transportation. the fhwa has moved forward aggressively to fulfill á@@@ @ successful deployment of highway dollars under the recovery act remains a top priority at fhwa as we continue to work to deliver the funds and get america's economy moving dpen. mr. chairman, this concludes my works and i'll be happy to answer questions. >> thank you very much the wealth of detail.

appreciate your presentation. mr. borgman. >> thank you. good morning. thank you for the invitation to testify to the committee. the companies in motion and work is under way not only in the vast task of organization and oversight but both internal and external projects that will ultimately modernize and transform the amtrak system. we've been working closely with the federal railroad administration and as the administrator said they approved about 90% of the projects of our $1.3 billion slate. about 10% of the total is yet unapproved as those are security and safety projects that also require the approval of the department of homeland security. we've awarded about $41 million of the $1.3 billion that we received for the funding but i expect our spend rate will increase significantly in the coming months and we're preparing for that. we all know this is a complex and challenging process.

i'm convinced that the rfi, rfe process does a good job of protecting taxpayers investment. those proceedings are deliberate and they are designed to be deliberate. soliciting letters of interest for contracts for fixed bridges and major projects in request proposal stage of the contracting process include several of the major tunnel, fire and life-safety programs in new york. we also discussed in april. during the next 90 days we expect to award $190 million worth of projects managed directly by amtrak staff. among the later are improvements to the systems in the tunnels and positive train control. since the hearing on april 29th, work has advanced on two major projects we discussed. the wilmington and sanford stations. we broke ground about two weeks after the last hearing and ranking member micah joined us

to complete the completion of the southern terminal of our successful and popular auto train service. projects that can be advanced with our own workforce are another area we're making real progress. we've added the 22 employees to our engineering force to deal with the related expansion and right-of-way work on the northeast corridor that begins next month. this will include improvements such as ditch and train j improvements, retaining wall upgrades and improvements to design improffering the integrity of the road bed along 230 miles of the new york, mid-atlantic and new england divisions. similarly, we're making good progress in our $100 million equipment plan. we do most of the work in-house with an amtrak workforce. we've also have existing agreements in inventory levels for parts. in some cases progress is still subject to the ability of suppliers to get us needed

components but we're moving ahead. we have 52 mechanical employees and another 108 employees at our back shop in beach grove, indiana. and i expect the workforce at these two facilities will be returning the first of the m-fleet cars to service in the middle of july. the first of superliners by the end of july. at the end of july, we intend to award the contract for a team of regional project managers who will manage a slate of 394 projects with a total dollar value of $636 million across the country. many of these projects will be relatively small and they will be excellent candidates for small business set-asides. regional managers will oversee the effort and our expectation is that they'll achieve the goals of expanding the outreach and relationships with small business and disadvantaged business enterprises. we've built a procurement

website. procurement amtrak.com. i should note that some of the $1.3 billion that amtrak is investing will lay critical groundwork and provide long-term benefits for the development of highspeed rail. the $10 million we're investing in positive train control on our michigan line. there are a couple of corridors ready to go and congress and the administration have challenge us not to just get it done but produce measurable results. this is a real challenge and nobody knows as much about making highspeed service a reality under north american conditions than we did. i think if men and women of amtrak have earned the chance we have. the chance to bring the next big improvement in rail service. i learned on my recent 9,000 mile trip on amtrak trains that amtrak is unique. both a company and a mode 06

travel. i often pound that much of the latent desire and hope people feel for passenger service is vested in amtrak. they're willing to go a long way to help out and rehabilitating stations and providing hosts to many of our stations to help travelers. and as enthusiastic as the people who have train service are, i found the people who don't have service but want it, are even more enthusiastic and hopeful. they're tireless advocates and a real inspiration. the transformational vision for passenger rail service takes teamwork and focus from all. we pledge to work with all who want to improve passenger rail. and we thank this committee for their support. >> thank you very much, mr. boardman. an encouraging report. clearly, there's a great deal of progress being made.

you've laid out an excellent project. some 20 years ago my late wife and i and my children took a trip. one of the first ones to ride one of the -- the first month or so -- to ride the auto train to florida. quite an impressive experience to see the cars rolling off the trains. you get out and driven on to your next destination. good to see that it's been so successful that it needs renovation. and i'm glad we were there to

participate in that event. you mentioned the recovery act money. could you list for us the company or companies that are producing the ptc technology and how many jobs are resulting from that work? >> the specificity of the ptc -- the total amount when we put this together the first year would be 4600 jobs for all. the first year and the total for the whole package in two years was 8,000 jobs so i don't have it broken down. but we can provide that to you. on the pros tive train control, we're doing about three different things. one is that we're extending our access system which is the advanced civil enforcement train control that exists on the northeast corridor. another is that we're expanding itcs structure on the michigan line where we did a system with

illinois and with lockheed martin. and then on the platform that today, will be the gps based, there are a couple of different suppliers. one is web tack and we're working with the freight railroads to make shore we are have interoperatability between them and us. >> the total jobs created by this investment, it's important to follow the line, the supply chain back from the job site. those are job that is didn't exist either. >> yes, sir. >> before this recovery funding. i recall so well just a month of a the president signed the recovery act, a young civil

engineer from my hometown had moved away. gone off to get his degree in engineering and found work with civil engineering company doing highway design work. he came into the office here to see me and said, i want to thank you and the congress and the president because i'm back at work. i've been working for a year with this company. but was laid off when the recession took hold. o before any projects were under way, the company called me back and said, we know we're going to have a number of projects to bid on and we need to put you to work. it turned out that he had a week's vacation time coming after being back on the job, so he took his wife out to washington. but that's being repeated all over the country.

