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+
+ - HEARING ON ENERGY REDUCTION AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY IN SURFACE TRANSPORTATION
+
+[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
+[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
+
+
+
+ ENERGY REDUCTION AND
+ ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
+ IN SURFACE TRANSPORTATION
+
+=======================================================================
+
+ (111-3)
+
+ HEARING
+
+ BEFORE THE
+
+ SUBCOMMITTEE ON
+ HIGHWAYS AND TRANSIT
+
+ OF THE
+
+ COMMITTEE ON
+ TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
+ HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
+
+ ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
+
+ FIRST SESSION
+
+ __________
+
+ JANUARY 27, 2009
+
+ __________
+
+ Printed for the use of the
+ Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
+46-952 PDF WASHINGTON : 2009
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
+Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512-1800; DC
+area (202) 512-1800 Fax: (202) 512-2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC
+20402-0001
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ 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 VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan
+JERROLD NADLER, New York FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey
+CORRINE BROWN, Florida JERRY MORAN, Kansas
+BOB FILNER, California GARY G. MILLER, California
+EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
+GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi Carolina
+ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
+ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
+LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa SAM GRAVES, Missouri
+TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
+BRIAN BAIRD, Washington JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
+RICK LARSEN, Washington SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
+MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts Virginia
+TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
+MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
+RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
+GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California CONNIE MACK, Florida
+DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois LYNN A WESTMORELAND, Georgia
+MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
+JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
+TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
+HEATH SHULER, North Carolina VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
+MICHAEL A. ARCURI, New York ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
+HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona BRETT GUTHRIE, Kentucky
+CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania ANH ``JOSEPH'' CAO, Louisiana
+JOHN J. HALL, New York AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
+STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin PETE OLSON, Texas
+STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
+LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California
+ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
+DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
+SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
+PHIL HARE, Illinois
+JOHN A. BOCCIERI, Ohio
+MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan
+BETSY MARKEY, Colorado
+PARKER GRIFFITH, Alabama
+MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York
+THOMAS S. P. PERRIELLO, Virginia
+DINA TITUS, Nevada
+HARRY TEAGUE, New Mexico
+
+ (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
+BOB FILNER, California THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin
+ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
+TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania JERRY MORAN, Kansas
+BRIAN BAIRD, Washington GARY G. MILLER, California
+MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South
+TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York Carolina
+MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
+BRIAN HIGGINS, New York TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
+GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania
+DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
+MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
+JASON ALTMIRE, Pennsylvania Virginia
+TIMOTHY J. WALZ, Minnesota JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
+HEATH SHULER, North Carolina MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
+MICHAEL A ARCURI, New York CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania
+HARRY E. MITCHELL, Arizona CONNIE MACK, Florida
+CHRISTOPHER P. CARNEY, Pennsylvania JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
+STEVE COHEN, Tennessee CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan
+LAURA A. RICHARDSON, California MARY FALLIN, Oklahoma
+ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey VERN BUCHANAN, Florida
+DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland ROBERT E. LATTA, Ohio
+GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi AARON SCHOCK, Illinois
+LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa
+RICK LARSEN, Washington
+JOHN J. HALL, New York
+STEVE KAGEN, Wisconsin
+SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas
+PHIL HARE, Illinois
+JOHN A. BOCCIERI, Ohio
+MARK H. SCHAUER, Michigan
+JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
+ (Ex Officio)
+
+ (iii)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ CONTENTS
+
+ Page
+
+Summary of Subject Matter........................................ vi
+
+ TESTIMONY
+
+Aggarwala, Rohit, Director, New York City Office of Long Term
+ Planning and Sustainability.................................... 3
+Banks, Sharon, Chief Executive Officer, Cascade Sierra Solutions,
+ Coburg, Oregon................................................. 44
+Hansen, Fred, General Manager, TriMet, Portland, Oregon.......... 3
+Hodges, Tommy, Chairman, Titan Transfer, Inc., Shelbyville,
+ Tennessee...................................................... 44
+Lovaas, Deron, Federal Transportation Policy Director, National
+ Resources Defense Council...................................... 3
+Porcari, Hon. John D., Secretary of Transportation, Maryland
+ Department of Transporation.................................... 3
+Schaffer, Dan, Product Manager, TX Active ESSROC Italcementi
+ Group, Nazareth, Pennsylvania.................................. 44
+Staley, Samuel R., Ph.D., Director, Urban and Land Use Policy,
+ Reason Foundation, Los Angeles, California..................... 3
+Tilley, Dave, President, Crawford Green Systems, Wilmington,
+ Delaware....................................................... 44
+
+ PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
+
+Mitchell, Hon. Harry E., of Arizona.............................. 60
+Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota............................ 61
+Richardson, Hon. Laura A., of California......................... 66
+
+ PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
+
+Aggarwala, Rohit................................................. 72
+Banks, Sharon.................................................... 74
+Hansen, Fred..................................................... 82
+Hodges, Tommy.................................................... 99
+Lovaas, Deron.................................................... 112
+Porcari, Hon. John D............................................. 132
+Schaffer, Dan.................................................... 141
+Staley, Samuel R., Ph.D.......................................... 151
+Tilley, Dave..................................................... 157
+
+ SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
+
+Hansen, Fred, General Manager, TriMet, Portland, Oregon, response
+ to request for information from Rep. Dent...................... 97
+Tilley, Dave, President, Crawford Green Systems, Wilmington,
+ Delaware, response to request for information from Rep. Hare... 159
+
+ ADDITIONS TO THE RECORD
+
+Arlington County Government, Division of Transportation, Dennis
+ Leach, Director, response to written testimony by Samuel R.
+ Staley, Ph.D................................................... 164
+National Stone, Sand, and Gravel Association, Joy Wilson,
+ President and CEO, written statement........................... 166
+Pollinator Partnership, Laurie Davies Adams, Executive Director,
+ written statement.............................................. 172
+
+
+
+[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
+
+
+
+
+
+HEARING ON ENERGY REDUCTION AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY IN SURFACE
+ TRANSPORTATION
+
+ ----------
+
+
+ Tuesday, January 27, 2009
+
+ House of Representatives,
+ Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
+ Subcommittee on Highways and Transit,
+ Washington, DC.
+ The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in
+Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Peter A. DeFazio
+[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
+ Mr. DeFazio. The Subcommittee will come to order.
+ Welcome, everyone, to the 111th Congress and to the first
+hearing in the Subcommittee of the 111th Congress. We held
+quite an extensive list of hearings in the last Congress,
+leading in anticipation of and leading up toward
+reauthorization. This is a continuation of that effort.
+ Today, we are going to attempt to flesh out some ideas that
+could lead us to a more sustainable and more environmentally
+friendly transportation system for America that would lead us
+toward what I call the "least-cost transportation future," one
+where we assess all of our needs. Then, I would hope, without
+regard for all the myriad silos out there of funding, we would
+work with local communities and MPOs and with States to come up
+with the least-cost solution--the least cost in terms of
+dollars to taxpayers, the least cost in terms of impact on the
+environment, the least cost in terms of moving us toward a more
+fuel-efficient future with less contribution to carbon
+emissions.
+ There is a lot of room for improvement in the system.
+ We are going to do the hearing a little differently today
+after we hear from the Ranking Member, Mr. Duncan. My idea is,
+you have all submitted your written testimonies, and the
+Committee Members who are interested have read them. Rather
+than have you read back to us that which we have already read,
+it will be entered in the record. I thank you for those
+contributions. It will be a permanent part of the record.
+ What I am going to ask every panel member to do is to think
+of the best parts in your written testimony and summarize them
+in 1 minute. You can either summarize your best ideas, your
+most cogent idea, or you can even respond to something someone
+else on the panel has raised or something that did not occur to
+you at the time you wrote your more lengthy treatise.
+ So we will see how this format works. Hopefully, that way,
+we will get a little more interaction between Members and
+panelists and will come up with some great ideas.
+ So, with that, I will turn to Mr. Duncan from Tennessee.
+ Mr. Duncan. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman for calling this
+hearing today on some of the challenges facing our
+transportation system. I certainly agree with you that we all
+need to seek the most cost-effective or least-cost methods of
+handling some of our work that needs to be done.
+ I also want to thank all of the witnesses for being here
+today, but I especially want to welcome the member of the
+second panel who is from my home state of Tennessee, Mr. Tommy
+Hodges. Mr. Hodges served twice as Chairman of the Tennessee
+Trucking Association and has chaired the American Trucking
+Association Sustainability Task Force. He will be testifying
+today on the trucking industry's effort to reduce its carbon
+footprint.
+ Our transportation system, everyone on this Committee and
+everyone in this room knows, is the backbone of our entire
+economy; and we need a successful and vibrant transportation
+system to provide the safe, efficient and reliable movement of
+people, goods and services.
+ Also, as we know, our transportation system is facing many
+challenges, including increasing concerns about the decline in
+system performance, energy dependence and the environmental
+consequences of our system. We have got to look at all
+different types of solutions to these problems.
+ We also need to take a look at the fact, as the National
+Journal reported several months ago, that two-thirds of the
+counties in the U.S. are losing population. There is tremendous
+growth in the circles around the urban areas, but outside of
+those circles, most of the small towns and rural areas are
+having real difficulties, and that is going to have
+consequences for our environment and for transportation
+policies.
+ I do not think we want to force everyone into 25 major
+urban centers and leave the whole rest of the country totally
+empty. I think it would be better for our environment if we
+help people spread out and if we help some of these small towns
+and rural areas. They are not the kind of areas I represent.
+The area I represent happens to be one of the fastest growing
+in the country, but that provides challenges also.
+ I think, overall, though--what I would say is that in
+regard to these things, we need mainly balance and common
+sense. I remember several years ago when I chaired the Aviation
+Subcommittee, we had testimony that the newest runway at the
+Atlanta airport took 14 years from conception to completion. It
+took only 99 construction days, which they did in 33 days,
+because they were so happy and relieved to get all of the final
+approvals, and it was almost entirely because of the
+environmental rules and regulations and red tape.
+ Two years ago, on this Subcommittee, we had a hearing on a
+road project in California that was nearing completion in 2007.
+It started in 1990. There were these same types of problems.
+ We all want to do good things for the environment. On the
+other hand, most of the people on this Committee want to see
+these projects completed in a cost-effective way and completed
+in shorter amounts of time.
+ We had another hearing a few years ago on all of the things
+we do in this Committee, and we had witnesses in all of the
+different areas testify that all of these infrastructure
+projects were taking about three times as long as they were in
+other countries and were costing about three times as much,
+primarily because of the environmental rules and regulations
+and red tape. So we need a little balance and common sense
+because we cannot afford in today's economy for these projects
+to be delayed for too long or to cost three times as much as
+they should.
+ So that is the kind of thing that we really need to look at
+and find if there is a faster and more cost-effective way that
+we can do all of the good things for the environment that
+everybody wants done.
+ This is a very important hearing, and I thank you for
+calling it, and I look forward to hearing from the witnesses.
+ Thank you very much.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Okay. Thank you.
+ With that, we will proceed to the 1-minute succinct and
+pithy summaries of our panel. So I will go first to the
+Honorable John D. Porcari, Secretary of Transportation for
+Maryland.
+
+TESTIMONY OF HON. JOHN D. PORCARI, SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION,
+ MARYLAND DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORATION; FRED HANSEN, GENERAL
+ MANAGER, TRIMET, PORTLAND, OREGON; ROHIT AGGARWALA, DIRECTOR,
+NEW YORK CITY OFFICE OF LONG TERM PLANNING AND SUSTAINABILITY;
+DERON LOVAAS, FEDERAL TRANSPORTATION POLICY DIRECTOR, NATIONAL
+ RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL; AND SAMUEL R. STALEY, Ph.D.,
+ DIRECTOR, URBAN AND LAND USE POLICY, REASON FOUNDATION, LOS
+ ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
+
+ Mr. Porcari. Thank you, Chairman DeFazio and Ranking Member
+Duncan.
+ In 1 minute, what you pointed out is the least-cost
+transportation future, this kind of all-of-the-above solution
+where we should be looking across modal lines, whether it is
+freight movement or people movement, and finding the most
+efficient way to do it.
+ The same is true of the environmental and mitigation side
+of it, whether it is decarbonizing fuel, reducing vehicle miles
+and travel growth, doubling transit ridership, doubling fuel
+efficiency or being smarter or more innovative at the State
+level on mitigation. As to how we spend our mitigation dollars,
+that all-of-the-above approach is really what we need to do.
+Every piece of that has a place in the process.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Excellent.
+ Mr. Hansen, see if you can top that.
+ Mr. Hansen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member
+Duncan. It is a pleasure to be able to be here.
+ From the public transit standpoint, the future of our
+Nation in many ways does rely upon a dramatically expanded
+public transportation system. As Mr. Duncan pointed out, as we
+are seeing this country urbanize more, we need to be able to
+have that system really provide high-quality transportation
+options for all of our citizens. It must help reverse the
+threat of global climate change, and it must facilitate the
+integration of land use and transportation.
+ From a public transit standpoint, we also need to be able
+to make sure that our operations are as sustainable as
+possible. The efforts that I am leading at APTA are really
+trying to be able to make sure those systems actually are
+sustainable as well. Thank you.
+ Mr. DeFazio. We are really doing pretty good here. We are
+getting a lot out very quickly.
+ Mr. Aggarwala, again, you either can summarize or you can
+begin to respond to other points and whether you agree or
+disagree. Go right ahead, sir.
+ Mr. Aggarwala. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Ranking
+Member.
+ From the perspective of a large city like New York, which
+is already happily possessed of a highly sustainable
+transportation infrastructure that gives us a very low per
+capita carbon footprint, I think there are two key lessons and
+two things that we are working on as much as we can locally.
+But we need Federal help, and we look to a thoughtful
+reauthorization to help us with this.
+ One is in integration. As Mr. Hansen pointed out, land use,
+vehicle policies, transit investments, all of these things have
+to fit together. What we really need in many ways are Federal
+policies that encourage that kind of performance-outcome-based
+thinking on the local level.
+ The second, quite simply, is funding. One of the things
+that we tried in New York was congestion pricing. Well, it did
+not pass our State legislature. Whatever you think about it as
+a policy, it highlights the need that we need more investments
+if we are going to have a sustainable transportation future.
+Thank you.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Excellent.
+ Mr. Lovaas.
+ Mr. Lovaas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Did I pronounce that correctly?
+ Mr. Lovaas. "Love-us."
+ Mr. DeFazio. "Love-us." Sorry.
+ Mr. Lovaas. In transportation, this sector drives our oil
+dependence, and it drives up our carbon emissions. As such, we
+need to change course. The best lever with which to do that is
+Federal assistance, and the best policy solutions are ones that
+are going to combine a variety of approaches, as Secretary
+Porcari said.
+ Among those that I focus on in my testimony are requiring
+that regional blueprints be established in order to coordinate
+land use and transportation policy, recognizing that
+transportation drives development and that they are
+inextricably linked anyway and that they should be planned in
+conjunction with one another.
+ Road pricing is another policy that we favor so long as the
+revenues go to fund transportation alternatives, which is the
+third part of our policy solution package. We need a lot more
+investment in transportation alternatives to build out the
+second half of our system now that we have completed a world-
+class system of interstate highways.
+ Thank you.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Okay.
+ Dr. Staley.
+ Mr. Staley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Really, I think there are two points that are central to my
+testimony. One is that, at the end of the day, transportation
+policy has to be about improving mobility; and we cannot lose
+sight of that even though we have other goals that we want to
+accomplish, including environmental mitigation and sustainable
+transportation. If we lose sight of mobility, we expose
+ourselves to serious risks in terms of economic
+competitiveness, not just among cities, but globally.
+ The second point is, we need to recognize that these
+solutions to sustainable transportation are going to be very
+localized, very city-and-State specific. We are going to find
+that some metropolitan areas are going to need a lot of
+investment in transit and other types of alternatives. Other
+metropolitan areas are not going to need the same types of
+investments. So we need a framework that allows local areas to
+calibrate their response to sustainable transportation to
+particular needs.
+ Thank you.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Okay. So, just launching off that, then I
+think there would be some agreement here that we really need to
+move toward Federal direction that sets goals that are outcome-
+based, but that are less prescriptive.
+ What are the worst barriers any of you perceive with our
+current transportation policy? I think there is a spread of
+ideological viewpoints here, but there seems to be a pretty
+good consensus on where we need to be moving.
+ What are the principal barriers you see? What should this
+Committee be addressing? How can we move toward something that
+is more outcome-based and more flexible?
+ Mr. Hansen. Mr. Chairman, I think that you hit upon it when
+you mentioned least-cost planning. I think all us know how
+successful it has been within the energy field to be able to
+move toward conservation, but also to be able to have least-
+cost planning work well.
+ Our governor in Oregon, Governor Kulongoski, has proposed
+that as part of the way to be able to think about
+transportation investments, it must not only evaluate across or
+within modes, whether it be road or public transit. It must
+include going across modes; and it also must look at the land-
+use connection, that is, the very ability to be able to see if,
+in fact, smarter land-use decisions can lower the demand for
+some of that transportation mechanism.
+ It is certainly something we have been able to see in the
+Portland region that has been very successful when we have
+implemented it.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Mr. Porcari, you offered the idea of a Federal
+investment to help States better coordinate. I think you said
+$100 million per year for the better coordination of
+transportation and land use. What are you really thinking about
+there? How would that work?
+ Mr. Porcari. As has been pointed out, the nexus between
+transportation and land use is a really critical part of this
+equation. If the goal is mobility for people and goods, you
+cannot separate that from that planning. Whether it is through
+MPOs or whether it is done on a more intermodal basis at the
+State, or even at the local level, we need that performance-
+based planning where we are looking at the outcomes.
+ We have performance measures for how we get there, and
+there has to be a feedback part of that cycle where it is
+integrally tied to local land use; and that means things like
+more density in some places for transit-oriented development
+and explicitly saying that you will not be able to provide the
+kind of transportation access in other places that people may
+want. It is about choices.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Would the Federal government do that with
+inducements or with penalties or with bonuses? Or maybe if you
+did that, would we grant more flexibility to the spending of
+funds among programs for a jurisdiction? How would we get
+there?
+ Mr. Porcari. We would respectfully ask for the flexibility
+to begin with. With the performance standards, hold us to those
+performance standards; and perhaps above a formula allocation,
+there could be an additional distribution based on that
+performance.
+ Mr. DeFazio. So, if a local jurisdiction or an MPO or a
+State has developed outcomes-based, multimodal approaches to
+resolve what we look at as our Federal objectives here in
+dealing with congestion and lowering the cost and pollution and
+all that, perhaps there would be, outside the regular formula,
+competitive money or additional money--or maybe even within the
+formula--that would give you the opportunity to break down some
+of the silos?
+ Mr. Porcari. That would be one opportunity, Mr. Chairman.
+ Beyond that, even with existing programs, with the New
+Starts transit program, for example, they get past the singular
+kind of gatekeeper focus.
+ Mr. DeFazio. That is going away really quickly. Do you mean
+on the cost-effectiveness factor?
+ Mr. Porcari. On the cost-effectiveness.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Maybe it has been repealed by now. I have
+assurances from the Administration. It should go away soon.
+ Mr. Porcari. That is exactly when we get to the larger
+goals.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Other members of the panel?
+ Yes, sir, Mr. Aggarwala.
