>> this is something that we simply have got to move forward on. i was happy in 2012, i was able to get language in their that put a cap on this public-private partnerships. and there are folks around this country where they're moving forward on that. it's really critical. and mr. bishop rod of foreign

manufacturing possibly taking place -- possibly take the place of domestic manufacturing. that's something we haven't talked about here but that's really critical. 40 balance in trade, for our economy, for a number of reasons. i guess what i would like to ask all of you, but mr. jones if he would start out, how are public-private partnerships going to be affected by sequestration and the c.r.? what kind of long-term effects are we talking about? >> i agree with you, public-private partnerships are absolutely critical, protect the critical capabilities in both the public and private sector now more than ever as we are seeing significant downsizing. capacity within the national sustained and daschle base is going to be insufficient to retain the capabilities and capacities that we currently enjoy. so as we downsize we will need to be able to leverage those critical capabilities in both

sectors. so the impact, however, will be dependent on the nature of the reductions in each one of the partners. so typically in a partnership agreement or in a contract that links t two entities together there are certain terms and conditions that must be met in a partnership for the greater good under that partnership. if we crossed a threshold because of a reduction, either in the contractors side, or on the organic side, then we put that partnership at risk. the level of reductions that we are looking at will do that in many cases. >> thank you. would any of the others like to comment on public-private partnerships? >> yes, sir. to add to what mr. jones said, the instability of the budgets over the last few years has not led to a huge outpouring of public-private partnerships. on the interesting side, industry is very much interested in this but unless they can get some assurances from the

government partner that they're going to be around and there will be workload for period of time, they are very reluctant to make investments that are needed to do these partnerships. and the crs and sequestration stuff just adds to the instability and to the wariness of i think both sides of doing these partnerships. >> again, i would just add, and really reiterate, that these public-private partnerships go back to keeping our industrial organic base warm. this is another way that that can happen. it's another method for keeping that base warm and, therefore, ready in the event of another contingency down the road. things to all of you and i have time to yield back. thank you, mr. chairman. >> ms. rodgers. >> -- mr. rogers. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to follow up on mr. loebsack's question. in my district i have an army double.

many of these folks and their families have spent enormous amount of time, volunteer to go to iraq and afghanistan to help in sustained the troops over there. i'd like for you, mr. johns, to speak first to sequestration effect on the workload that they may deal with toward the end of the year. and secondly talk about the crs affects. >> well, congressman. it's actually very difficult for me to separate the effects associated with that clear. clear to continue resolution is impacting our ability to move money from one account to another. the shortfalls associated with that, within the operations and maintenance accounts affect the army across the entire depot and arsenal system. there are impacts into multiple

weapons systems, at anniston and across the board. the split associated with that between sequestration i believe general odierno has estimated about 50/50-50% of that impacts associate with continuing resolution. 50% associate with sequestration. speed and give me examples how that manifests itself in their daily lives and their workload. >> collectively it impacts in reduction of third and fourth quarter orders, reduced workload for those employees that remain on board. and certainly the impact to temporary employees, term personnel and contractors support in each one of our facilities. and they will be directly affected and very shortly they will be affected. so under sequestration, that affect -- that will take effect once we understand what the

situation is very shortly. under c.r. that is going to happen anyway unless we fix the problems associated with restrictions under in -- under continuing resolution. collectively they will have significant impacts on every one of our debt those spirit in which one are you specifically worried about and most being directed most effectively? >> associated with army vehicles. i mean, that is one of our core capabilities. and so there will be a natural impact in that area. >> mr. loebsack was talk about the importance of public-private partnerships, and i couldn't agree more. this particular depot leads the nation's public-private partnership tell me how in your view sequestration and/or the c.r. would affect companies like dae, general dynamics, honeywell, all of whom, along with others, have a presence

with depot speaker certainly support contractors will feel the burden along with the temporary and turned employees almost immediately. any adjustments or reductions in addition to what we currently expect under c.r., sequestration, will have deeper cuts into that. the exact magnitude and whether we crosse cross the threshold wh regard to viability of the contract has yet to be determined. there may be impacts across contractual threshold, but i can't say that right now. i don't know the details. >> you seem to be grouping those kind of companies and with the term and tends. my question of general odierno a couple weeks ago was density. indicated that particular installation, because we have a lot of orders in the pipeline that have already been paid for, that the third, fourth quarter is the time when the court employs me actually experience some furloughs.

one with the contractors be treated differently? i understand the term in tents may see an effect in the next 30-45 days. why with the contractors be in that category? >> again, this will have to be a balance between retention of critical capabilities and skills. in some cases we will need to protect capabilities and skills and workforce in the organic sector, in some cases will have to protect critical capabilities and skills in the contractor workforce. the actual balance between those two will almost be line by line, depending facility. it's very difficult for me to comment exactly what exactly to will be between impact a government personnel other than tends in terms, and impacts the contractor personnel. >> i guess when getting at is is it your opinion that given that the court employees won't feel the effect until the second from the third and fourth quarters? that may be the same -- that may

be the same case with contractors as well or will they be impacted in the second quarter and? >> my understanding is that there will not be any impacts until the third quarter. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. rogers. i want to just ask one more question of mr. johns. kind of put this in perspective, understanding where we are right now. i know ritually only be came out and said plan as those sequestration is not going to happen. i wanted to know within the context when was the direction given to we strain operation and maintenance execution? and if that's the case, if it was restrained, wouldn't that have lessened the impact in the third and fourth quarters in fiscal year so you could lessen some of the impact of sequestration? i wanted to get your perspective on where those directions and how they might have occurred, and then where we are now. >> yes, mr. chairman.

clearly, for a good portion of last year and into this fiscal year, and we were assuming effectively across the board that sequestration was not going to happen. that conversation was occurring to all sectors of government. everybody anticipating we're going to fix this problem one way or the other, and so the demand for planning associated with that seem to be second priority in terms of getting to a level of detail. certainly never high level thoughts that were being considered what and where things might be impacted, the detailed planning and detailed analysis did not occur, start occurring until early this calendar year when it became apparent that this situation is likely not to be avoided.

>> so at that time was any consideration given to the execution of operation maintenance efforts within dod? and if that's the case at what point where those resources we strain him and wouldn't that have an impact on the third and fourth quarters? >> yes, there was an immediate consideration about allocation of reductions, certainly with the president's authority to exempt military personnel. it became very apparent that the impacts any other accounts would be larger and certainly with a priority to protect war fighting capabilities and those supporting capabilities directly related to wartime operations, the cuts in all indian accounts, especially those in industrial base grew. -- o&m accounts. >> panelist, thank you so much for joining us today. we appreciate your candid and in depth testimony. it's very, very helpful to us.

it gives us great opportunity put in perspective where we are and what we need to be doing it as we face these challenging times. so i thank you very much, and without the house armed services subcommittee on readiness is adjourned. [inaudible conversations] >> coming up next, transportation officials talk about transportation spending priorities.

>> agriculture secretary tom vilsack will testify today about the rural economy. his expected to take questions n the farm bill and the spending cuts. live coverage from the house agricultural committee begins at 10 a.m. eastern on c-span3. later in the day also on c-span3, the house rules committee will take up a republican measure funding the federal government through september of this year. live coverage at 3 p.m. eastern. >> transportation officials from the federal highway, rail, military, and traffic safety departments outlined their priorities for the next year. they also talk about how the sequestration cuts could affect them. this is hosted by the american association of state highway and transportation officials is 90 minutes.

>> okay. why don't we grab our seats, get settled in. thank you all for coming out this morning. this is the highlight in my mind the highlight of the washington aashto meeting because we get to share our thoughts with the great colleagues and u.s. dot. so without further ado, what we're going to do is i want to quickly introduce the folks up on the stage who don't need introductions to interview but we're going to go through those formalities anyway. been with going to open up to sort of general questions for each of the administrators, and then get into the more specific questions, and then what i would really like to do is engage you in questions for the members of the administration.

it seems we're always in -- victor, the memo kicking back feet up on the desk? but this is a good one. we had a great success last year. some of us, many of us i think asa pricing success. so we actually had some structure for at least two years going forward i think that's a great thing. map 21 really did bring some of, many of the reforms that we've all been working so hard on. and now that was the good district the bad news is estimate the ink dried, okay, what do we do with this and how do we implement these reforms with this is really the year of implementation and hope we hear from each of the ministers what we were doing implementation. but also as we all know, as the funny from map 21 expires in 2014 we are all gearing up for what replaces it and so this, i'm hoping we will have some

good meaty discussion about that this year, or actually this year beginning today. so without further ado, let me first introduce myself, if you don't know i michael lewis, director and this year's aashto president. so start with introductions. to my immediately left, all of us now victor mendez, the administrator of the federal highway administration. victor is someone associate with aashto for many, many years, former director of the arizona dot, actually stood up here in '06-'07 as the aashto president. you can do today if you would like. since joining, aashto memset many opportunities to work with victor and stephane important initiatives, not least of which is that goes on everyday accounts program which is what i think change a lot of the dynamic and led to many discussions that have come in

with matt 21. something that is important to all of us and all of the people that use our transportation system which is virtually everyone. he's an absolute evangelist for accelerating technology and innovation deployment come and that's something that last year's president was a highlight of this program. and i thought since i don't have an original thought in my head i took is instead we're going to do that again this you. so innovation is critical. so thank you for joining us for your thoughts. peter rogoff, federal transit administrator, peter was appointed the head of fta in '09, and prior to that he served 22 years on the staff of the senate appropriations committee. including 14 years as the democratic staff director for subcommittee. so if there's anybody in the room that knows what it takes to get these things done and do all of the wars, the battles that go on behind the scenes, peter rogoff.