i want those jobs accounted for as well. >> yes, sir. >> and we know that you're going to do that. this is what i was talking about. this is the flash drive. a little computer device, about the size of my thumb, just fit into your computer. i was not bore anybody by calling it all up on the screen but this is what it produces. this is what the state of minnesota uses in the field. the county engineer gathers information enters it on his computer and sends it in to the state d.o.t. instantaneously and the state d.o.t. then sends that information each month, into

u.s. d.o.t. highway administration committee. so we're getting all this information, pages and pages of documentation, projects and construction, construction status, projects and planning, and their location, county state road, the state aid highway 10 and what's under way at the time. so when i hear such a burden of paperwork i want to repeat it. i have no patience for those who have been given hundreds of millions of dollars, 100% federal funding, to put people to work and complain about paperwork? it's electronic work. if that's burdensome then those complainers need to get a number two shovel in their hand and go out on a job site and start shoveling and get a callus on

their hand instead of a complaint in their outbox. i have no patience for that at all. briefly, can you describe step by step, the process from any information from office of management and budget, to d.o.t., d.o.t. to federal transit administration, and thereon, you said the outlay occurs when money is transferred to the grantee when the bus is delivered. that's the point of outless. so -- but the process is already started. i want you to walk us through the procedure that is followed. step one. >> specifically for vehicle

purchase since that's what i focused on in that instancing with a grantee will come forward and tell us -- >> a dprantee being -- >> a transit agency. urbanized or nonurbanized and in some cases state applicants applying for a universe of rural providers and they alert us their program of projects will include vehicle purchases. we go ahead and approve that grant. at that point, when we approve the grant it is obligated. >> and set aside some millions of dollars? >> right. we reserve the funds in our system. we have an automated so-called "team system" it's a computerized system and the grantees communicate with us through that system. >> the transit agency has an effect, received the funds? >> when we obligated, they have a green light to sign a contract. >> yes, okay. >> they sign a contract, either

on behalf of their own transit agency or in some areas where we've had a great deal of success in getting economies of scale for our transit agencies they might team with other transit agencies for a bigger buy and reach a contá%ár@ rr@ v)

he's like the rest of us. he has three places he needs to be so i'll yield to him at this time. >> all right. thank you, and mr. overstarr, thanks for holding the hearing. for the distinguished panel, thank you for the work you're doing. and mr. babitt, congratulations on your nomination and i look forward to working with you closely with our faa technical center. i have a question for you, mr. babitt about -- you talked about

$200 million in the f & e account and it was going to go to three towers and 18 different centers, i believe. would you be able to, if not today, at some point let us know who's on the list? be curious to know who's going to be receiving the funding and very specifically, of course, i have an interest in our faa technical center, the atlantic city airport, which mr. overknows i'm very fond of saying is the premiere facility in the world for aviation research and development for safety and security. i'm just curious whether they might be in line for any rehabilitation funding for the labs or any other facilities there? >> first, thanks for and congratulations i look forward to working with you as well. candidly, i don't know the specific breakdown. but i certainly can get that information to you. i share your view and i recently

visited one of our technical centers. we'll call on them for some of the advancements we're making right now. we have a lot of new technology that we're trying to deploy. the technical center is the birthplace of much of that technology so i share your view and i'll go to the you that information. >> appreciate you're getting back to me. and again, look forward to working with you this thank you mr. bozeman and thank you mr. overstarr. and now, mr. defazio, chair of our transit and highway subcommittee. >> mr. chairman, i do have questions but since i can assume the chair when you leave i'll defer to other members. >> ms. brown? >> thank you mr. chairman and thanks for hol holding the hearing. i voted for the stimulus and i think accountability is a major part of this as we move forward with the transportation bill. but i have a question for mr.

boardman. you know, first, thank you for your leadership that you're providing with amtrak. and certainly, i was at the announcement when we announced the sanford project and the wilmington project and i think that came to a total of $25 million. to date, we've announced a total of 41 million. i guess my question is, when are we going to make the -- we have another $16 million this that pot and then we have another 190 projects. amtrak has needed, for eight years we've struggled with zero funding and now we finally got the funds and i know you've got to handle it in a proper manner but can you give us a status report as to how amtrak is being able to use those additional stimulus dollars? >> certainly. congresswoman, i appreciate your support and your kind comments. one of the things that we're doing right now is alot of the