+ Mr. Aggarwala. I think--in terms of thinking about
+formulas, one of the things I think we should consider is that
+traditionally we measure demand or the need for mobility in
+miles traveled, whether it is vehicle miles traveled or
+passenger miles traveled. In fact, as the Secretary points out,
+if we are really doing a smart job, we are reducing that demand
+for movement without actually changing, as Dr. Staley suggests,
+the actual facilitation of mobility.
+ I think that is a critical thing that should be considered,
+ideally within the formulas themselves, as well as on top.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Trips avoided. Is that what you are talking
+about?
+ Mr. Aggarwala. Or perhaps it is something as simple as
+percent GDP in a local economy or something like that, because
+if you can facilitate economic growth, population growth,
+quality of life with a lower demand for movement, you still
+almost by definition have high mobility; and that is really
+what we should be promoting.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Excellent.
+ Mr. Lovaas. I agree with that. I think we are at an
+historic point where we could see something happen with vehicle
+miles traveled that we saw happen a few decades ago with energy
+intensity in terms of our economic growth. We were able to
+decouple growth in energy use from economic growth, and people
+still got the same services that they required to make a living
+and to have a decent quality of, life, using a lot less energy.
+ I think we are at the same kind of juncture with travel,
+where we can moderate travel demand, yet people are still able
+to thrive and economies are still able to thrive.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Excellent.
+ Dr. Staley.
+ Mr. Staley. I am a little bit more of a skeptic on the land
+use and transportation connection. It actually speaks to, I
+think, a bigger issue I would like to put on the table.
+ One is that while I do believe that there is an important
+transportation and land use connection, it varies in a much
+more complicated fashion than, I think, many of us think. Just
+the investment in roads, in and of itself, does not produce
+growth. I mean, we have got lots of examples that I use across
+the Nation about roads that have been built to nowhere that
+serve no function and that are really wasteful. So, again, that
+is speaking to the issue of performance.
+ The other point is that a lot of these land use and
+transportation connections, this nexus, are really going to be
+local solutions because so much of our understanding how travel
+patterns change based on the availability of certain types of
+transportation will literally be determined at the neighborhood
+level; and there are ways you can support that.
+ The larger question, I think, for me and the biggest reform
+that could set in motion a whole sea change in terms of the way
+the transportation and land use connection comes together, as
+well as moving toward a more sustainable transportation system,
+is completely moving to a different form of transportation
+finance, which is based on distance-based travel.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Based on what?
+ Mr. Staley. Distance-based travel. A mileage tax. This is
+actually an area where I think there is substantial agreement
+across the ideological spectrum, because what will really call
+for the users of transportation to face the true cost of their
+travel.
+ I think we are automatically going to see the demand for
+different transportation modes as well as changes in land use
+immediately become apparent on the local level. We are going to
+see some changes, and Portland has led in some of that as well.
+ I think it is important that a broad-based change like the
+change in the way we fund travel and in the way we fund that
+infrastructure investment will have these ripple effects, which
+are national in their impact. Granted, that is a long-term
+solution.
+ Mr. DeFazio. I was going to say, if we cannot get there in
+this reauthorization, how do we begin to move in that
+direction? How do we begin to facilitate these changes in
+policy without that?
+ Mr. Staley. Yes. I think this is the real point because I
+think this is the reauthorization process where we begin that
+movement. I am afraid, if we do not start that movement now, it
+is going to be decades before we do move in that direction. So
+there are some practical things that can be done at the Federal
+level--encouraging pilot projects, also encouraging States to
+cooperate--because we now know of the interoperability of these
+different road pricing networks. We know the solutions are
+there. We see them in Santiago, Chile, and we see them in
+Europe, but we need to see them applied and developed in the
+U.S.
+ So there is an awful lot of strategic investment that can
+occur with Federal encouragement that will begin to overcome
+these obstacles, and that needs to happen now.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Does anybody have a quick thought on that? My
+time is about up here.
+ Mr. Lovaas. Just in terms of the revenue generated, there
+are two pieces to this equation. I agree with Sam about this
+idea of shifting to more use of the road pricing as a tool, but
+it is one in a basket of policies, and we should decide where
+the revenue goes. Mostly, we believe it should go to
+transportation alternatives so that you can get a double bang
+for the buck in terms of that policy, in terms of moderating
+travel demand, which we believe should be a national goal.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Great. Thank you.
+ Mr. Duncan.
+ Mr. Duncan. Well, Mr. Chairman, since I gave an opening
+statement, I am going to yield my time for questions, at least
+at first, to my Members. So I will yield to Mr. Coble at this
+time.
+ Mr. Coble. I thank the gentleman, Mr. Duncan.
+ It is good to have you all with us. Many good ideas have
+been presented this morning, and I may be repeating them, but
+let me revisit them if I can.
+ The gentleman from Maryland, many of the suggestions point
+to intermodal solutions for our transportation problems. How
+can we better connect our surface transportation options to
+other modes to ensure an efficient transportation system?
+ Mr. Porcari. That is an excellent question.
+ We tend to focus on moving people. Moving goods is an
+important part of what we do as well. We have a great advantage
+in Maryland in that we have an intermodal Department of
+Transportation at the State level where everything--aviation,
+ports, highway, transit--are all under one roof. It gives us an
+opportunity and an obligation to think intermodally.
+ There is a kind of hierarchy, for example, on the goods
+movement side where we would want to keep the goods movement on
+water as long as possible, because it is cheapest and most
+environmentally efficient, then on rail and then on truck for
+the final part of it. We need to be thinking about that in
+terms of goods movement nationally.
+ We also need, in moving people, to have less emphasis on
+the modes and more on the outcome. Again, I think performance
+measures in the goal, which is mobility, is one way we will get
+there.
+ Mr. Coble. Thank you, sir.
+ Let me go to the gentleman from the Rose City way out west.
+Mr. Hansen, because transit agencies oftentimes cannot cover
+their operating expenses from the fare box, it would follow
+that the more transit services that are afforded, the more a
+transit agency runs into red ink.
+ Does this mean that we have to resign ourselves to an ever-
+increasing Federal subsidy in order to increase the transit
+market share? I do not mean to sound like a pessimist as I am
+coming at you, but talk to me about that.
+ Mr. Hansen. Thank you, Congressman Coble.
+ The issue is that no transit system within the country
+operates their full cost off of the fare box.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Excuse me. How about in the world? I am not
+aware of one anywhere in the world----
+ Mr. Hansen. Certainly not in the world, not that I am aware
+of.
+ Mr. DeFazio. --or in the United States. Thank you.
+ Mr. Hansen. The issue, though, is that this is a public
+investment from which we are, in fact, receiving substantial
+benefit whether it be in air quality, whether it be in the
+mobility needs of our citizens, particularly of those who are
+unable to afford it and in terms of being able to address more
+effectively greenhouse gas emissions as well. So, to me, the
+issue is really that it is a very appropriate and necessary
+public investment.
+ Now, at the same time, the more we can make our public
+transit systems deliver transportation needs, not just for that
+work trip, not just for the AM and PM peaks of Monday through
+Friday, but all day long, into the evenings and on Saturdays
+and Sundays, essentially what we are doing is filling more
+empty seats and making that more efficient.
+ In fact, in the Portland region, over the last decade for
+which statistics are available, we have seen our ridership grow
+by 46 percent and yet our service hours, only by 16 percent. It
+is really a threefold more efficient operation of the services.
+ I think that is something that we always need to be able to
+do within the Nation, but to be able to ever think that we are
+not going to have investments, to be able to keep operation
+going, let alone the capital investments, I think, is something
+that would be very shortsighted for this Nation.
+ Mr. Coble. I thank you, sir.
+ Mr. Chairman, I think I have time for one more question.
+Let me visit with my friend from New York.
+ Some of us, perhaps many of us, on this Committee represent
+rural areas. You suggest that many of the policies that New
+York City has implemented could be used around the country to
+ensure sustainability in surface transportation.
+ What applications would these policies have in rural areas?
+ Mr. Aggarwala. Thank you, Congressman. That is a very
+interesting question.
+ There is one thing that we have to think about. First of
+all, there are many things that I think the rural parts of the
+United States can learn from major cities because, while we are
+different, we are not completely different.
+ It is important to note that most of the rural towns in the
+United States developed well before the automobile came into
+widespread use, so they started out as being walking towns at
+their origins. While it may not be that walking or cycling can
+get to quite the share of total trips in a rural community as
+it can in Manhattan, for example, I think the idea of promoting
+density, promoting clustering and using the car only when
+necessary is certainly a viable approach.
+ Mr. Coble. I thank you, sir. I thank the gentleman from
+Tennessee. I will yield back to him to reclaim.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Thanks.
+ Just one point also on Howard's questioning:
+ I live in the second city of Oregon, and we had a private
+bus system which the city had to take over because it was not
+making money. I do not think that is uncommon, is it? Aren't a
+lot of our now-public systems derived from formerly private
+systems?
+ Mr. Hansen. Absolutely. Certainly, in the city of Portland
+as well, it was a company that went bankrupt in 1969. It was
+taken over by the public.
+ Mr. DeFazio. All right. Thank you.
+ We are going to go in the order of arrival from a list
+given to me by staff, and that would take us to Mr. Baird.
+ Mr. Baird. I appreciate very much the input from the
+gentleman. It is good to see my friend from Oregon as well.
+ The key that we are going to be debating in the next couple
+of days is the degree to which the infrastructure stimulates
+the economy, and that is part of the theme here. But in terms
+of the energy savings, as well, could you gentlemen offer your
+input?
+ It seems to me there are two aspects to the infrastructure,
+to the economic stimulus: One, we create jobs by building
+things, but two, to the extent that we reduce our dependence on
+foreign oil, save money on transportation. I would welcome open
+comments on the synergy between those two.
+ Mr. Porcari. If I may start, first, on the immediate
+stimulus part, every $1 billion of transportation investment is
+about 34,000 jobs. It clearly will, first, preserve and then
+add jobs as part of it.
+ It is important to remember that transportation is an
+enabler; it is a means to an end. For our economic development
+goals, for sustainability or for any other policy goals, this
+is the way to get there. The choices we make really determine
+the balance in the transportation system; and I would argue the
+balance is different in different places--highway or transit,
+for example. Transportation can serve those goals. We just need
+to be explicit about them.
+ Mr. Hansen. Congressman Baird, I would also add, each time
+we have somebody who is, in fact, taking public transit rather
+than somebody who is in his individual automobile, we are, in
+fact, addressing environmental goals. So, by the stimulus
+investing in those very services, to be able to invest in
+neighborhoods that, in fact, can become more walkable or more
+bikable, we are addressing long-term sustainability by making
+that the pollution that is coming from those individual auto
+uses be less, not to take away mobility needs, but in fact, to
+be able to, as you have heard from the whole panel, meet those
+mobility needs, but in a more environmentally sustainable
+fashion.
+ Mr. Lovaas. Congressman, the transportation sector is
+responsible for the lion's share of our oil consumption at 11
+million barrels a day, and it is a sector that is 95 percent
+dependent on petroleum-derived products. Getting off of oil is
+not going to be addressed by dealing with pollution or with
+sources of energy in our electricity sector, which only uses
+about 3 percent of the oil we consume nationally. It is all
+about transportation.
+ You heard that--fortunately, yesterday the new President
+announced that he is going to raise fuel economy standards more
+quickly than the previous administration would have.
+Performance standards that are technology neutral are the main
+ways that we are going to wean ourselves off of oil.
+ It is such a monumental challenge that we need to
+complement that with other ways to moderate demand, and that
+includes a robust investment in public transportation
+alternatives. We need that as a complementary strategy. And
+that, I think, in addition to job creation, is a laudable
+objective for the investment of Federal dollars in
+transportation.
+ Mr. Baird. Do we have figures indicating how much we could
+save if people took available transit, in other words, if
+people would just say, "Look, I am not going to drive to work.
+I am going to either car pool, or let's stick just with transit
+for now."
+ How much could we save in terms of dollars in the economy,
+but also in terms of carbon output energy consumption?
+ Mr. Lovaas. I do not know. Fred might know better than I
+do. As far as I know, that analysis has not been done, and I
+have actually been wondering that myself recently. If transit
+systems across the country were running at capacity--rail, bus,
+you name it, and if people were taking advantage of other
+alternatives such as biking and walking--how much oil could we
+potentially save?
+ I am not sure that analysis has been done. I think it would
+be useful to do because it would make a contribution to
+reducing our oil dependence.
+ Mr. Staley. There are also other trade-offs involved.
+ The one thing is, if we would move people to transit. But
+on the other hand, in most cases that involves an increase in
+travel time; and there are other negative aspects of that that
+would also have to be factored in.
+ I would like to speak specifically to the two points. One
+is that I think we need to be careful about how we use numbers
+like every $1 billion spent on transportation creates 35,000
+jobs. In fact, we are only going to see those impacts if those
+investments in transportation are making a meaningful impact on
+the transportation network's performance. It is not a matter of
+simply laying asphalt and expecting those jobs to be there.
+ Now, in the short term, you might see a blip, but what
+these numbers do not really take into account is the extent to
+which those investments are, in fact, productive in improving
+the system performance.
+ The other thing I think we need to keep in mind is that
+there will be a short-term cost, a higher cost, of trying to
+move us off of oil. Right now, oil is cheap compared to the
+availability of the alternatives, so we are talking about a
+long-term shift as opposed to the short-term cost. That still
+means that we are going to have to address those issues over
+the 5-to-10-to-15-year period in which we are going to wean us
+off of oil. I agree that the CAFE standards are, most likely,
+the most effective practical means for doing that.
+ Mr. Baird. Thank you.
+ Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Mr. DeFazio. I thank the gentleman.
+ There was a study that APTA did, the staff reminds me--and
+it was referenced, I believe, in our briefing materials on mode
+shift--which talked about, with a 10 percent mode shift towards
+transit, we could save all of the oil we import from Saudi
+Arabia. Now, obviously, it is fragmentary and somewhat dated,
+but it would be worthwhile to ask for it. I am glad that has
+been suggested.
+ I think we should ask to have that updated by the
+administration and have them make some estimates.
+ With that, I would turn to Mr. Petri. He is not here at the
+moment. He stepped out. Okay.
+ Next on the list will be Mr. Latta. We are going by the
+order of the names given to me by staff on either side. It is
+in order of appearance, so you are up.
+ Mr. Latta. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
+very much to our panelists for being here today.
+ I would just like to follow up on what Mr. Coble brought up
+a little bit ago. I come from a kind of interesting district in
+northwest--north central Ohio. It is the number 1 agricultural
+district in the State, and it is also probably the number 1
+manufacturing district in the State of Ohio.
+ If I am listening, especially when you are talking about
+land use planning and also getting into some other areas
+involved about where the dollars are going, my problem is this:
+I cannot have people walk to work. I cannot have people ride
+their bikes. When I go to a lot of the factories in my area,
+the first question I usually ask is: How far do your people
+have to come in from? It is not unusual for people to drive
+anywhere from 25 to 50 miles. I have got people from Michigan
+coming into Ohio. I have got people coming from Indiana into my
+area. So the idea of our having any mass transit is out. So,
+you know, I am listening a little bit, especially on the land
+use planning ideas.
+ What do we do in our area? If we do not have our
+automobiles or our pickup trucks, we are unemployed.
+ So I would just like to throw that out to you all because I
+know there are districts like that all over. In fact, one of
+the cities in my district outside the city of Toledo, right
+now, it is petitioning to get out of the, TARTA, the Toledo
+Area Rapid Transit Authority, because the ridership there, the
+study has been given that it would be cheaper for us in that
+area to give people a used car than to have the taxpayers pay
+for the system.
+ So if I could just throw that out to you.
+ Mr. Staley. Representative Latta, I know your area very
+well because I am in Ohio, and I have spent a lot of time up in
+that area. Actually, I think it is important because the point
+you are making is broader.
+ There are a lot of urbanized areas in the U.S. that do not
+have the densities that either have been created through an
+urban growth boundary as in Portland or of a New York or a
+Chicago. Here, the mobility that is going to be most important
+to the economy as well as to life style is primarily through
+the automobile.
+ That is one reason why the research that we have done at
+Reason Foundation is showing that, if we are looking at
+sustainable transportation or reducing oil dependence, then
+improving the gasoline mileage is, by far, the most important
+and has the most effective impact. Land use changes, all of the
+other alternatives pale in comparison to what those effects
+will be just from that alone. I have got a table in my
+testimony which breaks that out.
+ So that is another reason that I think it is important. We
+need to recognize that and we have got to make sure, at the end
+of the day, that mobility is a central part of how we think
+about transportation policy.
+ Even in Arlington, Virginia, only 20 percent of those who
+live in that very urbanized county are within walking distance
+of a Metro station. So we are talking about, of the 80 percent
+who might have access to a bus, most are using automobiles.
+That option still needs to be a central part of this
+discussion, I think.
+ Mr. Aggarwala. I think, Congressman, your question is very
+well taken. It is one of the reasons that, I think, several of
+us have talked about the need for local flexibility for
+performance-based outcomes, because clearly what will work in a
+big city is not necessarily the only answer for a rural or a
+manufacturing area. But allowing localities--metropolitan
+areas, local planning associations--to set their priorities and
+to demonstrate that they are making the right decisions and are
+therefore working towards performance will ideally suit us all.
+ Mr. Hansen. Congressman Latta, I would also add that public
+transportation is not the alternative for everyone. It is
+really to give people choices. Particularly as we look at this
+summer, when gasoline was over $4 a gallon, as for those
+individuals whom you referenced--and we certainly have them in
+our community as well--who have long driving trips to be able
+to get to a job, were paying disproportionately high costs to
+be able to have that transportation.
+ What we have found when we, in fact, integrate that kind of
+broader approach in the Portland region is that we have been
+able to see a 7 percent reduction in the amount of what
+individuals spend on transportation. That is 7 percent that
+gets to go for housing or for other expenses.
+ Now, it does mean that there are people who are traveling
+long distances because that is the life style they want, but it
+ultimately means that we need to give people more choices.
+ Thank you.
+ Mr. Latta. If I could just follow up really quickly, I
+guess my question, though: You are looking at Portland. Again,
+in my area, there are no cabs, there are no buses, there are no
+subways; it is your vehicle. If your vehicle breaks down, you
+are unemployed. So I guess one of my concerns is that, you
+know, we are talking about the local areas being out there with
+their own planning with what they are supposed to be doing in
+the future. My concern is that we have to think about all of
+these rural areas that do not have those abilities.
+ One hundred sixty years ago, my relatives came down the
+Ohio River by barge, and went up by canal to Olmsted, and that
+is where they settled, and that is where they are, but there is
+just nothing up there.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Thank you, Mr. Latta.
+ Mr. Latta, my district is the 38th largest in land area in
+Congress. I understand your dilemma. There was something we had
+in the energy bill stripped out by the Senate that would have
+helped people capitalize like vans for people who live somewhat
+proximate to one another in dispersed rural areas so that they
+could, you know, car pool essentially.
+ I mean, we have got to start thinking about how we serve
+rural areas, too, and how we can allow them to be more cost
+effective and more fuel efficient. Any ideas you have got, I am
+open to them.
+ Mr. Boswell.
+ Mr. Boswell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can join others in
+appreciating your having this hearing.
+ It seems to me like for some length of time now--and you
+have all confirmed that very much--that intermodal is something
+we have got to seriously consider, and we have probably done as
+well as we can do. Also, I heard you make, I thought, very
+potent remarks about the pollution needs and also about the
+fact that we are 95 percent dependent on oil for all of our
+transportation needs in our economy.
