is the discussion right now, leaving a force, i think that is a smart move from a standpoint of creating some kind of continued relationship and longer-term stability. i don't know. obviously, i don't what the outcome is. i think understanding what the president karzai -- what is on president karzai's mind is very, very difficult. ..

on what's going on there. that was certainly, that is all generally presyria, which has been system an igniter for the whole resurgence of al qaeda including al qaeda in iraq. so i, i actually believe, and this goes back to how the military fit in, how does force fit in? i would like it to fit in as part of an overall strategy, there are political endeavors and military every endeavors, i feel that way about syria as well, that the political structure, the diplomatic structure needs to be there, not perfect but at least needs to be there that is committed to stopping the killing and getting

those, the camps of all those who are out of the country, getting the people back to their homes. then if the military need be a part of that, that's okay. i worry about, it is too easy to pick up a stick and do something and figure out what happens after the case. so i feel that way. i mean iraq, i saw the other day where there are discussions now about giving them assistance. i think that's a good opening. we know a lot of their leaders. so there is opportunity to do that and i certainly wouldn't want to see it fall apart. >> final question i'll ask. you were also chairman when president obama announced, secretary clinton perhaps, the pivot toish asia. i was in asia myself a couple months ago and i would say talking to friendly leaders there they sort of welcome the idea, i'm not sure they are convinced there is that much reality behind it. i was struck how nervous what

they were made see as fairly, unfairly sense of u.s. retreat and withdrawal elsewhere. remind me what happens in the middle east doesn't say in the middle east. people in other parts of the world what our red lines here in the east china sea or south chain sea. i'm curious. you spent a lot of time in asia and china obviously. your general sense what is happening there and with should be doing there? >> i visited last fall and i had same reaction from our friend in japan and south korea in particular, that there was, first of all, that the tension was much higher than i expected it to be particularly between japan and china. i've been to japan a lot and i heard nothing more, i didn't hear about anything else except china. and back to what i said earlier about focusing on the economies, that is an economic zone that feeds the world. it needs to be stable.

we've got obviously the second biggest economy in the world in china. i think it is the fourth in japan. we need to be engaged there. so i was very supportive of the rebalance, if you will. that said, middle east isn't going to go away. i think we're in for a, i don't know how long, 30, 40-year run here. i think one of the things we americans don't understand well enough what it is like to grow up in the middle east and to think about a single thing about every day you wake up, which is surviving whether you're in the village or whether you're in the palace and what that means and when we have these leadership changes that occur in these countries, whether it is libya, or iraq or yemen or in syria if that turns out, we sort of expect another leadership cadre to show up. they're not there because those leaders who are currently there killed them all or jailed them all or they're out of the country. that long-standing investment

that is create leaders and create institutions, and i think we need to be modest in terms of what we mean by democracy and taking steps towards democracy in terms of our expectations when changes like this occur. so the middle east isn't going to go away. the rebalancing i think is very important but i don't think we can do it and not continue to focus on the middle east. from a security standpoint, pentagon standpoint, it is my belief that is probably all the resources we'll have certainly in this downturn. it will turn, you look at budgets through decades it will turn around at some.but we'll knot have a lot of ability to focus on the continent of africa or latin america in next couple years. we're about year three of a 10-year cycle where the budget eventually comes back and we should stay engaged the best we

can but impact of those two centers is really important. our relationships with our friends in particular in the pacific, asia-pacific, our relationship with india, can we emerge in the future in a constructive way with china? i just did a completed a commission with, on energy security, having an energy security policy with dennis blair, mike hagee, dennis ross, john hannah and we haven't, we have an opportunity i think in the energy world to work with china as they become the biggest consumer in the world. we have found resources. the right word is energy abundance in the united states, not energy independence because we don't have enough to control the price of a barrel of oil. that's the middle east. that is going to be saudi arabia and or iran and or iraq, depending what happens in those countries in the future and what

happens with things like sanctions but we need to have a policy that, and a strategy that recognizes that. i think there's a great opportunity to help china that regard in the long run. the economic relationship with china, et cetera, we don't need to get into a fight with china. that doesn't mean it won't happen but that shouldn't be the objective. i think focus there is really important. brand new leader in china. brand new leader in south korea. brand new leader or second time around leader in japan and it's very, very tense. so it is a very worrisome, very worrisome and we need to stay engaged. as we isolate out of war, which is normal for us as a country, i think we need to be very careful about what we isolate ourself from. there's expectation out there that the united states lead and whether someone loves us or

hates us we have that expectation. if we're not meeting that, things are changing and i don't know that we can predict what the outcome will be except generally worse than, than it's been depending on what region of the world you're talking about. >> that is such an important message. there is a conceit in washington think tanks and such places we get to sort of choose where we would like to focus and like to not focus and middle east is kind of a difficult part of the world and why don't we liberate ourselves from that. tom donnelly broke in the "weekly standard" a couple weeks ago we may lose interest in the middle east but the middle east is not losing interest in us. it is, leftist people don't want to hear sometimes because it has implications about doing difficult things and keeping defense budgetses a little higher than we'd like and deploying troops abroad in difficult situations and i think it is important message for the

country. pete, you want to repeat a couple questions and we'll take -- pete has questions from virtual watchers around the country and then we'll take some questions from real people here. >> we promised them we would so. only a couple. then we'll open it up for sure. mr. chairman, the first is from robert from texas. he is active military down in texas and he said, we've got an issue when congress continues to buy m-1 tanks the army doesn't want or the cargo planes that the air force sends immediately to the boneyard. can congress police that situation? a way for the armed forces to assert themselves in spending reform? >> pete, as i listen to your agenda, one of the things i heard you talk about was acquisition reform. i could fill this room on studies on acquisition reform. >> you could empty this room quickly by talking about it for two or three hours. >> but it's a lot of money and,

i don't have any answer. i spent a lot of my life in the money and program world. it is incredibly difficult. i think it has to be done in congress. obviously the services have a great, critical part with respect to that as well. my own view is that we make things much more expensive because requirements creep over time. i think, i think just on the face of it, saying well let's detach a congressman or woman from their constituents in a certain program is pipe-dream. that is just not going to happen overnight. i have seen it however with persistent pressure over time and those would argue, there would be those that would argue it takes too long and it does but i've seen programs end. you have to keep that pressure on in terms of m-1 tanks or car go planes or c-17s was another example we had great arguments, debate, how many do we need, et cetera. you need to go through all that. just i think if we could

accelerate that process that would be good and i think make everybody, put everybody in a better place. but you can't disregard who we are as a country which that elected representative represents their people in their district and they are going to represent them. >> absolutely. senator mccain called the military industrial congressional complex which in many ways it can be. to that point on reform, acquisitions reform is difficult, and as a organization we obviously talk about defense spending reform because something we understand more intuitively, spending reform broadly, you mentioned entitlements and others obviously being preface to a lot of that, our belief you better be willing to police your own backyard before you go to others and police theirs. what are tangible ways veterans groups can find ways to cut fat. cutting fat spare muscle at dod the point isn't cutting the dod budget or getting rid of waste

and inefficiencies to provide the war fighter what he or she needs. we talked about auditing the pentagon. is something like that useful? what are steps groups can take besides acquisition reform? >> inside the pentagon there are really two things. one is the overhead piece has grown enormously on the order, about twice what it was 10 or 20 years ago. i can't remember exactly what the date was. we need to reduce that. it's just too easy to cut too and that's where people end up going. so we need to be, i think, and getting at the overhead piece is very, very hard. there are notion alley twice as many civilians working in the pentagon as there were 10 or 20 years ago. and so what happens, if you can't get at that, what happens is we cut size of the force. fully 50 to 60% of our fund are tied up in our people. so, if you're going to make

changes you have to go where the money is and the money's there. my view is the force will get a little smaller. i don't know how small. and i also hope it isn't just across the board, everybody take the same cut because we need to, we need to customize our force for the world we're living in. we need to be very careful about that. we need to learn lessons of these wars and not just, not incorporate them into the future. we have a bad history in this country of ignoring the lessons and just moving forward and starting all over again. we need what transsubmits or translates to the future and what doesn't. how much technology? how many people? what are the capabilitys? m-1, a-1 does it have any relevance? we thought it didn't have any relevance in these wars and went downtown baghdad and then it was pretty relevant. all of that, there is no easy answer here. but i would start with the overhead. bob gates and i and others

worked on quote, unquote efficiencies, the system revolts when you do that. i tell a story, gordon england came in, i was budget officer for the navy. gordon england said we'll cut 10,000 civilians out of the navy. i took the money out and three years later we were down one civilian. so because, because there are senior civilians who have worked there their whole life. they understand the system and they're great people but it's how do you get at solving that kind of problem? and it's very, very tough. >> questions? yes, sir. >> wait for the mic. back there i think, this gentleman. >> good morning, admiral. patrick wilson from the babcock and wilcox company. my question is there is much written recently about a coming war between the active force and

