to say this: I read Chairman Oberstar's
proposal and I like about everything in there.
One thing I did point out in my opening statement this
morning was that Tennessee over the last several years has done
quite a bit of work on our bridges and we have about half of
the structurally deficient bridges as is the national average.
I hope when we come up with whatever we come up with in the
end, we do not short-change States that have done a little bit
more in regard to the bridges. And I hope we do not punish the
States that have done the most work in that regard, because I
do not think that would be fair, because we still do have
bridges that need--we have a lot of bridges in our State, with
all of our lakes and hills and rivers and so forth.
I just hope we keep that in mind, Mr. Chairman. Thank you
very much.
Mr. Oberstar. Yes, indeed. As I pointed out through the
course of the hearing, I have set forth a proposal, not an
introduced bill, this is a work in progress. The idea of
hearings is to shape a bill. This is rather unusual that we
follow this procedure, but I felt this was a fair and right way
to do this, and to gather ideas. As Mr. Baker pointed out,
there are unique circumstances in Louisiana, unique structures
that need to be addressed in a different way, and we will fold
that into this proposal.
Mr. Westmoreland.
Mr. Westmoreland. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank
you for putting that proposal out and giving us an opportunity
to have the input from these experts and also our input.
Mr. Dorgan, I was reading some information about the I-35
bridge. If I understand it correctly, it was due to undergo
some renovation I think in December of 06, and because of maybe
some structural concerns or whatever underneath, it was an
option not to do that; is that pretty much correct?
Mr. Dorgan. Mr. Sherman and Congressman Westmoreland, the
years are slightly off there. We have considered different
options on the structure. One was reinforcing--this was based
on a study that the Department had done--to add reinforcing
plates to the bridge; another was a thorough inspection of the
fracture-critical areas that were of concern in the main truss;
and a third was a combination of the two. Originally we had
scheduled a contract to add the reinforcement. That would have
gone to contract this fall, in October 07. Last winter we made
the decision, based on some new information from the consultant
that was doing the study, we made the decision to pursue the
inspections last spring and we did those in May. We got
approximately half the bridge inspected. This is the main truss
spans now, and no evidence of any fatigue cracking was found.
Given all the previous studies on that structure, the expert
opinions were that if none had been experienced to date, we
would not have fatigue problems with that. And to this day,
well, I think the NTSB has to conclude their study as to the
actual causes of this. But up to this time, fatigue has not
been identified as an issue. There were certainly other things
Chairman Rosenker referred to in his testimony. That was not
one of them.
Mr. Westmoreland. Chairman Oberstar brought up the point
that 20 years ago this one piece of equipment was brought up at
a hearing and has been put in place, so I think we are right at
a point where there is some cutting-edge technology out there
that is a little bit more than a guy with a flashlight and a
hammer to go out.
I know it is expensive technology, but there is one in
Georgia, LifeSpan, that does this type of technology on a
bridge, and I know it is more expensive. If I understand it
correctly and since the tragedy on I-35, knowing that we would
probably have these hearings, I started looking into some of
this information. And I think that with some of this more
sophisticated technology you may take a bridge that is a
category 4, where if you use the sophisticated technology you
may find out it that was a 6 or a 2 rather than a 4. So on some
of these especially, Mr. Dorgan, did you ever, or did anybody
at the DOT, ever think about going to a little more of the
sophisticated monitoring system rather than just continuing to
do the visual inspections, but go that extra step further to do
any of this high-tech stuff? Would that have been a last
resort?
Mr. Dorgan. Congressman Westmoreland, actually regarding
high-tech, it was done on this bridge. We used ultrasonic
testing throughout those inspections that have been done over
the years for fracture-critical; and particularly for the
inspections done in May, it was both visual and ultrasonic
testing that was done, and our inspection staff is very well
trained in that. They are all certified, American Welding
Society certifications and ANSI certifications. No cracks,
again, were found. So ultrasonic was used.
Regarding I think the other technology you may have been
referring to, monitoring systems, that were available from a
different company. That was considered earlier in some of the
previous study work. The monitoring systems, however, that we
looked at were specifically for monitoring fatigue cracks when
you had active fatigue cracks in a structure. This structure in
the main trusses which was our area of concern had no fatigue
cracks. So we had no cracks to apply monitors to monitor.
In addition to that, of the weld details that were of
interest, there were probably over a thousand locations in that
main truss. It was made up of--- each truss has at least 64
members of it. So the monitoring systems we have seen that are
practical work maybe well on girder bridges where it is one
continuous piece of steel. This was a considerably different
type of structure. So rather than relying on a monitoring
system that we thought probably was not well-suited for the
structure, instead we were doing very frequent inspections.
Mr. Westmoreland. Let me say this in closing. I know all of
you have a very difficult job with the money that is available
and as many bridges you have to look after. I hope that with
this proposal that Chairman Oberstar has put forward that we
will start looking at some of the different technologies that
we can use in some of this new stuff to determine the
structural strength of these bridges and maybe get a more
accurate reading.
One of the other interesting things, I cannot remember who
brought it up, about the divers going down and looking at the
bridges. I know the I-35 collapse came on the news--whether
this is true or not, I learned not to believe everything you
hear on the news--the divers could not get close enough to read
the tags on the car. So that would put a diver in a tough
situation trying to examine the structure, the underpinning of
a bridge under water if he is in water where he is having that
kind of visibility. So maybe there is some kind of high-tech.
That is all the questions I have, Mr. Chairman, and I
appreciate you giving me the opportunity to ask them.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank the gentleman for his observations,
very thoughtful contribution.
Early in the testimony among this panel I heard concern
about restrictive Federal rules, limitations on use of funds
for bridge decking and a number of other concerns about the
limitations under which you must operate in the use of your
Federal funds. I want to point out those are regulations issued
by the Federal Highway Administration. They are not founded in
law.
I am glad you raised this for--the purpose of having this
hearing is to hear from the practitioners the concerns they
have in operating the Federal program. We can clear the deck,
if you will. We can clean out those Federal regulations in the
upcoming legislation, and along the way as we move ahead with
this bridge initiative. If the Federal Highway Administration
is putting you in a straitjacket on your operation of the
program, that certainly is not intended by law.
Preventive maintenance, for example, is specifically
allowed by law. It has been since 1987, and then in 91 in ISTEA
and then TEA-21 and in the current SAFETEA-LU. So we have
worked to give States broad flexibility.
The concern expressed by Ms. Miller and Mr. Web about
training of inspectors and supervisors. In the proposal I have
set forth, we have a provision to require training to higher
standards and more skills for inspectors and supervisors. We
will provide funding for that in this bridge initiative;
inspectors generally, without restrictions. We will do our best
to give the broadest flexibility that you need. Any other such
limitations that you think are obstacles, send them to us. We
would very much welcome your input and we will take whatever
steps are necessary to make things better.
In Minnesota we have had a goal in previous years of
ensuring that 65 percent of bridges are in good condition.
Michigan raised its standard. Minnesota, according to reports
that I have heard, lowered the goal to 55 percent. Tell us what
Michigan did.