having had an active role in the financing of each of the last three comprehensive surface transportation we operation bills dating back to the surface transportation, since the act of 1991. that's a long time ago, peter. and i met peter very early in his tenure. he came up to rhode island as we were working on getting the rail extension, and it was great. peter was, take no prisoners. with scheduled to get this done. i want no excuses and that's what we did. thank you for your help on the. joe ozaki, federal road administrator. show was appointed head of fra again in '09. what happened in '09? he began his career in 1976, the illinois central railroad. he would work as a yard switcher. and computer -- commuter conductor. do you have one of the hats? >> i still do. >> he was a mayor in illinois.

mr. mayor, thank you for joining us. anne ferro, federal motor carrier safety administration, joined in '09. i'm going to skip that for the rest of the. she let the maryland truck association as president and chief executive officer. her background go back even farther. she served as the state of maryland motor vehicle administered and 97 '03. there's the aashto state connection. thanks for joining us. david strickland, in the middle, actually okay, he was sworn in 2010. [laughter] prior to that he served -- >> lake bloomer. >> on the staff of the u.s. senate committee, transportation as a senior counsel. i've got to kelly, david, we had an issue in rhode island, we

were trying to pass primary seatbelt law two years ago and david came up, and worked with our leadership as again, absolute advantage to get that done. we get past that but the 11th hour, the senator was a little curveball. and it didn't sit well with us or with the david, and they put some laws on the law which expires this june. so what we're doing now is again working with nhtsa and doing everything we possibly can to get that sunset repeals and a very confident that will happen issue. so it won't be in vain, thank you. last but not least, david matsuda is national maritime administration, and was sworn in the maritime administration june of 2010, had been acting maritime administrator since being appointed by president obama in '09. there's that thing. prior to that he served as

acting assistant secretary for transportation policy for march '09 until his appointment as deputy. he spent seven years on capitol hill. david, welcome. let's give our panel a welcome. [applause] >> if any you have been around the last couple of days, i also want to invite all of you to have a relaxed session. there's a theme this year, it will be relaxed, we're going to look at a fund with a very heady issues, politics we have, so please feel free to engage and i invite all the to engage as we go forward. i'm going to so start off with a softball. give you an opportunity to talk about your major initiatives for the year. and that is i want e.g. to talk about which are policy priorities for the year, and what major regulatory actions do

expect to advance. but within that feel free to add in any of the other issues you have. so why don't we start here, victor, with you and then we will move on to peter. >> thank you, and good morning, everyone. thanks for inviting us and thanks for joining us. in terms of what's happening and what's important to us, obviously the highest priority that we have is safety. and anything will continue to do will be focused on safety, ensuring that policies and practices and guidance and everything we do is focus on safety. when it comes to what's happening, it seems like a year ago we were sitting there wondering what's going to happen with the next extension and on and on, and on july 6, our world changed of president obama's signed the bill and would often run. we have been very busy since july 6, and actually party that we've got a lot of legwork on a

potential bill. and soap implementation of map-21 force is one of our highest priorities. we have a lot of work and we. we issued a lot of guidance. we just -- we hit the ground running on july 6. were ready to go with a lot of draft guidance documents, and things like that. on october 1 we actually had our website at the running with a lot of information but it was important to all of you in the audience. so we're going to continue moving toward on the issues. a lot of will make is that are required, so we're working on that. a lot of work in congress. so far i can tell you when it comes to rulemaking, i forget the number of rules that implement but pretty much we are on track with all of them. so that's going to keep moving forward. the second issue that really is very, very important to me, of course innovation. you issued innovation. innovation for the industry to

meet is of foremost importance. it's important for us to innovate our industry, to find new ways of delivering our product faster, smarter, better. and i think we can demonstrate to the policymakers, both at some point i'm have to face of the funding issue, i think went to demonstrate to them that we are bringing down to the taxpayers with all the investments we're making, whether its public transit, railroads, highways and on and on. so we are very focused, and really when it comes to innovation i think it's incumbent upon the industry to demonstrate that we are experts on what we do, and if you give us the opportunity to invest wisely we will do that. we can do that through innovation and technology. >> peter, priorities, thought? >> at the federal transit administration were very much in sync with a priority on safety, and we had a major generational breakthrough in map-21.

many people don't know this but the federal transit administration has been prohibited since 19 safety for from issuing the most basic commonsense safety standards of any kind, safety standards, couldn't implement for even projects that were primarily federally funded. thankfully through map-21 and the leadership of a number of members on both the house and the senate, we now have safety authority that we're going to implement in concert with the states and state safety institutions. so that clearly is our highest priority. i will say we are frustrated somewhat in our ability to completely fulfill what want to do there, and that the provisions of the continuing resolution, the funding that we are currently living on respect us from doing certain new activities which were called for under map-21. so we are certainly hoping the

continuing resolution unshackle system during the if we're going to have another c.r. for the remainder of the year. since i have many of the representatives of the state in the room of what use this opportunity to call your attention if you haven't already seen them, your governors and many of the members of the commissioners of the state transportation departments in the realm have received letters both from secretary lahood and for myself outlining a number of important things. we now have in trying to strengthen our safety profile and improve value added way, the safety of the transit system funds, we need to do that in partnership with you. and we actually have the ability to give this state plans to fund their organizations and bring them up to standards that we all think they should be at in terms

of expertise, adequate staffing. however, that does require and 80/20 map. and i had secretary lahood very early on right after map-21 past, sent a letter to the impact of governors to pledge for them that they need to budget that match. if that letter hasn't trickled down to you, please find after this mean and i will make sure you've already seen. i have sent out a letter to a number of you in terms of the process that one will follow, and that i think is very important. the other areas, other priorities for us, obviously here again we believe congress did the right thing, we also faced certain restrictions and d frustration. i'm sticking specific about our new start capital investment program in our hurricane center released. when it comes to our new start program where we put a couple billion dollars a year into the expansion of existing transit systems and really the buildout of new transit systems, it's been an extraordinary successful

partnership. map-21 colmap-21 called on us to streamline our processes in ways that frankly they were remarkable unanimity between the house and senate, democrats and republicans on what needed to be done. we are now putting out regulatory products to implement without. that victor and i just the last couple of weeks have put out to regulations as it relates to expanding exclusions him and a list of things that can be done under a categorical exclusion in the name of streamlining, both for emergencies and nonemergency investments. and it's been a very successful. at the same time, that's a question that did hit us this friday will cut over $100 billion from the new start program and take a very compressed pipeline even further. similarly in hurricane sandy, obviously hurricane sandy represented the largest transit disaster in the history of the united states. the morning that the disaster

hit, more than half of the transit trips in america were not available. it even days later after baltimore and d.c. and boston came back online, close to 40% of the transit trips in america still were not available. congress has given us can $.9 billion to fda's new emergency relief program, a program we proposed or map-21. when we proposed it we had no concept that anything along the lines of hurricane sandy would hit. but congress had provided his $10.9 billion, hundred of those of which will be sequestered on friday to bring to bear on hurricane sandy with. so we are moving very quickly to put those dollars to work in reverse states across the board and card, the sequestered on the program is very frustrating. overlaying all of those things is the fact that the administrative budget at the fda will be sequestered. unlike vectors, i'm not bitter about it -- [laughter] -- it's an anomaly in the law

where our budget comes from the general fund and his administered budget comes from the trust fund that was doled out to the general fund. [laughter] but more importantly i think, i think what's notable is that we are working very hard to government the safety provisions can implement the new map-21 requirements. and at the same time as i'm pushing staff to do that as quickly as they possibly can i now have to contemplate furloughing those staff for a certain number of days e.g. so that is both opportunities and frustrations at the fda. >> by so many measurements, 2012 lash it was one of the greatest years for rail in generations. it was the safest year in railroad history. amtrak so all time record ridership, and had an all time high on time performance record, best in the 40 year history. and traffic that served --

surged over 12 minions come close to an all time record with a vote in the california general assembly through high-speed rail 220 miles per hour service to become a reality, going to break ground this summer. .. >> initiated the first planning study on the northeast corridor or substantive investments there since the jimmy carter

administration and were able to unsure that 100% of our high-speed rail funding was obligated well in advance of our september 30th statutory deadline. but that is simply a warm-up. it's simply a warm-up for the level of construction that's going to be taking place this year and on the work that we're going to have to do for continuous safety improvement as well as continuing to advance our high-speed and inner city passenger rail program while also growing the role that freight rail must play in meeting our nation's mobility needs. as i said, really move into this coming year our goal is to insure continuous safety improvement. yeah, great to set a record last year, but it's never good enough. it's far from good enough. and so we'll continue to work on advancing positive train control, risk reduction programs for the freight railroads and