the national guard and reserves and i know, i've seen a statistic, the national guard reserve is 27% of the dod budget but 40% roughly of deployment days. what do you think is ahead in this battle between reserve force and active duty with fewer resources, smaller blanket, if you will? how do you think the reserve forces are going to fare? >> one might think as a sailor i had no preparation for dealing with the national guard and reserve and active forces but actually having handled the marine corps money in aviation my whole life in the budget it, it's all about money in the end so i actually had some background in this. i worked hard as chairman to bring these groups together and bring leaders together routinely. i actually was really disturbed in the story that i saw, i think it was the post-on -- post on the 17th of december talking

about airplanes not surprisingly. think leaders in all organizations active guard and rehave to figure out what's the future hold? i worry about hanging on to the past because eventually you will do yourself in. as money gets tighter i worry a great deal about that fight separating the ises. then it gets solved, it gets solved in congress. if you want, back to my navy and marine corps piece, i didn't want congress solving that problem for me. i wanted to solve it as head of the navy or budget officer and then eventually head of the navy with jim conway and then mike hagee and jim conway who i worked for. the other thing when we do that constantly we're just training our kids, when they grow up they don't know any other behavior so it perpetuates itself. there is a rich history here. i think the answer is more efficient, doesn't cost as much is overstated. we would be nowhere in these

wars without the guard and reserve. believe me i know that they have been incredible. their rotations have been more than they expected. at the same time i think it is going to slow down. so the leadership has to focus on this. i worry about spokesmen from the past saying if you will, this is the answer. i think everybody's got to be all-in to solve these difficult budget issues, as opposed to creating great fissures inside of a service or between the army and the guard and the air force and the guard because if we do that those that actually get to solve the problem, have the money. they write a check and drive a 18 wheeler right through that gap and nobody wins in the long run. >> john? here. then we'll go back there. >> thank you, bill and pete and thank you admiral for your remarks. going back to your original

topic about the budget my question is twofold. was sequestration a good or bad idea, number one? and second, with the influx of people on medicaid under the affordable care act, can we say the affordable care act, obamacare in shorthand is actually enhancing the entitlements that you say should be reformed. >> no, let me go to the second part first. i'm not smart enough on the impact of it. actually one of the areas that i just as soon stay out of is obamacare. one, i'm not very smart on it. i obviously read a lot about it. and, secondly i think, we are just finding out in execution what it really is. so i think predicting what the impact will be in terms of retire, health care for those men and women who serve and those who retire, i just don't

know. that said, back to my experience in the budget world, the numbers as i recall, the amount of, amount of money in the dod budget in 2001 was 19 billion. in 2011 i think it was 51 billion. it is going to 65 billions with the last number that i had in 2015. it is just not sustainable. i used to say we would have a very healthy small force because, it just keeps going through the roof. and it is very difficult. obviously i testified and supported an increase in copays for years. in terms of those who could afford it, we can means test that but we need to do that we're trading off the size of our force. we're trading off the capabilities of our force for, for billions of dollars of health care. it's good health care. i'm not arguing that. and then how that fits into

where we're going as a country other than costs continue to rise, i'm just, i'm not sure. and -- >> sequester. >> good or bad idea. >> actually as you said that it is almost, the silver lining of sequestration was that spending was reduced. i hated it. i know what that does inside a service in terms of the impacts. and people, the financial, you know the green eye shade men and women, they start pulling back money far before anybody really knows it because they don't have any kind of certain outcome. they don't know where we're going. and so, yes, we have a budget now, a budget agreement where there isn't going to be sequestration at least for a year i think but i can tell you inside the services and inside the pentagon nobody knows where this is going. our budget that's over there

now, the 15 budget was based on the '14 budget which was based on a continuing resolution from fiscal year '12 with no concern. if you're trying to plan well, we have nothing to plan against. downside in terms of uncertainty was just incredible. the other thing, and i do worry about this, and pete, i would be interested in your view where this goes, after every war we lose really good people. i worry a great deal about losing our best young sergeants, staff sergeants and junior officers after these wars, particularly as the economy improves, they're going to leave. we can't afford to do that. we need to keep the best that we have in the military, if you will. not just numbers but quality has got to be there. so there are, and sequestration, when it went into execution we

were halfway through the fiscal year. so notionally half the money is gone. you have to go where the money is. where do you get it? you take it out of training. you're not flying airplanes, driving ships or running up tank miles if you will in training. these young jos are sitting there, i signed up to go fly or i signed up to go to sea and they're saying, this isn't right. they can't maintain their systems. and that is the easiest place to get money and it has, it has retention impact that i think we don't really understand. so i'm not a fan of sequestration although i think getting our arms around somehow reducing the spending was important. the worrisome, worrisome thing about me is, there were extremes from both parties that sort of met on the other side if you will and found common ground to put that in effect. one to reduce spending and happy to take it from the pentagon and

that isn't the bipartisan approach that i grew up with. it needs to be on this side of the world, the more reasoned side of the world, not the extreme side from my perspective. >> my sense is the military or defense department didn't do as good a job as they might have and when i learned more about it, how much damage operationally to have the cut. you can take 20 billion or $30 billion out of budget but do it incredibly arbitrariry way sequestration did it, i got understanding talking to people in armed services committee and talking to people in the pentagon on that. it is easy to say let's cut some of the fat and that is not how it works with readiness and retention. >> mechanisms how we spend money are arcane, so you lose interest in about the third sentence you're trying to explain this to somebody they're just not interested.

but the real impacts on people's lives and who we are as a military are there instantly when you go after that money. >> over there. young lady there. >> good morning. christie kaufman, executive director of code for support foundation which is dedicated to bridging the civilian military divide. i had a question for admiral mullen about balance of philanthropy and government what are the challenges for that. we find that to do the full spectrum of resources across the country. it typically takes us anywhere five to 10 organizations, both public and private to cover down on one family. much you talked a lot about that sea of good world. wonder how you see the balance play out? >> so i did talk about america moving away from those who servedded because the war is over, et cetera.

and i do see see the sea of good will filled with great americans, who lead organization, 501(c)(3)s, in local governments throughout the country and figure out how to do this. it is my view we have tens of thousands organizations that are all chasing the same dollar we need to consolidate efforts and that's hard. compassionate figure in their organization how to incorporate other leaders from other organizations focused in the same way and reduce the overall overhead with respect to that and have impact of the dollars that are out there. once you get into the philanthropy as i have a little bit, there's a lot of it. there are a lost causes. i understand that. how does the veterans, how does the veterans piece of this fit in? so, what i do speak to, and i, the colonel that used to work

for me a guy named dave sutherland, who started the dixon center here in town and singularly focused on these kind of issues. i don't think there is anybody in the country that knows more about this space than he does per se but it is consolidation we see now. to give you a specific example, we actually convened a group of 501(c)(3)s that focus on scholarships for kids, military kids, et cetera. there were 30 or 40 organizations there. there were some organization that is had nothing but money and couldn't figure out how to give a scholarship. there were some organizations had nothing but scholarships and didn't have money to give it. i know a lot of these people, how do we get them to work together? that was the idea. you can do that in education. you can do that in health care. you can do that in employment. you can do that in all kinds of things. you can do that in licensing. so how to -- leaders in the community and leaders of these charitable organizations which are so great need to figure out

how to help us get to some consolidated level. >> thanks. yes? >> thank you for taking -- >> gets on here. jane horton. she is gold star wife. again, want to say -- [applause] thanks for all you're doing and sacrifice you and your husband made for our country. i promised you before, we'll never ever forget. >> thank you. >> now ask me an easy question. >> that means the world to me and thank you for your support of the gold star community. because you got a little personal i will say, admiral mullen came to my husband's burial which meant the world to me at arlington. one of the my favorite things you write about is the civilian

military divide of the as a war widow it is something very close to me trying to relate to a world that as america, at peace, military at war, civilians can't relate to any of us and there's a huge divide there. i wanted to ask you as the war comes to an end, how you think, got me a little emotional here, i apologize, but how you think that you can close that divide in some ways we can work on that as well? >> one of the things that i learned as a senior officer was a little more particularly in war, about our culture and so the reason what jane is doing and others who are working to support gold star families is because i found that our culture is a culture of, if you are here, we love you. if you are not, please carry on, whatever it is and the best and worst example of that were gold star families.

we found, my wife debra in particular who would meet when we would visit posts with gold star families and i would as well, found that the support for them was stunningly thin because the main line of connection was the military member who passed away. so we tried to keep focus on that. jane and others also positioned, have now put themselves in positions to remind us to make sure that we don't ever forget those who paid that ultimate sacrifice. but that disconnect that talk about is very real and i was a vietnam, i am a vietnam vet. so i grew up in a draft. i remember all of that and how bad it was to, one, be disconnected from the country in terms of being politically blamed for the war and secondly, the quality of the force was almost not comparable.