Mr. Steudle. First of all, it is 85 percent, good and fair.
So I cannot comment on what the Minnesota numbers are because I
do not know their system. But I do know that Michigan's goal is
95 percent of the freeway bridges in good or fair condition and
85 percent of the non-freeway bridges in good or fair
condition.
We had a goal. We started this in 1998 and our goal was to
get there by 2008. It is important to note that in 1998 we were
at about 79 percent and we have increased that number up to
about 86, a significant boost at a time when we had a lot of
aging bridges coming at us. But frankly, a lot of that was an
influx of State dollars that, as I said before, is about 50
percent State dollars, 50 percent Federal dollars and an
emphasis on the bridge program and looking at the entire bridge
network as a complete network, and understanding that you have
to manage them in different stages of life. Not every bridge
needs to be reconstructed. You need to be fix what needs to be
fixed on those structures. We have had a concerted effort for
the last 10 years, and that is why I brought the example of the
bridge decks; 223 bridge decks out of 608 are structurally
deficient because--our bridges are structurally deficient
because the bridge decks themselves are poor. The rest of it is
fine. Those are in our program, mostly being paid for--
completely being paid for with State funds. So those bridges
will come off of the structurally deficient list. So we manage
them as an entire network of bridges and not just as multiple
phases of their life. Not just one particular structure and one
fix fits all.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you.
Mr. McFarlin.
Mr. McFarlin. Mr. Chairman, as Mr. Dorgan is crunching some
numbers to help answer the question, I just want to mention the
goals that you mentioned are part of a much larger performance
measure package that Minnesota DOT uses to guide its
investments not only in bridges, but in safety in the roadways
and other aspects of what we invest our funds into. We also
review those performance measures regularly to see not only--
they are measures we have set. We are measuring against
ourselves, and we review them to see if they are realistic, if
they might be too low or too high. It is a constantly evolving
process to peg our performance measures to where we think we
ought to be. We are very proud of that effort to guide our
investments based on actual measurements and performance of our
system.
I think Mr. Dorgan, off the top of his head, has some
numbers on bridge performance goals.
Mr. Oberstar. But that was announced that Minnesota had set
the goal of 55 percent. Why was that reduced from 65 percent?
Mr. Dorgan. Congressman Oberstar, the goal of--back in 1997
when we established performance measures, there was a goal of
maintaining at least 65 percent of our bridges in good
condition--that would be by the NBIS classifications--and that
was also State-owned bridges, regardless whether they were
interstate or not. As the years unfolded, we realized that that
level at 65 percent was probably unrealistic to maintain. At
the time we set that goal, we were at about 62 percent.
Mr. Oberstar. Unrealistic from what standpoint; cost?
Mr. Dorgan. Unrealistic when you consider the life span of
a bridge. When you consider how when we want 75 to 100 years of
life to maintain it with that much inventory at 65 percent in
good condition, in order to achieve that we would have had to
have been replacing bridges prematurely to get that number of
bridges up to 65 percent.
So our current goal, once we took a more realistic look at
that--this is all State-owned bridges--we set that level at no
less than 55 percent in good condition; our fairs plus poors
are no more than 16 percent; and our poors no more than 2
percent.
Now, when I just checked with Mr. Steudle to check how
Michigan figures their numbers, if we compare to Michigan's
goal, the goods through fair condition, Minnesota right now
would be at 96 percent of our bridges in either good through
fair condition. What that leaves is bridges in poor condition
at under 4 percent, so it would be a little bit better than 96
percent against that standard. I think each State is setting
their own performance goal so it is somewhat tough to compare
to each other until you can figure out what each other is
actually measuring.
Mr. Oberstar. That is why we need a national standard. That
is why we need to have one set of rules by which everybody
plays, everybody understands, and measurements can be equitably
and accurately made. And that goes to the data-driven aspect of
a national bridge program.
Mr. Dorgan. I would agree, Congressman. A lot of States are
in to performance measures now. And since we are all setting
our own performance measures--but a national set of performance
measures would give us a basis of comparison.
Mr. Oberstar. That would be the first title of this
proposal.
I was very encouraged, Mr. McFarlin, to hear you say that
safety will not be sacrificed for schedule in the
reconstruction of this bridge. I probably need not, but I will
anyway, recall the 1962 and the rush to finish a portion of I-
35 that resulted in a great brouhaha in Minnesota. We do not
want another one of those.
Mr. Dorgan. I can assure you that this bridge will not
cause a brouhaha. We are very confident in our design-build
method and our approach. We've had great success and the
design-build area and Minnesota has built many large projects
in the State that have gone forward very successfully, come in
on time, very close to budget, very small overruns, good
cooperation with not only the contractors but with local units
of government and with citizens. We are very confident and I
can assure you that this is going to go forward very well.
Mr. Oberstar. I want to thank you very much. You have all
made a valuable contribution. I urge you again to think through
all those restrictive rules that you have been saddled with
through the Federal Highway Administration. Make a compilation
for us, and especially county engineers with your national
network, and send that in to us as soon as you can. That is a
matter we can fix.
Good. Thank you very, very much.
Panel V.
We have Mr. Andy Herrmann, Managing Partner, Hardesty &
Hanover, New York; Mr. William Cox, Corman Construction, Inc.,
here on behalf of ARTBA; Mr. Tim Lynch, American Trucking
Association, Senior Vice President; Ms. Janet Kavinoky--I was
wondering where to put the accent on that. I love that, a name
that has real weight. And then Don Kaniewski. Now, there is a
real--that's an odd name that everybody--the Federated People's
Republic of the Soviet--the core of my district--can understand
and pronounce. And let me take this opportunity, Mr. Kaniewski,
to congratulate you on 30 years of service with the laborers.
I will give you a big applause. I have been around long
enough to remember your predecessor, Jack Kerr.
Congratulations. We will start with Mr. Herrmann.
TESTIMONY OF ANDY HERRMANN, P.E, HARDESTY & HANOVER, MANAGING
PARTNER; WILLIAM G. COX, PRESIDENT, CORMAN CONSTRUCTION, INC.;
DONALD KANIEWSKI, LEGISLATIVE AND POLITICAL AFFAIRS DIRECTOR,
NATIONAL CONSTRUCTION ALLIANCE; JANET KAVINOKY, EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR, U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, AMERICANS FOR
TRANSPORTATION MOBILITY; AND TIM LYNCH, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT,
AMERICAN TRUCKING ASSOCIATION, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Herrmann. Thank you, Chairman Oberstar, and Members of
the Committee. Good morning. My name is Andrew Hermann. I serve
on the board of directors of the American Society of Civil
Engineers. I am the managing partner of Hardesty & Hanover, a
transportation consulting engineering firm headquartered in New
York City. During my 34-year career I have been responsible for
many of the firm's major bridge projects. I want to thank you
for holding this hearing. I can say there are a few
infrastructure issues of greater importance to Americans than
bridge safety.
ASCE is the country's oldest national civil engineering
organization, representing more than 140,000 civil engineers.
ASCE strongly supports the National Highway System Bridge
Reconstruction Initiative introduced by Chairman Oberstar. We
look forward to working with you to enact this important
legislation.