look to work very closely with congress and the stakeholders on rail reauthorization as we look to reauthorize the passenger rail improvement investment act and the rail safety improvement act. finish working with stakeholders, working with congress to develop a long-term funding source for rail investments, both passenger and freight rail. big issue for the states, and i know you'll want to talk about a little bit more in a minute, mike, 209 funding. >> uh-huh. >> you know, continuing to work with stakeholders to take a look at how we can provide transitional assistance. as you know, we did request that in our fiscal year 2013 budget request. and also having a seat at the table as math 21's freight provisions are implemented. while map 21 was silent on a

role there as a department from an fra perspective, we couldn't be more pleased that from the leadership on down it was very, very clear of the growing role that rail was going to have to play in meeting our freight mobility needs. and so we look forward to working with our sister agencies on implementing those freight provisions. >> great. thanks, jim. anne? >> great, sure. thank you. good morning, everybody. it's a pleasure to be up here with my colleagues. and as all of you heard from the ec tear yesterday and -- secretary yesterday and each of us, clearly from a policy perspective safety is what drives us. for the federal motor carrier safety administration, we frame our work in core parameters, really. it was raising the bar for safety, raising the bar for anybody who wants to come into the truck and bus interstate operating environment. that means a better registration system, better screening at the point of entry. requiring the folks or that are

operating buses and trucks across our nation's roadways to maintain high standards to continue operating, and then making sure that all of us have the tools to get the worst of the worst off the road and keep them off the road, and that's a significant challenge. perhaps best witnessed by one of our core program priorities this year which is motor or coach safety. many of you have been impacted whether it's the southwest, the northeast, the southeast or the north wes by a significant -- northwest by a significant bus crash in your jurisdiction or nearby. those crashes are devastating. they're devastating to all of us because of the devastation they wreak upon the individuals who are in those buses. when it comes to passenger carriers, many don't realize this, but out of 4,000 motor coach companies operating across the nation, they are carrying more passenger trips a year than domestic aviation. 700 million passenger trips a year by 4,000 motor coach companies. those companies are within the

regulatory scheme that we exercise over 500,000 companies with a pretty small staff. but fmcsa has had an opportunity to touch a number of these motor coach companies, and in some cases we have found even after we've been out there doing a review, we miss something, and something terrible happens. and while the agency has sort of stretched into every corner of authorities and in some cases from help with those who had a hand in creating the authorities, peter and the davids -- because they were in congress at the the time -- we are finding that we need to change the paradigm on motor coach safety. so we did it with a very broad sweep on the i-95 corridor, taking out 26 companies last year. that's not enough. the agency today is taking a much stronger, heightened approach to tackling the issue of getting the wrs of the worse operators in the bus industry

off the road and keeping them off the road. it's no small challenge, but we are upping the ante on our investigators' training and identifying what's missing in terms of our current authority, our current structure to truly set one standard for passenger safety across the nation regardless of what mode of transportation an individual's traveling in. so clearly from a program perspective, motor coach safety is a core priority. also among the top priorities is driver safety and driver behavior. nine out of ten crashes involving a commercial vehicle are something a driver did or failed to do. you know this because you all live in the safety world on a daily basis. one of the challenges that all of us face is how do you stop a commercial motor vehicle carrier from operating safely if your officer is uncomfortable pulling a large vehicle over? we have about 10,000 officers that are cmv experts.

those other 790,000 have a tremendous opportunity and are very knowledgeable about unsafe driving behavior; speeding, unsafe lane changing, aggressive behavior. and what we are doing working closely with the international association of chiefs of police is training all of those other 800,000 enforcement officers how to be comfortable pulling over a large bus or a large truck if the operator's operating unsafely. because at the end of the day, with everything that we're doing that last person that has an opportunity to prevent a crash from happening is right there behind the wheel. so those are two core program priorities this year. from a regulatory perspective, it feeds into our framework of raising the bar for safety and getting the worst of the worse off the road. we have a rule, used to be called eobr. now thanks to the added ever emphasis in map 21, it's an electronic logging rule, and it

transitions those paper logbooks to an electronic hours of service monitoring service. we are certain it will improve compliance across the industry and get at one of the biggest challenges for all of us in transportation safety which is operator fatigue. a second rule that also speaks to priorities of of who is actually behind the wheel is creating a drug and alcohol clearinghouse. in the requires a rule before we can build the system. the rule again, unfortunately, gain added strength under map 21. it will include a clearinghouse where employers can use as a resource to make sure that employers know who they are putting behind the wheel of a truck or a bus before they do it. and in some regards they're vulnerable today because they don't always know. and to those states to out there -- and some of you are here in this room who are operating -- another tool called

an employer notification system that pushes out to employers who subscribe to your drive's license system if -- drive's license b system if a driver has been convicted of a violation, been suspended, it actually pushes that information out to an employer right away rath or than waiting for that annual check on a driver record or counting on a driver to actually report a driving infraction. that's the kind of tool that is vital to insuring that employers don't put an unsafe driver behind the wheel. that's what we're doing on the drug and alcohol clearinghouse. the last thing i want to mention is because i think it's near and dear to the heart of so many of you who are focused on performance-based outcomes, the agency is going to complete this year through a proposal mistaking the final of a three-phase rollout of our safety program. the program that takes all of that roadside inspection data that many of you accommodate

through dot inspection forces, uses that current performance data that really is catch what a vehicle is doing and how a driver is operating it realtime through those roadside inspections and using it to do analytical groupings of behavior. the last piece to enable us to actually use that data to rate companies, to rate carrier safety does require a rule, and it's called a safety fitness determination rule. of very comprehensive and complex rule, and we expect that to be on the street this year as a top priority. >> thanks, anne. david? >> thanks, mike, appreciate it. good morning, everyone. one thing i wanted to address off the top is, frankly, in 2011 we had another banner year overall for traffic safety and fatal theties, and the partnership of everybody here in this room and victor and eap's folks. seeing a little less than 33,000 people die on the roads is the

lowest we've seen since 1949. the bad side is that 33,000 people lost their lives on the roads in 2011 which means we have a tremendous amount of work to do, and the focus and specifically what anne's working on and what victor's working on as part of the surface modes together, and there's a number of activities that we help sort of address how we move forward in dealing with this overall number. for ntsa specifically, map-21 has consolidated one unified grant program which would be of great assistance to all of your offices in terms of administrative overhead and other forms issues. fortunately, we collapsed all these grant programs into what used to be known as a 405 under safety loop.

as peter has mentioned in the anomalies of the current cr, all of the grant programs do not have an attachment in 405. unless this anomaly is fixed in the next -- after march 27th, we will not be able to actually fund, um, seat belts, impaired driving, a lot of the other, um, behavioral grants that we work so hard to do. so hopefully, just as peter's hopely got some anomalies corrected to get the resources out to all of you so we can begin the hard safety work we're going to be taking up in map-21, we definitely need to get that addressed. on the flipside of the new issues are the new opportunities for safety created in map-21 for nhtsa. there's two new grant proposals which did not exist before. there's now a distracted driving program which is really a fantastic opportunity for all of us to drive resources to deal

with this significant highway traffic safety risk. we lost a little over 3300 people in 2011 to distracted driving-related crashes, and we lost -- we had over 387,000 injuries related to distracted driving. so, you know, within the perimeter of losing half of fatalities that are unbeltedded, losing almost a third of our fatalities because of impaired driving, distracted driving is another significant risk we have to address in the short term, midterm and long term, and is we're doing that at multiple levels, but our work together in high visibility enforcement and education campaigns and trying to change culture using this grant opportunity really is something to move the ball forward from secretary lahood who was strongly pushing for. we're happy congress gave us this grant opportunity to assist all of your work out in the states. second and addressing the analog distracted driving, but clearly a larger number of risk profiles

created by teen drivers and new drivers. and the graduated driver's licensing drop in map-21 is another opportunity. every state in the union now has a version, which is good, but unfortunately there is a variety in terms of the particular, you know, mandates and criterion needed for a new driver or teen driver to fulfill a graduated driver's license. and the grant is going to incent a number of states that don't have some basic core that is you need in terms of having a three-step process p preventing teens from driving at night, making sure teens have to have an adult supervisor and not have multiple teens ride anything the car and a number of things to make sure our new teen drivers become fantastic older drivers in the future, and or we are looking forward to that opportunity. beyond sort of the new issues in map-21, our continued work in recognizing a couple focus areas that we've seen in the 2011

numbers are very important. another aspect of what anne's folks are also looking at and dealing with is we had an increase in truck occupancy fatalities in 2011 that we need to recognize what are the core causes and figure out the countermeasures to help. you know, the drivers and the assistant drivers in these tractor-trailers. a second issue which a number of states and localities have seen especially in urban areas is an increase of pedestrian and bicycle u.s. fatal is in -- fatalities in 2011 and, frankly, it's a trend we have to get on top of. as we're working so hard to encourage our students to live healthier lifestyles, decrease our dependence on foreign oil, the one thing we have to recognize, and what we have to do to reduce those risks are people taking those activities. if we don't get on top of it, the very things we're trying to do to get people to do these

activities, we're going to have to increase the amount of walking and biking that we're doing. so those are just the highlights of what we're looking at and just very happy for the hard work that everybody in this room has been doing for overall traffic safety and the hard work victor has been doing. >> thank you, david. and now to david. >> good morning. well, i'm honored to be here with all of you and certainly all the great leaders on this panel today. i guess i could answer the question pretty briefly, and that's just let me leave you with two thoughts. one is integration, and the other is innovation, and these are the kind of two themes that describe what we are working on at the maritime administration. one of our challenges is how do we integrate the maritime transportation system into the national transportation system. and map-21 provides an excellent opportunity. as joe mentioned, we certainly, you know, appreciate being able to be at the table, the

department has a new freight council now. the legislation u.s. has opened up -- itself has opened up funding for projects specifically, import infrastructure and development projects, and we're excited about that. and here's why it's important. one of the issues that we have been studying since pretty much i got here has been the expansion of the panama canal. and i know that you're all fairly familiar. the fact that there's a lot bigger ships coming online and pretty soon in 2015 they should be able to transfer through the can canal, over a thousand-foot-long vessel could handle about 13,000 trucks that'll be needed to fully unload and reload a ship of that size. and if you think about what that would do to a port community and the infrastructure needed to get all that freight in and out, i know that's an extreme example, but my friend joe, that's a train about 50 miles long.