i'm not taking anything on. i was part of it but compared to the quity of force that we have today, it's night and day. all volunteer. we come from fewer and fewer places. we braced out of northeast, for example. some people cheered about that. we're out of neighborhoods. we're not teaching in schools. we're not coaching teams. we're not going to church. people in the northeast don't know us anymore for example. there is a good reason we did that but that's overhead i think sometimes you have to pay as opposed to become more and more isolated. when you get to these wars i worry that america has paid us very well, the compensation's good. please go off and fight our dirty little wars and let us get on with our lives. i think we, we need one of the lessons i learned is, we need to figure out a way to get america to buy into those, into them. i don't know, i don't have an answer for that. i get asked about a draft. i'm not a fan of going back to a

draft but i am a fan of creating, if you will, national service for every 18 to 24-year-old for two years because i just haven't seen an 18-year-old that hasn't benefited from that kind of service and commitment. then they can get on with their lives. so i'd like the effects of a draft. meaning it affects everybody. i would like to keep the quality up. and that's a challenge. so it's, it's a real, for me it's a real inflection point in terms of how we do this in the future. but if the military gets, i think outcome of the military becoming more and more isolated from the american people is a disaster for america. >> maybe on that note, since we are out of time i think it is appropriate to let jane to have the last question and really end on that note and one reason we've been pleased to partner with concerned veterans because of this concern because they're not active duty anymore, most of them.

i think -- and but they are trying to be so active in public life both on veterans affairs and on public affairs in general i think cva is doing a great job to try to tie together a little more a worrisome between those who have served on one hand and rest of us who observe from afar. i want to thank you so much for taking time to be here and thank you all for coming. [applause] >> california governor jerry brown delivers his state of the state address today.

we'll bring you his remarks from the state capitol in sacramento live at noon eastern, here on c-span2. and later, governor nicky hayley of south carolina delivers her fourth state of the state address. we'll bring you live coverage from the statehouse in columbia at 7:00 p.m. eastern, also here on c-span2. russia says it is planning the tightest security in the history of the olympics as it prepares to host the winter games in sochi next month. tuesday the center for strategic and international studies hosted an event on security concerns at this year's games. here's part of that discussion. >> one, and you've heard a lot of discussion of this in the russian press recently in terms of the capacity of the security services. they're essentially structured differently from the way that security services in the west are structured. their main goal is regime security rather than public security let's say.

and obviously with a high-profile, very politically significant event like the olympics those two things are connected but nevertheless i think that the goal of the security state that putin presides over, indeed that of which putin came is very much directed more at insulating the regime from pressures coming from outside rather than it is towards securing the public in general and i think one of the challenges that that apparatus faces in the context of the olympics is trying to make that pivot to do more of a public security role precisely because of the political importance it has and i don't know about the capacity to do that. the second point that i would just emphasize here, and this is something we haven't talked about but i think it's really important in a lot of context related to the olympics is corruption. the discussion in russia has, a lot of, in the lead-up to the games really focused on this

element, on the amount of money that has been misappropriated, misplaced, gone into dodgy contracts and offshore bank accounts. by almost all accounts these will be the most expensive olympic games ever, upwards of $50 billion. as much of a third of that may have simply been embezzled and stolen. what does all this have to do with security? i think operationally the security services can be supremely effective but they're only in the macro sense as effective as their weakest link and in a lot of cases the weakest link is corruption. if you think about some of the successful attacks that have been carried out in russia over the last decade or so, one that really, is really striking i guess is the, when two female chechen suicide bombers blew up russian aircraft in about, i want to say 2007 or so.

i don't remember exactly. >> 2004. >> yeah, okay. essentially what happened was these women bribed their way through security checkpoints. they bribed the guards at the airport to let them on to the planes even though, you know, they didn't, they hadn't gone through the proper procedures. they weren't searched. then they detonated suicide bombs when they were on board. so, you know, the system can be set up in a way that's designed to focus on these kind of threats but it only takes one person, one, you know, corrupt guard who is willing to look the other way in exchange for a bribe of one kind or another to have the entire thing come apart and very successful attack be pulled off and i think that's one of the real unknowns as we think about how secure the olympics are going to be. >> you can watch all of our programs in our video library including this event on security at the sochi olympics. go to c-span.org.

>> now, the head of the federal transit administration testifies before the senate banking committee about public transportation programs including a map-21, a law that fund is surface transportation programs through fiscal 2014. this is 90 minutes. >> this hearing will come to order. today the banking committee seeks to review how public transportation in the federal programs that assist our nation's transit providers have advanced since the current service transportation law, map-21, was enacted in 2012. this committee worked well together on 9 transit appropriations of map-21 and look forward to continuing our

committee's bipartisan work on public transportation issues. reliable and accessible public transit is vital in rural areas like south dakota just as it is vital in large cities. our transit systems connect workers with employers, keep cars off congested roads and get people where they're going safely. the public transportation title developed by the banking committee for map-21 made many important changes to federal transit programs. map-21 provided authority to the federal transit administration to institute a much-needed national framework for safety oversight, a transit emergency relief program, that is helping new york and new jersey transit

agencies recover from superstorm sandy and in the country map-21 provided new funds to 83 tribes across the nation to help them deliver safe and reliable transit services to one of the most underserved segments of the u.s. population. our focus today will be on the implementation of map-21 but we can not overlook the state of the highway trust fund. the mass transit account is expected to reach the end of map-21 on september 30 with only a very small deposit on balance and the highway fund could face a short fall by late summer. without congressional action both accounts will be unable to support current program funding

levels as to map-21 expires. federal transportation investment this year and beyond depend on this ability of the trust fund. the banking committee will be working with the environment and public works commerce and finance committees and in the coming months to advance legislation to succeed map-21 but we must first review progress under the current law. today we will hear directly from fta on how they implemented map-21. i look forward to hearing details about fta's strategies to improve safety and asset measurement practices while minimizing any new administrative costs for grantees, particularly small and rural transit providers.

the committee will also hear about how map-21's changes to project development in program structure are proceeding. finally, the committee will examine issues that teo has profiled in its research such as the need for coordination of the local level to ensure that deferred federal programs that assist local transportation services are working together effectively. now i turn to senator crepe toe -- senator crapo for his opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. in july 2012 congress passed and president obama signed into law the moving ahead for progress in the 21st century act known as map-21 which authorized transportation programs through september 30, 2014. since then enenactment of this legislation the federal transit

administration, or fta, has been working to implement its transit provisions. at this point map-21 programs are authorized for only another eight 1/2 months. today we'll hear from witnesses on implementation of map-21's transit provisions. some of the provision that is are of interest to me, map-21 provided fta with new authority in the area of transit safety while public transportation is one of the most safe modes of transportation, i look forward to an update what progress has been made to improve passenger safety. i also want to understand how fta is approaching this issue. in idaho and other states many transit providers operate in rural areas and with very small staff, often only one to two or three people. it's important that new rules be tailored in a way that is not unduly or disproportionately burdensome to smaller or rural systems especially as rural transit has a good safety record. rural transit age is in idaho

and elsewhere provide vitally important transportation services. for example, they facilitate transportation for the elderly and persons with disabilities to medical appointments and low income individuals to jobs. if new regulations are burdensome it will be harder for providers to deliver service. map 21 also directed the fta to establish a national traps sit asset management system to aid in understanding and assessing the condition of public transportation systems. public transportation simply can not be captured with a one-size-fits-all approach. there are many different types of transit systems and great deal of diversity with respect to the needs of each system in our nation. i look forward to hearing how fta intend to implement the asset management provisions. i hope that the level of detail that transit providers will be required to provide to fta will be practical and not excessive.

for rural systems recording on age and mileage of the vehicle could be enough. understanding where the fta is implementing map-21 when we begin to consider reauthorization later this year. i recognize short term extension don't allow predictability and security that a longer term authorization can, however as federal dollars are collected for transportation and have fallen below our expenditures it is no secret that the most difficult issue to be considered during the next reauthorization is how to refinance our transportation needs going forward. this include finding a meaningful fix to serious inadequacies of the highway trust fund. map-21, a bill with just over two years of authorization, was financed using 10 years of pay-fors. we must be very careful with what we do with respect to financing this bill in the future. again, i think thank our witnesses for being here. i look forward to their

statements and i thank you, mr. chairman, for your attention to this issue? >> thank you, senator crepe pe. are there any other members would i can like to give a brief opening statement or submit a statement? >> mr. chairman i would like to submit a statement to the record and that echoes your questions and senator crapo's questions about the adequate funding of the transportation account and highway trust fund. thank you, mr. chairman. >> anybody else? i would like to remind my colleagues that the record will be open for the next seven days for additional statements and any other materials. now, i would like to introduce our witnesses. peter rogoff is the administrator of the federal transit administration. david wise is the director of physical infrastructure issues at the government accountability office. i would like to, i would look forward to the testimony of both

witnesses. mr. rogoff, please proceed with your testimony. >> thank you, chairman johnson, members of the committee. thank you for this opportunity to discuss the federal transit administration's progress in implementing the new map-21 law. across the united states transit ridership is on track to exceed 10 billion trips annually for the 7th year in a row and transit use has shown marked growth in nine of the last 11 quarters. this is a remarkable milestone now more than ever americans in cities, suburbs and rural communities are something for more transit, not necessary. they are seeing the benefits of spending less money on gasoline and less time in traffic. and at the state and local level citizens continually voting to tax themselves to help finance new transit services in their communities. the map-21 law championed by this committee on a bipartisan basis a game-changer that puts the fta on the road to delivering transit better, more efficiently in communities nationwide. it has been called a two-year

