our infrastructure. let's have the attitude here today that we will commit and help the members of congress house and senate get this done. i never we will forget. and and then from a meeting with drew lewis secretary of transportation saying that they wanted a user fee increase in gasoline. we'll get that done and we did. it was the right thing to do and we ought to have the guts to do it again. let's get started. thank you for being here. we want you to set the parameters that we should be doing in this area. >> thank you my much as i like your idea about the whole package. let me begin with one item is important. we had we had a very

significant event in philadelphia with amtrak. i want to make sure i pass along our sincere thoughts and prayers. hopefully have a speedy recovery. the other thing important for us to recognize, 1st responders were on.immediately. our deepest thanks. the other thing this is really bad always silver lining. we have the significant events in the united states. up. you see people helping each other trying to recover can help people get out of the wreckage. that is inspirational. talking about her experience she looks at her shoe and said, these are my shoes. that is what we need to be doing its.

i just wanted to recognize that. infrastructure week us dot we would hope that infrastructure week was a really. linda solomon a lot of things. in today's world the whole package is important for us to recognize long-term importance of investing. investing. we have been working hard for part three or four years now trying to get the country to push it up to look at infrastructure investment. recently we unveil the study that we call beyond traffic. it is it is a 30 year framework looking at what could happen in transportation.

when you had all that anchor put together you start thinking about what that looks like when it comes to transportation not just the issues for today but the demand for the future. over the past six years congress is actually in transportation funding our program to 32 extensions command for those of you in the private sector you do not run your business two to three months at a time. in fact in transportation that is what we have been doing. one could argue was a 27 month extension, but that is not how you run a multibillion-dollar your business. we -- some states have pullback for this construction season. some of the projects.

it's simply because they do not have the certainty that their federal partner we will be there this construction season. the timing is just not good if we don't extend beyond may 31st. we know the expiration is coming up in a couple of weeks. we we have to deal with that and the long-term approach. as you know, the administration under president obama has actually submitted a bill to congress we call it the grow america act. it is bold for the right thing to do. we have submitted to congress and said if you don't like are ideas we want to hear yours. if you don't like a pay we are prepared to chat with you about how we invest in our country. with that with that i will wrap up my comments.

we are short on time. we want to be good federal partners' mentioned the whole package. and we know that when we invest just take a look at any city where they have invested in light rail and what has happened from an economic impact of history is there. we know it. with that thank you for inviting us. >> thank you for your comment. i do remember when we were working on these infrastructure bills and highway bills and all the others it was not just between republicans'. slater was hanging out in my office. i almost got him a desk because he stayed there so much. get in the get in the house and the senate meet with the leaders and work together to get results.

we have not had enough of that in recent years. plenty of blame to go around when you sit down and talk it is amazing what you can accomplish. come see. how about that? what do you say about this infrastructure week in transportation? >> it is good to be back in the transportation and infrastructure community. it is good to be back. i do i do not have the magic formula for you but i have some thoughts on the way that we can frame the issue in a way to maybe have a path to greater success than we have seen. i think that we all recognize the goal. you have members of congress that understand the need for investment infrastructure. you have passed what other issues a significant a significant hurdle of defining the problem and agreeing on the issue at hand. the problem is how to get

there. as we no historically it has been difficult to come up with a long-term solution that adequately fund infrastructure needs. the ranking member did a fantastic job. secretary mendez just made a great summary of the needs we have in the country. how do we move forward? first of all in congress there is a lack of understanding about the cost of uncertainty. i came to congress i was a businessman. new line about uncertainty of risk is a cost. the future we will always have a level of uncertainty's. to have to have the policy world put another layer of uncertainty on top of that is a cost our country. i would suggest members of congress need an education

on the importance of that cost. people who make rational decisions. investment infrastructure and how it creates opportunities. this issue that can reach a lot of members of congress. it is falling into the trap of an us versus them mentality. it is as being the united states of america and then the rest the world.