[laughter] when you think about that, that really poses some interesting questions about how our transportation system, and i mean throughout the entire supply chain, needs to, needs to change to adapt to the kinds of needs for a 21st century freight and intermodal system. the other thing we are continuing to focus on is this program of marine highways. and i think we have talked about as an try and a country for a long time, but it wasn't until secretary lahood came in, stepped up and said we are going to invest in this program, we're going to designate corridors around the country. and in 2011 he designated 18 corridors along the water that are places where it makes sense to ship by water, where there are great advantages and benefits for doing so. for instance, along i-95 we have

m-95. on i-5, we have m-5, so there are very real opportunities there. we've invested $130 million in projects around the country, some of them have started to come to fruition. it's a little different than just a basic infrastructure project. we've had a lot lot of hands-on work trying to get the parties from multiple jurisdictions together to work with the private sector and develop the new types of services that'll benefit the entire region where they operate. the other thing i want to mention about -- is innovation. and one of the exciting things that's happening in the maritime industry, and this, i have to tell you, for a long time the level of innovation has probably not been as great since the shipping container was invented in 1956. but recently we have seen an exciting phenomenon, and that's the shift to fuel with liquefied

natural gas. that's one of the cleanest-burning fuels in the industry. the figures i have is that it's 25% fewer carbon e emissions levels cut by 85 and 90% and 50% lower levels of particulate matter. so for folks who are really interested in gaining in the air e -- emissions area, ships are not a huge source to begin with, but when we've spoken with colleagues in foreign countries that have tried it, they said, you know, if we're going to put a natural gas fueling facility in or near a port, people come out of the woodwork and say, gosh can, well, you know, us too. we're interested. municipalities that have fleets of buses or garbage trucks, you name it, there's certainly some real opportunities on the air emission side. and what we're seeing for the

marad fleet is very exciting. and we're going to be working with carriers in ports and communities to help bring about that change. last, let me just point out -- and i'm going to jump back to this issue of integration. because we have certainly stepped up and down it at the d. level, maritime administration's part of that. of the 38 states that have ports or navigable waterways, only eight of you have somebody on staff who can serve maritime coordinator. that is something you're going to hear a lot from us about going forward. we have found when you've hired somebody to focus and work on the maritime community with the ports and the industry, that certainly men gets -- benefits, so you'll be hearing from us. >> thank you, david. one of the big themes we heard

was, obviously, safety. we heard it from secretary lahood yesterday. that's, obviously, job one faashto as well, and i just want to give a shout out to tony cane who's making sure. and, tony, i believe this is your last washington meeting for aashto so thank you for everything you've goal to coordinate all of our efforts with the federal administrators. so tony cane. [applause] okay. moving back to map-21, victor, i think i'm going tee you up with one now. we've all been working together on its reforms and implementation, and what i want to ask you a little bit more specifically about there are concerns that map-21's focus of starting slowly with limited measures needs to be reinforced. and maybe a debate on that, on

what should be done. what can we do to make sure that the implementation of performance-based program is done appropriately, effective ri, we're not jumping the gun and yet implementing in a way that is meaningful and adjustable over time. your thoughts on that. >> well, let me begin by saying that, you know, under map-21 taking a performance-based approach, it's really a great policy approach. going back to the idea that, you know, we have to be more transparent and really be able to demonstrate to the more than people that we are making wise investments. and taking this approach, frankly, the right way to go. so i'm glad that was included. even before map-21 we within fhwa were having performance-based discussions, and i remember at one of our internal meetings kind of thinking, well, you know, congress we think is going to take this approach, but we're not sure. and i remember thinking to myself, and, you know, i have a

little system of, you know, tracking action items when i'm at meetings. and i remember my note to myself was even if congress does not do this, why wouldn't we as an industry want to do this? so i think it's the right approach. gunn limited resources -- given limited resources and the fact that we do have the to serve the american people, i think, in the best way we can to get the best value. now, having said that, let me just give you one other perspective because you mentioned the importance of really insuring that we do this thing right. >> meaningful, in a meaningful way. >> in a meaningful way. and one of the big issues, of course, is being able to reach out the stakeholders, all of us as an industry, and figuring out what is the best approach. we have had a lot of outreach to the stakeholders, but let me give you the perspective of what we need from all of us. we're all experts in our arena, but when it comes to performance-based and the freight issues in front of us, it's going to require all of us

working together. and i know we're experts in the field, but we're also humans. and i have to tell you my own experience coming to these issues and going to various stakeholder meetings, i come in with a certain perspective thinking, yeah, i think i know what direction we're taking on this and yet as sat in meetings with many of you and people who probably aren't even here, i've learned a lot, and my perspective has shifted and shaken up my initial thought process. and i think that's what we as an industry need to be willing to do, to sit down together, learn from each other and then be able to move these issues forward in the best, most meaningful way to serve the american people. and i think we do that, i think we'll come up with some really great processes. now, in terms of what actually are we doing on the performance-based approach, i think we by now all know that u.s. dot will help to establish the performance goals. i think we've talked about that.

the states and the mpos will follow through and actually establish performance targets. it will be an iterative process. i think we're going to learn that maybe some issues we thought were good things in the beginning may have to be modified, maybe even revamped. you never know. our approach, i think, has been made pretty public in terms of rulemaking that is going to be required, and so what we have taken is, you know, we've taken the issue and really have carved it up into what we call three tiers. we're going to take, and will le look at my notes because we do have a timeline. we are going to be issuing notices of proposed rulemaking first beginning with safety targets that we are targeting for the third quarter of 2013 this year, followed by the infrastructure conditions making in the fourth quarter of 2013, and then in the fest quart --

first quarter of 2014 we'll follow up with freight movement. so i think most of you have heard that approach. it's kind of the timeline that we're under. we won't be able to meet the statutory deadlines within map-21, so there's a lot of work to be done, a lot of outreach yet to be taken, but i'm very confident that we're going to do this in the right way. and i do have to say that our executive director, jeff, along with our staff, they've been working on this even before map-21. so we've been ahead of the curb, and jeff's done a great job in getting us to where we are today and moving all of us toward what i think is going to be a success. >> great. well, we look forward to that continuing work. peter, you mentioned it in your opening remarks, but hurricane sandy changed the world a little bit in many ways. and, you know, in many more ways than we have time to talk about. but the sandy recovery systems

act enacted a few weeks ago doubles the amount of funding that fda must administer in a year. does this provide an opportunity to streamline the grant administration processes, to free up staff resources by allowing for a preapproved list of small, routine equipment or what has it done, if anything, to provide you an opportunity to perhaps change how we do business? >> well, i think we are already about the business of changing the way we were doing business even before some of the traditional authorities that we're given in map-21 and sandy. i'm glad you integrated the sandy hurricane relief experience into this issue, because it's noteworthy. perhaps and most noteworthy change in providing transit emergency relief through the federal transit administration authority versus the fema authority is, first, we know the

transit participants, i think, much better rather than having them introduce themselves to fema only in the aftermath of a disaster. but very importantly, the authorities that we are given allow us to fund returning those transit assets the to a tate of good -- to a state of good repair after a disaster. under the rules of stafford act under fema, fema was only able to reimburse impacted transit agencies to what i sometimes cynically refer to it as returning the transit assets to the decrepit condition they were in the day before the disaster. which is, actually, how the program worked. i mean, we literally had some experiences post-katrina in which the new orleans transit provider was told, well, the bus that got floodedded and destroyed was eight years old, you need to go out on the market and purchase an 8-year-old bus. that doesn't serve the public very well, it's not a good investment for the taxpayer, it doesn't really meet our

fundamental goal to provide finish. >> not to mention the fact it's very difficult to explain to a tv reporter. [laughter] >> oh, exactly. so, you know, you add owl those thing -- add all those things together, our new program will not only allow us to make investments to return the transit assets to the condition we all want them to be, but it will also allow us to make investments to mitigate the likelihood of a recurrence of the disaster. so the reality is many of tunnels that flooded that caused this largest transit disaster in history under hurricane sandy had flooded under hurricane irene less than two years earlier. we need to do something about that. it is not wise for the taxpayer to keep reinvesting in the response and recovery without doing our best to make sure that that's not a recurrence. and if climate change is indicating to us that we need to be even more mindful of this, we now have a program with which to do it, and at least in the