authorization bill that contains seven years of policy changes and i think that's about right. not since enactment ever the ictea law have there been substantive policy changes to the statutes. it is complex. it has 27 new and updated rule-makingsings 14 new and revised circulars, 17 separate reports to congress. at fta we have an active an engaged team and aggressive timetable to implement the law and while much work remains we made significant progress despite impact of 2013 continuing resolution of 5% cut to administrative budget as a result of sequester and furlough that kept 95% of fta's employees from working more than half a month. let me begin with safety. i think this, i thank this committee for working in such a bipartisan way to provide fta with the tools, administration requested to establish minimum common sense safety standards for public transportation. we are making good progress. we reached out to state safety

oversight agencies in 30 states so they understand what's needed to enforce new safety guidelines consistently and free of any conflicts of interest. in october we issued a very comprehensive advanced notice of proposed rule making on both safety and transit asset management. we were not required by map-21 to combine these two rule making we did so quite deliberately to send a signal to stakeholders keeping a transit system safe as possible goes hand in hand with adequately managing and maintaining their physical assets. the transit agency faces 86 billion-dollar backlog in system preservation needs and we're under investing in that need by about $2.5 billion a year. when it comes to our new safety authorities in map-21 we fully recognize a one-size-fits-all approach will not work. effective and affordable safety improvements for the new york city subway system will be very different than those that will improve the safety of bus operations at topeka metro in kansas. our entire approach to our new

safety regulatory authority is focusing on adding value and keeping a safe industry safe. we are rejecting a approach that is just add unnecessary costs and bureaucracy. as it relates to our new starts small starts program since 2009 fta has executed 26 multiyear construction grant agreements. 100 percent of the completed projects on this list were on time and on budgets. the rest are very much on track to do so. under map-21 we have continued to cut red tape and streamline the program. for example, just recently we introduced a new software tool enabling some communities to reduce from two years to two weeks the time needed to develop ridership forecasts on planned projects. this new tool could save taxpayers in some communities as much as a million dollars. because of the constraint on time, we have obviously made huge progress on the emergency relief program this committee authorize ad new emergency relief program as requested in our budget just in time for hurricane sandy. since i already testified to

this committee at length on hurricane sandy i'm going to save that part of my testimony for later. importantly i do want to put out a word of warning consistent with what the chairman said as it relates to the balances of the mass transit account of highway trust fund. at the time map-21 was enacted cash balance of the trust fund was thought to be sufficient to last us through the enof this fiscal year. as i sit here today i can't be sure this will be the case. we have very similar worries for our colleagues at the federal highway administration whose trust fund account is rapidly approaching insolvency. we're working with the treasury department to update assumptions in the president's budget when it is submitted. importantly just yesterday secretary fox announced his plan to post on the dot website the monthly updates will show america how soon our trust fund will start bouncing checks to our highway departments and transit agencies. mr. chairman i look forward to

work with the committee as we strife to make a better transit future under map-21 a reality and as we work to shore up our trust funds. this concludes the testimony and happy to answer any questions at a later time. >> thank you, mr. wise, you may proceed. >> chairman johnson, ranking member crapo and members of the committee i'm pleased to be here today to discuss gao's recent work on transit issues. millions of passengers use transit services on daily basis and many local transit agencies providing these services receive federal funding. the federal government plays a key role in supporting public transportation with map-21 providing $10.5 billion in fy 13 and 14. map-21 did not address long term funding concerns it addressed number of issues. emphasizing restoring and replacing aging infrastructure, consolidating some programs and grants, and streamlining project development evaluation and delivery. my statement today describes our recent work on three related

transit issues. addressing long-term funding challenges, improving capital investment decision-making in regards to maintenance and expansion of transit systems and coordinating transit services among various federal and state or local agencies. federal fund available for the fta's transit programs come from two sources, the u.s. treasury's general fund and the mass transit account of the highway trust fund. both these sources face challenges. currently congressional budget discussions raised issues about the level of general fund federal spending. another significant funding challenge is the declining revenue of the highway trust fund. revenues into the fund have eroded over time in part because federal fuel tax rates have not increased since 1993 and in part because of improvements in vehicle fuel efficiency. the cbo estimated in may 2013 that to maintain current spending levels plus inflation, between 2015 around 2022 the fund will require over $132 billion more than it is expected to take in over that

period. about 35 billion of that amount would be in the transit account. to maintain current spending levels and cover revenue shortfalls, congress transferred more than $50 billion in general revenues to the fund since fy-2008. this approach may not be sustainable given competing demand and federal government's growing fiscal challenges. for this and other reasons, funding surface transportation remains on gao's high-risk list. some our recent work describes how sound investment decisions can help transit agencies use federal funds more efficiently. map-21 requirements to transit agencies to use asset management are consistent with our analyses. for example, our 2013 report recognized many nearly of 700 public transit agencies struggle to maintain their bus and rail assets in good repair. we reported that to help prioritize transit investments much transit agencies would benefit from estimating effects of those decisions. however of nine transit agencies

we visited only two measured effect of transit investments on condition of certain transit assets. further none of the agencies measured effect on future ridership in part because they lack tools to determine those effects. accordingly we recommend fta conduct additional research to help transit agencies measure capital investments and impact on fault ture ridership. to improve public transportation transit agencies may ruse capital funding available through fta's new and small starts program. an example is bus rapid transit whereby transit age is seek to improve service and encourage economic development at a cost relatively less than rail. we found that the median cost for the 30 brt and 25 rail transit projects we examine i had from october 2005 to february 2012 were $36 million and $576 million respectively. while many factors may contribute to economic development, officials in cleveland, ohio, told us an estimated four to $5 billion had been invested in near the health

line brt project, associated with major hospitals and universities in the corridor at about 1/3 the cost of a comparable rail project. while essential in the constrainedded funding environment effective transit coordination can be challenging. in our 2012 report for services for transportation disadvantaged populations we found that 80 different programs in eight agencies fund a variety of transportation services related to education, employment, medical, and other human services. we concluded that improved federal leadership and guidance for furthering collaboration efforts could improve the coordination of transportation services among state and local providers. fta has made some progress in enhancing coordination for this population. according to fta officials as a result of map-21 the agency has been updating program guidance and issued draft program circulars for a number of relevant programs. in addition, fta continues to support federal programs that play an important role in helping those populations by providing funds to state and

local grantees that in turn offer services either directly or through private public transportation providers. chairman johnson, ranking member crapo and members of the committee. this concludes my statement. i would be pleased to answer any questions at this time. >> thank you all for your testimony. as we begin questions i will ask the clerk to put five minutes on the clock for each member. mr. rogoff, last fall fta asked for extensive input from the public transportation industry on the new transit safety and asset management framework. the committee has heard from many bus providers that requirements for safety and asset management should be closely tailored to their size and state d.o.t.s should be allowed to rural bus systems with all reporting. how is fta utilizing feedback

from providers to ensure that new safety and asset management framework will not take resources away from delivering transit services? >> thank you, mr. chairman. we share the concern on the risk, or the pitfall, if you will of stumbling into a regime where we're adding a bunch of brock i bureaucracy just distracts operators for their core mission we're calling them to do and that is move people. we have been careful and crafted a number of questions in our anp-prm to solicit industry input and we're currently digesting hundreds of comments we have gotten from all sectors of the industry. but we're keenly aware we gain nothing by creating a big paper tiger here that doesn't add value. if we do this right, the transit operators at the local level

large, and especially small will see the value that comes from these reporting requirements and reflecting on their safety profile. it is worth remembering that in the initial transit safety legislation that the obama administration submitted to this committee, we had planned to focus on rail exclusively at the beginning. that is still our focus. the committees went another way in terms of doing a broad brush approach that captures both the rail industry as well as the bus-only operators but we certainly plan to taylor that to -- tailor that to the cape abilities of those operators. importantly a lot of work in this area will be guided by our safety advisory committee which was a formal advisory committee set up by secretary la hood when we first transmitted our legislation to congress. we're now going in the wake of

map-21 to recruit bus-only operators on that committee to advise us going forward. we'll not do this in some vacuum in washington, d.c. as someone who puts forward taxpayer dollars in large percentages to especially to small and rural operators we have absolutely no incentive to see the dollars distracted by bureaucracy and not into service. >> good. a question for david wise and peter rogoff. gao has reported on the difficulty in coordinating transportation for transportation disadvantaged individuals and providing -- services. could you both offer thoughts and on why coordination is such a problem and what are the next steps for improving coordination between federal programs,

particularly with medicaid which is estimated to spend between one and $3 billion annually on non-emergency medical transportation? mr. wise, your thoughts first. >> thank you, mr.-- thank you, mr. chairman, for that question. . . >> we feel that has been -- fta

has made good-faith efforts in is making progress. it is ver is a difficult probleo deal with especially in the rural states, like south dakota and like idaho because people are just scattered over a very small populations over very large areas. we had some long discussions with both the native american tribes about how difficult it is to try to arrange these kind of things because the agencies as you mentioned in your opening statement are buried underresourced, have only made a couple of people working in them. the distances are fast. the weather conditions are harsh. the population is very impoverished, and to see a medical specials might mean a trip of 120 miles. there's some real challenges in doing this which makes the issue of coordination all the more important all throughout the country. >> what i would add to that, it