More than 4 billion vehicles cross bridges in the United
States every day and, like all man-made structures, bridges
deteriorate. Deferred maintenance accelerates deterioration and
bridges become more susceptible to failure. In 2005 ASCE issued
its latest report card for America's infrastructure, which
stated that in 2003, 27.1 percent of the Nation's bridges were
structurally deficient or functionally obsolete, which was an
improvement from the 28-1/2 percent in the year 2000. In fact,
over the past 12 years the number of deficient bridges has
steadily declined from 34.6 percent in 1992 to 25.8 percent in
2006. However, this improvement is contrasted with the fact
that 1 in 3 urban bridges were classified as structurally
deficient or functionally obsolete, much higher than the
national average. The 10-year improvement rate from 1994 to
2004 was a decrease of 5.8 in deficient bridges.
Projecting forward from 2004 yields an estimate of 46 years
to remove all deficient bridges. But, unfortunately the rate of
deficient bridge reduction from 1998 to 2006 is decreasing,
with the current projection from 2006 estimated at 57 years for
the elimination of all deficient bridges. While progress has
been made in the past in removing deficient bridges, our
progress is now slipping or leveling off. There is a
demonstrated need to invest additional resources in our
Nation's bridges.
The National Bridge Inspection Standards in place since the
early seventies require biannual safety inspections for bridges
to be performed by qualified inspectors. Approximately 83
percent of our bridges are inspected once every 2 years.
Standard condition evaluations are documented for individual
bridge components as well as ratings for the functional aspects
of the bridge. These ratings are weighted and combined into an
overall sufficiency rating for a bridge on the zero to 100
scale.
A bridge's sufficiency rating can define it as structurally
deficient or functionally obsolete. Both trigger a need for
remedial action. A structurally deficient bridge may be
restricted to light vehicles and reduced speeds because of its
deteriorated structural components. While not necessarily
unsafe, such bridges are at the point where replacement and
rehabilitation will be necessary.
A bridge classified as functionally obsolete is safe to
carry traffic, but has less than the desirable geometric
conditions required by current standards, and may not safely
accommodate current traffic volumes, vehicle sizes and vehicle
weights. These restrictions not only contribute to traffic
congestion but also pose such major inconveniences as lengthy
detours for school buses or emergency vehicles.
Bridges and their components are structurally load-rated at
inventory and operating levels of capacity in their present
inspected physical condition. The inventory rating is the
design level for a bridge for normal traffic. The operating
rating level with a reduced factor of safety is intended to
define infrequent overload vehicle permits, and generally
describes the maximum permissible live load to which the bridge
may be subjected. Allowing unlimited numbers of vehicles to use
a bridge at the operating level may shorten the life of the
bridge.
Bridge inspection services should not be considered a
commodity. Currently NBIS regulations do not require bridge
inspectors to be professional engineers, but do require
individuals responsible for the load rating of the bridges to
be professional engineers.
ASCE believes that non-licensed bridge inspectors and
technicians may be used for routine inspection procedures and
records, the pre-inspection evaluation. The actual ratings and
condition evaluations should be performed by licensed
professional engineers, experienced in bridge design and
certified as bridge inspectors.
ASCE strongly supports the establishment of a dedicated
funding source to repair, rehabilitate, and replace
structurally deficient bridges on the National Highway System
as a complement to the current FHWA bridge program. This
initiative would be a first step in addressing the long-term
needs of the Nation. However, this effort should not detract
from the investment needs debate during the reauthorization of
SAFETEA-LU in 2009.
The requirement to distribute funds based on a formula
which takes into account public safety and needs is an
excellent step in creating a program that addresses public
safety first. Successfully and efficiently addressing the
Nation's transportation issues would require a long-term,
comprehensive, nationwide strategy, including identifying
potential financing methods and investment requirements for the
safety and security of our families. We as a Nation can no
longer afford to ignore this growing problem. Aging
infrastructure represents a growing threat to public health,
safety and welfare, as well as the economic well-being of our
Nation.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This concludes my statement. I
would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
Mr. Oberstar. We very much appreciate the presence of the
ASCE, you are a watch dog on the Nation's infrastructure, and a
very credible one--one frequently cited in the lay press, if
you will.
Mr. Herrmann. Thank you.
Mr. Oberstar. Mr. Cox.
Mr. Cox. Chairman Oberstar, Representative Duncan, my name
is Bill Cox. I am president of Corman Construction in Annapolis
Junction, Maryland. I am here today in my capacity as Vice
Chairman of the American Road and Transportation Builders
Association.
While ARTBA welcomes today's discussion on how to best meet
the enormous bridge needs, we deeply regret the circumstances
that led to this hearing. Bridges can be rebuilt and roadways
repaired, but lives touched by tragedy can never be made whole.
Our membership offers its condolences to those families who
lost loved ones or had been injured in the I-35 bridge
collapse.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to applaud your leadership in
proposing a bold and targeted Bridge Safety Initiative. I also
want to commend Representative Mica for his call for the
development of a comprehensive national transportation
strategy. These objectives are not mutually exclusive and can
be pursued concurrently. The Minneapolis bridge tragedy
demonstrates the significant public safety threat that exists
from delaying repairs to aging bridges.
ARTBA believes immediate action on Chairman Oberstar's
proposal to rehabilitate National Highway System bridges is a
logical first step towards restructuring Federal surface
transportation policy to ensure unmet needs are addressed.
Mr. Chairman, in my remaining time I would like to provide
a broader perspective on the debate that has unfolded since
last month's disaster in Minnesota. Not surprisingly, since the
accident, certain groups have put forth the same stale
arguments as to why Federal leadership to help rehabilitate the
Nation's bridges is not warranted. In doing so, we believe they
really missed the point. The U.S. is suffering from not just a
bridge crisis but a systemic transportation crisis. We need to
dramatically upgrade the Nation's bridges, roadways, public
transportation facilities, rail lines and airport
infrastructure.
An example of this rhetoric is the suggestion that if it
were not for congressional earmarks, sufficient resources would
be available for transportation needs. The fundamental
assumption behind this claim is that earmarked funds are not
used for needed highway and bridge improvements. We need to
remind ourselves, about projects like the new Woodrow Wilson
Bridge project, the largest single earmark in the 1998 surface
transportation bill. There are countless other examples of
high-priority road and bridge projects that have been earmarked
and, many, a part of State transportation plans.
I am proud that my company has been involved in the Woodrow
Wilson project and will have played a role in addressing one of
the Nation's worst bottlenecks and a major impediment to the
safe movement of freight and people along the east coast. It is
not only an example of a critical project that came to be
through the earmark process, but also a mega-project that will
be delivered on time and on budget.
Mr. Chairman, as we work to overcome the pervasive
transportation challenges, we need to utilize all financing
solutions, not take some off the table. Public-private
partnerships, innovative financing, tolling and new user fees
are all part of the solution.