+ Mr. Chairman, I will just say this, and it will sound like
+I am being self-serving, I suppose: In the Midwest--and there
+are the several States there--we have gotten heavily into
+alternatives. I also understand that in the heavily populated
+Northeast the homes, the factories and everything pretty much
+runs on fuel oil; there is a big need, a big consumption and a
+lot of pollution. But we cannot get the biodiesel or the soy
+diesel or the ethanol out there except by rail, and it has got
+to go through Chicago. There are big delays there which we hope
+someday we can do something about, and we certainly know about
+it.
+ Yet we cannot deliver this alternative because of
+transportation. You have to get it either on a truck or on
+rail. It has been suggested that maybe a pipeline would be a
+good idea--$1 billion spent, 34,000 jobs. It cannot be
+exported. It will fulfill a need.
+ I would like for you to comment about that. Is this just a
+pipe dream or is this something we ought to be putting some
+effort into? I would like to hear your expertise on that. Thank
+you.
+ Mr. Lovaas. I am not certain about the pipeline proposal. I
+can say that the oil consumption in transportation is a product
+of three factors--the efficiency of our vehicles, how much we
+travel in those vehicles, but then what goes into the tank or,
+hopefully, increasingly, what goes into the battery.
+ As such, we need to consider that third piece thoroughly.
+What are alternative liquid fuels that make sense? How do we
+make those more available? How do we promote the
+commercialization of plug-in hybrid technology as well?
+Basically, how do we fuel our transportation sector
+differently, setting aside demand?
+ Of course, from NRDC's perspective, this is a matter not
+just of saving oil, which is in the national interest, but also
+of reducing carbon emissions, which is in the national
+interest. So we would want to make sure that, on a life cycle
+basis, whatever alternatives we are putting into the tank or
+into the battery help to address both of those goals, which we
+see as complementary.
+ Mr. Boswell. I appreciate that.
+ Anybody else? We do have, in fact, alternatives. We cannot
+get to the places that have a need. It would seem like
+transportation is the only solution that I know of, Mr.
+Chairman.
+ I would hope that we might give that some thought. Well, I
+have talked to you; I know you have.
+ Mr. Staley. I think that raises a really important question
+about the need for additional capacity and also about upgrading
+the capacity in commercial freight, both in multimodal as well
+as in rail. That is something that has been neglected over the
+years. I know looking at freight corridors has been important,
+but it is also important for handling bulk shipments. So all of
+that, I think, would be wrapped into that as well.
+ The other thing to keep in mind is that one of the reasons
+we are facing this dilemma is that oil remains the most
+efficient as a source of energy for propelling vehicles. So
+what we are trying to do is move to another source, but the
+hurdle is trying to figure out what that alternative is and
+doing it in a cost-effective way. We are still at the infancy
+of really trying to understand what that is going to be at this
+point.
+ Mr. Boswell. Thank you very much.
+ I have just got a few seconds left here. I would just like
+to give a recommendation to all of us on this side of the panel
+and the panel, too: You might just take a moment and pick up
+Thomas Friedman's latest book, "Hot, Flat, and Crowded." Take a
+minute or a little bit of time to read it. It is riveting. I
+think it says a lot about where we are nationally and
+internationally, and I highly recommend it.
+ Thank you.
+ Mr. DeFazio. I thank the gentleman.
+ Leonard, that is what I want people to do is to think
+outside the box and to think of all of the aspects of things
+that relate to transportation fuels, to fuel efficiency and to
+movement, and to start thinking about what are alternate
+solutions to the traditional way we have been doing it. So I
+appreciate your contribution there. Thank you.
+ Mr. Shuster.
+ Mr. Shuster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank all of you
+for being here today.
+ When I look at the population growth in America, I think it
+was 2005 that we crossed over the 300-million-person threshold.
+As I was reading about it, it took us 60 or 65 years to go from
+200 million to 300 million, and in the next 35 years, we are
+going to go from 300 million to 400 million. When you look at
+the charts, to show you where the growth is occurring, not
+everybody is moving to the West or to the South. It is still
+those corridors, the Northeast corridor being the example, the
+density just becomes even greater.
+ When we are talking about transportation and land use, my
+view is that a big part of the solution is to encourage people
+to move out of the urban areas because, with technology today,
+they do not necessarily need to be in Washington, D.C., or in
+Baltimore or in New York. They can be out in places in rural
+America, but we still need that transportation link. If we are
+going to build a factory, that product still has to get to the
+East Coast.
+ So one of the concerns I have is, if we continue to build
+our infrastructure up around the big cities rather than in
+places like Iowa where they have had manufacturing facilities,
+those plants are just going to move to the east coast, I
+believe, because there is going to be less cost for them. So we
+have got to continue to build that infrastructure.
+ How do we encourage companies to put those jobs into the
+heartland, into the rural areas to make better use of our land
+there, and to decongest our major urban areas?
+ I grew up about 30 miles from Cumberland, Maryland, and
+over the last 30 years, I have seen Cumberland, Maryland's
+population decline and its industry move out.
+ So first, Mr. Porcari, How do we get those people to go
+back to Cumberland and to stop them all from moving to the
+Baltimore, Maryland, suburbs?
+ Mr. Porcari. Actually, Cumberland is a great example. It
+was once the second largest city in Maryland, and it was built
+as a transportation hub to the Midwest.
+ Again, I think, whether you are talking about the highway
+network or rail in that case--and before that, canals--
+transportation is an enabler for the kind of growth that a
+region may want. It is a different solution in different
+places, but with the interstate network essentially finished on
+the goods movement side, I think one thing we need to do, as
+part of a larger solution and for some balance, is to make sure
+on the rail movement part of it, where the bulk goods movements
+are happening and where it is far more efficient, that we are
+paying attention to that.
+ Actually, we have a national policy related to that that
+works with, not against, our highway system, and it essentially
+preserves capacity at our highway system. That would be one
+way.
+ The key word here, I think, is "balance" overall. For each
+area, each jurisdiction, that balance is going to be a little
+bit different, and the kind of flexibility that we need in a
+transportation program at a national level would give us that
+balance.
+ Mr. Shuster. Do all of you agree to disagree that part of
+the solution is to try to encourage people not to move into the
+urban areas, which is making the population more dense? That
+would help to solve some of the problem.
+ Mr. Aggarwala. Well, I think one of the things that we have
+to think about, Congressman, is that density, itself, in fact,
+is part of the solution.
+ So, in New York, you know, where we are looking at growing
+from our current 8-1/4 million people to over 9 million people
+by 2030 in a city that is not growing--you know, we do not have
+space for any new roads or things like that--we basically have
+to grow upwards in terms of density. The fact is, we will have
+a more efficient transportation system because, as Mr. Hansen
+pointed out, transit by its very nature, walkable cities by
+their very nature, are, in fact, more and more efficient by
+density. Now, that does not mean that there is no room for a
+future, in our view, of the rural or less densely populated
+parts of the countries.
+ Again, I think what we keep having to go back to is a sense
+of a performance-based standard for how we think about this.
+Factories and other things like that make a tremendous amount
+of sense in lower-density areas where they might be objected to
+by some of the neighborhoods that I work for.
+ Mr. Hansen. From the Oregon standpoint, I might add,
+clearly one of the things that is most important to the eastern
+part of our State, where there is lots of wheat grown and other
+commodities, is the movement of those commodities efficiently
+and effectively through our urban areas, which is really where
+they are being shipped out either around the country or around
+the world. It is what will keep those rural areas economically
+viable.
+ So it does seem to me that the connection and the balance
+that the Secretary referred to and to be able to understand how
+that has to be connected is, in fact, the best strategy we can
+pursue.
+ Mr. Shuster. Thank you. I see my time has expired.
+ I want to say to the Chairman that I appreciate the
+efficiency and the fairness of your hearing today. So I will
+yield. I have no time left. Thank you.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Thanks.
+ Mr. Hall.
+ Mr. Hall. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to our
+panelists, especially to Mr. Aggarwala from my home State of
+New York. Welcome.
+ My question first is to Mr. Lovaas. I was struck by the
+testimony of your detailing the effect of stormwater runoff
+from roads on aquatic environments. You say statistics that are
+staggering. For example, when only 10 percent of a watershed is
+covered with such surfaces, the rivers and streams and that
+watershed become seriously degraded. Furthermore, you cite a
+study that found that an acre of parking lot yields 16 times as
+much runoff as an acre of open meadow.
+ Another study found that a storm producing 1 inch of rain
+will lead to 55,000 gallons of polluted stormwater runoff for
+every mile of highway that that rain falls on. Most
+disturbingly, a study by USGS found that concentrations of
+pollution in U.S. watersheds had reached a low point in the
+1970s and 1980s due to improvement in wastewater technology,
+but by the 1990s, this trend had turned around due to an
+increase in miles traveled by automobiles and trucks, due to
+tire wear, crank case oil, roadway wear, and car soot and
+exhaust.
+ As someone who represents not only the Hudson River Valley
+but also substantial portions of New York City's water supply,
+these statistics alarm me. So my question is whether the
+funding levels for water infrastructure in the House recovery
+package that we are slated to be debating and voting on this
+week will be significant enough to help reverse that decline.
+Or do we need an even larger effort on water infrastructure?
+ Mr. Lovaas. Thank you, Mr. Congressman.
+ The funding that is in the package currently is outstripped
+by the need, and we prefer the original level that Chairman
+Oberstar proposed in December, which is twice the level that is
+currently in the bill.
+ This is a huge additional fact of our transportation
+sector, and there are basically two ways of addressing it. One
+is rather counterintuitive. One is actually more density,
+particularly around watersheds so that you have a lower
+ecological footprint or pavement footprint per capita, so
+interestingly, by clustering development, you actually end up
+with less runoff.
+ Then the other is to actually design projects, whether they
+be highway projects or transit projects or bicycle or
+pedestrian projects, so that you reduce how much runoff there
+is into our water bodies. That second piece is especially where
+we can use a lot more money.
+ As a matter of fact, there is an opportunity in the
+reauthorization of the transportation law. The last time
+around, the Senate debated the idea of a stormwater pollution
+control set-aside in the STP program of 1 percent. That is the
+kind of innovative program that we would favor revisiting in
+this next reauthorization in order to get a handle on our
+increasingly worsening stormwater pollution problem.
+ Mr. Hall. Thank you.
+ Mr. Aggarwala, would you like to add something to that?
+ Certainly. Thank you, Congressman. I think we certainly see
+a tremendously greater need for water infrastructure investment
+than is currently countenanced. Whether it is appropriate in
+this stimulus or as part of a broader thinking on
+infrastructure, I am not 100 percent sure, but I think no
+question we need to invest as a Nation in our water
+infrastructure which has allowed us to make dramatic
+improvements over the past 30 years, but unlike the early years
+of the Clean Water Act, today the Federal Government has more
+or less distanced itself from the investments in water
+infrastructure that are imposed on localities and on States,
+and I think it is time to reconsider that.
+ As Mr. Lovaas pointed out, designing transportation
+infrastructure is a key component of that. We are working in
+New York to think about how we redesign our streets in ways
+that will capture stormwater as it runs off. We have put in a
+zoning requirement on the local level to require that all new
+parking lots in New York City actually have green swales and
+trees, to ensure that that kind of thing is designed in, and
+whether there is a role for a Federal set-aside or for Federal
+standards, I think those things need to be considered
+ Mr. Hall. Thank you.
+ I only have a little bit of time. I wanted to ask again to
+Mr. Lovaas, in your testimony you cite a statistic showing that
+public transportation has only just now returned to the level
+of boardings of 50 years ago, and statistics show that in the
+U.S., for every 1 transit trip, there are 44.5 auto trips. By
+contrast, Canada, Great Britain and Germany have a different
+ratio, much less lopsided, 7.6:1, 4.6:1 and 3.1:1 respectively,
+many fewer auto trips per transit trip.
+ How can we narrow that gap down and actually move beyond
+the number of boardings we have now? Is it simply more money,
+or do we need to fundamentally change land use planning?
+ Mr. Lovaas. Well, we need to do both. We need greater
+investment, and we need blueprints for our regions especially
+that actually maximize how much use people make of transit, and
+we need road pricing. We need to put a price on the use of
+roads to encourage people to use alternatives and also to
+generate revenue that can be invested in those alternatives.
+This is what London did, and a lot of European countries are
+actually setting targets for a better mode split, and that is
+something I think we should consider as a Nation in addition to
+this idea of moderating travel demand in order to reduce VMT,
+or vehicle miles traveled, intensity of our economy as we have
+done with reducing energy intensity over time
+ Mr. Hall. Thank you very much.
+ Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Thank you.
+ Mrs. Miller.
+ Mrs. Miller. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
+appreciate you holding this hearing. I think it is an
+interesting subject.
+ And this is not really a question, but just a comment on
+the last question. My colleague from New York mentioned about
+the stormwater runoff and some of the problems that we have. He
+and I have talked a lot about Great Lakes issues and various
+things, and that is something I think, unfortunately, in the
+Great Lakes States, in our basin there, we have not taken
+enough into consideration in our planning over the last number
+of decades about some of the various transportation modes as we
+have built them and all the stormwater runoff that has gone
+into the Great Lakes and caused us pollution, et cetera. So it
+is a critical component, I think, of urban planning and rural
+planning or what have you, particularly when you are in one-
+fifth of the fresh water of the entire planet, and some lessons
+learned, I suppose, on that
+ But my question is in regards--and a couple of other
+Members have already talked about this a bit. But in regards to
+mass transit, my district in Michigan has a suburb--some of the
+suburbs of Detroit and then run up to the tip of the thumb, so
+I have what used to be the explosive growth suburbs--now we
+have no growth going on with the economy--but also a lot of
+rural area. And I think we are the largest metropolitan--I have
+heard this anyway--the largest metropolitan area in the Nation
+that does not have a mass transit system.
+ And perhaps that is, again, some of our own problem because
+of the automobile culture that we have there and everybody
+wanting to have their own car and not really utilizing mass
+transit, but it has had an impact, and we are trying to address
+that. However, you know, when people see large diesel buses
+going up and down the main arteries with just a handful of
+passengers on them, it is difficult to talk to people about how
+important it is to have mass transit. It looks as though it is
+almost more polluting with some of these large diesel buses
+that are going than even individual automobiles, et cetera.
+ I guess I am wondering what--I am not sure who I am
+addressing this question to, perhaps the secretary from
+Maryland, about what your experience has been in some areas
+about getting people to support mass transit, or do you have
+any suggestions on an area like the Detroit metropolitan area,
+not having any mass transit other than sort of a secondary bus
+system, of how we might access public support and public
+dollars as well to actually incorporate something in an area
+that has really already been developed?
+ Mr. Porcari. It is a very good question. In Maryland, we
+have a little bit of everything. We operate one of the largest
+transit systems in the country in the Baltimore metro area. But
+on the Eastern Shore in the more rural areas of the State, what
+has been successful for us as a transit strategy has been very
+much an employment-linked one, where some of the major
+employers we have worked with directly through our local
+transit partners, with partial State and local funding, where
+if you don't have a car, you can't have a job unless you have
+that rural transit link. And these services are very much
+directly linked to the major employers, and so it has been a
+critical part of the economic development strategy.
+ It also tends to build the service over time, and we have
+encouraged counties to work together on regional systems, which
+we have in the lower Eastern Shore, for example. Three counties
+combined their systems into one, again working from the major
+poultry and other employers in the rural areas. That has been a
+very successful strategy.
+ Mrs. Miller. Thank you.
+ Mr. Hansen. I might add that to be able to provide not just
+the transport, not just the physical movement, to be able to
+provide people information about how they, in fact, can access
+that, when is the next vehicle arriving, is it the real-time or
+is it the scheduled time, the other elements of things that
+really make that trip be able to be used by individuals,
+particularly as we are so time-sensitive, is important.
+ Last thing I might stress is as we see the population
+growing older, the rural needs are as great, if not greater,
+than in urban areas to be able to provide elderly and disabled
+access to essential services within their communities. And the
+need to be able to have that be in something other than their
+own automobile is a growing need, as I said, both in rural and
+in urban, maybe even more significantly within rural areas.
+ Mrs. Miller. Yes. I appreciate that.
+ I just have 30 seconds left, so maybe I only have time for
+a comment here, but I wanted to bring up something here called
+carbon fiber, since you are all involved in the transportation
+industry. And, you know, with technology happening in every
+industry, I do think the transportation industry has been a bit
+behind on utilizing new technology in construction and
+reconstruction of our Nation's highways and our States'
+highways.
+ And if you look at some of the various technologies that
+are available on the market now, some of these composites--
+again, we see this in the automotive industry where pretty soon
+you are going to have a plastic car practically. If you look at
+some of these various components that can be utilized in
+building our Nation's infrastructure, carbon fiber rerods,
+which are much lighter, much stronger, the sustainability, the
+lifetime of these; even composites for an entire construction,
+reconstruction of a bridge, some of these things that are
+available now--I know I am out of time here, but I just ask you
+to really look at that, because I think that is going to change
+the face of what is happening. Particularly as we get into our
+reauthorization of our transportation bill here, we are going
+to be looking at a lot of new technologies in the construction
+of our transportation grid.
+ Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Anybody have a really quick closing response
+to that?
+ Okay. We will move on. Mr. Michaud would have been next. He
+had to step out. So we go to Mr. Carney.
+ Mr. Carney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Like many of my colleagues here, I represent a large rural
+district, you know, 1,100 square miles, larger than
+Connecticut, biggest city is about 32,000 people, that sort of
+thing, so we face the very same issues of transport in the
+rural area.
+ A couple of questions. First of all, Mr. Lovaas, what is
+the future, for example, for CNG, in your opinion?
+ Mr. Lovaas. I am not certain what the future of CNG is,
+Congressman. Our whole approach to fuels and alternative energy
+sources is technology neutral and fuel neutral and what kinds
+of performance standards that help to push us where we need to
+go.
+ Natural gas, whether in CNG or other forms, is likely to
+play a role in the transportation sector. I am not sure how
+big. One of the challenges with it is, of course, that it is a
+gas, and we have a tremendous retail delivery system for liquid
+fuels with 170,000 stations across the country which deliver,
+for the most part, gasoline. Very few of them deliver high-
+blend ethanol alternatives, which I know was discussed earlier.
+ So liquid fuels are likely, because of the infrastructure
+chicken-and-egg question, to have a leg up on alternatives in
+gaseous form, and that also is true because onboard storage of
+liquid fuel is less of a challenge, and it is less expensive
+than with gaseous forms of energy. So I am not sure how big a
+role it will play. I do know that it faces more challenges than
+liquid fuel alternatives.
+ Mr. Carney. So many of the cities' bus systems around the
+country who do use CNG, what kind of investments would they
+have to make in order to----
+ Mr. Lovaas. Well, that is actually, I think, a different
+matter, because what I was talking about is a fleet of light-
+duty vehicles; but if you are talking about public
+transportation, if you are talking about buses, then you can
+have a centralized station where you actually can deliver the
+energy, and you can actually design the buses so that you are
+able to store as much as you need on board. So I think there is
+less of a challenge with shifting to CNG with our mass transit
+buses. Fred might know better, but that would be my take on it.
+ Mr. Carney. Mr. Hansen.
+ Mr. Hansen. All I would do is just echo the idea if you
+have a centralized fueling operation, which most transit
+systems do, you can. Most CNG has been utilized by transit
+systems as a way to be able to address conventional pollutants,
+not necessarily the challenges of greenhouse gas. It does seem
+to me that ultimately we are going to have see the battery and
+electricity as being the alternative that is really the future
+investment that is going to be very critical.