is a problem, coordination has been a problem identified at the federal level for some time and it is getting better. we certainly have room to improve. we have been successful in boosting the number of mobility managers, bring these people together and helps professionalize the effort at the local areas to ensure that we are getting the maximum value out of all of the taxpayer-funded and, in fact, charitably funded vehicles that are available. we still have the problem of stovepipe rules agency by agency. mr. weitz is correct. medicaid is sort of the big dog in the room in terms of the dollars a put into it but obviously they have very strict rules to ensure that the medicaid transportation dollar only goes for the hospital or medical visit and can be used for a visit to shopping or to church. and we need to figure out a way to continue to improve on the levels of coordination. you asked why is this such a

problem. part of it is federal stovepipe which i think we're doing a good job of carrying away. we need to recognize there are local social service agencies, state action council on aging. many multiple different players here, different dollars, different roles and we just need to stay about the business, especially as the rural community becomes more elderly going forward to do a better job at turning away the stovepipes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. it's evident you and i both come from very real states because you just use up a couple of my questions. [laughter] i will get into then in a little more detail though. mr. rogoff, one of the questions, the chairman's first question that with the safety and asset management india with road communities and small systems. i appreciated your answer with regard to the fact that you are aware of the difficulties that could be placed on small systems

in rural communities but a one size fits all regulation, intended to be focused on a large system. but i just want to be very clear. my understanding, you say that as you move forward for final rules, that there is the capacity for distinction so that we don't -- we won't face the fact that our small rural operations will have to face the same regulatory requirements in terms of scope, the larger operations will. >> you have my assurance on the. as i said, it would be foolish to do otherwise. you pointed out yourself, we have operators that run with very few people, relatively few vehicles and are the result, extremely inefficient and the services they provide.

we definitely are coming at this from, if it's not broken don't fix it approach. we do look at this from a, how are you going to add value? and going to be advised by those very small and medium-sized operators to ensure that we do it in which is why we started witwithin anpr am asking these questions rather than take a first draft at regulatory requirements. we really need to gather the data and get their take on where they think we can add value. >> you also in your answers got into the issue of basically the decision-making on what priorities would be on first that i think you stated that rail would be exclusively focused on at the outset. but we're going to get into moving forward with the

remainder of map-21 implementation. and i guess my question is how do you prioritize the remainder of the application requirements? how and in what order are you preceding? >> let me be clear on what i was saying about safety. because of the risks, and want to take all of this, bring a risk based approach to all of our works on safety, the administration focused principalprincipal ly on rail because that's what the greatest risk is. and while the legislation goes in a somewhat different direction involving safety plans from everybody, we will still be putting the majority of our focus on the risk in high-speed rail. and and right-of-way work of the towers and things like that. as it relates to prioritizing regular products writ large across all of map-21, we started first with the raiders were rules that would apply pashtun

regulatory rules that would apply, the largest number of passengers an in what would be e most substantive policy change. we did a lot of this through instruction on our notice and through guidance because in order to put the 2013 money to work under the new rules, we didn't have time to go through a long regulatory process. but things like our multibillion dollar for the program for all the entire country, we wanted to make sure that those went out under the new map-21 rules. we've had dozens of webinars and consultations with the agencies so they not just work. some of the new authorities that were not apply to either large chunks of money or a large number of operators have had to wait so that we can, if you will, capture as much of the thrust of map-21 in the early appeared as we can. >> thank you. and mr. wise, in the discussion

you had with chairman, you did have a discussion with the chairman on the coordination issues as we move forward. ngo's report on coordination highlight the fact that the total federal spent on services for transportation disadvantaged populations remains unknown because federal departments did not separately track spending for roughly two-thirds of the program as identified by gao. why is this the case and why is there such a problem in tracking this spending? >> thank you for the question. the problem really lies in that these agencies, transportation is not -- it's not the major component of what they do. so as a result some of these costs get mixed in with other programs and they just don't -- their accounting systems are not set up in way you can extract these costs separately and get a good handle on what it's costing them for transportation. just as an example, the

department of health and human services medicaid program will reimburse states that provide medicare beneficiaries with bus passes. among other transportation options to act as eligible medical service. it's not clear he delineated within their accounting system so we are not able to get a full handle on exactly how much is being spent for transportation but it's a significant amount. i think as i think as mr. rogoff pointed out, asked the population continues to age of these things will become more important in terms of their budgetary impact. >> thank you. mr. chairman, i do have some more questions but i will submit them for the record. >> senator reid. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. first, mr. wise, let me commend you and your colleagues for your always thoughtful and careful analysis. this is no exception today. and peter rogoff is someone i've had the privilege of working with on the appropriations committee and then as the federal transit administrator are cute and a superb job, so much so that you were named as the acting undersecretary for policy i believe.

i think he made a very wise judgment and he is demonstrating his very effective leadership already. so i commend the secretary also. just two basic questions. mr. rogoff, can you give us some ideas of the impacts if we do not move in a timely fashion to restore funding in a mass transit account? what's going to happen and when is it going to start happening? >> we have always come out this, i shouldn't say always but in recent years we've determined that roughly the appropriate balance that we need to maintain in the transit account of the trust fund is $1 billion, on the highway side it's about $4 billion for the highway account. both the federal highway administration and the federal transit administration have plans on file on how we would manage cash in the event of balances falling below that level. within the federal transit administration it involves sometimes reimbursing a lower

percentage on the dollar. so someone is ready for reimbursement for 100% of an expenditure already made and we may only be in position to reverse them 490 or 80%. another approach may involve for those that can handle the load, holding bills until the time that we have cashed in our coffers. my concern, and i know the secretaries concerned, it's not what will happen when we actually reach that point, but what happens in the months leading up to that point when it becomes quite clear that we are heading to a place where we will not be able to guarantee full reimbursement. and what does that mean for either the state highway commissioners or the transit agencies that need to make capital investment decisions right in the heart of the construction season? and what dampening effect will that have on keeping people to work, putting the people to work, and also making the

improvements that are highway drivers and transit users need, which is why he is sounding the alarm as he is, making this information available on our website and starting this dialogue now rather than waiting for the spring and summer to have it. >> i think is very appropriate. in addition to what you've laid out there, probably secondary and tertiary effects, one, service interruptions as they try to cut the capital cost by cutting back and operations, effects on bond ratings in terms of their ability to go to market and fund projects in addition to the money you can't provide, they might not be able to raise the adequate resources. so this has a really significant cascading effect. i think that should be noted. >> unquestionably, senator. and i think it's important to note, some people remember the days when our agency was called the urban mass transit administration. and still some of think of a

program as an urban program. the reality is this, if we had an interruption on our availability to reimburse transit agencies, the larger transit agencies, the new york's, the philadelphia's, the chicago's, the miami's, san francisco certainly, it will work hardship of the also the adequate funds from other sources to continue to maintain operations. look at the other side of the spectrum, our medium-size and rural operators, the federal dollar is anywhere from 60-80% of the enterprise, both on the capital side in the operating site. if we are not able to reimburse them in a prompt fashion, that is where we are at risk of sync services close their doors. >> there's another reality i think we have to come to grips with is the essence of the highway trust fund, the funding mechanism is the gasoline tax, as i understand it. >> it has been but it is covered less and less of the total bill over recent years. >> the good news is it's going

to be less and less and less because the detroit auto show this week, every car is very efficient, pickup trucks are getting lots of mileage they didn't before. we're going to have to look for alternative funding mechanisms, frankly. i think you would concur. >> most recently, the president has spoken about the opportunities as corporate tax reform to look at a way to reinvest in our infrastructure, recognizing in part that the cat is -- the guest tax returns less and less for each gallon purchase based on activation may that we are using less and less gasoline consistent with our goal to reduce our dependence on oil. >> just a final point. when this program was launched under president eisenhower, it was sort of win-win-win. building highways, transit systems, you know, was supported by industry because it helped sell automobiles.

it was supported by the petroleum industry because it helped sell gas, et cetera. but the president was wise enough to say we're going to pay for it and we're going to be able to expand, and we can't contemplate america without the road systems that begin in the eisenhower administration. the productivity, our lifestyle. and we are at a point now where if we don't move quickly and thoughtfully, we could just begin to slowly, or not so slowly, unravel our productivity, our lifestyle, you know, our ability to function. thank you very much, gentlemen. >> senator johanns. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank both of you for being here today. i come from a rural state, too, so i have a couple of questions relative to that. i did want to follow up on where senator reid was headed.