the fact of the matter is there people on this panel will be able to offer real substantive details about how this works. investment in infrastructure is a key factor. other countries are investing in far greater percentages of gdp in infrastructure and even in this new digital world and high-tech global economy it turns out investment and basic infrastructure still matters. in some ways more so because you must be more efficient and productive. transportation infrastructure is an important part of contributing efficiency. i am thrilled that this panel is framed in the context of competitiveness. in my opinion that is the framework in which congress ought to look at this issue which will hopefully create a path forward. >> thank you. you can see why we are delighted to have you with us.

he will be good and help find ways to get things done let's go to:. we are all highway users and don't like gridlock in congress on the highways. we would like to hear from the.of view of the highway users. this is such an important thing for transportation system and a competitiveness >> thank you senator. it is a great honor to be here. everyone so far has had a connection. i worked as a staffer for but schuster. it is an honor to be back. an organization that has been around for 83 years. the truckers rv industry the cyclists companies that rely on logistics companies that are involved in safety like 3 m basically sort of as highway chamber combination's highway

chamber in taxpayer league you pay the gas tax. the group of taxpayers want to raise the gas tax from 1956 until 2,008 we pay our full share the 100% of the federal program that built to build the interstate and pay for enough to pay for some of the things including public transit programs. we want to be responsible citizens pay our way and the key thing is imagine what our country would be like if we did not have a highway trust fund to build the interstate system. often we justify this program on the basis of jobs we are being shortsighted when we do that because what we need to talk about is the economics of what investment in roads and transit does the united states. we have a network of 4 million miles of roads only 40000 of which is on

the interstate system. that carries 25 percent of the traffic in the country. national highway system national highway system carries 40 percent of the traffic and 3 percent of the roads. as a national project that benefits every citizen and corner of this country to invest in this core system of federal interest is a no-brainer and we must pay for it will we all you've got to get past the idea that simply cutting out waste is everything we need. you do not get something for nothing. i am here on behalf of the road users to say we need to invest more willing to pay the user fee the cost and benefits. and we don't have too much time. we waste money in crashes. it's we waste of over $200 billion in traffic congestion, a lot of which

can be addressed through targeted improvements. through technological advancements groups like it is america. cost-benefit. every $1 we invest. cost-benefit. we to drop from number one to 26 because we have lost sight a benefit cost. of benefit cost. they are so afraid to say we have to pay a little bit more letting our country go to help. and and so on behalf of users and what we really need to do is bring more users in the conversation. the phone and cable companies that have trucks all over the roads every single one of them are hurt when they can't get to their products to market this week

is important way to reach out to them. i appreciate the opportunity. >> we need more and better transportation. >> with all the wonderful companies doing amazing research deployment and development across this country we have to start with where we were when we 1st started talking about transportation, and i have been fortunate to have worked in the trucking industries and telecommunication with energy and now i am fortunate to be an so thrilled to be associated with intelligent transportation initiatives. if you look where you want to take the country we talked about congressman that we have to have good roads and good infrastructure and also we have to repair where we are.

one of the things america has been extraordinary at his making sure we develop our intellectual capacity. that that is where i ts america and i ts american affiliates are coming in. in fact infrastructure development is an international issue. where we are struggling now not just this week with infrastructure week we are struggling where struggling as a world economy to figure out how america place within the world economy in the world investment in infrastructure development. i sat as a young child in the back of this hearing room and watched as my father came here year after year after year as chairman of the arkansas highway commission talking about let's look 20 years out 30 years out yes we must deal with the issues we have but let's also have foresight.

for me to be able to sit here in this room and thank you to all of you do we want to say how long we have been friends? >> you smile when you mentioned your dad. we have to give them a little credit. looking forward it's how we sent technology and the intelligent transportation society of america is the nation's largest organization dealing and research development and deployment of intelligent transportation. it is really about 1200 companies, public agencies, public-private partnerships research in academia coming together to say what save what are our issues now and what are the issues for the future that we can use technology to advance the

problems? i have had several people their face goes intelligent transportation. okay. that sounds neat. well, what it is about is information and control technology that provide us accurate and real-time information that will help us to make sure that we go from talking about surviving incidents to preventing incidents. you could say that it is an ancillary development. the figure the congressman put out his enormous but as you look to what you do with not just fixing what we have but how you look forward to what we do in intelligent transportation society will help us use those resources