+ Mr. Carney. I understand. Now, I brought that up listening
+to Congresswoman Miller's discussion of the partially filled
+buses that are diesel. So we do have alternatives to that.
+ But the question I did have, is light rail a solution for
+districts like mine for transportation, or is it just getting
+folks from home to the job?
+ Mr. Porcari.
+ Mr. Porcari. Light rail can be a very effective solution,
+and we are in the middle of three major new starts projects in
+the planning process right now. We are in the midst of making
+the decision between bus rapid transit and light rail. I point
+out one of the driving forces in the decisionmaking process for
+us is long-term capacity, not the day it opens, but you can
+make a reasonable assumption that that system will be there 100
+years from now. We need that kind of long-term capacity.
+ The other great advantage of light rail, in my opinion, is
+when you are linking together land use planning and
+transportation, and you are asking for multimillion-dollar
+investments by the private sector in transit-oriented
+development, you are much more likely to get it in a fixed rail
+system than you will with bus rapid transit, and that is a key
+decision point for us.
+ Mr. Hansen. I would also add, we have been one of the
+leaders certainly in light rail. Light rail works exceedingly
+well when you are looking at high capacity over long corridors.
+But other systems work better when you are using feeder systems
+or major arterials, whether it is a bus rapid transit or high-
+capacity frequent service that we oftentimes use.
+ I think the answer is--I don't mean to be too quippish
+here, but it is not a silver bullet; it is more like silver
+buckshot. You have to find a series of different answers
+depending upon the nature of the community which you serve and
+such.
+ My guess is the more rural areas will not work as well, but
+commuter rail may, in fact, be an element. Certainly high-
+capacity bus transit may as well
+ Mr. Carney. Thank you.
+ Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Thank you.
+ Mr. Boozman.
+ Mr. Boozman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ I am very supportive of transit. In the studies we have
+done at home in trying to increase ridership, it seems like
+everybody, you know, believes in transit, but they want their
+neighbor to ride it.
+ I am not going to make everybody raise hands here, but I
+saw that the vast majority of the audience here, in an area
+that works really pretty conducive to public transit, again out
+of this group there is probably not much ridership.
+ It seems like the thing that really determines who rides
+and who doesn't is the availability of parking. You know, if
+you have got good parking, and it is easy to get there and
+park--it is very difficult to peel people out of their cars.
+ On the other hand, I agree with you, Mr. Hansen. Single
+moms, the elderly, keeping them independent versus
+institutionalized, it has got a lot of other reasons that we
+need to support, but I appreciate somebody threw out the thing
+about the going to jobs, you know, things like that. That is
+great. So that is something that we need to do a better job of.
+ Dr. Staley, you mentioned that one of the big deals is
+cutting consumption as far as the fuel usage, CAFE standards
+and things like that. We have been visiting with some of our
+truckers, and one of their frustrations is a little bit--there
+are some things such as V-shaping the back of trucks that would
+improve wind resistance so that you get increased mileage; the
+technology of the units that instead of having to make your
+truck idle, you know, when you are sleeping and things, you go
+to the others. One of the problems that they are facing,
+though, is that if they put that falsetto on the back, that it
+increases the length of the truck a foot, and then they don't
+have as much, you know, truck space, and this is all a dollars-
+and-cents deal. The same is true with maybe increasing 3-, 4-,
+500 pounds on the unit that allows them to shut down their
+truck and not burn as much energy. Again, that decreases their
+load capacity.
+ Do you have any comment about things like that? I mean, is
+that something that you would be in favor of maybe working with
+in the sense of pushing some of those things, or can you-all
+comment on that as far as a mechanism to increase fuel
+efficiency, but, again, you know, kind of working at a
+commonsense approach?
+ Mr. Staley. I think the solutions for commercial truck
+traffic are going to be different, and we have been talking
+mainly here about passenger light rail and automobiles. And,
+Congressman, I think raising that point is really critical, and
+I think it is also important to recognize that commercial truck
+traffic is really operating on a completely different set of
+constraints than passengers are, particularly when you look at
+commercial truck traffic in terms of the segmentation within
+the industry itself where you have got a lot of independent
+contractors who are really operating on very, very thin margins
+and can't spread out these costs that you find with larger
+trucking companies.
+ And so I think it is really important to start looking at
+what those solutions are, and we might find that there are some
+interesting tradeoffs, but allowing for longer length and
+heavier trucks may allow us to optimize certain other aspects
+of commercial truck traffic that will allow us to meet some of
+these goals.
+ Unfortunately, I don't have any specific recommendations,
+but they definitely need to be in the mix. That is really
+something we have been hearing a lot more about as we have been
+talking with the trucking industry about how we try and address
+that.
+ Mr. Hansen. It does seem to me that the issue you are
+really asking is can technology make us more fuel-efficient,
+less polluting, and less carbon-intensive, and the answer is
+yes. In the transit world, a typical transit bus, 285
+horsepower, about 45 of those horsepower are used to power
+mechanical things on the bus. If, in fact, we are able to
+electrify those demands, that so-called parasitic load, we are
+able to increase fuel efficiency for those vehicles. That type
+of technology is now being available for retrofits on existing
+buses.
+ Those sorts of things and many, many more ought to be able
+to be used to make sure our systems are as efficient as
+possible, knowing that in the long run that won't be enough to
+be able to address global climate change or other things, but
+we need to be doing it.
+ Mr. Lovaas. I was just going to say that the 2007 energy
+bill does actually require that the National Academy of
+Sciences study heavy truck fuel economy and then shortly
+thereafter that the U.S. DOT establish standards for the first
+time ever for heavy truck fuel economy. So that rulemaking and
+that NAS study are certainly worth keeping an eye on, and I am
+sure the industry is going to be deeply involved in shaping
+both of those.
+ Mr. Boozman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hope that maybe we
+can work on some of those things that do seem like fairly
+commonsense approaches, again not dramatically increasing rates
+and things like that, but if you have a tradeoff of a tiny bit
+of weight increase for significant fuel reduction, it does seem
+like it would make sense.
+ Mr. DeFazio. I thank the gentleman.
+ The second panel will have an opportunity to delve into
+some of those issues, both technological in terms of increasing
+efficiency and also some suggestions which we can discuss
+regarding operations. So, if the gentleman hangs around for
+that, that will be great.
+ Mr. Ortiz, the newest Member of the Committee, although
+certainly not--shall we say, he is a veteran of Congress, but a
+new Member of the Committee. So Mr. Ortiz.
+ Mr. Ortiz. It is nice to become young again and become a
+freshman.
+ You know, I represent a district way in south Texas, which
+is Corpus Christi by the Gulf of Mexico, and the testimony I
+hear today is that we have put a lot of money in the bigger
+cities 30, 40 years ago, and that infrastructure has become
+old, and you need to fix that up, bring it up to standard,
+whether it is metro or whether it is rail or whether it is
+shipping.
+ I come from an area that has never been able to benefit
+from any of this because we just opened up a freeway to south
+Texas about 5 years ago. My district, I represent two deepwater
+seaports, which is Brownsville and Corpus Christi, and four
+minor seaports. The area 15, 20 years ago was maybe 300,000.
+South Texas now has about 1.5 million people, and within the
+next 8 to 10 years we are going to have 3- to 4 million people
+in two, three counties, not counting the population from
+Mexico, which we trade because my district borders Mexico.
+ I was just wondering, you know, we need to put both money
+in the infrastructure that has become old and needs to be
+repaired, but we also need to take care of communities and
+cities and counties that have never had this type of
+infrastructure. And when I talk about seaports, the silt, stuff
+that needs to be cleaned up, we are now beginning to lose ships
+from coming in because it is not deep enough, the channels. So
+what do they do? They go to other ports in Mexico or someplace
+else. And now we are beginning to see a lot of trade coming
+from China utilizing Mexico because it is cheaper and because
+the west coast is becoming very congested.
+ We talk about land rail, and I was just wondering what kind
+of formula should we apply in trying to be fair not only to the
+areas that have never been able to benefit from some of these
+projects, but to those areas as well that are growing old and
+they need to bring up the standard. Maybe some of you could
+touch on that a little bit.
+ Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Mr. Porcari. Congressman, if I can start, we share some of
+the same port issues. For example, in the Port of Baltimore
+with silting, this combination of waterborne goods movement,
+rail, and highway and interrelationship between them is an
+important balancing act in the transportation system.
+ I think in the interest of fairness, since the needs are so
+diverse around the country in different areas, if it is part of
+a larger plan--and again, there are performance measures,
+whether you are moving goods or people--I think the solution is
+different in every part of the country, and that kind of
+flexibility, which typically you don't have now because you are
+talking about the Water Resources Development Act for dredging
+needs, you are talking about a surface transportation program
+that has a lot of siloed programs, doesn't really give us the
+flexibility for those local solutions.
+ Your two seaports are major employers. They are a major
+part of the economy in that sense, and I would think as part of
+a larger economic development plan for the region they are
+probably a pretty big part of the emphasis. It would be
+interesting to see if your transportation plans can reflect
+that through how the funding is applied. My guess is it is
+probably difficult to do that.
+ Mr. Hansen. I might add just very briefly, and as the
+Chairman noted in the very beginning, we need to be able to
+look across all transportation modes and really evaluate what
+is the most cost-effective, what is the most efficient way to
+be able to move goods and people into different settings and
+then make the investments in that.
+ It seems to me that the issue around the ability to be able
+to move by ship or by rail, we need to be able to see those as
+part of a national interest for those places where that is most
+efficient and then other systems in other places. And I think
+that will produce the quality of investment in older areas
+needing refurbishment, as well as in new areas that have not
+had that investment at all.
+ Mr. Ortiz. Let me just make one short statement. The
+problem with rail is, since we trade with Mexico, to move a
+rail car 10 miles will cost you $350, but you can move it to
+Chicago for $150, and this is one of the reasons why we can't
+be competitive. And I know this is not the railroad Committee,
+Mr. Chairman, but I thought I would just bring that out.
+ Thank you so much. Thank you.
+ Mr. DeFazio. I thank the gentleman.
+ I turn now to Mr. Duncan.
+ Mr. Duncan. Mr. Chairman, let me just say this: I don't
+want to ask any questions, but the Republicans are going to
+have to leave here in just a few minutes because we are
+supposed to meet with the new President. But I do wish that the
+panel members, if you have any thoughts in these regards, there
+are two things that really concern me. And I mentioned both of
+them in my opening statement when I mentioned that two-thirds
+of the counties in the U.S. Are losing population, and there
+are some extremists, I suppose, that wish we could put
+everybody into 20 or 25 urban centers and turn the whole rest
+of the country into some type of protected wilderness. But
+really, I think when you force people into urban areas, you
+create congestion, you increase crime, you create traffic
+problems, housing problems, cost of housing goes up. So I think
+we should be doing things that give people incentive to move
+back to or stay in the small towns and rural areas and spread
+people out a little bit.
+ And, Dr. Staley, I support, I think, most of the things
+that I have seen from the Reason Foundation, but I do have a
+little concern that if you go to the vehicle miles traveled
+type of financing, that you would put the final nail in the
+coffin of some of these small towns and rural areas because
+most of those people are lower-income people, and most of them
+have to drive further distances to go to work.
+ And while I mentioned that my district is 80 percent urban/
+suburban, I do represent about 20 percent rural areas, and
+whether I represent them or not, I have a great concern about
+the small towns and the rural areas. And I wish you would tell
+us how we solve that dilemma.
+ And then the other thing I mentioned was the fact that
+these projects, because we have gone so far overboard on some
+of these environmental rules and regulations and red tape will
+tell you, I want to do everything we can for the environment,
+but when you are making these projects cost three times as much
+and take three times as long to get done, when most of the
+people in this Committee, I think, want to see these projects
+get done, and especially now we are talking about needing to
+spend some of this stimulus money in a faster way than ever
+before, we are not going to be able to unless we have a little
+balance and common sense on some of these environmental rules
+and regulations and speed some of those approvals up that in
+the past have taken so long.
+ So I am concerned about those things, and I will be
+reviewing the record after this hearing. I am going to leave
+now, but if any of you will submit some comments or some
+solutions to those problems, I would appreciate it very much.
+Thank you.
+ Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Thank you.
+ We would now turn to Mr. Schauer.
+ Mr. Schauer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity
+to speak.
+ I represent a seven-county district in southern Michigan.
+It is the I-94 corridor from the Ann Arbor city line west to my
+hometown of Battle Creek; also the I-69 corridor. Obviously our
+State and our region is wracked by unemployment. The latest
+State figure was 10.6 percent unemployment. Yesterday I learned
+that GM will be cutting a shift at one of its assembly plants
+along I-69, eliminating 1,200 jobs.
+ I also want to add that the district includes both long and
+short rail freight transportation. There are two Amtrak lines.
+The Wolverine line, which runs along the Detroit-Chicago
+corridor, and the Blue Water line from Port Huron to
+essentially Chicago both run through my district.
+ Communities in my district are very interested in
+intermodal transportation. Some are further along than others,
+but they are looking at this as a way to boost their local
+economies, position them for long-term economic growth, and,
+frankly, create jobs as well.
+ So my questions have to do with how should we position this
+surface transportation bill within the context of a couple
+other things. One is, could you talk about the sort of short-
+term and long-term cost-effectiveness of linking our
+communities with commuter rail, high-speed rail? I understand
+this isn't the railroad Subcommittee, but I think it is germane
+here. Talk about sort of the economics of linking our
+communities together.
+ And as an aside, there is a project that is going to start
+soon between Detroit and Ann Arbor that will also link airports
+in a high-speed commuter rail corridor. There is another north-
+south line as well. I would like to see the Detroit-Chicago
+corridor really become a functioning high-speed-rail intercity
+passenger line.
+ So I want you to talk about the short-term and long-term
+economics, including the economic impact for those communities
+particularly where there are stops, and these are--the largest
+city in my district is Battle Creek, 53,000 people. These are
+some small, urban core communities that are hurting.
+ The second is--and Mr. Chairman, I know this is something
+you are interested in--is the "Buy American" provision. In my
+State, we certainly have the capacity to build some of these
+things, and we certainly have a workforce that is ready to
+build some of these things. So there is also that sort of
+economic impact.
+ I wonder if you could talk about those two things in terms
+of how we position this bill. Thank you.
+ Mr. Hansen. Maybe just a few quick comments, and I know
+others will want to add.
+ I think that we, as a Nation, must understand that
+intercity connections are equally as important to the
+intracity, and certainly although the intracity is the area
+that I focused on, it is absolutely critical to be able to make
+those kinds of connections, whether it be commuter rail,
+whether it be heavy rail connections.
+ Our citizens throughout this country, I believe, want
+choices in how they can get around, and they want that for the
+longer trip as well as the shorter trip. They want that to be
+able to have for their convenience. They want to be able to
+save money. They want to be able to have it as a way to spend
+more time with families and other things, and I think those
+investments are absolutely critical, and I think we can, in
+fact, see those investments.
+ Number two is the ability to be able to have jobs created
+not just in the construction of the line, but also in the
+vehicles. Certainly something that Chairman DeFazio has been a
+leader on in terms of modern streetcar we ought to be able to
+apply to all different modes of transport, and how do we really
+make those be American jobs.
+ Thank you.
+ Mr. Aggarwala. I think, Congressman, your idea of using
+high-speed rail, particularly to help the smaller and medium-
+size cities, is very well taken. I think if you look in the
+Northeast or Europe or Asia, that has been one of the things
+that has disproportionately shown up; that if you look at the
+Northeast corridor, for example, as a share of its overall
+intercity transportation, Providence, Rhode Island, gets much
+more out of the north end electrification of the Northeast
+corridor than Boston does because you have hourly and half-
+hourly flights from New York to Boston, but you don't have
+hourly and half-hourly flights from New York to Providence, but
+they get the benefit of hourly and half-hourly train service,
+and I think the same thing happens.
+ But one thing I would point out, hearkening to my
+background in rail policy rather than urban sustainability, is
+that we sometimes misapply our focus to only super-high-speed
+rail, whereas thinking about the extent to which incremental
+improvement can often be the way not only to be most cost-
+effective, but to generate that usage base that builds for the
+future.
+ Mr. Staley. I think first with skepticism at high-speed
+rail mainly because--well, although I will say this: That among
+the rail alternatives, what we were able to see is that when we
+run the estimates and the forecasts of high-speed rail,
+intercity connections can generate a higher cost recovery at
+the farebox than any other rail alternatives.
+ However, in terms of economic development, I think there is
+an awful lot of skepticism we need on this. I have looked
+extensively at the economics and development around many of the
+Amtrak stations and the Northeast corridor, and it really is
+underwhelming. And when I have looked at high-speed rail
+economic impact studies, specifically working on a team in Ohio
+and the Midwest rail corridor, what we found is the impacts are
+marginal at best.
+ Maybe you might generate enough volume to create a new
+office building, but nothing like extensive development. It is
+more important to think about the high-speed rail, in my view,
+as a component of the transportation system and providing, in
+this particular case, a Detroit-Chicago alternative, which is
+really a competitive substitute to a short-haul airline.
+ Mr. Schauer. Thank you.
+ Mr. DeFazio. I thank the gentleman.
+ The gentleman's questions go back to my opening remarks.
+Try and break down, look at the modes of travel, look at the
+least-cost solutions, and I think there are areas, particularly
+if you look at the European experience with high-speed rail,
+which is more dependable than Amtrak, and that is a big factor
+if you have got a job you have got to be at. So if we can have
+a dependable high-speed rail system, you might find different
+patterns of development.
+ Mr. Staley. Actually that is a very good point. In fact,
+one of the communities we are looking at was adamantly opposed
+to any kind of rail because of their Amtrak experience. That is
+why when we did this analysis in Ohio, we were careful to look
+at the Downeaster, we were careful to look at the Hiawatha
+Line, which had very high dependability, also had really high
+ridership, too. So we are really trying to take a look at the
+best in the Amtrak system.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Thank you.
+ With that, Mr. Dent. Hopefully I did not violate the order
+here.
+ Mr. Dent. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Secretary Porcari, in your written testimony you mentioned
+a triple bottom-line approach. Could you kind of expand on that
+concept further?
+ Mr. Porcari. Yes, I would be happy to.
+ When AASHTO has been looking at how transportation system
+fits into a larger strategy, it is in three ways, and that is
+really where the triple bottom-line comes from. It is an
+enabler of economic growth. It is certainly a component of
+quality of life; that is, the choices the transportation system
+provides for people to get to and from work, school and other
+things.
+ And the third part of it--it does get overlooked, but is
+very important--is transportation is an opportunity to improve
+the environment, whether it is through some of the things that
+have already been mentioned, different vehicle technologies,
+better fuel mileage, but also in a more literal sense, some of
+the mitigation work that is done with highways, it could be
+very directly tied to--and in Maryland, for example, Chesapeake
+Bay restoration goals where we used our mitigation projects--
+and you have an example of it here--to literally recreate
+wetlands, remove an illegal landfill, and directly impact water
+quality in a positive way.
+ The triple bottom line is the recognition that if we do
+this right, we can do all three of those things.
+ Mr. Dent. Thank you.
+ I just want to follow up. What policies do you think that
+would help jurisdictions support robust economic growth, and
+does limiting transportation options help?
+ Mr. Porcari. Rather than limiting transportation options,
+if you have--for a specific community, if it is part of a local
+planning process, for example, if the transportation plan
+really has some balance in it and looks at the different
+approaches, and there is a consensus built as to what mix of--
+and it almost always is a mix--of highway usage, of transit and
+other modes, that is really how it becomes the kind of enabler
+for economic development and long-term growth that you are
+looking for.