work in-house. and we've -- i reported a little while ago how many additional jobs we've applied to our bare facility and the facility at beach grove in indiana, 108 jobs there. we expect to start producing the cars out of there in mid july. and so many of those dollars are actually and the chair machine talked about this earlier -- some of them are not charged back yet. there's more dollars out there that are in the works but people haven't charged us for the work. some of the big projects like the bridge, $100 million project is coming online relatively soon and within the next 90 days or so we see about another 190 million worth of projects. at the same time, we have a lot of very small projects across the country that we need specific management of, over $600 million worth of those small projects and we have a

list of those on our website and many have to do with stations and improvements under ada and many of them will make it much easier for our customers to use the service. you'll see that spendout much r the next several months. >> thank you. and mr. chairman, i want to mention the fact that beach grove station facility, if it wasn't for the chairman and working with that area, we were talking about doing a major downsizing and sending the people to delaware. now, you know, that we've gotten the funds we're fixing up that facility. and so we did our job and i really think that's the way it should work. >> yes, ma'am. >> thank you very much and i yield back the balance of my time. >> mr. boesman. you now get your time. >> thank you, mr. chairman. in your testimony, you said that the -- that the maintenance of

effort by the states was proving to be a challenge. how will d.o.t. ensure that states are continuing to use the recovery act's money that they're getting to supplement rather than use it to plan state expenditures that will be done anyway. >> what we've done with the maintenance, this is a provision that the state d.o.t.s were not used to. so in their first response to providing the certification and maintenance of effort. when we received those, we received a variety of responses. some with contingencies on them and other qualifications that we did not feel complied with the law. the secretary made the determination to go back out and offer additional guidance to each of the states and a request for them to reevaluate and resubmit their certifications. we received conforming certifications back from all but one state, and just recently, we

issued guidance to our state divisions to go and sit down with each of the state d.o.t.s to review with the state how they commuted the numbers that are in the certification to make sure we're comfortable with the computation. we will be getting regular reports from each state on the maintenance of effort as the time goes by. and our goal is to ensure an equitable and level playing field. by the point of 2011, which is the outcome that we're able to say, whether a state has met their maintenance of effort or not and determine whether they will share in that august redistribution or not. >> very good. i appreciate you. i know you're working very, very hard, you know, to get the money out to make sure that it's spent in the appropriate way. in my district, i think in every member of district, every member's district. i think every elected official

right now, every day they get up needs to think how can i create jobs? how can i collect pension plans? things like that. in the commission that was done, where people worked so hard, the challenge was, you know, they told us that the average road project was 8 to 10 years, something like that. so i know that it's a tremendous challenge. in the start of your testimony, you talked about creating or saving jobs. how do you -- how are you -- right now, the unemployment rate is continuing to -- and it is a very, very serious situation. how do you differentiate? what is creating or saving mean? >> right now, our focus is just on getting people to work without really focusing on the differentiation. we're really focussed on how many people are at work, on federal aid highway projects. so our most recent information,

which was through may indicated in may, we had 6,000 full-time equivalent jobs underway. that represented a 400% increase over the data from march and april. and these are good paying jobs, $35 an hour, average wage as compared to $15.50 in the general economy. but i think the thing that really gives us comfort that a lot more are coming is the fact we know we have 1,500 projects underway and that's about 1/3 of the money that's been obligated today, and that'll create some 50,000 jobs, and those jobs are going to be ramping up very quickly as we get in deeper into the summer months and construction on those projects ramps up even more. >> thank you. one more thing, mr. babbot. the recovery bill provided faa with $2 million to hire additional staff to work grants and provide grant oversight. how is that going? have you spent the money?

have we ramped up in that regard? >> yes, sir, we -- i can get you great deer detail. we're looking at several things, one of which is some, there's some sophisticated ways that you can look at higher risk projects. and, you know, analyze that risk for better oversight. and so that's where we've put some of the money. my understanding is we have about half of it engaged already. and looking to deploy the rest of it as these projects go forward. i can get you detailed information on the exact projects and the exact allocations. >> that would be helpful, thank you mr. chairman. >> your question about jobs created jobs saved. that is an accounting that we will specifically receive in the next 30 day report. we thought that initially that in this -- in this second report

that the various administrations would be able to report on those job figures. but it turned out to be a little more difficult to gather the information because of the lag time in reporting in. but this little flash drive is now at work. the information will be available, and then our july hearing we will get those figures and we'll make sure that your point, which is also my concern is adequately answered. >> very good, mr. chairman. i think that is a challenge. you know, to get good information in that regard. and then the other challenge as i ask to make sure that the projects that are being done are not projects that would've already been slated to get done that are additional projects. >> the recovery act language was very specific. that the recovery act funds,

which are 100% funding, should be in addition to the program of projects the states have committed to undertake prior to the recovery act. we surveyed all state d.o.t.s in december and again in january, december of '08 and january of this year for a listing of projects that the state d.o.t. said would meet the qualifications, design, engineered, eis completed, right away acquired, and all that's lacking is the money. and they gave us -- our committee both sides, that information. then, we said, all right, now, the governor must sign off on two documents. the document of the program of projects to be carried out under the 8020 program and a program of projects to be compared out under the 100% recovery act funds. and the same with the transit

agencies. because we don't want job substitution. we don't want project substitutions, this is going to be net new jobs created. and in our reporting, we are watching very carefully to, we'll have more complete information or more advanced