of thinking and technology to move us forward. forward. i no that there are a lot of things that people want to say. i just wish to.out a lot of people are saying this is a future oriented thing. the department of transportation because judah connected vehicle safety pilot 3000 of 3000 of these vehicles are already out on the road and being looked at day-to-day to figure out 9000 the 9,000, 20000 working with dot and others will push those programs out thank you. >> i have to tell story. i story. i can't afford one but my wife as a knew affinity. a lot of a lot of gadgets and backups the new warning systems. once you used to this is a significant thing for safety and also before i before i

call on you i must tell one other story. i was for all sorts of transportation systems but i had a little bit of hesitancy on mass transit and buses. sitting next to jim and half we were in the process of trying to kill the mass transit part of it so we could put all that money and highways. hillary clinton. [laughter] hillary clinton was on the committee and the conference she was taking the other side obviously representing new york. she came armed with the arguments, statistics, knocked it out of the park. churches out but he. we are going to have to do this command we did command it was the right thing. michael what do you have to say? >> thank you. appreciate that opening story.

inspire me a rally. it is a privilege to be here and talk about global competitiveness. many cities were domestic and the makeup. we look at them now and they are international companies from all around the world occupying businesses cities big and small. you think back in the petition choices were binary he drove your car or took transit. you today. shared use bank, car circulator, commuter train and do all those things in a week. live comfortably. change how we move about our cities. as we look mayors and

governors are regularly hearing from you business people especially international wants. have be sure my goods and services are going to be out we have to find an efficient way to user scarce resources and communities. a population booms to another hundred million people. how will we make these things fit? that is by looking at all of this is a system. if we can put people in public transportation make it free about race to the other cities and don't have to continue to pay the everything. by doing by doing that we can build walkable communities and servers moving back. repopulating with

millennial's and baby boomers saying i want i want to move downtown drive less and be more efficient and effective. as we look at these things will look at the ridership that is happening. last year we set a record public transportation ridership 10.8 billion trips were taken. the highest number since 1958 when eisenhower interstate highway system was 1st signed in the law alves was on the charts a tremendous amount of growth and ridership in transit. of 43-cent drop in gas prices in the 4th quarter of last year and transit ridership one of because it is a good thing. some of the highest ridership increases were in cities under 100000

population. many small cities the majority of transit funding comes from the federal government particularly in the role of capitol. think about that. the role of federal debt is to provide the federal government does not build those things they fund them. those dollars flow through to the private sector creating good, high-paying, good, technical jobs across the country. creating jobs with the federal dollars beer making a huge impact on our economy as we look at what transit is doing creating a sense of place, downtown emergency to build new communities in but places like talents in

phoenix and others and invest in transit. we. we're seeing billions and billions of dollars of knew investment. the local communities get it. forty-nine of those passed. 69 percent passage rate. the local share is there. this is a nationwide system and it has to work together. passengers paying their affairs. the locals are stepping up. the state of good repair. you heard them talk about $86 billion backlog. safely, reliably, dependably, a plan to keep our economy must invest in a state of good repair. we did a great event the other day.

this is a great story. a national day of local advocacy. 350 organizations around the country came together with 150 events for more than 10 percent of sitting members of the united states congress get together and told the infrastructure story. aviation transit roads highways came together to tell a story. it is critical it is critical that congress look at a multi- year well-funded surface transportation bill. we're looking at a hundred billion dollars for the next six years tech. that has been stagnant since 2,009 with just over $10 billion grow it make the investments in infrastructure. these dollars payout.