hurricane sandy situation, impacted area we have resources to do it. >> great. and that is lesson learned across the country, because we don't know, none of us know when that next issue is going to happen. >> when or where. >> or where, joe, to that point. it may not be a flood, but, you know, malcolm, it may be a shaking earth. who knows what it's going b -- going to be. so prepare for that. joe, you talked about this. and as you know, the section 209 cost shift to states from amtrak is scheduled to take place the beginning of year fiscal year '14. tight state budgets. this will have some effect on passenger rail system. does the fra have a communication message that they can work with the states to insure the passenger rail continues to operate smoothly during this transition of cost sharing, and i ask you as you formulate that response, some of the folks in the room may not be that familiar with section 209, maybe give a brief summary of what that is and then thoughts on what you can do to help that

messaging. >> yeah. for those that don't know, because certainly the states involved do know, but for those who don't know, section 209 of the passenger rail investment improvement act generates a cost shift for corridor service. it actually standardizes the methodology for amtrak corridor service. in the past there were states that were paying for their corridor service. other states weren't paying for their corridor service. the price the different states were paying was calculated differently. so section 209 standardizes the cost methodology and then makes sure that it is consistently applied across all of those corridor services that are, i believe it's 750 miles or less. so that is set to kick in later this fall to where those cost allocations are transferred to

the state. and so from an fra perspective, we've looked at this a few ways. one, in both our fiscal year '12 and fiscal year '13 budget requests we have, in fact, requested transitional assistance that would allow this be burden or to be phased in, you know, more comfortably upon the states and give them time to adjust, particularly during this time of tight state budgets. so to make sure that there's a smoother transition. so we think that's important. but, obviously, the other thing is also making sure or or in -- and some states do this real well. through aashto we've been working and advocating on doing seminars to share best ideas. making sure states view themselves, view their role as customers purchasing a service

and so helping states view themselves as more discriminating customers, more demanding customers to make sure that they have the programs in place that they need to more effectively manage their state corridor service to enhance the quality of it, insure the highest level of on-time performance, highest level of customer service. and to do those things that improve the quality of the service which will grow ridership and reduce those costs. and also helping give the states the technical skills that they need to more effectively review and manage those bills. important component of that, and it's something that joe boardman, the president of amtrak, committed to a week ago. and we have a troll insure in this happens -- a role to insure this happens, is making sure that the costs are very transparent, that amtrak is

providing good information, that it is clear and well understood by the states so they understand every component of that bill that they're getting. >> great. thanks, joe. this is a little bit off script, but we just had a northeast corridor meeting early in the week, and maybe a few words for the audience on what that effort is because i think the extent of that effort, the fra, u.s. dot in general, amtrak, the freights, it might be worth a quick comment on -- >> sure. you know, the northeast corridor commission wrings together all those state dots, all of the stakeholders, frankly, that are involved with amtrak's northeast corridor and all of the commuterrer operations on that corridor. so for the first time it pulls everybody together more comprehensively to take a look at the existing needs to make sure it's brought to a state of repair, but or what are going to

be the future needs. and, of course, most of that growth is going to be in the commuter traffic. so how do we come up with the appropriate vision for that corridor and then the important component of that, that is how do we fairly and adequately fund those improvements and that future vision? and so a lot of the lessons that have been learned by the states and amtrak and the stakeholders in the section 209 process are being borrowed and used at least as a starting point as the states and amtrak and fra staff start talking about cost allocation on the corridor under what is called the section 213 process. >> yeah. thanks. i think it's a great example, i think, of how the states -- and with the federal, all the federal agencies involved, need to recognize that we're all in this together, and we need to -- it's very difficult to articulate, um, a funding structure that isn't fair, that isn't equitable to all parties.

>> and yet that corridor has to function, you know, more than just inside rhode island or inside new york -- >> right. it does? [laughter] >> the whole thing -- >> okay. [laughter] >> mike, some of your people want to get to boston, i'd just point out. [laughter] >> i don't even know where that is. [laughter] um, anne, picking up on a little bit of a theme that we talked with peter about in san key, and i remember being on some phone calls after that. >> yeah. >> it again, it tested the state, federal and industry coordination to something that is unexpected. particularly on the coordinate nays of delivery of oversight, overweight truckloads in response to emergencies. in your view what steps should we be taking, can we be taking to better equip us to deal with future emergencies and what we do on a daily basis? what did we learn from that? >> i think we're all still learning, but in the sphere of things that we can actually

influence and control, we have to start with ourselves, and as an agency we have of an obligation following our experience with sandy to stand up an emergency response team and insuring people know right from the get go who they are, what their role is and insuring we've got core numbers and structure for that team to operate many and an online, accessible resource for everyone to access. where waivers are, what types of waivers exist, what are key corridors, what are key contacts for short or act areas -- shortage areas as well as our state partners. we're very eager to support the work that federal highways and aashto, i think, are probably niche initiating. our role is a support one in advancing a clearer or more level playing field when it comes to size and weight permitting. one of the challenges that everybody faced both on the truck safety side as well as the

size and weight infrastructure side is that there are some federal standards, but then each state may have its own requirements. and fmcsa needs to inventory all of the ones that we're familiar or with and make sure we've got contacts and networks where waivers need to be lifted or provided. on the size and weight side, we talked about this a little bit at ashto's last national meeting. the concept of taking your permitting officing and incentivizing something like the international registration plan or the international fuel tax agreement where there are regions, perhaps, of commonality -- common standards on size and weight permitting so that when freight is moving across the country, in this case we had lots of utility vehicles moving across the country, lots of fuel vehicles moving across the country, the size and weight standards aren't as varied, or

there's an easier relief network to tap into. and then the last core area for that sort of relief is integrating our work with the regional and national toll authorities. really the regional toll authorities, i think i-95 corridor has a toll of professionals, and that exists throughout the country. so that we have a clear understanding. nobody just wants to just waive tolls. each toll authority has an agreement with its shareholders and state citizens, but we need to recognize what fmcsa in networking with industry needs to know and be able to tell industry when a particular state is allowing a waiver through a toll facility for emergency equipment or emergency supplies. so it's really taking all what we did on the fly and standardizing it and really creating a structure for that to continue. >> great. great, thanks. that's good progress. um, david, safety, safety, safety, safety. safety and coordination.

we have talked about map-23, safety -- 21, safety performance. give us a little talk about how you're coordinating with federal highway administration and the other modes as appropriate for the implementation of performance measures, the definitions, coordination, making sure they're consistent. what's the level of coordination? >> sure. well, actually, thank you to the hard work of victor's folks. we were able to issue our interim final rule which actually sort of gives the rules for the 405, new consolidated 405 grants. and those conversations in terms of trying to find, you know, common performance measures and goals once again across department, and victor's folks were very helpful in order to harness those measures which is core for us to be able to do that. the highway safety plans had to be provided to the agency for the coordination of those grants. so it really is an organization

of dot and how we are all working together to make sure those things are coordinated. second, i guess an opportunity which is coming up next week actually, victor, anne and i are going to be doing a webinar for a number of our folks and folks across states about map-21 implementation. i can't remember the last time we had the three amigos doing a webinar at the same time over a reauthorization. [laughter] but sort of talking about those common performance, how we can get all these issues coordinated on a going-forward basis, frankly, to get those resources out in the fastest way possible. very happy with the possible, and it's definitely -- >> great. thank you, david. >> and let me just mention something, because i think it's rell about is. >> yeah. >> both victor and i have the challenge of coming up with a congestion relief performance measure as inherited both in the transit section of map 21 and the highway section of map-21. we're obviously having a rich conversation right now and sort

of melding the cultures which is, i really think, the vision of what map-21's supposed to be about in terms ofen be an interesting challenge for us to work on the time schedule that victor has laid out to the attempt to have a common definition of what congestion relief means. i mean, whether we're easing that congestion on the highway through a transit investment or a highway investment, we should be measuring the same thing. but that's, obviously, since we've been measuring congestion relief from transit projects for years through the new starts program, very different mechanism than the way fhwa has looked at it, it's one of the great and rich conversations that map-21 has finally provoked as it should have. >> great. thanks. um, david, turn to you. this may be a surprise to you, but many of the folks in the room the state representatives are very concerned about coordination of federal resource

agencies, and i just want to sort of ask you how marad is engaging with the army corps, for example, and other than the 21 federal agencies with jurisdiction over national marine transportation to make the process as seamless and coordinated as it can be. i can imagine with all the different interests that's not something you can just click your fingers and make happen. >> that's absolutely true. it's continually a challenge. we've found that, you know, since we're not a regulator, safety regulator, we do get a number of stakeholders will come forward to us and talk to us about some of their challenges. >> a little more so than they would, you know, to have the coast guard or somebody that they may not want to get into some of the details about. but we've worked very well with the army corps. i would say starting with the tiger grant program which first led to some interesting discussions about, well, if we're going to fund a land side