+ Mr. Dent. Thank you.
+ And to Mr. Hansen, your testimony says that transit saves
+about 37 million metric tons of carbon emissions per year. That
+sounds like a very substantial number, but can you put into
+some kind of context for the Committee what percentage of the
+total annual carbon emissions does that figure represent?
+ Mr. Hansen. I would be guessing at it. I would rather get
+it back to you for the record. It is overall--in terms of
+overall carbon emissions from the Nation as a whole, it is a
+relatively smaller amount from the transportation sector, but
+it is the most ability for us to make the kind of investments
+to be able to move more and more people to that public transit
+and thereby do have significant reductions. But I would be
+happy to get that for the record.
+ Mr. Dent. Thank you. I would like to see that.
+ Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
+ Mr. DeFazio. I thank the gentleman.
+ With that we turn to Mr. Sires.
+ Mr. Sires. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Secretary Porcari, I want to share something with you. I
+was sort of involved with the light rail in New Jersey. It is
+called the Bergen-Hudson light rail. And I know you mentioned
+before that you are trying to decide whether to go with light
+rail or bus lanes. You mentioned that in your comments before.
+ I can tell you the light rail is much better. Of course, I
+come from a very congested area. Just to give you an idea, my
+town is about nine-tenths of a square mile, and I have 50,000
+people in the town. So it is very congested. So it is very
+successful. They move about 37,000 people a day.
+ And one of the issues that we found, anytime you have a bus
+lane, we also brought in these gypsy cabs, the gypsy vans,
+which the idea of taking cars off the road actually created
+more problems because they created more congestion in terms of
+picking people up in the middle of the street and so forth.
+ So areas like mine, urban areas, I would recommend to you
+really look at the light-rail system, because even after 9/11,
+it turned out to be a godsend.
+ Mr. Porcari. It is a very good point, and we actually have
+looked at the Bergen-Hudson line as one of the examples.
+ One of the opportunitiesthat transit mode gives us is to
+weave it into the community in a way where, as opposed to some
+of our existing subway systems where we have very large parking
+lots and commuting to it, these are much more neighborhood
+stations. It is our intention to make all three of these lines
+connected to existing transit, both heavy rail and bus systems,
+and in that way I think it will provide some valid and very
+desirable transportation choices.
+ Mr. Sires. I can tell you that along with the light rail,
+the economic growth, I think, has been really something to see,
+and the air quality obviously is much better.
+ Mr. Lovaas, I have a question. In one of your articles you
+want to create a national freight planning board. How would
+that work?
+ Mr. Lovaas. Well, we would be open to, you know, different
+structures, but the idea is that this would be a public and
+private venture to take a look at the freight needs in the
+Nation and how we address those freight needs in an intermodal
+and energy- and carbon-smart way. And of course, this has to do
+with what we were talking about earlier in terms of the
+increasing traffic into our ports, how do we increase that
+further, and then how those goods move from those ports to
+other parts of the country in the most efficient way possible,
+and the lowest polluting and most energy-efficient way possible
+as well.
+ So the point is it is not on the passenger side where we
+need some national objectives and a real plan. We are also
+lacking a set of clear national objectives and a real plan for
+freight traffic, and that is something that we desperately
+need. So setting up a board to come up with such a plan is the
+first step towards a different way of approaching that in terms
+of policy.
+ Mr. Sires. I represent both the ports of New Jersey, and
+the biggest concern always is how do we get some of these
+trucks off the road. And the New Jersey Turnpike is like I-95
+in Maryland; it is a parking lot many times. And it is just a
+big problem.
+ The other issue is moving this freight, you have to have a
+place where you can put this merchandise. New Jersey has many
+warehouses that have been built due to the growth of the port,
+and they are going to grow supposedly, when the economy
+changes, another 20 percent. I am not quite sure how a national
+board would work because we work with the Port Authority of New
+York on making sure that some of these things, you know, some
+of the freight is moved.
+ Mr. Lovaas. Well, we need--I mean, the short story is that
+the board would come up with some sort of----
+ Mr. Sires. How much power would this board have? How much
+power would you give this board to implement some of these
+ideas?
+ Mr. Lovaas. Oh, I mean, it would be up to the Department of
+Transportation to implement the ideas in coordination with
+regions such as yours as well as with the State departments of
+transportation. I mean, the point, though, is to come up with--
+and this would be a useful change of pace--to come up with a
+plan with clear national objectives for dealing with growing
+freight traffic so----
+ Mr. Sires. Okay. Sorry.
+ Mr. Staley. Just real quickly, we are not familiar with the
+proposal of the national freight board, but this area of the
+Federal Government being involved in coordinating and helping
+meet these freight needs is really a unique role, I think, and
+an important one for the Federal Government because it involves
+interjurisdictional cooperation in many cases. So the question
+is how can you use Federal policy to create a structure in
+which win-win situations can be identified and resolved? Most
+of those are freight.
+ So I would imagine even if you had some sort of a national
+freight board, a key component of that might be sort of helping
+facilitate dialogue and win-win solutions among different
+jurisdictions, and that is actually something that can be done.
+We have run into those problems in many States before, and this
+might be a framework in which that could happen.
+ Mr. Aggarwala. I think the issue of poor congestion also
+highlights--and whether it is the exact proposal from NRDC or
+not, I don't know, but the need for a sense of national
+projects of national importance and focusing resources on
+things--because as you point out, that truck traffic in
+northern New Jersey not only has the local impacts, but it also
+raises the prices of goods across the United States and hurts
+our overall competitiveness.
+ Mr. Sires. Thank you very much.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Thank you.
+ Ms. Hirono.
+ Ms. Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ The reauthorization of SAFETEA-LU does provide us an
+opportunity to think outside of the box as we make decisions on
+transportation needs, and I am particularly interested in those
+processes that would encourage thinking about intermodal
+considerations and making these decisions.
+ Mr. Lovaas had mentioned that there is a process called
+participatory scenario planning that seems to work, and, Mr.
+Hansen, since you are from the State that pioneered this, could
+you talk a little bit about this process, whether it is
+mandated by statute, how are decisions made, who participates,
+how it is working?
+ Mr. Hansen. I will start.
+ Because of our comprehensive land use requirements, we end
+up having a very robust process to involve our citizens in the
+planning of any of our transportation investments, and for us,
+that transportation and land use connection is an element of
+it. And so when we are looking at it and the plans that are put
+out even in draft form on which then people can comment, which
+there are numerous citizen advisory committees to help us with,
+are really looking at that, the whole picture of how a
+community or a neighborhood may develop.
+ So it is not just the transportation investment that is
+somehow isolated from the land use decisions or isolated from
+the economic development strategies, but rather an integration
+of that. It really allows people to be able to think
+differently about how their community is going to develop.
+ I might give you one specific example, and it is really
+around the concept of what is referred to as the 20-minute
+neighborhood, and it is a concept that really says how do we
+really develop a neighborhood that is not about different
+transportation options, but really is centered around the
+individual; that is, how can they get to their essential
+services, whether it is the corner coffee shop or grocery
+store, within 20 minutes by either public transit, by walking
+or by bicycling. And the concept is to be able to have it
+really be peoplecentric.
+ And so our processes are very, very much involving our
+citizens in how to be able to develop that neighborhood, how to
+be able to put all the pieces together and make choices about
+it.
+ Mr. Lovaas. More and more jurisdictions, Congresswoman, are
+adopting this approach, Salt Lake City and Sacramento, just to
+name two others, and the idea is thanks to improving technology
+both in terms of land use modeling and travel demand modeling,
+and in terms of being able to increase participation through
+the Internet of a broader set of citizens, you can engage in a
+participatory process whereby you choose futures for your
+region based on preferences in terms of what happens with land
+use, what happens with transportation, and what happens with
+performance outcomes like air quality or oil dependence or
+carbon emissions.
+ We think that especially for large metro areas, which have
+quite a bit of planning capacity, there should be a requirement
+that this becomes the norm in exchange for Federal assistance
+across the board.
+ Ms. Hirono. And do the decisionmakers have to follow
+whatever the outcomes are of this whole process?
+ Mr. Hansen. From the Oregon standpoint, they don't have to,
+but it is at their own peril.
+ Ms. Hirono. Yes. That is good.
+ I just wanted to mention, Dr. Staley, that you talked about
+distance-based travel as a way to decide what you are going to
+spend your money on, and I do want to mention that in my
+district, of course, which isn't rural, I represent seven
+inhabited islands, and most of those islands do not even have
+any kind of a transit system. So this kind of a way to make
+decisions would definitely impact negatively the people in my
+State.
+ So what I want to do is promote intermodal choices in our
+rural areas, as well as to make sure that what we are doing
+with our scarce resources is truly to promote, as Mr. Hansen
+said, the best way to move goods and people.
+ So that is just a statement. If you would like to comment,
+but that is fine.
+ Mr. Staley. Yeah, real quickly, because this is an issue
+that has come up on a number of different statements.
+ The road pricing--the distance-based road pricing proposal
+really is largely geared toward an urban system, and that is
+really where most of our congestion and traffic is.
+ I think it is also important to recognize that the rural
+solutions are going to be different. There are many
+characteristics of rural networks and highways and roads that
+really require a different decisionmaking process; although I
+still think that, with limited-access highways in particular,
+there is a very important role for road pricing to play.
+ But just to acknowledge that those concerns, I think, are
+real, and I think they have to be addressed, and that is
+something that needs to be fleshed out as part of this
+proposal.
+ Ms. Hirono. Thank you.
+ I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
+ Mr. DeFazio. I thank the gentlelady.
+ Mr. Kagen.
+ Mr. Kagen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ I have some larger vision questions. I would prefer in the
+interests of time if each of you would provide the Committee
+and my office with your three most important recommendations
+that are necessary not just for in-house politics, but also for
+our country's development of our highways and bridges.
+ And then I want to get each of your comments about
+incentives, because when I met with our economic advisory
+committee back in northeast Wisconsin, each community leader
+had something to say. They said, look, Kagen, unless you
+provide us with incentives, we can't afford to purchase the
+mass transit vehicles, we can't afford to invest in these
+things. So I would like to hear your comments briefly on the
+incentives necessary for localities and municipalities to
+invest in mass transit.
+ And finally, I would like your comments about what
+incentives you think would be most especially useful for
+converting each and every truck that we have in America to
+natural gas. I have prepared such a bill to help incentivize
+private industry to convert to natural gas for any number of
+reasons.
+ So I will pitch those two questions to you and hope to see
+your written comments, shall we say, at the speed of business
+rather than the speed of government.
+ So let us start over here.
+ Mr. Porcari. In terms of most important recommendations,
+Congressman, flexibility within the surface transportation
+program; second, performance measures that will give you and
+everyone else an accurate way to judge our performance on
+those; and third, if we are going to actually rebuild and
+expand our transportation infrastructure, we are going to need
+to vastly ramp up the program that we have.
+ Mr. Hansen. Mr. Chairman, Congressman, I would echo much of
+what my colleague from Maryland said. I do believe that we
+fundamentally need to be able to have, though, a least-cost
+planning kind of approach that really brings the level of
+discipline to be able to look within modes, across modes, and
+really looking at that land use connection to be able to make
+the best investments that were the most cost-effective.
+ Number two, I would just echo the fact that we do need to
+be able to have substantial investments in the public
+transportation side, as APTA and others have brought forward.
+We have not made those investments, and I think this Nation is
+paying the price for that both in terms of dependence upon
+foreign fuel and not giving our citizens choices about how they
+are able to get around.
+ Mr. Aggarwala. I think I will echo on at least two of the
+themes that I have heard here, one in terms of performance-
+based decisionmaking. I think one of the things that we have
+heard from a number of the Members of the Committee, as well as
+from the panel, is that different localities, different areas
+are going to have different decisions. And a light-rail or a
+heavy-rail line that may work in New York or New Jersey doesn't
+necessarily work elsewhere, could not be the most cost-
+efficient.
+ The funding, as you point out, the incentives have to be
+aligned so that localities and States don't see that they would
+lose further Federal money, that they would wind up having to
+have a higher match or anything like that for making these
+kinds of investments.
+ And then it is interesting, your question about natural
+gas, because I would also add as my third thing, I don't think
+we should be shy about imposing requirements. One of the
+reasons we got the Interstate Highway System built was that the
+Federal Government actually said this is the goal, and we will
+all be better off as a result, and whether it is natural gas
+trucks or more efficient vehicles, sometimes you just have to
+tell people to do it.
+ Mr. Lovaas. Well, I will certainly agree with that last
+part about we need a national set of objectives, which I don't
+think we have had since the visionary sort of objectives
+established in 1956. Here we are 50 years later. We built an
+Interstate Highway System, and what is next?
+ And among the objectives should be building a system that
+is more multimodal, so building out the second half of the
+system, public transportation specifically, based on how much
+oil is saved and how much pollution is reduced. And then that
+can be translated down to the regions where most of the traffic
+occurs, as Sam rightly says, can be managed through
+establishment of regional blueprints with similar objectives
+that feed into the national objectives.
+ And then lastly, the best incentive--you asked about
+incentives for greater use of mass transit and investment in
+mass transit--is to increase Federal assistance for it and to
+boost that both proportionally and absolutely within the
+Federal program.
+ Mr. Staley. A couple of things that I think are really
+important is, one, I think it is important to move as much of
+the decisionmaking to the State and local level as possible,
+because I think that is where the priorities can be set, and
+part of that is a performance-based system.
+ Second of all, I am going to reiterate I think that moving
+to a distance-based road-pricing system will solve a huge
+number of these problems, including providing transparency in
+the system and the funding incentives necessary to think about
+alternatives, outside-the-box ways of looking at it.
+ And I think--thirdly, I think we haven't talked much in
+this panel, but we need to think about new ways of bringing
+revenue streams in other than just Federal financing. That
+includes the private sector, tapping into equity, looking at
+public/private partnerships both on the transit as well as the
+highway side, because it also brings us a certain amount of
+discipline and innovation. Many of the innovations in the
+carbon, the composites, for example, often come in through
+design build and other types of systems in the private sector,
+and we can do that much more with properly structured PPPs.
+ Mr. Lovaas. Actually, just very quickly, to help Sam out
+here, the road pricing is a policy that we also agree is a
+useful one to consider as part of a basket of policies that
+regions should adopt, and it should be targeted at metropolitan
+areas. And the applications to rural areas areprobably more
+limited because of how burdensome such a pricing technique
+would be.
+ Mr. Kagen. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Mr. Chairman, I represent a large rural district, perhaps
+not as large as yours, but we do have particularly specific
+problems because of the rural setting that we live in, and any
+Federal assistance and incentives would be greatly appreciated
+for the rural district I represent.
+ I yield back my time. Thank you very much.
+ Mr. DeFazio. I thank the gentleman.
+ Mr. Hare.
+ Mr. Hare. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much for
+holding the hearing.
+ And I just have three questions of two of the panelists
+here. And my apologies, I missed the testimony, so if you have
+already addressed it, I apologize.
+ Mr. Hansen, you said in your testimony that TriMet has
+tested equipment developed by the military and by NASCAR to
+improve fuel economy. I wonder if you could explain what kind
+of technology you are testing.
+ Mr. Hansen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Hare.
+ Specifically, what our frontline workers are--I really do
+stress this--have just been key in this development. When you
+look at a typical city bus, transportation bus, about 285
+horsepower engine, diesel engine, about 45 of those horsepower
+are being used to power things such as the water pump, air
+conditioning and other things. In a combination with CALSTART,
+an alternative energy nonprofit, as well as with a corporation,
+we developed ways to be able to--the military have actually
+been using this as well--how do you take some of that parasitic
+load off of that engine by electrifying it, by, in fact, having
+electrical motors to be able to power the water pump, to be
+able to power the air conditioning and so on. And by the way,
+the NASCAR element is a clearly--all of their power goes into
+their wheels. We want that power not having to be using more
+fuel.
+ We have seen over 5 percent fuel economy when we have been
+able to accomplish that. Most importantly, it is a strategy
+that is relatively inexpensive, about $15,000 per vehicle, and
+it can be retrofitted to existing fleets. So the ability to be
+able to have for us a bus fleet that maybe lasts 15 years, be
+able to become cleaner, less fuel-demanding is very important.
+ Mr. Hare. Thank you.
+ You discussed the process of what you called greening your
+transit operations. Is this something that can easily be done
+within the current Federal transit programs, or, you know, what
+are the changes that need to be made so the transit agencies
+can easily invest in energy-reduction processes?
+ Mr. Hansen. Mr. Chairman, again, Congressman Hare, from the
+standpoint of the efforts that we have under way at APTA right
+now--and that is an effort towards sustainability--we are
+asking all properties that are a member of APTA, as well as our
+business members, to sign up to a sustainability commitment and
+in that to be able to take on a whole series of different steps
+at various levels, kind of like a lead like in that regard.
+ In terms of being able to address this, there are less
+Federal roadblocks to it, very frankly, but there is not much
+Federal incentive to be able to do it. It really is an effort
+that is being funded out of our existing operations.
+ Now, if you look at the return on investment, I think many
+of these investments do make sense, but the up-front costs can
+oftentimes be a prohibition for properties or for businesses to
+take on. I think that would be very helpful to be able to be
+addressed in Federal action.
+ Mr. Hare. Thank you.
+ Lastly, Mr. Porcari, in your testimony, you proposed a new
+transportation and land use program to be funded at $100
+million per year to support the better coordination of
+transportation and land use policies between State DOTs and
+local governments.
+ Do you see the Federal Government playing a role or their
+leaving this up to the States and to the MPOs?
+ Mr. Porcari. In this case, it would not be the Federal
+Government directly setting land use policies. This would be,
+essentially, capacity building for the metropolitan planning
+organizations that do not currently have that capacity for the
+kind of State, regional, local cooperative planning that you do
+not typically see on those projects. The performance-based
+aspect of it, where you can look in a mode-neutral way of the
+best way to move people and goods, would be an essential part
+of it.
+ If we are going to address some of the other policy goals
+that are important to transportation, including environmental
+preservation and sustainability, we need that capacity to do
+that. At least from my perspective, I see it as a bottom-up
+approach.
+ Mr. Hare. Thank you very much.
+ Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
+ Mr. DeFazio. I thank the gentleman.
+ Mr. Boccieri.
+ Mr. Boccieri. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
+testimony of our panel and also of the Chairman holding this
+hearing.
+ We are talking about diversifying our modal systems. I
+guess a question that I have contemplated over this discussion
+is, is the demand there? We talked a lot about rural settings
+and about some of the areas that I represent in Ohio. If we
+built a modal facility that transited some of our rural areas,
+would they use it?
+ I mean, we have a car culture that is pretty evident. Would
+the consumers, in your estimation, transition easily if we
+built this type of supply side of transportation modal system?
+ Mr. Lovaas. Just very briefly--and this is in my
+testimony--I think we do face a discontinuity in terms of
+demand both for transportation and for development
+alternatives. We see more of an interest, particularly among
+aging baby boomers and also among younger people coming into
+the marketplace, in development alternatives and in
+transportation alternatives. There is evidence that they are
+underserved right now by the housing market and that that
+problem is only likely to get worse if the development industry
+continues to provide the product lines it does.
+ Now, the reason those product lines are provided is that
+often that is all that is permitted under local rules.
+Hopefully, some of those local rules would be revisited as part
+of these regional blueprint processes. Regardless, people are
+looking for more development choices, and that is likely to
+continue in the future, and it looks like the same is true with
+transportation.