a very hot topic. the four to one return on investment in transportation, the 50,000 jobs that were created or maintained. we have to look at what we need now. the time is now the need israel's, the numbers show it command we must understand that now good enough is not good enough if we want to remain globally competitive in this world. >> you are just not passionate enough. >> after we got that mass transit legislation became a warrior for the mississippi gulf coast which i learned to appreciate against katrina. a different attitude. we are saving maybe the best for last. this is about this is about competitiveness. michelle moore, senior

fellow at the council on competitiveness. >> a lot of pressure. i certainly i certainly appreciate the opportunity and i'm grateful to represent the council on competitiveness. ceos from leading corporations, labor unions and universities around this country who join the very diverse coalition have come together on infrastructure week at the call for a long-term investment in america's infrastructure. critical to our competitiveness today. we all know the statistics. for many statistics. for many of them today for many of you wrote them under the original research. american research. american society for civil engineers totals the infrastructure investment in the trillions and similarly the potential benefits total of the trillions. 3.1 trillion. 3.1 trillion in gdp, 1.1 trillion trade value of

3.5 million from fully closing the infrastructure investment. it is my sense that the real cost of the short-term infrastructure investment can get lost. we get used to hearing about billions and trillions in the human cost can get that far away. that real cost is measured. the additional time you end up spending in traffic or in delays for mass transit is critical investments not been made's, time away from your families. for business people it is delays and being able to invest in to take full advantage of economic opportunities for growth whether you're a you are a small business person and cannot predict where the economy will go or if you are in the building design for transportation or construction industry and you don't know if the federal dollars we will be there to match or if you are thinking about the businesses major manufacturers in this

country are now in making goods and services and creating jobs you but exporting the lack of predictability of the lack of capacity in some cases on roadways to be able to meet the opportunity for capacity growth in manufacturing. the ways that roadways connect with our ports system the fact that only two of america's ports are ready to accept panamax goes today that load on the cost in the aggregate in big economic terms, loss of competitiveness that is an inability to compete for investment dollars today. that is an inability to create jobs today an inability to plan for the future and ultimately a loss a loss of investment to our global competitors who are getting those jobs the capacity and you are much more ready for the future in terms of the ability to accept panamax vessels. the tragedy is that it really does not have to be

that way. we way. we can make a decision today instead of focusing on short-term is a to take the long path and make those investments in infrastructure and to keep our economy, businesses, and people moving. >> very good. we will take a question or two if you have's. i will give a hard question to a congressman 1st. ..

would like widows until the election you're so they can get it this year would be smart politics as well as a good thing for the country but just get it done. that's the question. can we find a way to make this happen? >> i will say this i think the individuals he mentioned that will be the leaders of the various committees and need to put this package together i think they are all coming to the table. >> senator vitter, senator boxer they can come together as they have in the past anything is possible and that is authorization and you have to get the money. so figure it out and tell this group as soon as you get the answer. any other questions from anybody? i think we are pretty close to being on time so i'm going to turn it back over to roger. that's go over to this panel and bring the next panel up.

[applause] >> i will tell you they have just warmed us up and we are going to keep things going. you should know that we have actually gotten communication from chairman shuster. he is in the baltimore. we have gotten a notice that he was going this morning so we are just going to continue to stay in touch with his office but i think we all know why he needs to be there. the secretary secretary menendez actually started his comments paying respect to those who lost their lives, seven at present and those who are injured, more than 200. this is a significant incident and again we would want the chairman to be there taking care of business. with that i'm going to call senator breaux and he will then bring on our next panel. thank you.

>> thank you all very much and thank all of you who are attending with us this morning. thank you for being here. we have another panel which i think will be very interesting and hopefully informative and have an opportunity to ask them some questions. i thank all of you for participating and thank you for the panelists. i served in this room for a very long time and i have i had still been here would have been chairman of this committee. i try to get the chairman to sit up there by the cameras to assert a lot of authority as chairman but they didn't want to go along with that. those were wonderful days and interesting days and two trends and our previous panel matching the difficulty in raising enough money to fund the transportation bill i was on the finance committee the last time we passed a tax increase and i agreed on 4.3 cents. i cannot tell you the agony we went through in trying to raise of 5.43 cents at a time when all

the prices were going down and having passed a 10-cent tax at that time gasoline at the pump would still have been more than it was before the tax was passed because the price of oil was going down. the only thing we could do back in 1993 was a 4.3 cents gas tax with nobody noticing very much. i cannot tell you how difficult that was from a political standpoint for member saying i'm going to put my name on increasing tax and everybody will see it as a listed gas tax at every event they go to. i want to bring the panel up at what they are going to be doing is talking about what's happening in the real world right now and this incredible infrastructure needs that are out there. a lot of them are not eating done but there are a lot of women are being done and a lot of projects that are out there in the private sector being funded by the private sector that are making a big difference