port project and it depends -- the benefits depend on dredging, then maybe we ought to coordinate these investments across the different agencies. and so that led to a formal agreement that the department signed with the army corps a couple of years ago. that's since escalated to, you know, a full white house task force on ports where a number of agencies concerned with the infrastructure issues are brought together, and we're working on some pretty exciting policy ideas. we continue to work on the maritime -- committee for maritime transportation system, and that's a federal sewer -- interagency coordinating body that brings the 21 agencies together. that's a varied group and so it takes a lot of work to bring folks together and really

coordinate policy as best we can. and then last i'll add that we have also stood up a new advisory committee, actually about a year and a half ago. this is the maritime transportation system national advisory committee, and that has been a venue for many in the industry and others to advise the secretary or and us on maritime issues. in fact, it was one of their recommendations that, you know, we put -- we suggest a maritime coordinator at every state dot that has these types of issues within their jurisdiction. and they have really, like we did, found some real benefits. >> okay. thanks, david. i'm -- we have about 20 minutes left, and what i want, i have some other questions here that my puppet masters have prepared for me, so we can come back to those, but what i'd like to do now is open it up to the floor, get some thoughts, questions from the audience. and touch on anything that we've talked about to date, but other

issues as well. i'd like to have a little bit of discussion about the national freight policy. it sort of touches on all of us. so questions from the audience before i have to call on someone. >> not enough coffee today. >> no. yes. >> there you are. >> i will always ask a question. >> one of my puppet masters. [laughter] >> absolutely not, mike, you know better than that. peter, this is really directed at you and victor to a degree. certainly, the state departments of transportation are multimodal agencies, we all know that. my predecessor was fond of saying that states invest $13 billion a year in public transportation, the federal government about $11 billion a year, so we're very much engaged in that arena. one place where the nexus is very obvious is bus rapid transit. without an effective highway facility, bus rapid transit doesn't work. what do you see as the future of bus rapid transit, and how does it fit within the scheme of those funds that are available through the federal transit

administration? >> well, the -- i think the future is very bright. we've been very big advocated for bus rapid transit principally because you, if done right -- and when i say doing bus rapid transit right, i'm talking about doing it with all the bells and whistles -- it's not just an express bus. it's a uniquely-branded bus with stations where you buy your ticket before boarding so there's no queuing at the bus, so you can end -- and with single priority. is so the bus gets a green light every time it hits an intersection. you can have remarkable throughput that can carry a great many people very efficiently at considerably less cost than building a rail system. and i've periodically been criticized by some of the rail advocates for pointing out the cost differential. and it is dramatic. between doing brt and a rail option. that said, in certain corridors

only a rail option's going to suffice. the challenge we have, frankly, in terms of when i think about how bright a future brt has is we've generally funded our portion of brt investments through the new starts program. congress in map-21 got many of the policies right, i think, as it related to new transit investments, but it got the numbers wrong which is to say that under map-21 the new starts program was expanded to include a number of new activities. they called on us to streamline our program to move prompts through the pipeline more quickly, we were all in agreement on that. they also expanded the universe of available projects to include core capacity projects, projects where you can make investments to get even greater capacity out of them. we think that was the right policy priority as well. and then they slunk the program -- shrunk the program. they lowered the authorization

below current funding levels. so we've widened the universe, we've shrunk the available funding, and then by the end of the week it's likely that we're going to lose another $100 million to the sequester. so the progress on brt, at least federal investment, is going to be hampered. it's going to mirror the challenges we have with overall funding for the new starts program. now, there are some agencies that are financially strong enough that they can fund through their formula funds. and, obviously, thankfully, our formula funds are not being sequestered. so we will, obviously, work with them. some of the things we just talked about, our new rulemaking on expanding the categorical exclusionings through the nepa process to move along more quickly, those will benefit brt projects because they're in more corridors.

i think more and more mayors and governors are seeing the benefits of brt. in michigan -- i don't know if kurt's here, i didn't see him earlier, there he is. governor snyder, we were working on a rail project in the greater detroit area, an area that is in desperate need of improved transit, and it's now turned into a vision for regional transit authority with potentially four br corridors, and it's the right investment. they have the capacity, they have the lanes, and it's very affordable. so i think the future's wright. wright -- bright. >> thanks. questions from the audience. okay. let me turn back to anne briefly. truck parking. >> yeah. >> it's a large and growing issue particularly as we're going to dump 13,000 of them on the streets. given the convergence of demands of just in time delivery, requirements of hours of service regulation and the protected increase in truck freight traffic, what is fmcsa doing to deal with these issues and

coordinating with other modes? >> yeah. the simple answer as to what are we doing? not enough. there's a current project underway that fmcsa has worked on for many years with highways to identify, to the use technologies to identify available spaces as a truck is moving down the roadway. but most of you are in regions where this just will never be sufficient space. so whether we can identify if they're available or not, in the northeast corridor, in the southwest coroner, in the southeast, you name a major metropolitan hub, and there's sufficient parking regardless of what -- there's insufficient parking regardless of what technology you do. the federal highway administration under map-21 is moving ahead with implementing provisions of jason's law which, again, i think improve the overall focus of our, of our transportation planning on truck parking. but at the end of the day, let

me ask you what drives truck traffic? many that's the question someone here can answer. and, darren, you cannot answer. [laughter] demand for stuff. right? demand for stuff. and that demand for stuff generally creates things like distribution centers, big box retailers. i bring that up because we have got to together, and some of you have already been leaders in this, but we've got to together bring new partners to the table on this issue of truck parking. drivers are moving our nation's warehouses around the country. they arrive at places that are major distribution centers, big box retailers, major consumption spots, and they need to stage the truck somewhere to wait to drop off or pick up. that staging is rarely planned for when a big pox retailer's -- box retailer's recruited to the region or distribution center's recruited to the region.

when it comes to ip up suring there's adequate rest space because that's, again, moving 24/7, the person moving that warehouses, the person in his or her office needs to sleep. we need to have space to sleep. but the places to sleep, the most demanding or those in highest demand are those along key interstate corridors where the property is also in demand for a residential development or corporate development, for consumer center shopping retail development and which are local governments going to want? ones that are generating a better tax revenue and ones not perceived to bring inappropriate traffic. so i describe that setting to reinforce the fundamental point. we have to be at the table with economic development officials, with zoning officials, with local government officials to discuss resolution of the problem. one last point. if you look at any zoning code, and many of you look at them far more than i ever have. if you look at the zoning

requirements for parking in a strip mall, shopping center, in a new office park, you will always see multiple pages on how much parking must be provided for the users of that new facility. if you look at the zoning codes for a big box retailer or more importantly for a distribution center, you will see about a half a paragraph on truck parking. and it generally says you've got to have enough room to rotate a truck to move in and out of the distribution facility period. we have got to incorporate truck capacity in the plans for distribution facilities, in the plans for big box retailers. and those principles should be incorporated in freight planning, smart growth planning, but it means we need to bring those part partners who don't feel a reason or need to be at the table for discussion. otherwise the discussion of truck parking is always between highway officials, law enforcement officials and industry.

and that's where we can't get beyond the can core capacity challenge cans. so, there, did you have another question for me? >> work in progress. [laughter] picking up or continuing that theme a little bit, vick or to have, to you. map-21 requires producing a comprehensive truck size and weight study. if you'd give us a little bit on the status of the study and how do you expect it to be used by the congress and u.s. dot in the future. >> well, you know, the efforts are underway, and they have been for quite a while. i believe it was last august of 2012 we actually created a policy committee, great policy committee within the u.s. dot to begin looking at freight issues overall. obviously, this particular issue of truck size and weight is going to be a component of that. we have, actually, undertaken very recently issued an rfp the contractor to get onboard to

help us with the effort. is that's underway. we fully intend to have the study completed. i believe the deadline is october of 2014. >> okay. >> so there's a lot of effort underway, and i think the issue that we need to keep in mind, it is an issue that all of us have to really take a good, hard look at it because you're talking about safety here, you're talking about impact to the infrastructure and then, of course, it's an issue of moving freight efficiently. and so a lot of interest. it is a very controversial topic. a lot of people have very strong interest, and when you get people to a lot of our meetings that we've had already, we've had an incredible number of meetings with stakeholders. there are some people when it comes to safety that have been affected personally by safety issues have a very strong b interest and agenda that we have to deal with. but that effort is underway, and i'm very comfortable that we will meet our statutory deadline on that.