mr. rogoff, not asking you to state a policy position on a preferable way to finance, finance this area in the future, but i would each receive no just in your mind, what options might be available for congress to look at? again, i'm not asking you to state a preferred course. >> there's a wide universe of options, senator, as i mentioned earlier. the one that the president has discussed most recently is the opportunity that corporate tax reform could present to deal with our infrastructure challenge. i'd direct you also to a lot of measures that have been taken in the states recently, whether it's pennsylvania, wyoming, virginia, a variety of mixes of taxes, user fees, done on a bipartisan basis. in the case of pennsylvania, done by our republican statehouse, state senate and governor to restore their trust

funds. that includes a mix of fuel taxes, taxing oil at the rack, moving to excise taxes in lieu of per gallon taxes, doing a variety of measures, as well as other unique revenue options that may be specific to that state. there is a wide universe out there, but clearly we need to do something and we need to do something soon, considering the deadlines we are facing. >> let me, ma if i might, focus on a couple of issues that would be more rural in nature. i've talked to transit people back in nebraska. these would be systems that are somewhat rural, but having said that, they exist also in the larger metropolitan areas in the state. they have some questions about the safety requirements of the

map-21 in fta. initial fta language suggests that each sub recipient entity would be required to have a trained safety officer. according to people back home, there's also an indication that the state department of transportation would be required to employ state safety officers who would be responsible for statewide safety oversight. of course, there's calls to that that drains money away from other areas. this is a significant issue, and it seems like there's some degree of overlap and duplication there. i'm assuming there will be additional funding, although if there is i would appreciate you telling me that, but what's your thoughts on these requirements? and i would like to hear your thoughts on any resources that

might be available to folks back home to deal with this burden. >> sure. a couple of thoughts, senator. first, we have not leveled a hard and fast requirement on anyone to date. what we have done is we put out for notice and, by the public concepts through and a rpm. we've taken all those responses back to ensure we receive many from rural areas. and we'll be taking those two hard as we move forward with the regulatory regime. i don't want to leave the impression that there is any hard and fast new requirement. indeed, there are resources available for some of this and that was one of the breakthroughs of the new safety regime passed by this committee, for at least the state safety organizations. there's some $22 million to be allocated for those. those are principally in the rail area. but even at the state dot's, i have spoken to the state transportation commission is, a number of times about this. they have the opportunity to

draw for administrative expenses a percentage of the form of dollars we send to the state. many of them did not draw down the maximum percentage. in some ways that's a good thing because it puts more of that money into direct service at the local level. the flipside is that if there is not adequate state oversight of the dollars, then we have challenges of making sure that those dollars are split according to law and regulation. we end up having to go in as a result of inspector general and things like that. i've encouraged a number of the states to take a look at whether they should draw, not lots, but additional administrative dollars to do a better job at the state dot level. what many of them tell me is that they have a hiring freeze at the state level. the way that hiring freezes sometimes imposed at the state level is without regard whether it's federal dollars are state dollars which hampers their ability to grow the workforce even on someone else's dime.

>> i'll circle back around, and if there's additional questions or concerns, can we reach out to you to -- >> absolutely. and if it's hope for a crust of a conference call with your nebraska operators, we would love to do it. >> great. >> let me say parenthetically. you are a real state which are also now a rail car producing state. >> for short. >> we just went and celebrate the arrival of the new washington metro cars, one of the largest rail car purchases in the united states' history, all manufactured in lincoln, nebraska. very good story. >> very proud of that. thank you. >> senator gordon -- senator warren. >> i want to ask about another part of map-21. as you know, it aims to bring transit assets, equipment, facilities and so on into a good state of repair. the law requires that the fta create objective standards for

measuring progress towards this goal. and once those standards are in place the law requires the recent bits of federal funds to develop plans for executing on those standards. now, the fta was supposed to issue a objective standards by october 1 of 2013. and hasn't done so yet. the delay has put the massachusetts department of transportation in a tight spot. it's working on an asset management plan, doing the responsible thing but it's reluctant to do too much planning because it still doesn't know what the fda's objective standards will be. so, mr. rogoff, when will the fta issued a final rule on asset management standards? >> as it relates to a final rule, i will get you a target date. it may well be here in my book but let me just speak more broadly to your observation. transit asset management was a new and welcomed addition to

map-21. as i said in my opening statement we have been hampered somewhat on the resource brought trying to figure out what priorities to put the stuff on most urgently. transit asset manager is a very high profile force and we did just put out the anprm for them to come at a. is as i said on the safety front, we want to take industry comments so don't come up with some kind of one size fits all very rigid approach. we started with a transported to the industry's input on this. i'll be honest, senator, i'm in a fairly regular contact at the mbta. we are working on many fronts to try to advance things here. they've not voice that concerned me. obviously, things -- what we're most critically interested in there is, as you well know,

governor patrick and the legislature succeeded and now leveraging new dollars for a transportation investment in the commonwealth, and we want to make sure that they put them to work on the most critical transit infrastructure needs on the tee, of which there are many, the redline especially but many others. we will be working with them, you know, ben scott is really are in this industry, having done turns in rhode island, a marta in atlanta come in california and we will be looking to her to help inform our approach on how transit asset management can work for big legacy systems like the t. >> i appreciate your working on the safety standards on the redline. i only live a few blocks from redline and we use it. so i'm grateful for that but i really do want to emphasize, there's a deadline building. it was supposed to been october 1, which means all the

questions about pulling in all of the outside, you've got to play in against a deadline. so i just am hopeful we get this done quickly. i know that you are committed to improving the equipment and making sure we meet the highest safety standards. i know that's also true for the mbta. so thank you but i'm really going to keep a thumb in your back on this. >> that's fine but i welcome it. i think importantly i want to be careful on how i phrase this, we have a number of statutory deadlines. i am not sure they were workable and reasonable when they're put in the first place. we take them as strong indications from the committee on the priority they put against us. i think as you also heard across the dais, they want us to get industry input before we start writing rules. we need to strike that balance. >> there enough. if i cannot want to ask you about one other thing. and that is, broadly speaking, congress can do stupid i would and transit money in two ways. it can distribute money through a formula which spells out

exactly how a particular state and local agencies will receive money. or it can leave the distribution of the money at the discretion of the department of transportation. and then provide grants to different state and local agencies based on a competitive process. historically in transportation funding bills, congress has distributed about 80% of the money through formulas and about 20% as a discretionary matter. but in map-21, the number went up to 92% through formulas, leaving you with very little discretionary money. so we saw a real move away from discretion spending. mr. rogoff, i just want to ask and have to ask briefly because i'm running out of time here, do you think the decrease in discretionary funding has hurt the fda's ability to fund worthwhile projects? >> well, i think it's a little too early to tell that, but i can speak to the problems that

have surfaced for the absence of those discretionary dollars. over three years we were very successful in competing the bus discretionary dollars that we have for bus operators, not only just bus-only operators but also larger systems that do bus and rail operations. we put out over to have billion dollars over those years and it was done without a remarks. it was done strickland on a merit based system. we felt like we did a very good job. the reduction a special on the bus operator side, the loss of discretion dollars and turning some of those dollars, not all of those dollars, it has been a source of considerable concern by the bus-only operators who took a financial hit in their view through map-21, the loss of the discretionary money has meant that when they have large single investments, like it's time to replace a sizable part

of their bus fleet, or any maintenance facility, they do not get a sufficient flow of formula dollars to be able to kabul together enough money to make a significant sizable investment. that's what the discretionary program was for. that maybe something this committee wants to look at a new as they do reauthorization again. >> thank you very much because we all want to see the money spent in the most effective way and whether that means a little more discretion for the agency may i call bush that something we certainly should be taking a look at. thank you, mr. chairman. >> senator tester. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i want to thank all the members for their testimonies today. the role aspect has been mentioned several times, and so i'm going to mention it, too. very quickly, when it comes to the national public transportation safety plan, i think the key is making sure we don't have a one size fits all, and making sure you're getting

input from rural transit systems. all i need is a commitment from you to continue to do that. >> absolutely. >> that's it. good enough. i want to talk about tribal transit programs. you mention this in your testimony. i think congress has made some significant investments in tribal transit through map-21. they've doubled some funds available for this, travel transit program. they continue to build transportation infrastructure on tribal land. it's very important whether it's for health care, education, economic opportunity, whatever it might be, beyond the investments made in map-21 i think it's critical tribes continue to receive technical assistance and support from the fta to grow and establish transit systems. you have done some outreach on fta this fall. and i look for to learning about future efforts. i just need to have you share

your perspective, your thoughts on the success of the fda's outreach. so far, in tribal america and what the fta intends to do to continue to build on success. >> well, mr. tester, the tribal program was effectively doubled under map-21. >> correct. >> however, we move move from a 15 million -- it falls about what senator warner was saying. we moved up to a $30 million program, of which 25 was my phone bill and only five was discretionary. this left us with the charge of developing a fair formula that we could put out on the tribes. i'll be honest, most of the outreach of recent with the tribal community has been around building a formula and inform them what about of money they could expect. capacity building in tribal transit is absolutely critical. we spent a great deal of time trying to work with the tribes to make them to be eligible