in the infrastructure that should he supported. i would take the privilege of being a moderator and telling you about one project really quickly in particular. i happen to served on the csx transportation railroad board and right outside the rayburn building we had a project that we are funding and paying for that has now got all the permits after a long period of time struggling with the city in the district and the federal government to get the permits to redo the virginia avenue tunnel. the virginia avenue, was built in 110 years ago. two very old obviously track that goes right under the democratic -- all the way through the city to bring rail traffic crawled all the way from the south all the way up to the corridor to the northeast but it's a huge bottleneck because it's a singletrack and you cannot put double stacked containers on the train because the con was too low rate you can

only bring one train through there to time so it's a huge bottleneck. csx is spending hundreds of points of dollars in the project has started. we started to do a double track to allow double stacked trains to go through that tunnel so it would be to trains that can go through the same time and both of them would be able to carry double stacked containers which would eliminate the bottleneck. this is a multi-million dollar project that the reward is doing spending their own money. we spent over $2.3 billion in infrastructure last year just redoing tracks and redoing projects such as this and this is just one example that i think we will hear more of an r. next panel. let me introduce and start with jennifer and i hope i get the names correctly. is that the correct pronunciation? jennifer amman is with as a group general manager with

transit north american we are delighted to have the jennifer at. we will ask them to make their comments and summarize them and have time for questions. jennifer thank you for being with us. >> thank you and it's a pleasure to be here. i want to thank secretary slater for being here creating an opportunity to have this forum and the perfect timing to do so. for background on cancer but it's an international infrastructure investor based in melbourne australia and what we do is finance deliver and operate networks of toll road projects around the world to improve mobility and address congestion and enhanced travel choices and major populated cities including here in the greater washington area where we have 45 express lanes that runs through northern virginia. we are pleased to be able to put public-private partnerships to

work to be able to support transportation and economic outcomes and i will start by saying before we focus and on the opportunities that public private partnerships and look at specific projects that i want to do a myth busing here. we are talking today about sustainable funding long-term funding for transportation and too often public private partnerships are talked about in the context of alternatives to public revenues for transportation and i want to be very clear in having had significant experience with these partnerships in the private activity bot program in the u.s. and with tifia. that is not the case at all. we are not a substitute for funding. the ai ai estimates there are is about $250 billion worth of private capital out there that we could be putting to work to improve our infrastructure in

this country but the only way we will be able to tap into that private capital is if we have sustainable funding on the government side to be able to put both of our resources to work to be able to drive transportation and economic outcomes. it's important to us that myth a bit and i will tell you when we look at specific projects that bring in the best of the public sector and the private sector together certainly it is worth it in terms of what we can deliver when we are looking at individual projects. i want to highlight for a moment our projects in northern virginia on the other side of the river both the 495 and a 95 express lanes projects to see what are the outcomes you can get through these partnerships. we have constructed high occupancy toll lanes are provided i keep -- option across 495 and 95 and the congested northern region area.

i want to thank you for your business and you are probably here today because you took the express lanes and customers are in fact sitting on the item 5 at the moment. if you look back at the economic outcomes and how we can use these major projects this is about $3 billion worth of transportation improvements that have been delivered as a package in these projects. the economic outcomes those improvements have created $5 billion worth of economic opportunity in the virginia market including over $800 million worth of contracts for small women and minority-owned businesses. if you look at ear like 2010 the 1495 express lane project was 20% of fairfax counties project for this year. if you look at our client in virginia you really have to give virginia credit because by using a public-private partnership they are able to do 495 and 95

get a return of 110 times their investment by leveraging private capital taxpayers got 110 times return on their investment as you you look at upfront capital capital costs in the long term operations and maintenance of costs that are provided through these partnerships. so it's about economic outcomes and transportation outcomes. if you look at the express lanes network and what they are providing in terms of transportation outcomes it's a really great story read 495 has been open to travelers since 2012 in 95 has been open for months. we have great data to show what these projects are doing to improve the region. if you look of march 2019 and customers that use the 95 express lanes, these customers are saving an average of 20 to 30 minutes per trip to get them to work. we have customers who are especially on thursdays and