but it's not going to be easy. it is a very difficult issue. it's an issue that, obviously, i faced back when i was in arizona. i know every state here is faced with that issue, and how we deal with it as a nation is going to be very important. it's a complex issue. >> we look forward to working with you on that as we meet the deadline, thank you. peter, i'm guilty of this, i'm guilty of many things -- [laughter] but when i think, when we think transit, we tend to think washington, san francisco, new york, boston. but this is a lot more to transit than the bug cities. what's -- big cities what's your long-term vision for trns sit in small and rural commitments as more and more seniors are choosing to age in place? thoughts on rural transit. >> well, you said rural and small cities, and i think there's a, there's different applications and different

needs. you know, one of the things that we've discovered especially in rural america is as younger generations have had to gravitate to where the jobs are, rural communities are often occupied largely by retirees, and transit actually holds a very important role to play especially in medical transportation. a lot of people don't really appreciate this, but a lot of the transit providers in smaller communities in rural america derive considerable amounts of funding not just from the fta, but also from medicaid providing funding of transportation services underwritten by hhs. we've got transit providers that are doing dialysis transportation that are an absolute lifeline for not just seniors, but dialysis patients all over the place. but i think, you know, it's important to note that the taxpayer saves considerable

amounts of money on the whole by allowing people to stay at home and being automobile to allow them to continue -- able to allow them to be viable members of their community, get them to shopping, church, medical appointments. even if we don't want them driving on the road or if they can't afford to keep that car on the road. no one is predicting a period of sustained low gas prices, so we need to be mindful of the fact that, you know, i would venture a guess that, you know, part of that issue that he doesn't talk about it as much that what drove down the fatal thety rate on the highways, thankfully for david, was that transit ridership was at a record high when his fatalities were at a record low. some of those people are taking transit instead of being on the road, and they're not all in new york, san francisco and urban centers. so i think that's an important piece of it. medical transportation is certainly a part of it for rural america.

allowing seniors to age in place and not having to pay higher taxpayer subsidies through medicaid, medicare and other elements to keep people in residential facilities, it's a better outcome from the patient, it's a better outcome for the taxpayer. so we need to do more with that. and one of my goals really for the second term is to work more closely with the folks at cms, on hhs on how we can do that even better. >> great. thanks, peter. david, he sort of tipped back to you, so let me come back to you. map-21 provides for six state behavioral programs. we had actually anticipated two of these no states would actually qualify for. how will you -- how -- will you employ the funds, and if states do not make the necessary legislative changes, will this influence your thinking on the set of programs in the next reauthorization?

>> well, first, michael, we are the ill waiting for -- still waiting for applications. i know the distracted driving applications are due today, and i believe the 405 applications are due at the end of the week, and the agency will have to make that analysis. so presupposing not qualifying, i think, is a little premature at this point, number one. but, you know, number two, even if there is a state or states that may not qualify for particular grants and there's resources available, there is the ability to be able to flex those resources if there is no qualifiers over to the 402 side of the ledger. and that way those are resources that cannot be expended in those particular areas. they can be utilized in the general work that is part of the overall highway safety program. so it isn't going to be a situation as we saw similar to the private, the primary safety belt program under safety loop. but on the flipside of that notion, i think we all have to sort of recognize that the

congress in establishing the criterion for these particular grant programs, it isn't simply a conduit to distribute resources. part of the programs under the reauthorization years past in map-21 is to create an incentive pull to be able to have states undertake that legislative work necessary to make those improvements in overall highway traffic safety. so the goal is always to create, you know, a stretch goal which i think map-21 does as well as safety lou did and others. and i'll go back to one of those stretch goals, and your fine state was one of them that had achieved primary seat belt laws. you know, we picked up i think an additional 14, 14 primary belt states payoff the work of the 402 and safety lou. so stretch goals are good. while not every state may not immediately quaff for these, hopefully, there are changes that will be made in order to be

able to achieve those resources to use them as well. >> great. thanks, david. we have a couple minutes left. any questions from the audience, any burning issues that someone would like to weigh in on? let me -- >> there's one over there. >> with oh, okay. sorry. >> yeah, thanks. >> if you could just introduce yourself, sorry. >> yeah -- department of transportation. the president -- [inaudible] greater investment -- >> wait for the mic, please. >> sure. >> better? >> yeah. >> okay. the president's been steadfast in his support for greater investment in transportation infrastructure, and he renewed his call recently for that investment. and this, his most recent proposal really had two elements. one was the money, and the other was the policy which he termed fix it first, something we're all very familiar with. and so, naturally, not a lot of

optimism that we'll see the money, so my question's really related to the policy aspect of that, and that is do any of your agencies, are you spending any time thinking about this policy in any, you know, administrative actions or other activity you can engage in to support or encourage this fix it first idea? >> well, peter. >> i'm sure victor wanted to say something too, but the way you parsed your question was that the president articulated the policy and have we thought about fulfilling his vision. i'd like to put it a little bit more in the reverse, that it's policy we've been developing and working on for some time, and we're very pleased to see, hear the president articulate it. we've been working on fix it first for many years, um, and it was borne out if our budgets for the federal transit administration very early on. we did a report in the federal transit administration just to identify the deferred backlog for our major rail systems which

we identified as some $50 l billion. one of the senators that wrote a letter to the fta at the time asking or for that study was the junior senator from illinois, a guy named barack obama. so this was not developed in the last six months. um, secretary lahood instructed me to follow up on that study to do a broader university universe to carry the other rail providers and the bus group verse in which we identified a deferred backlog need of some $78 billion just to bring agencies not to an ideal state of good repair, but to, you know, an adequate level of condition. that has translated into our budgets every year under the obama administration. that has highlighted the state of good repair program. map-21 did precisely what we asked it to do, and that is to take our bus discretionary program and put it into is the state of good repair formula

program, a new program that states and agencies will be getting grants under. they did not increase the funding for the state of good repair as aggressively as the obama administration sought, but it is the right priority. so at least in the transit universe, map-21 did a number of things that we asked them to do. there's a new focus on asset management of transit assets, many of which have been funded with federal funds, so there'll be requirements on transit agencies that there haven't been before. there is new formula funding just for state of good repair, and then there's the funding we hope we will get as part of the fix it first initiative on top of that. so this has really been a continuum that we've opinion working on for some time. the added value is this: within the fta we're very proud of our program where we have built new services, new light rail lines in places like seattle and salt lake and dallas. dallas, actually, operates more miles of light rail than anyone in the united states now.

but the flipside of that is if we lose even just 2 or 3% of our ridership in the older systems like new york and boston and chicago and san francisco and here in washington, d.c. on the ramada system, if we lose 2% of that ridership because the state of good repair's not good, that the service is not reliable, that people have safety concerns about it, we will more than offset all of the ridership gains that we have will have gained from all of the new projects that we have built around the country. so if our overall goal is to grow transit riderrership for the quality of life, for the reduction if dependence on foreign oil, in order to release fewer greenhouse gases, all of the goals that the president has articulated, we can't just build new projects, we need to attend to the condition of our existing investments, the existing transit services all over the country. and that's where the fix it first nichive came from.

initiative came from. >> i'm actually going to ask victor to hold his response until the spring meeting in providence. [laughter] so you guys can all come back. i have a feeling that administrator huerta would really have loved to be here today. but let's join me in thanking our panel, our friends, our colleagues here. [applause] >> coming up next, a conversation on electronic payments made by the federal government. and the senate is in at 10 eastern. they'll work on a measure to authorize committee expenditures for the rest of the fiscal year. live senate coverage on c-span2. >> agriculture secretary tom vilsack will testify today about

the rural economy. he's expected to take questions on the farm bill and spending cuts. live coverage from the house agriculture committee begins at 10 a.m. eastern on c-span3. and later in the day also on c-span3, the house rules committee will take up a republican measure to fund the government through september of year. continuing resolution. live coverage at 3 p.m. eastern. >> starting this month most federal payments, including social security, will be made electronically. coming up, the deputy assistant treasury secretary for consumer policy discusses the changes. from the center for american progress, this is an hour, 15 minutes. >> good afternoon and welcome to the center for american progress. of my name is joe valenti, and i am the director of asset building here at the center.

today, march 1st, is a mile zone, and it's not the milestone in washington that has possibly received the most attention today. so i'd like to thank everyone for joining us for the end of cash. now, it is, perhaps, the second end of cash. just down the street at treasury headquarters, there's a room known as the cash room, and for decades the general public could bring government checks to this room and have them cashed. in 1976 the cash room closed, and it now serves as a ceremonial space. there is no cash in the cash room. as for today's end of cash, as part of the treasury department's transition toward electronic payments, most americans who receive payments from the federal government such as social security, supplemental security income or ssi, veterans' benefits and retirement benefits for federal employees will no longer be able to receive paper checks. they have two options; direct deposit to a bank account of their choice, or a few government-issued prepaid card called the direct education

press card. for many americans it's an easy choice. they have had bank accounts their entire lives is and just need to set up direct deposit, but it's a much tougher choice for the approximately 17 million adults in america who have no checking or savings accounts at all. these are what we call the unbank withed population. it's about 8% of all american households. and there's an additional 1 in 5 households in america that are underbanked meaning that they have bank account, but they also use nonbank financial servicers like check cashers and pawnshops. this is particularly true if we think about some of the population's most affected by today's change. if you think about social security benefits, nearly one million households age 65 or older are unbanked. nearly another three million are underbanked. about eight million american households earning less than $30,000 a year have no bank account, and nearly another ten million are underbanked. 30% of households earning less

than $15,000 a year are unbanked as they're 22% of all p unemployed people. so where do prepaid cards come in? they have enormous potential to bring millions of americans into the banking system with tremendous benefits; the ability to make purchases without carrying cash, to save money and time by avoiding check cashers and money orders, to pay bills electronically, to get cash there atms and at merchants, to live financial lives much like their counterparts who have bank accounts and debit and credit cards. and overall fees in this market are going down and features going up. a market that's now surprisingly mainstream. there are about three million people without trucksal bank accounts today who bank their money with prepaid cards, and among those households who once held bank accounts but don't anywhere, 27% use the prepaid card in 2011. as the center for american progress noted last november,

prepaid cards and bank accounts are converging. and as we told the fdic last year, this may mean adjusting who and what we consider to be unbanked. this may also mean that regulations should move towards treating prepaid cards like bank accounts. in some cases they already do. but these cards also have pitfalls. some cards on the market have high monthly fees or atm fees or fees for customer service. it's possible for consumers to easily be nickel and dimed on fees. indeed, as a recent report by the national consumer law center indicated, this is even true of some state governments that use prepaid debit cards to distribute unemployment benefits. so at its worst we have government dollars that should be going to their recipients that are instead siphoned off into the financial system. this could already happen with tax refunds as the center for american progress note inside a brief released earlier this week. i'd like to briefly introduce our panel.

melissa koide at the u.s. department of the treasury. in that role she covers financial access, financial education and consumer protection issues and serves as the executive director of the president's advise advisory council on financial capability. jeanne 40 garth is the vice president of policy at the center for financial services and innovation, an organization that seeks to improve the quality and quantity of financial products and services for the unbanked and underbanked. she was previously an economist at the federal reserve board. and david rothstein is project director or of policy matters ohio, an organization dedicated to building a more prosperous, equitable and inclusive ohio, and he will be peeking about his -- speak about his experiences in the field. at this point, i'd like to turn it over the melissa koide. ..