+ The Brookings Institution actually looked at vehicle miles
+traveled and vehicle miles traveled per capita. They found, as
+the outgoing Secretary of Transportation has been saying month
+after month over the past year, that this is a trend. This is
+an emerging trend that predates the increasing gas prices, but
+the increasing gas prices, especially in 2008, boosted the
+trend.
+ I do not think anybody believes that gas prices are going
+to stay low forever, so we are also likely to see increases in
+demand for transportation alternatives as well as for
+development alternatives. So I do think consumer preferences
+are changing, and I do think that Federal investments should
+change to meet the future demand.
+ Mr. Boccieri. Do you believe that is an alternative for
+transportation or an alternative for fuel?
+ Mr. Lovaas. Well, actually, I think it is both. I think
+just the sheer scale of our demand for fuel in transportation
+necessitates that we provide choices in transportation options
+and choices in terms of vehicles--so, more efficient vehicles
+for consumers--and choices in terms of fuel, so that, yes, when
+you pull up to the gas pump, for example, you have more than
+one choice in terms of what you fill your car with or you can
+plug in your car at home increasingly in the future.
+ I think, given the scale of the problem, we need to scale
+up the solutions, and I think in all three areas it is
+appropriate.
+ Mr. Hansen. I would add that our citizens and our rural
+citizens, as well, want to be able to have transportation
+choices.
+ Now, the answer is, it is not one size fits all. We are not
+going to put a light rail line into a very rural area unless it
+is somehow destined for high-density development, but we should
+be able to use van pools or be able to use other voluntary
+connections. People want that. Particularly with the aging of
+our population and the inability for individuals to be able to
+continue to drive or to drive at all hours of the day or even
+at night, it is something that I think is going to demand this
+to happen.
+ Our citizens are asking for it. We just need to be creative
+in finding different solutions.
+ Mr. Staley. I am looking at the data of reductions in VMT
+and at the increasing transit use. I do not see any fundamental
+changes in travel behavior. It is true that VMT has been
+falling, and that was largely a response to the increase in gas
+prices; and I agree that gas prices are going to go up. But if
+we look at the amount of passenger miles going to transit, we
+are finding that transit has been barely able to keep its
+market share. In many cities, like Cleveland, for example,
+which has had multiple modes for many years, we are still
+seeing a significant erosion of market share in the major areas
+of transit.
+ The real task before most transit agencies--this is not
+true in Portland or even, for that matter, in Denver--is to try
+and maintain their market share, let alone increase it.
+ So I think that while I do agree that there is going to be
+an increase in demand for transit--and I am actually optimistic
+about the future of transit--I do not see the numbers
+fundamentally changing travel patterns.
+ So, again, we are looking for and we are talking about
+sustainable transportation. We are looking at technology-based
+solutions to these issues as opposed to mode-shift solutions.
+ Mr. Aggarwala. If I could add, actually one of the things
+that I think that misses is the idea of integrating land use
+and transportation. This is not just about starting out with
+somebody who wants to take a trip and whether they take their
+car or whether they take a van pool or whether they take
+transit. Part of what we have to think about--and this is a
+generational change that we are going to have to begin--is
+whether they have to get in a vehicle at all.
+ Can you begin to plan even rural communities so that people
+can walk to the store even if they have to drive to work? Only
+17 percent of trips nationwide are journeys to work. We have to
+think holistically like that.
+ Mr. Boccieri. I agree that it would be driven out of
+necessity.
+ Mr. DeFazio. I thank the gentleman for his questions.
+ Mrs. Napolitano.
+ Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
+holding this very important session with this panel.
+ As you well know, I am from California. L.A.County has 12
+million to 13 million people with no mass transit. I mean, at
+New York, I marvel. I marvel at Washington. Yet we are stuck
+over there with that.
+ There is a law in California that they will reduce
+emissions by a third by 2016. That is something. We pay higher
+gas taxes for that in California to be able to clean the air.
+ Essentially, do we have a program that is going to try to
+educate the children at the school level as they grow and
+become drivers about the impacts that emissions have and about
+the transportation gridlock that we face all over the Nation?
+It is not just in our area. I can tell you, in talking about
+Mr. Hansen's solar panels on trucks, the R&D in Pueblo,
+Colorado, has already begun to put solar panels on hybrids,
+increasing the mileage from 50 on a Prius to 100 miles per
+gallon.
+ Now, are we looking at technology that is going to help us
+do that?
+ In L.A., the Long Beach and Los Angeles harbors, the EPA
+has gone in and has told the boards, both boards, either you
+start cleaning up the air or we are going to do it for you. Now
+they have a plan in process that is going to cut down. And all
+of these things are being done.
+ However, in our specific case, the Los Angeles Metropolitan
+Transit Authority believes buses are the answer. I am totally
+not against buses, but we need to move people to work, to
+school, to the doctor, and we have gridlock. If you put people
+on a bus and you have an accident, it is going to be sitting
+there just like any other car.
+ How do we begin to look at not only urban, suburban and
+agricultural areas where you have very little transportation
+capability? In other words, mass transit as you were talking,
+Mr. Hansen--but how do we begin to look at the needs of every
+different area so that we can begin to invest in that
+infrastructure?
+ There is the mind-set that you cannot put a double deck on
+a freeway in Los Angeles because you are going to be looking at
+somebody's backyard. Now, I challenge anybody to go 55 miles an
+hour and find out who is cooking steak on a barbecue. It is a
+mentality, and it is convincing people to get out of their cars
+and to use either mass transit or carpools. I have been on
+carpool since back in the 1970s when I worked for Ford Motor.
+That did not work. It still is not working as well.
+ So how do we begin to change mind-sets? How do we convince
+the Federal Government transportation to begin to look at
+alternatives and to put them all together, including hybrids,
+including the usage of new technology--the solar panels, all of
+that? Anybody, please.
+ Mr. Hansen. Let me begin.
+ First off, it does seem to me that the issue you have heard
+from many of us already, and that is to be able to break down
+some of the Federal silos, is an important part of allowing
+neighborhoods, communities--really metropolitan areas--to be
+able to make better choices that fit for them.
+ In California, you have done a lot to lead the way. My
+friend and former colleague, Mary Nichols--head of the
+California Air Resources Board, the Chair of that--is really
+doing much to be able to accomplish those goals: how to be able
+to bring in more technology, to be able to provide more
+alternatives and how to educate our young people. I do believe
+that we are not realizing how much the next generation is, in
+fact, demanding those very options, and we need to be able to
+do a better job of delivering alternatives to that single-
+occupant vehicle.
+ It seems to me from afar, you have made real progress in
+the L.A. basin. Obviously, there are still a lot of needs to be
+met, but it does seem to me that you have made progress both on
+the land use side as well as on the fuel and on the vehicle
+sides.
+ Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you.
+ Mr. Lovaas. California has also made great progress in
+terms of increasing the efficiency of appliances, which may not
+sound relevant. However, it is in the sense that what we are
+talking about is providing the same services that people
+currently enjoy in order to have a high quality of life and to
+have a variety of job options and to have access to jobs, but
+without having to drive as much. We have managed to do that, to
+decouple the services that people receive from technology from
+how much energy that technology uses.
+ We need to do the same now with our transportation system.
+Of course, in transportation, the closer applicability is in
+our automobiles and in that they are now going to become more
+efficient, thanks to Congress' enacting higher fuel economy
+standards in 2007.
+ The average American will not see much change besides the
+lower amount that they pay at the gas pump, in terms of what
+they are driving, because of improving technology in the
+vehicle marketplace. We need to do something similar with our
+transportation system, and basically, we need to provide
+similar services to people without requiring them to drive so
+much to enjoy those services.
+ Mrs. Napolitano. I will yield in a second.
+ Mr. Lovaas, in L.A., we have San Bernardino and other
+counties, and you have a quarter that has not expanded. Some of
+those people drive 2 hours a day from those counties into Los
+Angeles, and yet we have not focused the funding to be able to
+allow them to have access to mass transit. That is important to
+understand.
+ I am sorry. Somebody else wanted to speak?
+ Mr. DeFazio. Anyone on the panel can briefly address this.
+Then we are going to move on. We are not going to solve L.A.'s
+problems with this panel today. They are too big for us.
+ Mrs. Napolitano. I am looking for ideas, Mr. Chair.
+ Mr. DeFazio. I know. We are all looking for ideas, and they
+can submit them afterwards.
+ Mrs. Napolitano. Sorry.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Quickly, does anyone have a further response?
+ Mr. Staley. Yes.
+ Very quickly, I think the 91 express lanes are a good
+example. Again, it is going back to road pricing, but we forget
+that the Orange County Transportation Authority is able to fund
+transit in that corridor by using the road pricing example on
+91 express lanes.
+ So part of it is finding new funding for providing the
+transit, and that can be done. In fact, L.A. has the density
+and it has the mixed use. We have alternatives. The question is
+finding the right mechanisms to, one, fund those alternatives
+and, two, to deliver those alternatives.
+ As you, I am sure, know, a lot of that has to do with local
+implementation, as it has to do, in my view, with anything
+else.
+ Mrs. Napolitano. Thank you.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Thank you.
+ Ms. Edwards.
+ Ms. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ I apologize that I missed your testimony in person, but I
+did read part of it.
+ Mr. Hansen, I know that you touched on this a little bit
+earlier, and I think that I would agree. I mean, we want to try
+to double our market share for public transportation in the
+coming years. The question is, I think, how you encourage rural
+communities that they have as much at stake in public transit
+investments as we do in suburban and in urban communities
+because it is a sort of shared value.
+ So I address that question to you.
+ Dr. Staley, I think you touched a bit on this as well.
+ Then, Secretary Porcari, because you are from my home
+State, I will ask you this as we are going forward: What ideas
+do you have about ways that we can make investments in sort of
+short-term kinds of transportation projects that have long-term
+value, where you might invest, for example, in a rail project
+or in another transit project in a suburban area--say the
+Chesapeake Bay watershed--and convince those people in the
+outer rural communities that it is in their best interests to
+prioritize transit projects that may not be anywhere near them,
+precisely because you are trying to protect where it is that
+they live and work and play?
+ So I will leave that to the three of you.
+ Mr. Hansen. Let me begin.
+ First, it seems to me that all citizens of this country,
+whether they are in rural areas or are in urban areas, are
+vitally interested in sustainability and specifically in the
+challenges of climate change, because certainly a ton of carbon
+from our urban areas or from anywhere in the world has the same
+effect on climate change, and needs to be able to be addressed.
+ Maybe more specifically to the issues of rural citizens and
+what is needed, I think the forefront of that debate is going
+to really come into focus when we look at our elderly and
+disabled populations within those urban areas. How do we really
+provide movement and mobility needs for them, sometimes to be
+able to get them to the urban areas for medical or for other
+essential services, but also just to get them to places within
+that same community?
+ I think what we need to be able to do is to find different
+scales, different approaches, to be able to provide for that
+transit component, that alternative. The rural communities
+oftentimes were founded long ago. Even in the rural areas--and
+my colleague from New York City mentioned this earlier--the
+ability to be able to walk within those neighborhoods, within
+those communities, was very important. We need to be able to
+either establish or to reestablish that same capability.
+ Ms. Edwards. Thank you.
+ I am going to run out of time so, Secretary Porcari, if you
+could, please address that because it becomes a question of how
+you prioritize. You know, we can say all of us want
+sustainability, but then when it comes down to setting those
+priorities, that rural community may say, "No. No. No. Do the
+roads in my area," not recognizing the deep impact that some
+other kinds of investment might have on their living area.
+ Secretary Porcari.
+ Mr. Porcari. Congresswoman, if there were unlimited
+funding, we obviously would not have that question. We would be
+able to satisfy all of the needs. We have what we call one
+Maryland approach: We have very rural areas and some of the
+most congested areas in the country. The balance, the mix, of
+what we do for transportation projects, both rebuilding and new
+construction, is different in each of those. Part of that is
+having an honest dialogue with our rural communities and with
+our more urban communities about the priorities, and they tend
+to naturally sort themselves.
+ So a major transit project in our Baltimore-Washington
+corridor, for example, is the only new capacity solution that
+we can do in that corridor. Conversely, in our rural areas,
+although we have transited every part of the State, it tends to
+be more of a highway solution.
+ Having that straight-up, honest dialogue with the
+communities, I think, is a very important part of it. Then
+directly listening to the quality-of-life components from our
+citizens and in our urban areas, again on the transit side, can
+directly benefit quality of life; and making sure that in our
+rural areas we are attending to the highways and to other
+transportation needs is one way we do that.
+ Ms. Edwards. Thank you. I think my time is about up.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Yes. Thank you.
+ Mr. Michaud.
+ Mr. Michaud. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank
+the panel as well.
+ The topic is Energy Reduction and Environmental
+Sustainability in Surface Transportation. In hearing the
+Chairman's opening remarks about the least-cost impact on the
+environment and in hearing the Ranking Member's remarks about
+balance and common sense, I have got three different areas I
+will just briefly talk about. I would ask for anyone who would
+like to, to respond.
+ When this Committee had a hearing last year dealing with
+the truck weight issue, there was a mismatch across the country
+dealing with truck weights. We heard one of the panelists at
+that time talk about, if they were bought at the same level
+with 100,000 pounds, going from a 5-axle to a 6-axle to prevent
+the impact on the foot imprint, this one company actually could
+save $73,000 a week in fuel costs as well as take out 130
+pounds of C02 plumes in the air.
+ So my question would be: Do you favor having some type of
+uniformity in that truck weight issue?
+ The second issue is: You have heard from Members from
+different States. I am from Maine. We are a very rural State.
+What do you think we can do as far as passenger rail? Clearly,
+in the northern part of the State, the population is not there.
+It probably does not warrant it. Do you think that the Federal
+Government should be proactive in looking at freight rail of
+which the capacity is not consistent? Should freight rail and
+passenger rail work more collaboratively to provide that type
+of mode?
+ My third comment or question: When you look at land use
+planning and the discussion in Congress that deals with energy,
+here again, some States are going to have to build capacity as
+far as when you look at transmission lines.
+ Do you think this is an opportunity, particularly in rural
+areas, when you look at environmental impact, for the States to
+actually use the median strip on the interstate as a way to
+actually put in ground transmission lines and where the rental
+fees on those transmission lines can be put back into
+transportation projects?
+ When you look at the electric rates, one of the costs is
+the transmission line. That is a good area when you look at low
+impact, and this might be an opportunity to raise money to help
+our infrastructure needs.
+ So, with that, I will just open it up for anyone on the
+panel who might want to address these three different areas.
+ Mr. Lovaas. Congressman, in terms of transmission lines,
+that is something that we have not studied, but you know, we
+would certainly be interested in it if there is a synergy in
+terms of infrastructure investments there.
+ In terms of trucks, we do not have a position on that. All
+I can say is that there is a countervailing safety concern that
+I have heard voiced by some, so that is something to remember.
+ In terms of rail, I think you have hit the nail on the head
+about the need for passenger rail and freight rail to come
+together and to advocate for an investment plan, a national
+investment plan, that meets the needs of both and that expands
+the capacity of both as opposed to some of the competition that
+has occurred in the past.
+ As a matter of fact, NRDC is part of a new coalition, the
+One Rail Coalition, which brings together for the first time
+passenger rail providers and businesses and freight rail
+providers and businesses. We are working, and we will continue
+to work with the Chairman and this Committee as well as with
+the T&I Committee generally on that issue because we do feel it
+is high time for there to be one plan for rail, both passenger
+and freight, in terms of a Federal investment.
+ Mr. Porcari. If I may, Congressman, first, in terms of the
+use of the median and of the right-of-way in general, that may
+be a possibility. We have not looked at electricity.
+Essentially, we use the medians as a piece of the information
+superhighway. We have throughout the State used it to lease
+fiber, and it is one way we are bringing fiber at no cost to
+some of the most rural areas of the State, so it is as much an
+economic strategy as anything else.
+ The points that were made on passenger and freight rail are
+important. In some ways, the most precious transportation asset
+we have is right-of-way, and where we can share rail right-of-
+way, where we can coinvest in new technology to increase
+capacity, not just in our urban areas, but throughout the
+country where the ridership is there, the two can coexist very
+well. You get into this virtuous circle where the freight rail
+investments that have not been made over the years can be
+partially made through the passenger rail investment.
+ Mr. Hansen. On the passenger rail, I think we in the
+Pacific Northwest too easily fall into the trap of looking at
+travel times by air between Portland and Seattle, which are a
+half-hour to 40 minutes of flight time. Yet, when you look at
+the amount of time it takes to get to the airport through
+security and then from Seattle from the airport and into
+downtown, the rail--the Cascades--which is our Amtrak-run
+passenger rail, really is about equal in time. Yet we have not
+even taken into account the overall cost to the society as a
+whole of investing in additional runway capacity or in other
+things; and can we, in fact, move some of that passenger airway
+off of flights and into that passenger rail and really be a
+more efficient overall investment.
+ I think that overall sense of how do we integrate these
+modes is tremendously important. Certainly, California, in
+looking at their high-speed rail opportunities, is exciting as
+well.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Thank you. I want to thank this panel. I think
+you have given us some good information. As to any further
+ideas you have about how we could move in the least cost
+direction, how we could begin to break down the silos and how
+you could address the other concerns you have heard from some
+of the other Members here, we always welcome your comments, and
+we would be happy to take credit for the best ideas you have.
+ With that, I thank this panel, and would ask the next panel
+to come forward.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Okay. Let us get started, Ms. Banks. I
+understand you have a 2:40 flight. I know how hard it is to get
+to the west coast, so we might just depart a little bit because
+the weather is pretty funky outside. Why don't you give us your
+1-minute, and we will let people briefly address questions to
+you, and we will get you out of here. Then we will go to the
+rest of the panel if we could.
+
+ TESTIMONY OF SHARON BANKS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, CASCADE
+ SIERRA SOLUTIONS, COBURG, OR; TOMMY HODGES, CHAIRMAN, TITAN
+TRANSFER, INC., SHELBYVILLE, TN; DAN SCHAFFER, PRODUCT MANAGER,
+ TX ACTIVE ESSROC ITALCEMENTI GROUP, NAZARETH, PA; AND DAVE
+ TILLEY, PRESIDENT, CRAWFORD GREEN SYSTEMS, WILMINGTON, DE
+
+ Ms. Banks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Mr. DeFazio. If you were here for the first panel, I am
+asking you to summarize your testimony to 1 minute, and then we
+will ask you some questions.
+ Ms. Banks. Okay. Thank you.
+ My name is Sharon Banks. I am the CEO and founder of
+Cascade Sierra Solutions. We are a nonprofit organization that
+operates a program on the west coast to upgrade tractor-trailer
+trucks with fuel-saving technologies.
+ We operate outreach centers that are collocated with truck
+stops to provide a convenient place for truckers to come and to
+learn about fuel-saving technologies. We bring together more
+than 60 products that can help save fuel and that can reduce
+emissions. Our organization is compromised of a number of
+public and private partners dedicated to our mission.
+ Today we have upgraded about 2,000 trucks, and we have
+about 1,200 more in process. With the proper upgrade, we can
+save about 5,000 gallons of fuel per truck per year, or about
+50,000 gallons over a 10-year life cycle.
+ Our organization would like to grow and to replicate this
+nationally, but we feel that the program really needs to be
+part of the national strategy.
+ Mr. DeFazio. I will go first.
+ As to 5,000 gallons per truck per year, what is the
+potential market out there? How many unretrofitted trucks are
+there that could benefit from this technology?