In the days after the bridge collapse, however, there seems
to be more interest by some in trying to utilize the Federal
motor fuels tax as a political wedge issue instead of rolling
up our sleeves and finding a comprehensive solution to bridge
deficiencies and other transportation challenges. We need to
recognize the foundation of any successful transportation
financing structure must continue to be the Federal motor fuels
tax. It has been demonstrated to be the most effective and
fiscally responsible method to finance transportation
improvements, and will be for years to come.
While the increasing fuel efficiency and alternative motor
fuels may ultimately have a dilutive effect on gasoline tax
revenues, that point is decades away. The only thing antiquated
by the gas tax is its current rate. To suggest that drivers can
receive comparable results from contributing the same level of
financial support to maintain and improve the Nation's
transportation network as they did 15 years ago lacks all
credibility. Since that time, the population has grown, the
economy has grown, the number of vehicles have grown, demands
on the system have grown, and the cost of road and bridge
improvements have skyrocketed.
In closing, ARTBA believes the targeted proposal to
rehabilitate the Nation's national highway bridges is necessary
to address the immediate public safety threat neglected bridges
represent. This measure would provide the quantifiable results
and accountability that Americans demand and our Nation's
citizens deserve. We urge all Members of Congress to support
Chairman Oberstar's NHS Bridge Reconstruction Initiative as a
critical first step towards achieving the goal of a
comprehensive national surface transportation plan. Thank you
for the opportunity to speak.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you for your contribution, I am very
much encouraged and inspired by that. Thank you.
Mr. Kaniewski.
Mr. Kaniewski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Congressman Duncan,
thank you for your kind words.
My name is Donald Kaniewski. I am the Political and
Legislative Director of Laborers' International Union of North
America. I testify not only as a representative of the
Laborers' today, but also on behalf of the unions that are
members of the National Construction Alliance. That includes
the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and the International
Union of Operating Engineers. Together we represent well over 1
million highly skilled construction workers who build America's
infrastructure day in and day out. Our members are the ones
that take congressional authorizing legislation and convert it
into real-world concrete and steel transportation projects that
move this country.
I want to take a moment to say that on August 1st, we had
many members on the bridge, and we believe that they were doing
the wrong job; they were conducting resurfacing when perhaps
they should have been engaged in replacement. In an inherently
dangerous industry, we want to see our members take those
risks, be doing the right job for the country in building and
repairing the infrastructure in the needed way, and not be
subject to such tragedy in an unsafe world. We did lose one
member of the Operating Engineers, but all others were safe
after the fall of the bridge.
It is no longer a secret that America has serious
infrastructure problems and needs a comprehensive
infrastructure policy for the 21st century. The tragedy in
Minnesota, the explosion of the underground steam pipes in New
York, the failure of the levees in the gulf coast all
underscore the necessity of a national commitment to repairing
and modernizing infrastructure.
The NCA has been a longstanding advocate for robust Federal
investment in our Nation's infrastructure system. It is our
belief that a solid infrastructure system across a range of
modalities from highways, airports, harbors, freight and
passenger rail, forms the physical backbone that is critical to
maintaining and enhancing economic growth, competitiveness,
productivity and quality of life in this country.
Mr. Chairman, your proposal is a significant part of a
solution that moves our Nation closer to closing the gap
between available revenues and documented need. That is why the
three unions of the NCA strongly support your bridge
improvement proposal. Your plan is a critical step in the right
direction for the following reasons: It provides immediate
dedicated funding for bridge inspection, repair, rehabilitation
and reconstruction; creates a dedicated trust fund to ensure
new revenues to utilize for their intended purposes; it
implements a needs-based funding proposal with strict
prohibition on earmarks. It considers all options to generate
the necessary revenues for the program, including an increase
in user fees.
This specific approach is exactly what is needed to
solidify public support and reinvigorate political will behind
infrastructure investment. America's support of increased
investment in infrastructure has to be based on trust, and your
plan strikes the balance by first assessing need before
stipulating funding. Now that we have the focus of the Nation
on the chronic underinvesting and the aging and ailing
infrastructure, we must not lose it. We must take on those
whose rigid ideology and rhetoric automatically straitjacket by
refusing to put all the revenue options on the table to address
the problem in a forthright manner.
Once the need is clearly established, then the issue is one
of establishing an efficient revenue source to realistically
address or investment needs.
The NCA strongly believes that building and maintaining a
world-class 21st century infrastructure system, one that makes
the Nation competitive in a global economy, is inherently a
Federal responsibility. Furthermore, we believe that in order
to improve investment in a Nation's infrastructure, we must
maximize all existing revenue sources. As we all know, the
Federal gas tax is the sole source of revenue for investments
in highway and transit. Until another equally efficient method
of funding is identified, we believe that the most
straightforward approach to increasing revenue lies in
increasing the user fee.
Let me be specific. A gas tax increase is the most direct
way to address the short-term revenue needs to fund this
particular bridge proposal. Such a direct correlation between
revenues and spending is fiscally responsible, especially in a
pay-go budgetary environment.
With regard to more comprehensive reauthorization of the
highway transit program, we would support various fee
modifications and other additions that are tied to a trust fund
that is dedicated to the purpose of funding and improving the
Nation's infrastructure system. A gas tax increase or
transformed into a sales tax or fee based on vehicle miles
traveled, or a combination thereof, all acceptable to us, and,
we believe to the public, if they have the confidence that they
will get what they pay for and the funds will not be diverted.
We are not averse to innovative financing, particularly for
large projects of national significance. Bonding and financial
leverage and other tools should be part of mix. Although we are
not experts on all methods of innovative financing, we believe
everything that enhances investment must be considered.
In conclusion, while we recognize the need for a
comprehensive systemic approach to America's overall
infrastructure needs and how best and most effectively to
finance those needs across a range of modalities, we strongly
encourage a singular focus on the present bridge deficiency
issue before us as the most politically doable piece of the
broader infrastructure problem facing the country. A 5-cent gas
tax increase to raise the necessary $25 billion for bridge
inspection and repair and replacement is a finite, achievable
objective in the remaining months of the 110th Congress. We
respectfully urge recognition of this reality and encourage the
Committee and both bodies of Congress to act quickly to pass
desperately needed legislation to ensure the infrastructure
system that America relies on is safe.
Thank you for the opportunity to be here today.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you very much for a resounding
statement.
Obviously saved the best for last. Ms. Kavinoky.
Ms. Kavinoky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and distinguished
Members of the Committee. Thank you for calling this important
hearing on the state of America's bridges.
Today, your Committee meets at a time when the Nation's
attention is focused squarely on infrastructure, but under the
worst possible circumstances. Now is the time to move on a
robust, thoughtful, and comprehensive plan to build, maintain,
and fund a world-class 21st century transportation system.
We cannot afford to delay. If we fail to address our
challenges we will lose jobs and industries to other nations.
If we fail to act, we will pollute our air and destroy the
free, mobile way of life that we cherish. And ultimately if we
fail to increase investment, we will see more senseless deaths
on our bridges and roads, not to mention on our rails and
waterways. It is likely to get much worse if we do not act.
We have a system that is overworked, underfunded,
increasingly unsafe and without a strategic vision. Bridges are
the critical links in the multimodal system that moves goods
and people.