fridays saving as much is two hours a trip so we have gone a long way to improve the quality of life and get these travelers to work on time. we have about 610 bus trips across the express lanes network every day and so by looking at multimodal solutions like hot lanes we have been able to deliver travel time savings but also opened up the opportunity for bus travel in that corridor. on 95 hour car pooling population is 30% of our traffic traffic. since we have expanded and opened the express lanes network three out of five carpoolers say they are right sharing more often because the reliability they get from that project. if you look across a spectrum of travelers you have carpoolers transit riders tolling customers to ever see benefit in now looking at travelers even in the regular lanes who are choosing not to pay a toll.

they are saving time on 95 between five and 30 minutes per trip just because of the capacity improvement safety and mobility improvements that have been delivered as part of these projects. again i have to give our client all over the world but particularly in virginia that takes policymakers a lot of courage to advance and try something bold and different to public-private partnerships that is you can see the by doing so you can deliver transportation and economic outlooks that drive our economy. we can't use these unless policymakers make other bold decisions and put long-term funding in place to be able to support this model and unlock private capital to help drive mobility and drive our economy in the u.s.. >> jennifer thank you for your remarks. i'm sure there will be questions and i would like to present next panelist who is the director of a high-performance transportation enterprise in

colorado department of transportation. mike we are glad you are here and look forward to your comments. >> thanks. so i guess i'm here today representing the viewpoint of the state transportation provider. i have been the director for five years of the unit within the colorado department of transportation which provides mobility relief designed to provide mobility relief within the metro denver area. a little bit of context colorado is one of the top 10 states in terms of population growth has in the last 20 years doubled in size. most of it within the metro denver area. from that 8 million-dollar level we are projected to grow another

45 million within the next 20 years. we have important research centers around the metro area. it is an area that is critical not only to the state of colorado but to the region itself. the state has not increased its gas tax for 20 years not unlike the federal situation. we are facing a horrendous financial crisis in terms of providing not only a sick maintenance to the state transportation system but to the critical mobility needs in the metro area. about five years ago i participated in the creation of a piece of legislation that addressed at that point a critical bridge problem in the

state and with much controversy we were able to enact a license plate fee which is earmarked for the repair of riches in this state. we have made good use of that and i think have made some headway. to address long-term needs within the state we tried to enact a pilot program. a pilot program user fee system and that lasted about 10 days in the legislature before it got dumped out of the bill. but a third part of the bill was the creation of the enterprise that i now direct which is focused on innovative finance relief for the congestion problems in the area. innovative finance was the code word for public-private partnerships, a concept

brand-new in our state as it was in the country and still is in many parts of the country. jennifer described from her side of the table some critical elements which are difficult to explain to people sometimes. it is not a funding source. it is a financing source. we pay for the money that is provided by the private sector. sometimes more dearly than others i think but nevertheless it is a funding source and a financing source that we make use of. five years into this process we are about to open our first major project about a 22-mile stretch between downtown denver and the research centers in boulder, the university town. it is a managed lane project. it is also a bus rapid transit project that we are going to

compete with the other mobiles in that lane with bus rapid transit service from denver to boulder. we were able to find companies from the private sector who are willing to participate in financing the project and even in this case undertake the revenue risk from the toll uncertainty that will exist for a while and that corridor. we have got in colorado between three and $5 billion in transportation needs just to deal with the mobility issue in the metro area. we have one major project a billion dollar plus project in procurement now and we are looking forward to a successful

result from that. we have problems on the interstates intersecting denver north and south and east and west and frankly as i sit here we have no idea how we are going to pay for those projects the critical corridor being the intermountain corridor between denver and the critically important recreational areas in colorado which are central to the economy and the state. we have tapped out cash reserves in the state that have been used for capital projects and we are counting on future federal revenues to finish some of those projects. we are at the bottom of the barrel which i say with a sense of urgency. my job becomes even more