+ Ms. Banks. Well, everything that was manufactured prior to
+2007 is a potential candidate for a retrofit, both for diesel
+particulate filters, which help reduce toxic diesel emissions,
+but also for the different strategies that we have in idle
+reduction, better tire technology and in light-weighting.
+ There are about 40 different things that we can do to
+upgrade a tractor-trailer truck. I think there are about
+600,000 long-haul trucks on the road, and probably about 5 to
+10 percent of them have been upgraded at some level, but the
+vast majority of them have nothing upgraded on them.
+ Mr. DeFazio. All right. Now, you are not saying that all
+trucks post 2007 come with all of these accoutrements.
+ Ms. Banks. They do not. Very few of the salespeople even at
+the brand-new truck OEM level are trained in how to get the
+best fuel economy. You really need trained technical people
+that know the vocation, that know the operating speeds and the
+climate, and that know the vehicle miles traveled and the
+terrain that they are operating in to provide a really proper
+upgrade of that piece of equipment.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Since we know the technology exists and we
+know it works, what is the biggest barrier? Is it the cost to
+the trucker, particularly if you are dealing with other than
+large trucking companies or even some large trucking companies
+who today, in this market, may not have the money? Or is it
+more a lack of knowledge that these technologies are out there?
+Which is it?
+ Ms. Banks. Well, there is a huge awareness barrier, and
+there is also a lot of equipment that does not really work very
+well that people try to sell.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Which has given some of this technology a bad
+name?
+ Ms. Banks. Exactly. There is a huge capital cost barrier.
+Even though the driver could save as much as $700 to $1,000 a
+month in fuel for a $300 loan payment, the banks just do not
+see it that way. They just look at the financials, and they are
+very, very wary of trucking companies to begin with. They have
+the most difficult time getting financing. So we have taken it
+upon ourselves to create a revolving loan fund, and we have
+raised about $11 million so far.
+ Mr. DeFazio. What is your default rate?
+ Ms. Banks. We have had nine defaults out of more than 1,200
+loans.
+ Mr. DeFazio. That is pretty good.
+ Ms. Banks. From seven of those, we have recovered the
+equipment and have installed it in another vehicle, so we have
+very, very low losses. And we are looking to expand the loan
+program because we do not need grants, we need loans. We need
+loan capital so that we can loan the money out, collect it
+back, and then loan it out again to someone else.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Okay. Thank you.
+ Do other members of the panel have questions? Anybody?
+ Yes, Mr. Hare.
+ Mr. Hare. I will not keep you, Ms. Banks.
+ If the Subcommittee can provide you with one thing other
+than with unlimited funding, what would that be? If you could
+have on your wish list what we could do for you other than give
+you unlimited funding, what would that be?
+ Ms. Banks. With funding I think we could expand very, very
+easily. Everybody wants to have clean air, everybody wants to
+save fuel, but we just need to enable that process to be able
+to allow truckers to step up to the plate.
+ Mr. Hare. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Mr. DeFazio. For instance, California has adopted idling
+restrictions. What has the State done to facilitate and to help
+people deal with that--with APUs or with anything else? Have
+they done much down there?
+ Ms. Banks. Well, unfortunately, once it is a law, then none
+of the funding is available to help. You have to be an early
+mover to get funding. So now that it is a law, there is no
+funding for APUs in California.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Can you explain that? Now that they have to
+have it, they cannot get the money; but before, if they had
+wanted it and they did not have to have it, they could have
+gotten the money?
+ Ms. Banks. That is the way it works. If you are an early
+mover and you move prior to the regulation, then you can get
+assistance.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Where does this money come from that has this
+restriction?
+ Ms. Banks. That is pretty much the Moyer programs and Prop
+1B both. If it is a requirement for you to be upgraded, then
+you can no longer qualify for the funding. So it is important
+in California that we push people to take advantage of the
+opportunities prior to the rule.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Okay. We have some good news and some bad news
+for you. You are not going anywhere, so I guess you can sit
+through the rest of the panel.
+ Ms. Banks. Okay. Great. Then I guess I can stay all day.
+ Mr. DeFazio. All right. We will proceed.
+ Are we working to get her an alternative? Great. Her flight
+was canceled. It is snowing.
+ Mr. Hodges.
+ Mr. Hodges. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ I will begin by saying I am a trucker. I am Tommy Hodges. I
+am chairman of Titan Transfer out of Shelbyville, Tennessee. I
+would like to thank the Committee for allowing me to come and
+to offer this testimony. I hope you have had the opportunity to
+read and to review the testimony.
+ I currently come to you not only as a trucker but also as a
+representative of American Trucking Associations, mostly as the
+chairman of our sustainability task force, which is almost 2
+years old now, to address the very issues of our carbon
+footprint.
+ Out of that task force, we recommend to our members a six-
+point effort that is proven to reduce our carbon footprint. I
+hope that the Committee will take time to read those things
+because what they do, in essence, is provide a commonsense,
+low-cost way to reduce our carbon footprint and to green up the
+air that we all breathe commonly, and also to save our
+individual companies money.
+ Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Thank you.
+ Mr. Schaffer.
+ Mr. Schaffer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Mr. Chairman and Representatives, good afternoon. My name
+is Dan Schaffer. I am the United States-based product manager
+for ESSROC's line of photocatalytic cements.
+ ESSROC Italcementi Group was commissioned to develop this
+breakthrough cement technology as a way to abate the ever-
+increasing pollution in our urban areas and as a way to keep
+our concrete pavements and surfaces cleaner and more
+aesthetically pleasing without exterior maintenance, ultimately
+to contribute to a better way of life.
+ The use of this unique cement technology, when used in
+concrete, does not only resist the buildup of the atmospheric
+compounds that will tend to discolor concrete over time, but
+also and more importantly, the technology will actually absorb
+and reduce primary pollutants--pollutants that are harmful to
+human health and pollutants that are harmful to the
+environment--pollutants such as nitrogen oxide gases, NOx, SOx,
+VOx, particulate matter, ultimately urban smog, ground-level
+ozone.
+ So, with that, I thank you, and I welcome any questions
+anyone may have regarding this technology.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Okay. Thank you.
+ Mr. Tilley.
+ Mr. Tilley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ In reading the summary of subject matter that the Committee
+presented for this hearing, they mentioned looking at several
+strategies for meeting emerging energy and environmental goals,
+and some of their strategies involved more efficient lighting.
+Our company has the technology to address better controlling
+street lights across the country. There are 50 million street
+lights across the country, so it provides a huge opportunity
+for savings.
+ On the first panel this morning, there was a lot of
+discussion about things that would have immediate results and
+about things that would be cost effective. Our technology would
+have immediate results because, as soon as you start better
+controlling street lights--that is, turning them off when they
+are not needed--you are going to save energy. When you save
+energy, you reduce C02 emissions. We talk about cost-
+effectiveness. This switch, this technology, could pay for
+itself in as little as 4 months.
+ Again, thank you for the opportunity.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Okay. Thank you.
+ I will start first.
+ Just to come back, Ms. Banks, I am still confused. Some of
+the money you are talking about is Federal money, and some of
+it is State money for the loans, right?
+ Ms. Banks. For the loans, we have received $1.13 million
+from EPA, and that is available nationally. We have leveraged
+private-sector capital through very few means.
+ Mr. DeFazio. But the EPA money has this restriction on it
+that you cannot use it to meet a legal requirement?
+ Ms. Banks. No. That is more referring to California grant
+money.
+ Mr. DeFazio. All right. Okay. I was confused by that.
+ Ms. Banks. As for the funding that we have for the loan
+program now, some of it is State-specific, but a smaller amount
+is nationally available.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Okay. I would just point you toward, depending
+upon the final construct within the so-called stimulus package,
+there is a small amount of money dedicated to anti-idling
+another that might become available in the future. So it would
+just be something to follow.
+ Mr. Hodges, when I look at your testimony, what I find is
+that if I look at your various impacts, congestion is the
+greatest single contributor. The reduction of congestion, if it
+were to be eliminated, which would be very difficult, would
+contribute the most in terms of fuel savings. The second was
+idling, and then the last was the idea of speed limiting.
+ I guess my question is: Do you have any sort of innovative
+ideas on idling? You might have been here or your associate may
+have been represented. We did a hearing where we looked into
+the issue of shipping freight-forwarding brokers and that,
+obviously, they have no regard for the efficient use of a
+trucker's time or of their resources in terms of their bidding
+system, particularly for smaller, independent truckers.
+ I wonder if you have any thoughts about that. I mean, if we
+want to deal with at least that sort of waste in the system and
+get people to move with fuller loads and get them to move in
+more efficient routing and get them to move more towards some
+kind of "just in time," don't you think we are going to have to
+deal with the total deregulation of that industry?
+ Mr. Hodges. Well, probably to answer your question, Mr.
+Chairman, about the brokerage side of it, I heard two, or three
+maybe, sub-questions in that comment, but that is a very
+difficult animal to get your arms around.
+ First of all, the marketplace pretty well takes care of the
+balancing act through those various mediums that you talked
+about. What we lose concept of in the real world is that each
+load that we haul has its own separate requirement from that
+shipper or from the receiver of the goods to not only balance
+the movement of goods from one point to another, but it also
+has to match up the needs of when they want it delivered and of
+when they want it picked up. Now you begin to be a very, very
+complex system, and a national planning board or some obscure
+agency out here that is going to try to monitor this and to
+allocate the loads really is beyond my comprehension.
+ Mr. DeFazio. So you somehow made them factor that into
+their business equation. It is not a factor in their business
+equation? They could care less if there were an incentive or a
+disincentive for them to develop and/or program people in a
+more efficient way.
+ Mr. Hodges. Well, that certainly would be the most
+efficient goal that you could accomplish where there were no
+empty miles.
+ Our company began doing business with Nissan, the first
+Japanese transplant, who not only does "just in time" and "just
+on time," but a 5-minute window, and they do not mind paying
+for that truck to come back to them empty. So, basically, we
+have got a 50 percent empty mile factor in there. They pay for
+that, but they do not want the interruption in the transfer of
+their raw materials coming to their plant that goes straight
+from the back of our truck to the assembly line. No warehouse.
+ So, to be able to factor that in and to try to put on a
+load and make 50 percent of those empty miles, now loaded
+miles, you know, the shipper is not going to allow you to do
+it. So, as I see it, you have got those kind of factors that
+also enter in, that become prohibitive to that kind of a
+system.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Right. I was here through the speed-limit
+debate, and it was a little more contentious. In fact, it was
+my job to tell Mr. Roe, then Chairman, that I could not support
+his double nickel, my being a westerner. I remember that very
+well.
+ You are proposing that there could be savings with truck
+governors. I have heard from safety advocates and from others
+that rear-end collisions are a big problem, and if you were
+moving trucks slower, that would be a big problem. Of course,
+cars would not have governors, but I assume you are saying
+everybody would be limited to 65 miles per hour; is that
+correct? We would be again preempting the States, which we have
+given them jurisdiction to go higher, and that would be
+preempting them back.
+ Is that what you are proposing?
+ Mr. Hodges. Yes, sir. The short answer is, yes, sir.
+ We have proven not only in theory, but in the practical
+application of our fleet, for every tenth of a mile that-- for
+every mile per hour we slow our trucks down, we save a tenth of
+a mile in fuel economy.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Right. Wouldn't that come through legal
+enforcement and through the training of truck drivers and
+through giving them the option that they would be able to
+accelerate if they needed to, but that you would just have them
+drive slower when it would be safe? I mean, couldn't that be
+done where they are finding the so-called sweet spot?
+ I am just going to tell you that I do not think this
+Committee is going to go back and preempt the States for what
+the GAO and others say are dubious savings in terms of fuel. I
+just want to caution you that this is one of your weaker legs.
+It has the least amount of projected savings of those three
+areas.
+ Mr. Hodges. Yes, sir. We concur that it is a very emotional
+issue with most constituents, with most people, but the fact is
+it does save fuel.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Right. But there is that testimony from Ms.
+Banks that we could save 5,000 gallons per truck per year with
+these retrofits. I cannot remember if she gave me the number of
+trucks, and I did not quite get around to multiplying it out,
+but again I think it would probably exceed the ostensible
+savings of the speed limits, without the problems. Anyway, I
+urge you to rethink that part.
+ Mr. Schaffer, I am not an engineer. I have read your
+materials. Over time, does the capability of this new kind of
+concrete lose the capability of taking the NOx and others out
+of the atmosphere?
+ Mr. Schaffer. Mr. Chairman, no, absolutely not.
+ The components that are blended into the Portland Cement
+are catalysts, and the sheer definition of a "catalyst" is a
+substance that accelerates a process but is not consumed in
+that process. These products are not consumed. As long as
+ultraviolet light will hit that concrete and as long as the
+concrete remains intact, the technology will work.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Very interesting. Then one other question.
+ There has been some debate and discussion over the
+production of cement itself. The Europeans use a different
+standard than we do, which creates fewer global warming gases
+in the production, because they allow more fly ash and other
+materials in there. They claim it is as good and that whoever
+sets our standards here does not seem to agree with that. Are
+you aware of that discussion or controversy?
+ Mr. Schaffer. Yes, absolutely.
+ Supplemental cementitious materials are very popular to use
+within concrete, things such as a fly ash; ground granulated
+blast furnace slag is another. That is becoming very popular
+within the concrete industry.
+ From a cement manufacturing standpoint, the ingredient in
+concrete certainly is energy prone, and it does require a great
+deal of energy. However, our plants are continuously upgrading
+to newer technologies to reduce our energy footprint.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Right. If we adopted a different standard and
+allowed more of that additive and if it were as durable, would
+it be incompatible with your new technology?
+ Mr. Schaffer. No, not whatsoever.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Okay. Thank you.
+ We will go in the order we went before. So I guess it will
+be Mr. Hare.
+ Mr. Hare. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Mr. Schaffer, in your testimony, you said that the product
+has been proven to reduce nitrogen oxide, sulfur oxide and
+other chemical compounds. Can it also reduce carbon dioxide
+emissions?
+ Mr. Schaffer. No, it cannot. Carbon monoxide, yes, but
+carbon dioxide, no. The components, the pollutants, that it can
+reduce--the NOx and the SOx--these are very extreme toxic
+compounds that have a direct impact on human health.
+ Mr. Hare. Does your product's effectiveness decrease over
+time? For example, if the cement were used for a road project,
+would the pollution-reducing results decrease over time? What
+would you need to do to reapply that?
+ Mr. Schaffer. No, none whatsoever. Once you have this
+special cement within the concrete matrix, the catalyst that we
+blend into that cement will remain intact and will continue to
+work indefinitely.
+ Mr. Hare. You used this on the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis,
+I believe.
+ Mr. Schaffer. Not on the bridge itself.
+ Mr. Hare. You used this on the entrances to the bridge?
+ Mr. Schaffer. Yes. They were two 30-foot-high monuments
+that they used, the TX Active cements, within that concrete.
+Linda Figg, who is the president of Figg Engineering and who
+designed the bridge, wanted to do a pilot test project first in
+those types of applications. Because of the success that we
+have shown with the technology thus far, she is trying to
+implement the technology throughout a bridge span.
+ Mr. Hare. Do you know what kind of pollutant reduction the
+city of Minneapolis experienced as a result of the TX Active?
+ Mr. Schaffer. No. Now, keep in mind, these monuments are
+very small in structure to the entire span. They are more
+gearing towards the self-cleaning aspect where you are reducing
+those atmosphere compounds from adhering to that concrete
+surface, keeping these beautiful structures clean, these
+beautiful, symbolic structures clean over the service life.
+ Mr. Hare. Mr. Tilley, your technology seems like it is
+simple and is a low-cost solution for reducing energy
+consumption, it would appear to me.
+ How many towns or cities have implemented your technology?
+ Mr. Tilley. Actually, this is a brand-new technology. It is
+perfect timing for us to introduce this at this hearing. We
+currently have tests going on in one town called Topton,
+Pennsylvania. They are running a test right now, just to prove
+that when you turn off a light, you do, in fact, save energy.
+We are putting some actual data to it. Then we will be working
+with the utility as well for a reduction in costs.
+ Mr. Hare. That is a study you are doing?
+ Mr. Tilley. It is just going to be about a 2-week study
+because, again, we are studying what happens when you turn off
+a light.
+ Mr. Hare. Yes. If you could maybe get the results of that
+back to us, I would be very interested.
+ Mr. Tilley. Sure.
+ Mr. Hare. In turning the lights off, has there been any
+increase in crashes, fatalities, or crimes where the technology
+has been implemented? Are you seeing any downside to turning
+off the lights, if you will?
+ Mr. Tilley. No. Again, this is early. One of the things
+that we did put in the testimony is that it is incumbent upon
+the locale, or if it is a borough that is doing this or the
+Department of Transportation, to study the area where these may
+be used for safety, whether it is for traffic safety or whether
+it is for security. In a populated area like Washington, D.C.,
+I would submit that it is probably not a good technology to use
+in downtown Washington, D.C. ever. In Topton, Pennsylvania, it
+is very rural and very open. It is a fine technology.
+ Mr. Hare. Just lastly here--and I am not picking on you,
+believe me--as to any communities that have considered
+implementing this, have they heard any negative feedback from
+the community? In other words, is there concern that turning
+these lights off is going to cause a problem?
+ Mr. Tilley. Not at this point. As a matter of fact, we are
+working right now with a town called Bow, New Hampshire. It is
+in the very early stages. As a matter of fact, just yesterday
+afternoon, we started. Bow, New Hampshire turned some 220
+lights off permanently to save money. That caused an uproar in
+the town. We are working with them right now to see if we can
+turn some or all of them back on during the busy hours and then
+turn them off later at night. So we may actually have the
+reverse in a couple of towns where they can actually provide
+lighting where they would not be able to without a savings.
+ Mr. Hare. Ms. Banks, I am sorry your flight got canceled. I
+asked this question before. Maybe I phrased it incorrectly.
+ Other than funding, what can we do in terms of this
+Subcommittee and this Full Committee of the House to help? I
+mean, I know money is a big thing. Other than that, is there
+anything absent the money end of it, or in addition to the
+money end of it, that we could do that would help you out?
+ Ms. Banks. Well, rules tend to help facilitate getting
+equipment on trucks. But I would like to see that as a last
+resort just because there are so many truckers, especially the
+mom-and-pop businesses that are barely surviving right now.
+When government mandates rules, it makes it very, very
+difficult to stay in business.
+ Mr. Hare. Thank you very much.
+ Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Thank you.
+ Since you were directing questions to Mr. Tilley, Mr.
+Tilley, I want to apologize. The Republicans had to go to a
+meeting, and you were here at the request of Congressman
+Gerlach. I am sure he would be here if he were not otherwise
+occupied.
+ Mr. Tilley. President Obama is more important than I?
+ Mr. DeFazio. To the Republicans, I am not sure that he is
+more important.
+ Mr. Tilley. Thank you.
+ Mr. DeFazio. So, with that, I will go to Mr. Boccieri.
+ Mr. Boccieri. Thank you, Chairman.
+ Help me out in understanding why we use diesel for trucks.
+The carbon footprint is larger. Would it be much easier just to
+transition it to unleaded gasoline?
+ Mr. Hodges. I assume that is directed to me.
+ Mr. Boccieri. Yes, sir, Mr. Hodges.
+ Mr. Hodges. There are a lot of factors.
+ First of all, diesel is a derivative of the refining
+process. Basically, it used to be a byproduct. It is a
+lubricant as opposed to an accelerant that gasoline is through
+the refining process. It also generates the most power for BTU
+power that it can do. When you consider the high horsepower
+required to move a load of 80,000 pounds from one segment to
+the other, considering topography, it is the most efficient
+fuel that we have seen.