And, Mr. Chairman, the Chamber applauds you for your
leadership in proposing a strong plan to address the Nation's
deficient bridges.
Ms. Kavinoky. After the tragic collapse in Minneapolis, we
all became acutely aware of the magnitude of the problem.
Today, one quarter of our Nation's bridges are structurally
deficient or functionally obsolete, and that figure does not
include 16 percent of elevated transit structures that are in
substandard condition or worse.
In addition to the painfully obvious safety concerns, there
is an economic impact. Take bridges in Oregon, for example. The
Oregon DOT says that the potential economic impact of
structurally deficient bridges in that State alone could be
$123 billion over the next 25 years.
Mr. Chairman, we support your proposal to identify needs
first and then to tackle the backlog of bridge maintenance
through a formula funding approach without earmarks and with
improved oversight. This is the right way to do the job.
The Chamber also encourages the Committee to address the
shortcomings in current law. We strongly support holding States
accountable for the expenditure of the resources provided in
SAFETEA-LU. Without addressing the current diversion of bridge
dollars to other Federal funding categories, new programs may
essentially create a substitution effect, rather than
increasing the funding dedicated to bridge needs.
While the events of August have shone a spotlight on the
state of our Nation's bridges, it is important to recognize
that the collapse of the I-35 West bridge is symptomatic of a
much larger infrastructure problem, and it is time to create a
new era in transportation. This country's current approach to
delivering transportation infrastructure is not set up for
today's robust economy or for the economy of the future. We do
need a national plan; and, as Ranking Member Mica aptly
articulated earlier this year, the Federal government must take
the leading role in developing the national strategic
transportation plan. We thank him for his continued vision and
leadership on this issue. Every level of government must step
up to the plate, and the Federal government must bear a
significant part of the responsibility and will perform a
critical role.
For our part, what is the Chamber going to do? We are
launching a major, multi-million dollar initiative called Let's
Rebuild America, with four key goals to support your work and
this industry's work.
First, we will document the program with research. Second,
we will educate the public, the business community and
policymakers. Third, we will spur private investment in
critical infrastructure of all kinds. Finally, and perhaps most
importantly, we will foster an honest dialogue on how to find
the public money to meet critical infrastructure needs. There
is no single answer to that question, which means all the
options must be on the table, including increasing user fees.
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, the question
facing America is this: Are we a nation of builders? Are we
still a "can do" society? Are we still the kind of people who
can rally to a great cause with a shared sense of mission and a
national purpose? Surely, we ought to be able to create the
vision, forge the consensus, secure the resources, and find the
political courage to make this happen. I believe that we can
and I believe that we will and business will lead the way. It
should not take a disaster like the bridge collapse to focus
the Nation's attention on our vast infrastructure challenges,
but now that we have that focus we must not lose it.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today,
and I look forward to answering your questions.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you very much, Ms. Kavinoky.
You are right. It should not take a bridge tragedy to focus
attention, but, regrettably, that is what happens in this
country, and now and again there is a tragedy.
A few years ago--in fact, it was in 1990--18 feet ripped
off a Boeing 737 of Aloha Airlines. It was not supposed to
fail. That was not supposed to happen. They were built so that
if there were a structural failure it would rip to a stress
point and stop, but it ripped off and all of aviation sat down.
Then I crafted the aging aircraft legislation, something I
had been talking about for years and was not able to advance.
But a tragedy happened, and now all aircraft at 15 years of age
was sat down, torn down to bare metal and inspected from stem
to stern, and parts were replaced. Well, it has taken another
tragedy to get us to think about the Nation's infrastructure.
Thank you.
Mr. Oberstar. Mr. Lynch.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you very much, Chairman Oberstar, Chairman
DeFazio, Ranking Member Duncan. We appreciate the invitation
for the American Trucking Associations to testify on the
condition of the Nation's infrastructure and bridges.
Members of this Committee well understand the importance of
the Nation's infrastructure. It is unfortunate that it took the
tragic collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge to focus the
public and, perhaps more importantly, the media's attention on
the vulnerabilities of the highway system. We must not lose
this opportunity to educate the American people about the very
real safety and economic consequences of failing to adequately
maintain and improve the system. We thank you for providing a
forum that will help to inform the debate and that will
hopefully move us toward an agreement on solutions to the
challenges we face.
The trucking industry and the highway system that supports
it are the lynch pins of the Nation's freight transportation
system. The industry hauls 69 percent of the freight by volume
and 84 percent by revenue. In addition, the trucking industry
plays an important role in the movement of intermodal rail,
air, and water freight. Truck tonnage is projected to increase,
reaching toward the 14-billion-ton mark by the year 2017. This
growth, of course, means that a lot more trucks will be on the
road. We estimate another 2.7 million trucks will be needed to
serve the Nation's economy, or a 40 percent increase.
A reliable network of highways is crucial to our industry's
ability to deliver goods safely, efficiently and on schedule.
Since deregulation and the completion of the interstate highway
system over the previous quarter century, the trucking industry
has made continuous improvements that have allowed its
customers to significantly reduce inventories and to create
manufacturing and supply chain efficiencies that have saved the
U.S. economy billions of dollars, increased salaries, slowed
consumer price increases, and created innumerable jobs. Any
disruption to the movement of freight on our Nation's highway
system can well jeopardize those gains.
Mr. Chairman, our highway and infrastructure is a network
of roads, bridges and tunnels that link our Nation together.
That network includes superstructures like the Chesapeake Bay
Bridge and the previously mentioned today Woodrow Wilson Bridge
that are vital links in moving people and goods. However, that
system also includes bridges over creeks and streams that may
only carry a few cars and trucks on any given day. Both are
important and both need to be maintained. But tragedies like
the I-35 bridge collapse highlight how vulnerable our system is
when a structure on a major highway is damaged, closed or load-
posted. The resulting traffic disruptions distress local and
regional economies due to higher freight rates and lost
business opportunities. Significant costs are also incurred due
to lost time, wasted fuel by sitting in congestion and by
having to divert to alternate routes.
Mr. Chairman, earlier this afternoon, you mentioned the
amount of rail and barge traffic due to the collapse that now
will have to move on the highway system. While I am certain
that there is a trucker out there who will benefit from that,
as a Nation that traffic probably should remain on the barges
and on the rails, but that is just another cost that goes into
the equation.
Mr. Chairman, much of this Nation's traffic moves on the
National Highway System. This 162,000-mile network comprises
just 4.1 percent of total highway miles, yet it carries nearly
45 percent of total vehicle miles. When this network
experiences inefficiencies, whether due to posted bridges or
daily congestion, the economic impacts ripple throughout the
supply chain and can greatly impact the health of regional and
national economies.
Despite its obvious importance to the Nation, significant
portions of the NHS are in poor condition, are routinely
congested and have been starved by insufficient investment. Of
the more than 116,000 NHS bridges, over 6,000 are structurally
deficient and more than 17,000 are functionally obsolete.
Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly for my industry, 760
NHS bridges are currently load-posted. The posting of bridges
forces trucks to use alternative routes, increasing freight
transportation costs and requiring greater fuel use, which
produces more emissions. While this hearing and the public's
attention are understandably focused on bridges, we must not
forget that bridges are individual components of the overall
highway network.