critical as the state itself runs out of funding because we have got to look for ways to leverage what kind of revenue we can project from user fees, toll revenues on the network in the city. and i appreciate being part of this session. i hope we are collectively able to deliver the message where it needs to be delivered that the time is critical and i look forward to being part of the solution. >> thank you very much mike mic for your comments and your contributions. we want to take a little bit out of order now and i will take my law partner and former member of congress and the state of georgia congressman jack kingston to get his perspective on some of the things they are doing in georgia particularly in the poor project area. these projects probably had

something to do with you in congress yourselves that in congress yourself said jack white you tell us about what's happening down there? >> thank you very much senator. i have to take have to take a point of personal privilege that i really came here to love the jennifer on getting a fast lane on 395. i think we would all like to see that happen. mike i want to say my mother lives in louisville colorado and your toll road is great. it's such a great alternative to 26 but is a member of the house i was on the appropriations committee and served in the house for 25 years and probably the biggest infrastructure project in the state of georgia right now is the deepening of the savannah river. that project we lived in breeze for 13 years. i want to put in that -- that in perspective for me. took $40 million to give for federal agencies to sign off on it. we had to get the okay from epa fish and wildlife corps of

engineers and from noah. along with that we had to have stayed stakeholders in all kinds of people who had an opinion on it. took forever and yet 300,000 jobs in the state of georgia are involved almost directly with the port. 15,000 businesses and of the 15,000 businesses that export in our state or import either one 70% of them have less than 500 employees. besides the spot it's the big folks but it's not the case at all. we had to jump through all kinds of hoops as you can imagine just to get the river 5 feet deeper. and we were going to 47 people in general oglethorpe sailed up the river in 1733 it was 12. we were playing in the mud for

200 years down there. this was not some new concept but the global part of this is during that period of time trying to build a port from start to finish that was bigger than the port of savannah. savannah is the fourth largest port in the united states of america. but if we are going to compete in the marketplace internationally we can't have such a slow, tedious really uncertain working i guess permitting process. the state of georgia have skin in the game. the project by the way went from 250 million to over 650 million but the state with their dollar for dollar for their share always ready to kick in. and the point is of course to be able to dig deep enough to get the post-panama ships is what we are focusing on now.

the panama canal was supposed to be finished in 2014. fortunately for us in savannah they got delayed so that kind of helped us but it is part of the world trade. the second part of it now that we are in is real road access railroad crossings making sure there are delays and then of course truck lanes so now we have to get back to traditional surface transportation issues and that is one of the things that we are working on from a state level. the state of georgia passed a transportation bill. congressman defazio talked about what virginia had done. george is a red state. george is a republican governor, republican house, republican senate that the state legislature increased the hotel motel cost $5 a night. there had to be some funding mechanisms but beyond that one

of the things i can say in the state legislature and serving in congress from a legislator stan point in my opinion we need to have leadership that we really don't have on a complete level. by that i mean leadership from the white house to the courthouse. everybody has to pass the baton and what i have seen from the other side from the voting side of this issue is to get transportation type people whether they are directly involved with cars or railroads or highway contractors and so forth but they tend to call on members of the highway transportation committees. they don't call on someone from the health care committee and get health care is involved in transportation. they don't call on somebody from the agriculture committee but agriculture depends on good roads and transportation as well. one of the things that i would

say that we as those who support more transportation funding or a better vision you have got to call on all four and 35 members of the house. calling on the transportation committee members and bill shuster is probably my best friend in the house but they live and breathe it. they are for it. they are going to make it happen. pete defazio and shuster will come up with a program. they can do it in a half a day but they have to have 218 bucks. unless we are working on the entire congress then it's not going to happen. so that would be kind of my report from my foxhole and senator i appreciate it. >> i'd like to ask a quick question because i know you have to leave. since congress eliminated earmarks on special projects and members districts projects are essential being authorized and approved. do you think the idea will come