grantees to spend the dollars the right way, especially given the critical mobility needs that his athlete a lifeline to the opportunities for employment for many of those tribes. so we are doing more, and we expect to do more in the future once we sort of nail down the funding stream they could expect through this formula. we are concerned, quite frankly, that one of the outgrowth of the foreigner is some of the payments that sort of spell from that formula are quite low. so while they are -- tribes are sort given a guaranteed level of assistance, it may not be as sufficient sum to really do something meaningful in terms of launching and supporting the service on an ongoing basis which may again be something the committee wants to look at the going forward. but absolutely, we want to make sure that the dollars we are putting out there are spent wisely. i think we will have a new challenge. when we had all of these dollars on a discretionary basis,

frankly, we could make a judgment call as to whether an individual tribe was ready to receive and put these funds to good use. now that we're distributing them all by formula we will certainly work to ensure that's the case, but we must put that money against them because they are entitled to it by formula while we work to get into that place. that's going to be an added challenge. >> thank you. you answered my second question with answers i want to thank you very much. i just think you get it. the tribal infrastructure is critically important. poverty is rampant and rural tribes at least, and we need to figure out ways to lift them out of poverty and i think this infrastructure is a part of it. >> absolutely. >> you, according to senator reed, are up for undersecretary for policy. >> i'll be move at the end of next week to be the acting undersecretary for policy, yes, sir. >> i don't want you to think this is a confirmation hearing in that regard but i do want to note since we're talking about

policy, what role toll roads are going to be playing in the future of the highway administration? >> that's a very uncontroversial question. question. [laughter] thanks for it. >> i'm only here to help. >> senator, i feel comfortable answering this as the federal transit administrator because polling has been an important source of funding for a number of transit -- tolling. there is a rich debate that we're going to need to have as a nation over the issue of concept that toll payers have paid for the road once and, therefore, shouldn't be again which is sort of one argument. the other argument being that the maintenance and upkeep of that toll road requires more continued investment, which the toll payers probably have not covered over the life of the structure. and i think importantly, polls

are clearly part of the mix and sort of somewhat consistent with the answer i gave to senator johanns. we need to look at every available revenue opportunity. and look at both the fairness issues but also what revenues they may present to us in terms of solving this trust fund problem. problem. >> i thank you for the answer. i think it's really important from my perspective in part of the legislative branch in this business that we have the debate before you an active policy but i do think is really important. >> there are rules in terms of what is permissible and -- >> i got you and i would just to you this so you will know, if the department gets out in front in advocating, i think that's a problem. but for others on this committee that might think that is a good idea, too. that's why we need -- >> i hear you. what he meant by that is, --

what i meant by that is there are federal statutory rules that limit departments discretion in this area. if something were going to be done dramatic on the tolling front, obviously we would need of a dialogue with congress which we would have anyway even if we had the authority. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. chairman come and thank you all for your testimony. i, too, come from a very rural state of west virginia we depend a lot on mass transit, especially bus transportation. we have some training transportation innovation in which we are very much concerned about. hopefully you all will be attentive to that. with that being said, recently i've heard from a number of the transit authorities in my state that addition vision of grant dollars from the fta have slowed down significantly. what you to take a couple of months is taking more than a year now. can you again about any specific causes for the increase of delay? and mad maybe with us on the vee of us having our first budget

might help? >> i'd like to work with your office and understand which money they're referring to because it is a little perplexing to me. i am not simply with that dynamic other than the fact, other than what you decided. we are waiting -- we have to await 2004 final appropriation before we look at the 2014 budget. >> this is in the past. they been telling me, we check with everybody before then and all of them have been having long delays in getting any grant money whatsoever. we will get with you after this. >> i would appreciate. i think the issue may be, there have been years when we've gotten a c.r. for a longer period of time. as you know some of the c.r.s stretched well into march and april, in the most recent year. and, therefore, we did a partial apportionment of funds. we did not do that this year in the hope and expectation once

the budget deal was announced that we would be getting a budget in january. it looks like we will be come in which case we'll be getting a notice quickly. if there's a larger problem i would like to know about it. >> thank you. and also on the, nationally, 53% of public transportation is by bus. but only 10% of the money goes towards bus transportation. do you think that's a proportionate proper mix of? >> i think we look at the issue to be cognizant of where the costs are. the are considerably lower costs to operate a bus system versus operating a real system. as i said in my opening and stable are under investing national vote and the bus infrastructure and in the real -- >> 10%, 90%, assessing disproportionate? >> i don't want to be baited into a formula fight, senator, but i take your point.

i have often reminded people as i did just yesterday at the transportation research board of the very point you made. and that is that more than half of transit trips in america is still taken by bus. >> maybe we can have those people come to a meeting, mr. chairman, at a future time it might be more helpful to us. in rural states. if i can go on to this, transportation fuel. i've often said when i was governor of the state of west virginia, talking at the national governors association we were looking at different ways to maximize our fuel efficiency and taking advantage of what we have in our country with the funds of natural gas coming along interstate and our country right now. i thought you all could really lead the charge on giving us the incentive to change towards natural gas vehicles, powered vehicles. the uptick is going from diesel to a natural gas powered vehicle is a little bit expensive. which is kind of staying with you unless they get that incentive. here's the thing they would lead to. if you take the lead and would

follow up with our school transportation to all those school buses, every state could transform its commercial, what we call its commercial vehicle traffic away from petroleum into natural gas with you all taking the lead on mass transit, we are doing public has been taking are doing public is ridiculous for schoolchildren and they would follow up with our state, state road vehicles. the reason i say that is it doesn't have to transform every utility or ever infrastructure as far as gas station in my state or in the country. those are all both stations but most of the gas copies can convert those free if they get any kind of the contract. no cost of conversion. the only cause we have is that first uptick going to a natural gas powered. if you look at that differently it could help us. we could reduce about 20-25% i'm told our dependency on petroleum. >> a couple of thoughts. first i think agency has

historically leaned very far forward to try to promote the development of natural gas buses but if you look across how we spend our research dollars we been on the cutting edge. so now we're onto the next generation in terms of trying to -- natural gas buses are very much in bed in the fleet now. i believe every bus to operating in the system in los angeles is a natural gas bus. you are right that there is an added investment cause going in, but it clearly pays itself back over the 12 years of the natural life of the bus, including often the cost of fueling infrastructure. so yes, we can. youth mentions of other ideas on what we can do with school buses. we don't play in -- >> i'm saying you set the tone. the federal government setting the tone, if we all start looking at a mass transportation first coming from the federal grants that we get, there was an incentive for us to convert. i will assure you that states

will start following, to do more of an impetus to do that. if they do that, 50 states were able to do that we would reduce, i am told, around 20-25% of our dependence. basically all of these are done locally. so county by county, you know, you can fill up a natural gas commercial vehicle and run all day. you don't have to worry about can i find a filling station. they are running out of the station but it is the most doable thing that we have to convert and removed about 25% of our dependency. >> we have had periodically in the program percentage incentives which is to say a lower local maginot to go with cleaner fuels us. i'm not sure that was the strongest and most effective impetus to make it happen. part of this is whether we as a matter federal policy are going to try to dictate those local decisions. that's something i think the

committee should debate. >> basically the only thing i'm saying is instead of, you are giving us x amount of dollars to buy a diesel bus. let's say the same incentives can you give us the same money to buy a natural gas bus. let's make the decision. >> we do give them a decision to the vast majority of the bus dollars for purchase are done by formula. we have had a separate discretionary -- it's converted to what's called now the low or no emissions gas bus program. but heretofore we've had a clean fuels program where we have bought a lot of natural gas buses, as though a sort of the first early as generation of electric buses. so those incentives have been entity believe we have advanced, we have made his vehicles commercially viable through those grants inserted building the critical mass to make the manufacturers go into that

space. and i think if huntington, west virginia, want to buy a natural gas bus and use their form of dollars for that versus a diesel bus, they are both eligible expenses. we do not blink either way. >> i was working with you on the. i'm sorry, i'm way over my time but i would like to work with you on this. great potential. we could lead the charge. >> there's also an opportunity to sit with the energy department at the same time. for those issues you talked about, conversion of school buses. >> conversions will be done. the private sector will come in and do the conversion, no cost to the taxpayer. they will have a tenure return. that's fun. we can work -- >> oon the bus but we are lookig for a 12 year return. >> we can mayor those up. thank you, sir. >> until the senator schumer is on his way. so senator menendez, take your time. [laughter] >> okay. happy to do that, mr. chairman.

i ask that the statement had the include in the record. administered, first let us i welcome colleague from west virginia's interests in mass transit. we need more advocates, as someone who's one of the leaders of the fight here on mass transit and all these considerations, i can say we need although we can get because it is constantly a challenge. that's what i appreciate hearing it because it's constantly a challenge to understand the importance of mass transit in our funding for. we worked hard last year to get map-21 but we are still nowhere near where we should be for the demands that there are, whether they be light rail or bus or whatever. and i just want to compliment you, administrator, for a very i think good job in the midst of a lot of challenges. and i appreciate your approach to the whole effort nationally on mass transit. in that regard, let me say that

in map-21 i worked to create a new transit oriented development planning pilot program to provide grants working or days to create mixed used walkable development and federally supported around federal supported transit lines. and i sent a letter to fta this december with seven of my colleagues, including three on this committee, senator schumer, warner and taken, asking for this program to be expedited. today the fta has not made an announcement of funds for this program which is authorized 10 million in fy '13 and 14. given the short time frame of map-21 it's important we get this program underway so we have the results to tout the value with sooner rather than later. why has the fta not announce the availability of funding for this program? what timeline do you have for making this announcement? >> senator, we are well aware of the program and cognizant of the committee members interest, most notably, yours, is a champion for the program.