Mr. Chairman, we applaud your initiative on the National
Highway System Bridge Reconstruction Initiative. We believe it
is an excellent model for future highway investment decisions.
The emphasis on prioritizing investment based on greatest need
are principles that can and should be applied to the entire
Federal program.
I earlier made note of Congressman Baker's comments about
what they have done in Louisiana with respect to the
prioritization of the bridge program in that State; and,
frankly, we want to find out quite a bit more about that.
Over the past 20 years, the Highway Bridge Program and its
predecessor, the Highway Bridge Replacement and Rehabilitation
Program, have been funded at a level equivalent to roughly 11
to 14 percent of total annual transportation program
apportionments. Under SAFETEA-LU, the program provides an
average of $4.1 billion annually for the bridge program.
However, beginning with ISTEA and including now the SAFETEA-LU,
up to 50 percent of State apportionments can be "flexed" to
non-bridge-related projects.
Mr. Chairman, I will tell you that one of the things I have
always loved about being at these hearings, even sitting on the
peanut gallery side, is that you learn some things. We were not
able to determine how much of that has actually been flexed
out. If I understood your comments earlier, some $4 billion has
been flexed out over the last decade, and we would certainly
encourage that as the Committee considers both this proposal as
well as reauthorization that that be something that you take a
very long and careful look at.
Mr. Chairman, even the most well-designed and best-
maintained bridge will deteriorate over time for a variety of
reasons. All vehicles, including trucks, play a role in this
process. It is important to understand, however, that bridge
collapses are generally the result of singular events and not
usually caused by the slow progression of deterioration.
If a bridge does collapse due to fatigue or due to other
structural issues, it is likely that this may have been
prevented by better inspection, maintenance or management
practices. Therefore, Mr. Chairman, we very much support your
efforts to enhance inspection procedures, techniques and to
improve bridge management.
The ATA looks forward to working with the Committee to
address the Nation's bridge and other highway infrastructure
needs. Most importantly, Mr. Chairman, we recognize our
responsibility to help finance these needs. However, Mr.
Chairman, we believe and we believe the public at large shares
this view that highway user charges have to be viewed as an
investment in both mobility and safety. We look to Congress,
the administration and the States to allocate that investment
in a rational manner, in short, to ensure a good return on
their investment.
Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to
testify.
Mr. Oberstar. Thank you, Mr. Lynch, for a very thorough,
far-reaching, comprehensive presentation.
Most striking was your projection of 2.7 million more
trucks to be needed over what period of time?
Mr. Lynch. That would be over a 10-year period.
Mr. Oberstar. Over a 10-year future period?
Mr. Lynch. Correct.
Mr. Oberstar. A 40 percent increase. That is a result of
just-in-time inventory, isn't it? The just-in-time delivery of
goods making our trucking system rolling warehouses. This is
economy driven. This is not the trucking companies. It is your
customers. It is what the producers and consumers want. They
want this just-in-time delivery, and so your members have
become inventory purveyors, if you will.
Mr. Lynch. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. Notwithstanding
occasional glitches on the highway, we are not out there for
sport or to aggravate the public. We are out there to deliver
the freight.
Mr. Oberstar. You are out there because the economy demands
it, and if we do not maintain this portfolio of highways and
bridges in top condition then your members cannot do their job.
The public sector has to do its job so the private sector can
do what it does best, provide jobs, services and deliver goods.
Mr. Lynch. Absolutely.
Mr. Oberstar. All of the witnesses have provided, I think,
just remarkable testimony and presentations that will benefit
our ultimate product.
I thank Mr. Kaniewski for saying, "Everything that enhances
investment should be considered as a way of revenue stream." We
will do that.
You know, when I proposed this initiative, we were
discussing it, and there were thoughts. Well, don't talk about
how you are going to finance it, because that is what will
catch the headlines. Well, it is irresponsible not to set forth
an objective, to set forth the goals of "this is what we need
to do," and it is what we need to do. The cornerstone of any
investment in surface transportation has to be the user fee.
Call it the "gas tax" or whatever you want to do. Then there
are other means of financing.
Mr. DeFazio has held extensive hearings, in-depth
hearings--and he will continue to do that--on the investment
needs of our Surface Transportation Program and the merits of
various proposals, but if I did not set forth how I proposed to
achieve this objective that would be the next question. All
right. You have got this great idea. How are you going to do
it? Well, I have set forth. So now let them all come and make
their criticisms.
Ms. Kavinoky, I love the Chamber's theme, Let's Rebuild
America. Terrific. You, too, said all options must be on the
table, including the user fee, and we accept that, and we will
work with the Chamber to do that.
Mr. Donahue came from the trucking sector. He has had a
long commitment to and a familiarity with surface
transportation.
Four years ago, it was the Chamber's objective to fully
fund the Aviation Trust Fund. We did not quite get there, but,
without the Chamber, it would not have had the nearly 100
percent funding that we had, that we did achieve for the
Aviation Trust Fund at a time when the now Governor of Indiana
was the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mr.
Daniels, and who did not want to make that full--he wanted to
hold back $600 million of the Aviation Trust Fund that was
needed for investment in taxiways and runways. That was in
early 2001. The Chamber was out there ahead and provided the
energy we needed.
Mr. Herrmann, our earlier witness, Ms. Miller, for the
county engineers, said, "Most counties do not have a licensed
public engineer." That really was shocking to me. I thought
they were up to date, but they are not, and you observed that
licensed public engineers are necessary for the proper
development of surface transportation and bridge programs.
Mr. Herrmann. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Basically, a bridge inspector, once you get to a reasonably
sized bridge, should be able to have the expertise to know the
load paths, the critical numbers, the fatigue-prone details,
and to test potential areas of distress in the particular type
of structure being inspected. They have to evaluate not only
the condition of the individual bridge components but how the
components fit into and affect the load paths of the entire
structure. The bridge engineer may have to make immediate
decisions to close a lane, to close an entire bridge or to take
trucks off a bridge in an effort to protect the public's
safety.
You need someone--I mean, right now, the requirements, I do
not even believe, need an engineering degree. There are various
categories of bridge inspectors, and one of them is without a
degree, and I think an engineering degree is needed and also
the professional credentials and past work in bridge design and
inspection to inspect a bridge properly.
Mr. Oberstar. I totally concur. We have had experience in
my district with at least one county that did not have an
engineer. In fact, it did not have one because the engineer
they did have asked for an increase in pay, and the county
board said no, so he left for a job elsewhere. Then when it
came time to plan the future investments for that county, they
were out in the cold. They did not have anyone to speak up for
the surface transportation needs of that county. They have
learned their lesson. They have one now.
Mr. Herrmann. Mr. Chairman, we have found in some instances
where the cost of bridge inspection does control. We have had
experienced engineers, licensed engineers with 20, 25-plus
years' experience who we could not use on a bridge inspection
because they cost too much. And it is not that they did not
want to use them. It is just that they did not fit into the
budgetary program.