>> the other is what the cash room looks like today which is this beautiful, enormous, stately room and which we have many conversations like the ones we're having today about what the future of financial services holds. so it's great to be with you and it's fun to hear you point that out. as you heard i am a deputy assistant secretary for consumer policy at the treasury department. and my office is focused o on a number of issues related to consumer policy matters. i want to call out sensual it is quite a bit in remarks i give you this morning that we are

particularly interest in emerging trends in financial services. the role of technology and the use of data, and how those two developments are manifesting and affecting how consumers are interacting with their money. you hi will hear me talk a bit about that. so we at treasury -- in fact keeping much of a talk about this morning, finding creative ways to harness technology, to empower consumers with the ability to access native financial products and services, and also to better manage their money. technology presents an opportunity to develop not only new financial products and tools for consumers, but also the promise to help reshape the financial services industry in ways that are inclusive, safe and accessible. a system where the barriers to entry are low, and for consumer protections are consistent and effective. technology offers the promise of offers promising ways to safely

bring consumers financial products, transaction products, savings products to those who have traditionally been underserved. one shift that has had major applications for treasury is the move from paper checks to electronic payments. treasury has required the delivery of federal benefit payments electronically since 1999, subject to waivers with the goal of going all electronic, today is the date when we have met that goal. we think the time is right. compared to five years ago, americans are simply more comfortable with electronic payments. according to the federal reserve, 2010 payment study, there were 5.7 billion fewer checks written in 2009 as compared to 2006. electronic payments grew more than 9% during that same period. direct deposit has been available for decades, and has

proven to be easy, safe and convenient. in fact, more than nine out of 10 federal benefit against already choose to receive their payment through direct deposit. and for people who don't have a bank account, as you heard joe mentioned, when you have a direct express card as an option which is a prepaid debit card which was introduced by the treasury department in 2008. direct express provides a safe, convenient alternative to federal benefit checks. you don't need a credit check for a bank account in order to use the card to get into the card, and you can use the card, make payments and also access cash. we are giving away in favor of electronic payments because it's the right thing to do for benefit recipients, and we'll talk about that but it's also the right thing to do for american taxpayers. over a ten-year period of we are going to save $1 billion by

going electronic. millions of people have made the switch to direct deposit since today's deadline was announced. today, approximately 94.3% of federal benefit recipients are receiving their social security and supplemental income payment via the direct express card. that's up from about 85% from two years ago. beyond benefit payments would also sought to explore how to move to electronic payments, how that move to electronic payments could help to perhaps make the delivery of tax refunds safer, more efficient, and the financial inclusion tool. to that end i want to take a few minutes to share with you briefly some results from a tax pilot we've undertaken. each year, treasury males over 40 million individual income tax refund checks come each year. the majority of individuals are receiving those checks and searches and direct deposit and

having those refunds deposited into an account, those individuals are low and moderate income. in fact, 60% of those check recipients are making less than $30,000 a year. as part of her effort to replace all checks with electronic payment, and to test out the mechanism of offering an account aim specifically at the unbank tax pilot, treasury piloted offering families the option of having their tax refund direct deposited into a reloadable debit card, what we term the my account cart. a random sample of lower income families were given the option of receiving thei the refund ine my account carpet every household received one of six offerings. each account had a different feature that we predicted could influence rates. we tested accounts with features that these verses accounts that did not have peace. we tested accounts that had an attached savings account.

against accounts that didn't have savings, and we also tested two different messages. one was around safety, and one was around convenience. i'm going to share with you what we learned. the random samplings allowed us to understand who would be most interested in a tax time account, and really importantly, what account features would likely increase. so what did we learn? first we learn individuals living in a household that were likely to be unbank, were three times more likely than those individuals and households with bank accounts to apply for and be issued the card. second, we learned that females and people living in households with children were 45% and 35% respectively more likely to take up the card than males, than people living in households without kids. third, the pilot show that people living in households with very low income, those with

incomes of agi seeking thousand dollars or less was 17%, more likely to take up the card account offer than those with slightly higher income. fourth, the data showed is the presence of a monthly fee affected the discipline take out and the use of the account. specifically the $4.95 monthly maintenance fee reduced account applications by 42%. also those participants who are offered a card with a monthly fee versus those without the monthly fee used the card 50% fewer months and were 52% less likely to deposit their tax refunds into the account via direct deposit. so these data provide several lessons for anyone interested in thinking about expanding financial access through payment. first, the pilot indicated that it is a consumer appetite for some of these newer products. data showing that unbank, low

and moderate income households were significant more likely to apply for the tax timecard underscores the interest. second, we learned about product features matter. in this case, destruction of a large impact on update. taken together, these two findings suggest that developing the right product in fees and features is an important step in helping to unlock potential demand for these types of products. i believe the lessons from this pilot also serve to inform our continued effort to connect american households, particularly unbanked and lower and middle income households with safe, affordable products to meet their needs. the move to electronic payments have significantly altered the financial landscape, which i said, and at the same time innovation and technology, and also the use of data, is radically changing the personal finance experience. i want to talk little bit about

this. my office in particular is interested in exploring how mobile phone technology is transforming the way that we all interact with our money. from basic mobile banking to more novel innovations in payments and money management. the penetration of the smart phone in particular we think may present a real opportunity to help expand -- expand access to underserved consumers, and many of you may know this data but i'm going to give it to you for those who don't, in 2012 pew conducted a survey and in that survey they found 49% of african-americans and 49% of latinos over the age of 18 reported or owning a smartphone. at the same time more than one-third of households making less than $35,000 per year also reported owning a smartphone. the rate of smartphone adoption in this group is growing faster. a separate study found that unbank's consumers are more

likely to own smart phones than the rest of the population. which we think highlights a real potential for mobile technology to help reach underserved consumers. smartphone apps in fact maybe even the next frontier in providing financial decision-making tools that can be personalized to the individual. these apps often key off of data that help the app user make smarter real-time financial decisions and also make informed decisions and set goals that have been able to achieve over time. recognizing this potential, we at treasury have developed several initiatives using smart phones to encourage that as a tool for improving financial capability. one major effort last year that we undertook was the my money at a challenge and edit any of you in the room to try to say that five times fast. this was a contest where we offered her stomach treasure cash prizes for the best mobile app ideas and design to help

americans make more informed decisions. the challenge had two parts. the first was simply a solicitation, a contest, give us your best financial app i did you come up with in 140 characters or less. a second part of the competition was for a real comprehensive app design proposal. we received responses from folks all across the country and from all walks of life. so let me share a couple of the winning ideas, give you a flavor of some of these responses, and i think also some of the imagination that americans have about how they can use their phones for their finances. sense is the name of the app, third place winner. this app proposal help if they felt will help make managing student loans easier. and i know i would have appreciated having that. among other features, the app is going to allow the consumer to put all their student loans in one place so they can see what

they're paying. they can see their rates. but also within create a payoff plan that would sync with the individual's budget. and it would reduce, it would encourage the user to actually make more frequent payment ultimately reducing the interest that the consumer is paying on those loans. the idea that i have to note is my favorite, was one called -- this was the second place winner. and this is an app idea that would be aimed at helping low and moderate income benefit recipients to better manage their money and also achieve their financial goals. this app wouldn't able users to both creative budget and also connect directly with public benefits. i think of this app concept as a personal financial management tool, combined with a single stop public benefit portal. just imagine the value in the opportunity and the cost

savings, right, for government as those with individual for using that kind of online technology through the phone. and the winner of our app contest, thank you, was one called crazy money. which would create a game interface that helps user both track and control what we all need help with, their impulse spending, you're a developer called this crazy money. users of this app would create a game that would actually allow the individuals to define how much regular to spend. basically set monthly goals around that, and then, of course, using peer pressure, let their friends and family now what the goals are. of course, when the individual surpasses their crazy my expectations, friends and family find out about it and gives a little nudge here and there, rain again. so those are three of the examples ta