we, quite frankly, in our prioritization scheme, i was asked earlier by senator crapo what were we going to privatize given all of the new requirements of map-21. as i said in my opening statement, map-21 for transit was like seven years of policy in a two-year bill. we have to prioritize what we're going to take on in what order. as it relates to the development program, we thought it wise not just from our own self administrative responsibilities but also for the opportunities for the communities to come in to get two years of money and then compete to years of money. we will have a competition for the full $20 million rather than 10, when you come and tend to mix we thought that would be both efficient and increase the opportunities for diversity a place to come in at a more meaningful level of money. our goal is to start that process and get notices out the door in the spring to compete in the summer.

i apologize for the delay in getting to this. it is stacked up with a lot of other new map-21 requirements, most notably safety requirements which we very much welcome the changes to the form programs which we had to put out on the sheet are rapidly. >> i appreciate that. i realize what we did in map-21 because i was working with the chair, subcommittee chair, we put a lot of things in there. but to the extent we have a pilot program and resources dedicated, what i would hate to see is the pilot program doesn't ever get to voracious because -- >> that's not going to happen. >> next is fta recently announced the next round of sandy recovery transit funding, $3 billion for resiliency efforts. and according to your announcement this funding is quote intended to protect other transportation infrastructure that has been repaired or rebuilt after hurricane sandy, or that is at risk of being damaged or destroyed by a future

natural disaster. and also goes on to state that you may consider geographic diversity and diversity between transit modes in making these awards. my question is how high of a priority will fta place on protecting assets that were hardest hit by hurricane sandy? and how are you going to balance the considerations of geographic and model diversity versus protecting the areas most devastated by hurricane sandy? >> i said before at this table in fact, that at other venues that are highest priority in allocating the funds is going to be protecting the existing transit infrastructure that serves millions of passengers each day. those systems, those existing rail lines have in many cases flooded multiple times. as you know some of the infrastructure that's flooded under hurricane sandy had flooded just one year earlier under hurricane irene. and the president in requesting

this resilience in funding made clear that he puts a strong priority requesting that funny on ensuring that the taxpayers will not, going forward, have to pay to read restore the infrastructure a second or third or fourth time. that would be our priority as we look at it. we are going to be looking carefully, and we have conferences set up with all of the likely applicants to talk about looking at a comprehensive plan and seeing how they're going to protect the most vulnerable elements of the system, and look at from the perspective of a system. which is to say, we are not very interested in an investment that will ensure that we have protected one portion of a rail line, if, in fact, we are just going to have some other portion of the rail line that also serving 80% of the same traffic washed out. that's not going to maintain mobility in the face of the next disaster. so those are going to be our priorities going in.

it is hard for me to say now, until we get all the applications in, how some of the other factors like geographic diversity and other things will play out. i think we have put out a good notice that takes into account all of the critical factors that we need to look at, and when we get the applications in, we would then have to rack and stack them, make sure investments are cost beneficial. capture the most critical infrastructure on both sides of the river, and also make sure that we are going pashtun fulfilling the president's commitment to ensure we don't pay a second or third or fourth time to restore it. >> i appreciate the. if someone along with senator schumer led the fight with the same to me to make sure that the transportation elements were a part of it, i certainly believe that the consequences of systems moving large numbers of americans and who have a history

of constant challenges due to flooding and weather related issues, make a highest priority use, just send on the number of people being serviced and the reality that we've had repented laws. so we want to avoid repetitive loss, maximize and number of americans are using the transit system. so while there is a whole host of challenges, i look forward to that being the reality. finally, if i may, thank you mr. wise, with reference to bus rapid transit project, how do you see the role of the prt playing in the future of u.s. transit services, these projects very often appealing as a lower cost, more flexible transit option but they lack some of the surface characteristics and economic development potential of others. >> yes to both of those, senator. thank you. in the work we did for the committee several years ago on

prt, i think the results of that are promising but there are constraints as you mentioned to a bus is not a dream. some people view it that way. that said, given the funding environment that we're in right now and will be in for the foreseeable future i think a lot of areas see the brt is a good alternative and one that is much more feasible to implement than rail which tends to be as i noted in my statement, much more expensive. now, that said, there are characteristics of brt that are being implemented that make it stand apart from regular buses. so you will see in the systems we visited, seattle, eugene, a few other places, there will be nicer, newer, more brightly, you know, painted bus at the bus stops will be above the ground, not people putting card rmi into

machine. but there are similarities to rail travel. the very sophisticated dr tees, not so much what you're seeing here but for example, probably the poster child for the best brt system in the world is in bogotá, colombia, what it looks to much like a trinket effective to look closely to see the difference. the stations are very ornate. very nice rail stations. you don't really see that here in the dedicated guideways are also kind of a mixed bag. there are some where they are more dedicated guideways than others. some of that again is caused. i can recall when we visited the system in eugene, springfield, oregon, that there were a couple of areas where it was just impossible to give a dedicated guideways to the system just because of a competent intersection was trying to navigate. we have seen some mixed results, but as i noted, most of the people that were talked into different different systems

really see problems with the brt. it's much less expensive, much quicker to element and it seems of economic development. as i mentioned the one in cleveland, ohio, where they of same officials there told us they've seen four to $5 billion of developing along that euclid avenue downtown up to the cleveland clinic area. another one in kansas city in a rather sort of depressed area, not too far from downtown kansas city. the truth system there has brought additional development and got some additional grants but the problem is that beauty is going to help spur development in that area. so i think you will see a lot of development going on here. montgomery county which is looking to element a very extensive bus rapid transit along interstate 270 corridor. i think a lot of jurisdictions are seeing real promise and bus rapid transit. >> senator schumer. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and i want to welcome you,

mr. wise, and congratulate you, mr. rogoff, on your promotion. i know you from your days here at i know you are feeling is that you are filling large shoes because your predecessor worked for me for nine years, and now is going on to become dot commissioner new york city. i know that office well. my wife having served there and i know she will do a great job. but i'm glad you're there. i feel for good about that. i have a few questions. first regarding capital grants under 5309. i know that under map-21 we try to streamline and accelerate project delivery on both new start and small stores but i know that is working well. so i congratulate you on that. i have a couple of specifics here in terms of brt. first, albany, our capital district transportation authority is becoming a leader in brt. albany is going. they have a lot of economic

activity. and they have three sort of courses, and all the people living a midst of those so it is made, it is a metropolitan area of a little over 1 million people. it's not large enough for a subway system, a rail system, but bus rapid transit is made for it. it is to a t. i helped them get a grant to plan their brt. they've been working with 58 regional offices in new york. they are poised to apply for admission to the small start program. they are already working really well on this. they have a redline already from downtown albany to downtown schenectady. a plan to more, want to go detroit and one to go out to the you of albany. it's great. are you familiar with the plan of albany at all speaks i am. i've spoken with the people at cbd a. we were -- they are well along

in the development. i think the good news here really as relates to this project and all of the interested new entrants to the new start and small start program is the conference agreement that is currently pending on the floor. you will recall last year the combination of the continued growth solution and the sequestered below that let funny for the new start a small stores program at a place where we could not even fulfill our existing obligations that we had already signed up. the appropriations bill currently pending before you is, through the combination of unobligated bounces and new appropriations, gets us to our request level which means we are back in the business of looking at new folks to admit. >> and you will do your work and do everything you can to see that it is up to the small start. >> certainly. when they make the requisite request, we see no show stoppers

right now coming in and having a successful project. >> second one is buffalo, similar. buffalo has experimented with different kinds of transit, particularly the main street project which was a plot. we are helping them undo that right now. 30 years later. but they, too, are made for this type of system. again, similar size, a little more than a million and a half people in the metropolitan area. they want to study an extension of the buffalo transit system out to amherst which is an eastern suburb and where the university of buffalo is and the university of buffalo, what is it in the medical quarter so it's a perfect situation. can i have your commitment to help them get in the small start program? >> sure. we will look at the application as they come in but here again, i think it's fair to say they have taken some time to get what it is they want to do. and i think mr. wise just point out some of the benefits we can

really see when we do bus rapid transit the right way, which is to say you do all of the full investments, unique stations, unique vehicles, level boarding, signal priority which means they almost always get a green light when they hit the signal. you can really move quite a number of people at a very affordable cost compared to real. we welcome nfda spent any barriers in the way? >> to our. as pointed out there are some geometric hurdles you can always overcome. but there are also great opportunities. i think whenever you connect large employers like the university and the health center, those are the kind of segments that we see great success in. ..

and they had federal funding. so now we're going back at it because the need for tunnels is crucial. so i had three questions on the gateway program. first you agree it is a critical transit rail and passenger project? second do you believe it could be a candidate for the new starts program? and third do you need legislative authority to admit gateway into the new starts program? >> let me take those in order. you correctly point out w