Mr. Oberstar. Well, one of the previous witnesses also said
that there are too many bridges and it is too costly to use the
more advanced technologies that I cited earlier. Well, that is
why we need this investment.
Mr. DeFazio, let me compliment the Chairman of the
Subcommittee on the intense work that he has done since the
beginning of this session on the overview of the existing
Surface Transportation Program.
Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As always, thank you
for your leadership in proposing an initiative to move forward.
As I made the point earlier when the Chairman was being
beleaguered by the press about all of the specifics of his
proposal, I said, "You do not understand that this is a
different Congress, and it is not like the Congress of the last
12 years. This is a real legislative process. We are here today
to listen to people and to get ideas and to figure out how to
improve our product, but we are committed to addressing this
problem and to not putting our heads in the sand like the
administration."
So I appreciate the Chairman's leadership, and we are truly
here to listen, and I appreciate a lot of the testimony we have
gotten today. We need allies, obviously, in this fight. You
were all, most of you, here earlier.
I guess I would first go to Ms. Kavinoky from the Chamber.
You know, I was just walking out as you mentioned the word
"Oregon," and I was walking back in as you mentioned the words
"user fees." You know, I would just like to understand how the
Chamber got there, having heard the Secretary's testimony
earlier. I mean, you had some statistics that I quoted earlier
about the deaths that relate to poorly maintained roads.
Do you know, does that include a design flaw like the kind
of thing we were talking about where we have structurally and
functionally obsolete bridges? Is it that or do you just mean
bad maintenance generally in terms of that attribution of one-
third of the deaths?
Ms. Kavinoky. Mr. Chairman, that statistic comes from TRIP,
the road information program. Actually, I heard you ask that
question and called over to TRIP to double-check their
background. That includes maintenance issues, but it does also
include design deficiencies, structural design flaws.
Mr. DeFazio. Right. Because that was the point I was
attempting to make earlier, which is that this is a horrible
tragedy and so unexpected--the collapse and 13 people in the
blink of an eye--but, on a daily basis, if we attribute a third
of the deaths every day to something that has to do with
maintenance and then just take a portion of that and say, well,
it has to do with functionally obsolete bridges and other
infrastructure which creates dangerous conditions, then on a
daily basis we can make the point that our obsolete and
insufficient infrastructure is killing more people.
Ms. Kavinoky. Sir, that is exactly the Chamber's point,
yes.
Mr. DeFazio. All right. Then your second point, which, I
think, goes sort of again to--well, you make a couple of
others, but you talked about the $67 billion in extra vehicle
repairs. Is that also from that same group?
Ms. Kavinoky. It is from TRIP, yes.
Mr. DeFazio. Yes. Okay. Again, that would be where the
Chamber would, perhaps, come down where they do not normally
always come down on the idea of increasing some user fees,
which is, hey, with the economic competitive issues which you
raised with the GDP investments of our competitor nations, with
the problems with a lot of your members in just-in-time
delivery and with the increased costs they actually incur just
because, you know, that is a lot of money on extra vehicle
costs. I mean, if we could fix half of the problems and get
that number down by half on an annual basis we would come out
ahead in the end. I assume that you have come to somewhat of a
similar conclusion with the Chamber.
Ms. Kavinoky. Sir, we have a formal policy process as, of
course, do most associations; and I cannot tell you that from a
very formal policy declaration perspective that we are coming
right out and saying, "It is time. Let us do it." But what the
Chamber is saying is there is ample evidence. There is ample
evidence from a safety perspective, from lives lost, from an
economic perspective and not just with regard to bridges, which
are critical links in the overall infrastructure, but with
infrastructure across the board that this Committee has
actually addressed, including waterways.
And we certainly commend you for moving WRDA this year with
regard to the Federal Aviation Administration. We think it is
absolutely critical that we modernize the air traffic control
system, but we recognize that there is a fundamental cost to
providing the economic underpinnings of the economy, and I
believe that if we can link the benefits of the transportation
system and the investment--just as Mr. Lynch said--with what is
being paid, we have got a very credible case to sell to the
business community and to the American people that they are
going to get what they pay for.
Mr. DeFazio. Exactly, and I believe there does need--you
know, if you are talking to someone who is sitting in
congestion, they want to hear that you are somehow going to
address that problem. Or if you want to talk to someone who has
lost a loved one or whatever in a tragedy, they want to hear
that you are addressing that. So I fully support that.
Mr. Cox, if I could, as to your testimony on page 4, you
talk about ARTBA as advocating the inclusion of a new Federal
program, the Critical Commerce Corridors, as part of the
SAFETEA-LU reauthorization effort that is funded outside the
Highway Trust Fund and that is dedicated to building the
transportation system capacity. Can you expand on that a
little?
Mr. Cox. Well, our vision there is that, yes, there are
problems with congestion. Yes, there are problems with
maintaining the existing system, which is growing older by the
decade, as we know. But the one thing that we really need to
face up to, just as was brought up by Mr. Lynch, is that the
trucking part of our economy is really a driver of the economy
for the big stores, the small stores. As he talked about, it is
69 percent by volume and 80 something by revenue.
What we see is, in time, a critical problem of getting from
ports to highways around the big cities if there is not some
thought given to providing maybe not special roadways but
roadways that are designed to move freight from the container
ships to the trucks to the highways to the interstates so that
the American economy, which is really the leader in the world
in that aspect, will continue to be so.
Mr. DeFazio. And you would feel that that would be
significantly a Federal responsibility?
Mr. Cox. I would think yes. If you are talking countrywide,
you would have to start off with the Federal government.
Certainly, there would be State participation, but we would
have to see that there has to be a leader to get the thing
started. So, yes.
Mr. DeFazio. Great. I hope you will convey those thoughts
down to DOT. They seem to be a little reluctant to go there on
some of these issues.
On page 5, I thought this was--again, this is just for the
record, because earlier we had some very confusing testimony
from the Department of Transportation about whether or not
there is a need and whether or not we are spending $40 million
a year on conditions and, therefore, you know, we are doing
just fine, et cetera, which seemed to contradict their own
conditions and operations report.
You talk here, according to the U.S. DOT C&P Report,
Federal highway and bridge investments are $20 billion below
the amount necessary to simply maintain current roadway and
bridge physical conditions and congestion levels each year. Is
that accurate?
Mr. Cox. I only can go with the information that was given
to me by the people at ARTBA who prepared it. I presume that it
is. I presume it is as accurate as any of those kinds of
estimates are, but I do not think it takes, really, what you
read in books. I think anybody who drives around our urban
areas notes the fact that we have not been keeping up with the
growth not only in businesses but in homes and with all of the
other needs that transportation, both public transportation and
vehicular transportation, provides.
Mr. DeFazio. Okay. Then if I could, Mr. Chairman--I know I
am a bit over my time here, but if I could direct a question to
Mr. Lynch.
Again, sir, referencing back--I mean, you did a very good
job of quantifying, you know, the obligations we are putting on
the National Highway System and the amount that is actually
already load-posted and those functions. I mean, you really did
a good job of reiterating those things.