+ There is a strong move right now, or a lot of conversation
+to go to LNG or to some alternative fuel. This is fraught with
+problems. First of all, there is not an available engine right
+now, that I am aware of, that would deliver more than 330
+horsepower when we are typically needing 450 to 475 to move
+with traffic and to move with speed. So it is the availability
+of the engine manufacturers to come up with an engine that
+would be a viable substitute. Then you get into delivery
+problems. You are putting now an accelerant on a truck that
+normally has a lubricant.
+ So I do not know if that answers your question, sir, but it
+has quite a few problems. Right now, regardless of what some
+very high-profile people say, it is not a viable option to the
+average trucker.
+ Mr. Boccieri. Ms. Banks, did you have a comment?
+ Ms. Banks. I just wanted to say that Cascade Sierra has 11
+liquid natural gas trucks that are heavy duty that we are going
+to be putting into the Port of Los Angeles. They are very, very
+expensive, and there is not a really good fuel infrastructure
+available yet, but we are going to learn a lot in getting these
+11 trucks and in testing them out. These are higher horsepower
+liquid natural gas, not CNG but LNG trucks.
+ Mr. Boccieri. Mr. Hodges, would you get the same BTU output
+from a natural gas retrofitted vehicle?
+ Mr. Hodges. I am not technically sure. The information that
+has come my way says we could get more BTU actually out of
+diesel than we would get out of the LNG.
+ Mr. Boccieri. Okay. My last two questions, really quickly.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Ms. Banks was shaking her head. I think she
+can answer that.
+ Ms. Banks. Eighty percent less, so the BTU is definitely
+there in the diesel.
+ Mr. Boccieri. Okay. Real quick, Mr. Tilley and Mr.
+Schaffer. Obviously Ohio has significantly more cloud coverage
+than California. How would that affect, in terms of wattage,
+your equipment if we use them on street lamps and in terms of
+the cement--and I am intrigued by your testimony with respect
+to asphalt and, you know, reengineering some of our roads. What
+do you think that would have an effect on in terms of the
+weather?
+ Mr. Schaffer. If I understand the question correctly, how
+does cloud cover affect the process by which this works?
+ Mr. Boccieri. At least in changes in the weather. I mean it
+is a much different climate in Ohio.
+ Mr. Schaffer. Keep in mind you need ultraviolet light to
+trigger this process, this photocatalytic process. UV light is
+very diffuse in nature. It is scattered and bouncing all around
+us. If you go on vacation to the beach on a cloudy day and
+don't put sunscreen on, you usually still get burnt. That is
+the same concept here. There is enough UV light present within
+the atmosphere to trigger the process by which this works.
+ Mr. Tilley. You really won't see a difference in cloud
+cover as far as usage goes, because the street lights come on
+at sunset. It uses a standard photocell. So when it gets dark,
+just like it has done now, this photocell will turn on the
+lights. It is 5 o'clock at night in December, 9 o'clock at
+night in June. What this will do is turn the light off late at
+night, turn it back on early in the morning, so as traffic
+requires it. Cloud cover during the day will really have no
+effect.
+ Mr. Boccieri. If there was a solar panel on the light
+structure itself, would there be--a day where you had
+significantly less sunshine, would that significantly impact
+the wattage or the output of your product?
+ Mr. Tilley. No. This does not use a solar panel at all.
+There is a different technology which is much more expensive,
+which uses solar panels to charge batteries to power lights.
+This is a completely different technology than that.
+ What this will do is simply turn the lights off late at
+night when they are not needed, but this does nothing to power
+the lights. The power for the light will still come from the
+normal grid.
+ Mr. Boccieri. Is it your understanding, though, that the
+wattage would be significantly reduced from the solar panel?
+ Mr. Tilley. From the solar panel, that is not necessarily
+the case. It may be the case, but again, our technology isn't
+using the solar panels. Louisville, Kentucky, I guess is a town
+that has experimented quite heavily with solar panels. I am not
+sure how much they reduce their wattage, to be honest with you,
+you know, to run off of the solar panel and battery. As I
+understand, those systems using solar panels cost about $4,000
+per street light. This costs about $100 per street light.
+Normally a street light will use up between $4- and $500 at the
+most, sometimes a lot less, in energy costs. So if you think a
+street light uses $300 per year, you know, if this can save--
+you know, if it only costs $100, it can save energy, it is a
+lot more cost efficient, a lot quicker than, say, a solar
+panel.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Napolitano.
+ Ms. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ms. Banks, I listened
+with great interest in your talking about the 11 trucks going
+to port that are the new ones. We sat through a meeting, very,
+very expensive. But is there--my question would be for the
+loans to the truckers themselves. The banks are not loaning, am
+I correct? So how do we get around it, whether it is because
+they don't have the money or because they don't want to use it,
+I am not quite sure. Do you have any idea what can be done to
+be able to help the truckers get the loans to be able to carry
+on?
+ Ms. Banks. Well, perhaps a loan guaranty program that could
+work. And I know in California we have got some things going on
+with Assembly Bill 118 that may help. Although we still go back
+to the basic issue that most banks really do not make loans to
+independent owner-operators, and even the large fleets right
+now are having a very difficult time because they look at their
+cash flow and their income and they have certain, you know,
+debt-to-income ratios and things that they base their credit on
+that they are not able to access. They have already maxed out
+their credit.
+ Ms. Napolitano. But where within these individual truck
+drivers, independent or fleet, would go to get their loans?
+ Ms. Banks. Well, we have put a couple of programs together
+in California. One particular program is with a big fleet in
+west Sacramento, and we were able to get the owner of the
+company--and the company is a non-asset-based company which
+means they don't really own the trucks, but they contract out
+to a number of different independents--and we put a program
+together where the owner of the company agreed to co-sign for
+the drivers, and we were able with our credit and with a little
+bit of match that we put in from our EPA grant that we got, we
+were able to get financing through a very special bank on the
+west coast to get brand-new vehicles for 65 of their owner-
+operators. But it is that kind of you have to go the extra mile
+to try to figure out a way to put a program together, and that
+is exactly what we did.
+ Ms. Napolitano. Mr. Hodges, based on that, what about your
+independent truck drivers? They are the ones that are going to
+be left out. They can't get the insurance. They can't get the
+loan.
+ Mr. Hodges. It is a diminishing population. It is a sad
+fact in our industry and the state of our economy that these
+truly entrepreneurial, very smallest element of business people
+in our society, in my opinion, are being squeezed out by a lot
+of issues, economics, regulations.
+ Ms. Napolitano. How do we help them?
+ Mr. Hodges. A difficult, a difficult process to help them,
+and we have got so many conflicting interests at stake here.
+The port of L.A. And Long Beach has basically taken a stance it
+is trying to freeze those people out of jobs up to and even
+including I think in L.A., saying you have to be a company
+driver in order to pull freight off of them.
+ The simple answer is I am not sure. I do think the American
+spirit is alive and well in those individuals. As they might be
+displaced in one application, there will be opportunities in
+other applications.
+ Ms. Napolitano. Do you have any suggestions?
+ Mr. Hodges. I would say to those folks that are doing those
+things to look at other modes or other longer-haul application.
+They may have to--since the realization sets in that they may
+have to sell their existing truck, they buy another truck and
+lease it on to another company, a non-asset-based company or an
+asset-based company that also has owner-operators.
+ So I think that spirit will be alive and well with them.
+They will go through a transition period where they are now
+transitioned into not mode, but another facet of our industry.
+ Ms. Napolitano. Thank you, sir. Mr. Schaffer, I am very
+intrigued by the technology. In L.A. County, there is so much
+pollution. Will that affect its ability to be able to absorb
+the rays?
+ Mr. Schaffer. That is a very good question. In fact, the
+technology strives on pollution. The higher the pollution
+levels, the greater the sunlight's intensity, the better the
+technology works. We have seen the best reduction in pollution
+under the worst-case scenarios. When is pollution at its worst?
+When it is the summertime months, when the sun is shining
+strong, because urban smog is produced. That is one of the
+components of sunlight. Our technology works under those worst-
+case scenarios the best.
+ Ms. Napolitano. And back to Mr. Hodges. Back in Los Angeles
+during the Olympics, the former Mayor Bradley went to all
+businesses and asked them to find a way to keep trucks off the
+road during the time that tourists were going to be there; in
+particular, nighttime drivers. And right along with what you
+are saying is they reduced a lot of the pollution because the
+sun triggers it. Anything being thought of being able to get
+with businesses and promote nighttime delivery, nighttime
+driving, nighttime delivery?
+ Mr. Hodges. Our industry and my company in particular would
+not have any problem with that scheduling. Where we reach a
+major pullback is most--a lot of the businesses we deliver to
+and pick up from are small businesses, and in order for them to
+reallocate their resources and have their businesses open 24/7
+to receive their goods, it is going to drive their costs up
+significantly because they basically have to doubleman their
+businesses. You know, we have no problem when we deliver as a
+rule, but you are talking about basically transitioning our
+whole supply chain from what hasbeen what is fundamental for
+years and years to a different type of operation. We are just a
+service provider. We have no problem doing that, and in fact,
+we move strongly towards appointment deliveries for a lot of
+people, but those appointments are generally always in the
+daytime hours when most Americans want to work.
+ Ms. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Thank you. Ms. Edwards.
+ Ms. Edwards. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question,
+and Ms. Banks, I am sorry that you missed your plane, but I am
+glad that you are still here. You said there were how many
+trucks eligible for the kind of upgrade that you described?
+ Ms. Banks. Well, nationwide there is about 600,000 long-
+haul tractor-trailer trucks that run, you know, pretty much
+across State lines, east-west, north-south, all locations, all
+Lower 48.
+ Ms. Edwards. And that is 5,000--with an upgrade 5,000
+gallons of fuel that is saved over a period of a year, right?
+ Ms. Banks. Some of them would--you know, they may already
+have a partial solution. So it might be a little bit less. But
+other ones that we--one fleet that we upgraded, we actually
+saved over 7,000 gallons of fuel per truck per year. We took
+their fuel economy from 5.8 miles a gallon up to the high
+sevens, and some of their trucks in that 300-truck sample
+actually got over 9 miles a gallon. And the very highest one we
+have on record--and these are off of GPS technology that goes
+on our trucks, so it is very valid data--the very highest one
+we have on record got 9.75 miles a gallon.
+ The fleet also implemented an incentive program where they
+give away a free Harley Davidson every quarter to the driver
+with the best fuel economy.
+ Ms. Edwards. So that is an incentive.
+ Ms. Banks. So that cut another half a mile a gallon off
+that.
+ Ms. Edwards. I am interested because the program that you
+described, if you were operating a sort of fully evolved loan
+program, it is very similar with what happens with homeowners,
+for example, if you are buying a fuel-efficient home--some big
+upgrade to your heating or cooling system and you tack that
+on--you tack on the cost to your utility bill every month. It
+is a very similar kind of system. It is not rocket science. It
+is pretty simple.
+ Ms. Banks. It is even better for the Federal Government,
+though, because when you raise the bottom line for the
+business, they pay more taxes and you get all of your money
+back, plus. It absolutely costs the Federal Government nothing.
+ Ms. Edwards. So you don't have to answer this here, but I
+am interested to know if we were to just look at the high-
+density corridors that are producing the most congestion and
+identify those as priority areas for centers to do this kind of
+upgrade, what that would look like, because that might be some
+kind of a model in a program where you are not fully
+implementing it across the country but you are looking at the
+areas that are producing the most congestion.
+ Ms. Banks. Right. In my write-up, there is a highway map
+that shows the main freight corridors is about 10 or so of
+those. I would suggest that we would locate centers at
+intersections of those, and then you would probably only need 7
+to 10 additional centers to cover the whole Nation.
+ Ms. Edwards. Thank you. And then just for the record, to
+note again your default rate, and so this is something that
+really does pay us all back over some period of time.
+ Mr. Hodges, I was curious, in your testimony you indicate
+you de-stress the application of freight rail as an
+alternative, even over a period of time, for our sort of
+transportation--sort of freight transportation system. And I am
+really curious about that because I think some of us are
+thinking we need to do more serious upgrading of our freight
+system to allow for increased use of and more efficient uses of
+a freight rail system.
+ Mr. Hodges. That is a question that plagues all of us. I
+come from an industry that is another industry, the rail
+industry, largest customer, so we are already the biggest users
+of that particular process. However, none of us wants to cross
+multiple railroad tracks when we go to the Kroger store or we
+go to get fuel or we go down to the local Wal-Mart. A highly
+functioning Wal-Mart requires six tractor-trailer loads of
+freight a day to keep it supplied. So there is going to be
+always multiple modes.
+ We think that we lull ourselves into a sense of false
+security if we think that natural diversion to rail is going to
+happen. Longer trains inhibit our roadways and those kind of
+things. We think there are other alternatives to doing this,
+more productive trucks. Unfortunately for us, in our industry I
+have one load, one truck and one man. That is as productive as
+I can get, and now I am structured by I can only put so much on
+that load.
+ What we would ask the Committee to do is look at things to
+help us be more productive, to add those things. If we really
+want to see a decrease in the number of trucks on the road,
+harmonize the LCV usage in the Western States, where it is less
+populous, in less urban areas. These are a huge help. There are
+some commonsense approaches that we can do.
+ Intermodal, we just cannot see that that is the answer. We
+are not opposed to it. We are their biggest customer. Then you
+factor in time constraints--a real life story: My company, I
+was called on by CSX, a major north-south railroad, to try to
+use intermodal. Because we are trying to save money, we will do
+that. But the intermodal route was going to take the load from
+Nashville, Tennessee, to Chicago and then to New Jersey. You
+are adding a lot of utility, plus I lose 2 days of service.
+ Ms. Edwards. Thank you.
+ Mr. DeFazio. I thank the gentlelady for her questions. Just
+to follow up, you talked about the retrofit that would achieve
+the 5,000 gallons per year savings. What is the cost? I mean,
+you are getting some fairly expensive stuff, the high-
+efficiency tires and rims and skirting and the APUs. I mean,
+what is the total package generally?
+ Ms. Banks. Total package could be anywhere from $10,000 to
+$25,000 depending on what all you wanted. You can go for idle
+reduction. You could use a bunk heater which might be about
+$1,200, clear up to the fanciest APU. That might be about
+$12,000. For trailer skirts, you might be anywhere from $1,300
+up to about $4,500, depending on the brand, make, and model
+that you wanted to select. Diesel particulate filters are very
+expensive, no fuel economy; although they are being regulated
+in certain States, specifically in California.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Do they inhibit mileage?
+ Ms. Banks. Yes, they get about a 1 to 3 percent fuel
+penalty for----
+ Mr. DeFazio. And what about the tires and rims?
+ Ms. Banks. Tires, light weighting--not only just light
+weighting on the aluminum wheels, but light weighting all of
+the truck components and the trailer components can actually
+mean that you can deliver about 11 truckloads of freight in 10
+truckloads of, you know, depending on if the freight weighs out
+or cubes out, but as long as you are hauling heavy freight, you
+can save about 10 percent on your trips by light weighting a
+trailer.
+ Also one thing that could be considered--and I know in
+Canada they do double--48 double trailers, 48-foot double
+trailers which have had incredible safety studies that showed
+that they are just as safe, if not even safer, than a normal
+truck and trailer. That would double--almost double the
+capacity of carrying freight, but unfortunately they are not
+legal here in the States.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Mr. Hodges, is your association--I mean,
+hearing what she is saying about this retrofitting and that, is
+the association either contemplating or involved in any
+programs that, you know, get that information out and maybe
+find some ways to help finance those improvements for some of
+your members?
+ Mr. Hodges. We are currently not working on, that I am
+aware of, any finance programs. We do constantly, through our
+technology and maintenance council, have regular sessions with
+all OEMs and encourage these kind of retrofits; but more
+importantly, we encourage those kind of things on new
+purchases. Most of these items are OEM supplies, and you can do
+them if they are cost-justified.
+ One of the industry's biggest problems right now is on APUs
+and trying to justify the cost of an APU unit when you are
+talking anywhere from $7,500 to $12,000. And if we use, like in
+our company, a truck 3-1/2 years and then we sell it, you start
+to get cost prohibitive. Now, granted, when fuel goes to $4.50
+a gallon, you shorten up that term, but at its current levels
+and historic levels, it just becomes a cost-prohibitive thing.
+That is why we need or would like to have help from Congress to
+give us tax breaks.
+ And recently, we just got the 12 percent FET waived on
+APUs. That was helpful. About the same time, the economy hit
+the absolute doldrums. So nobody is buying new trucks. I know
+for our company when we begin to respecify new trucks, we are
+probably going to take a hard look at putting those APUs on it
+now because of that 12 percent savings, which is $700 to $1,000
+depending on which model we go to. So it is kind of the way it
+works. Mr. Chairman, I trust that answered your question.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Mr. Schaffer, in reading your testimony, I saw
+one thing that isn't just relevant to much of what you are
+testifying to, but you also talked about sound, and my, you
+know, very unscientific observation just driving around here
+and in Oregon is that it seems like asphalt generally reflects
+a lot less sound than the concrete they are using now. But you
+said something about sound mitigation or reduction with your
+materials.
+ Mr. Schaffer. No. I think I referred to sound as one of the
+application techniques for the technologies being utilized in
+sound walls and sound barriers.
+ Mr. DeFazio. So it is now sound reduction in terms of
+reflection off of--okay, all right. Anybody else have an urgent
+last question to follow up? No? Grace, okay.
+ Ms. Napolitano. I always have questions, Mr. Chair.
+ Mr. DeFazio. I know that, but we are going to limit you.
+ Ms. Napolitano. Sure. In solar paneling, in photovoltaic, I
+want to talk to you, Mr. Tilley. Is there any problem with
+theft from people going in and stripping some of the existing
+stuff?
+ Mr. Tilley. First, I would have to say I am not an expert
+in that because our product does not use any type of that. So I
+really couldn't answer that. Unfortunately, anything that can
+be stolen right now probably is being taken, but our product
+does not use that.
+ Ms. Napolitano. Well, there is really a lot of new
+technology evolving, just like yours in the cement. Are we all
+hopefully keeping in mind that the technology may be evolving
+to help the truckers be able to drive more--and California
+doesn't want tandems. The freeways, the off-ramps, they are
+going to have a tremendous problem. We have gone through that.
+But how do we utilize new technology to be able to help the
+trucking industry and be able to have on-time delivery that the
+customers request and pay for? Anybody?
+ Mr. Hodges. Well, I am not sure technology, and I
+understand that everybody has a bias against larger and bigger
+trucks. I have been fighting that for 45 years, so I understand
+that, but there are--if we could run interstate and interstate
+commerce and reduce the amount of fuel consumed in this
+interstate commerce, even if we broke those down in our
+terminals, which tend not to be inside the most congested area,
+then we would have that freedom and that--more importantly,
+that opportunity to save some serious fuel usage.
+ See, in our business, if we can save a dollar of fuel, then
+we can save some CO2 output, but we also can take some money to
+the bottom line. It is win-win-win for us, but we are many
+times constricted by our interstate travel.
+ Ms. Napolitano. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
+ Mr. DeFazio. Thank you. I want to thank the panel for your
+excellent testimony, and again, as I said to the first panel,
+if you have any further thoughts or ideas, suggestions you want
+to make to the Committee, we are available and staff is always
+available. So thanks again, and hopefully your multimodal trip
+will work out there, Ms. Banks. We will get you back to the
+west coast somehow. Thank you.
+ [Whereupon, at 1:23 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
+
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