Then you get down into meeting the needs. You said there,
today's $70 billion investment in highways and bridges would
nearly have to double to $132 billion to significantly improve
highway conditions and to reduce congestion. The Federal
investment in highways must rise 50 percent above forecasted
levels by 2015 just to maintain current levels of highway
condition and performance. Do you stand behind that?
Mr. Lynch. Absolutely.
Mr. DeFazio. Okay. Again, you need to be shipping some of
this work down to DOT and see if we can get some attention down
there. Because, you know, I would agree with those numbers, but
I do not feel that we quite have them on board yet with that
magnitude.
Mr. Lynch. We have had ongoing dialogue there. As the
Chairman knows, we have a few issues about financing that we do
not quite see eye to eye on with the Department, and we have
made it very clear to them that our preferred financing
mechanism needs to continue to be the fuel tax, recognizing
that over some period of time we probably are going to be
transitioning perhaps to a system like you have and with which
you are experimenting in Oregon with a mileage-based tax. But
we have certainly made our thoughts known about some other
financing mechanisms, particularly in New York City and in a
few other places.
Mr. DeFazio. All right. One last point. When you talk about
the capability of flexing money out of high-priority bridge
projects into other non-bridge related, what would you suggest?
What should we do? I mean, should we just close down that
flexibility until a State has addressed all of its structurally
and/or functionally obsolete bridges? Or how do you think we
ought to deal with that?
Mr. Lynch. I think that is, perhaps, one of the tougher
issues that you are going to have to deal with.
On the one hand, you have States essentially saying we need
more money. Give us the money, but do not tie a lot of strings
to how we use that money.
As one of the users and as one of the payers into the
system, while we are comfortable in having a certain degree of
flexibility there, we will never be able to sell a fuel tax
increase. Now, whether it is imposed on us, that is a whole
other issue, but we will not be able to sell that to our own
membership if they believe that the money is not going to the
things that they believe it was intended to go to and the fact
that--I was, frankly, surprised to find out that 50 percent of
the funds could be flexed out of the bridge program. That is
arguably very, very critical, and that is certainly a focal
point of not only this hearing but, I think, now of a lot of
the public concern about the infrastructure.
So we would certainly recommend that the Committee and
Congress take a very careful look at, if you allow that degree
of flexibility out of the program, what happens to the
condition of the bridges in this country.
Mr. DeFazio. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Oberstar. Would the gentleman yield on this particular
point? It is a very significant one.
Mr. DeFazio. Absolutely.
Mr. Oberstar. We invited the National Governors Association
to testify. They declined. Specifically, the Governor of my
State declined. He has aspirations for a place on the national
stage. This was an opportunity as he is the incoming Chair of
the National Governors Association.
But this particular issue of flexibility was one that the
National Governors Association insisted on in ISTEA, in TEA-21
and again in SAFETEA-LU to "give us the authority. We are the
managers. Give us the flexibility to move these." Then what did
they do? They moved $4,700,000,000 over the last decade out of
the bridge program and then complained they do not have enough
money for bridges. We gave them the flexibility, and they
misused it. That is outrageous, but they did not come here to
defend their flexibility. When we move into the reauthorization
process, that is something that is going to be very high on the
list; and I will tell you that there will be no flexibility in
moving funds out of this bridge trust fund that I have
proposed.
I thank the gentleman.
Mr. DeFazio. Further, Mr. Chairman, I might suggest--not to
sort of try and write the legislation here, but I would suggest
that, you know, when we are looking at criteria for the new
program, however, that might be funded that one measure be
whether a State is fully utilizing its apportionment under TEA-
LU to address the bridge problem; and if they are not, then I
guess I would really question why it would be in the queue for
the special fund to deal with this issue.
Mr. Oberstar. In fact, that is a condition of this proposed
legislation.
Mr. DeFazio. Ah, the Chairman is always ahead of me here. I
missed that detail in the outline. They did not give me enough
of a detailed outline. That was probably in your head and not
in print.
Mr. Oberstar. It is in print. It is there, yes.
Mr. DeFazio. All right. I read it quickly.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have no more questions.
Mr. Oberstar. I thank the gentleman very much.
Again, I just am in admiration of his diligent work on the
review of the Surface Transportation Program.
In the course of this day--let me sum up. Item one of the
initiative is to establish uniform processes and standards for
inspection of structurally deficient bridges and for inspector
training. The Secretary agreed to that. Mr. Capka agreed to
that. The county engineers agreed to that. Every panel has
agreed to that. That is 25 percent.
The distribution of funds based on public safety and need,
requiring the Department of Transportation to develop an
administrative formula for the distribution of funds. The
Secretary did not disagree with that. She embraced it. Mr.
Capka embraced it. Our previous panels embraced it. All of you
have addressed it in one way or another. That is 50 percent.
The accountability by prohibiting earmarks by the
administration, by the States in the prioritization of
structurally deficient bridges under this new standard to be
done by the Federal Highway Administration in cooperation with
the States and then reviewed by the National Academy of
Sciences. The Secretary agreed with that. Other panelists
agreed with that. That is 75 percent.
Then the Bridge Reconstruction Trust Fund with dedicated
funding. Well, we had a little disagreement on that matter, but
I think everybody understands, at the end of the day, we are
not going to have a bake sale to fund the construction of
bridges. Mr. Duncan observed, very thoughtfully, that if we
were not spending all of this money in Iraq--$45 billion on
their infrastructure that is being blown up as fast as it is
being built--we would have money here at home. Right.
Meanwhile, we have a means, we have a way, we have options. I
have laid the options on the table, and we will address that
matter. So I think we are about 95 percent of the way home on
this.
I just have to observe, in closing, Mr. Mica, earlier in
the day in his opening remarks, compared this proposal to
ignoring the crumbling foundation, leaking roof and obsolete
plumbing of a 50-year-old house; it is just paving the
driveway.
Well, the house I grew up in--that is still my home--in
Chisolm is about 70 years old. It was built by my father,
uncles and grandfather, who was a carpenter. Grandpa Grillo
came from Naples, Italy. There is a picture of me pounding a
nail in that old house. I put a new roof on it. The foundation
was leaking. We fixed that. Just 2 weeks ago, the faucets were
leaking, and the kitchen drain was--and I fixed the faucets,
and then I had to run off to a 4th of July parade, and I will
admit that I put the faucet washers in backwards so they were
not working right. But I got a plumber in, and he fixed that,
and he fixed the kitchen drain and the basement drain, and he
left a note on my table saying "aging residential
infrastructure in need of repair." We fixed it, and we are
going to fix this as well.
Mr. Mica also, in a news release that he issued, called it
a "duplicative bridge program and a gas tax increase without
examination of existing highway bridges." What does he think we
are doing here? What have we been doing all day? Examining the
Highway Bridge Program.
Twenty years ago, I examined bridge safety in those
hearings. This is no novice coming to this subject matter, and
we intend to do something about it. It would be immoral to have
this bridge collapse and do nothing about it in a very
targeted, focused, deliberative, sunsetted, 3-year initiative
to attack this problem with a credible, effective and workable
initiative.
I thank you for your support of it.
Mr. Kaniewski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Oberstar. The Committee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 6:00 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
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