back to allow those endeavors by members? >> i think that what happened with the earmark debate is it got out of hand is numerically and it got out of hand in substance but what it really is his member directed projects and traditionally went wide shuster held the gavel that we have already mentioned he got individual members of the house and what you need in your district? do you heard on their mayors and county commissioners and a governor and state legislators say you have an idea so you could say we have some projects that ad up to $25 million and that's not paying for the entire project that the federal match at the state was ready to go for. and he said well you are not going to get 25 million. let me go back and shop at that home and that is where a lot of the leadership came from because suddenly that county county commissioner and that city

councilman everybody had a buy-in and you went back and you would vote for the bill but right now is an academic thing that gets real fuzzy. we pass a transportation bill. not sure who makes the decision. all the money might go to ohio not to pick on ohio. i'm saying it might go elsewhere and that is what a legislator cares about. i do think there needs to be away to address member priorities as a way of growing the vote. >> when bud shuster was chairman every highway in pennsylvania became a six lane highway. thank you very much job. i know you have an opinion have to get to bed i would like to welcome our next presenter let's do mike. mike sure roots. >> i'm going to seed my time.

chris guthridge is the budget director on infrastructure development for the infrastructure development. we are glad to have you here and look word to your thoughts. >> to introduce sansa is a swedish company 127 years. it's one of the world's largest contractor companies. it's a champion for sustainable infrastructure. it drives the way the company looks at its opportunities. it has 10 times the employees in the u.s. and the u.s. is the number one market. we are just completing a 2020 five-year business plan cycle but within the infrastructure development side we thank we are 10 years ahead. this is a hugely competitive market lots and lots of

international companies that are all vying to get the next offshoot. so we need to be teaming some two to three years ahead before a formal procurements actually start. you know we are here and we want the opportunity to invest in continued growth but that also includes workforce development. it includes minority supply chain because in reality we cannot grow the way we want to unless we can actually create the centers of excellence. what we need are reliable program projects both federal state and local levels. we want an opportunity to be able to show the value that can be created by using innovative procurement and financing means. we want fairness and transparency. don't blame public-private

partnerships for shortfalls in permitting and acquisition procedures. we want decisiveness. once you set a path you need to stick to it. and last but not least this is all about execution and its execution of a timely manner. to put a personal site to it when i was project director for the midtown tunnel when we won the bid for the 2 billion project and have 10 roads a really large construction worker came up to me and gave me a big hug and he said thank you for assuring my job for the next five years. that's the reality of it, the impact on families and their breadwinners and so on of unreliable project streams. just very quickly to talk about

the midtown tunnel with which i was probably associated, this is a huge technical undertaking of elizabeth and hampton roads area. this is a public private partnership. this cannot be done without one side or the other. this is a 5100-foot immersed tunnel. 11 segments each of them 16,000 tons. it was fabricated in spirits point baltimore and the segments floated down from the chesapeake to the elizabeth river. each of these segments laid in 100 feet of water with a one inch tolerance. that is the sort of engineering that you get with these megaprojects. we can't do projects like this without things like federal loans. the tifia loan was a key part of the financing for this project.

nor would we see critical success factors. firstly joint management that i think we learned a lot about stakeholders and representative talking about getting the whole house on site this is much more than that. this is about getting all the political taxpayers and the users of these assets. going through and it educative process and i would actually like to applaud what colorado has actually done in terms of the approach that they have had driven by the government to actually get utterly critical to these projects. if you don't have a project champion that's a real issue. that's a project champion many of these projects will just

flounder. last but not least is to make the point disadvantage business enterprises i mentioned earlier on but just for the big-time project alone you have some 28 vendors already on board. it's a very key area of these projects. not just creating in constructing the project but bringing it up. >> chris thank you very much for that perspective. next we would like his are present or dr. oliver mcghee who is a good friend of the secretary answered with the secretary and the department of transportation. he is now at howard university professor there and will share some thoughts on technology and maybe some positive growth trend thoughts. and i think you senator breaux and senator lott. i want to congratulate squire

patton boggs for recognizing transportation infrastructure. it's so very important. transportation in my eyes and many others is about economic choices. it's about moving people ideas and things as the secretary has often said that more importantly i'm a mathematician and engineer and a scientist civil aerospace is a matter of fact so i would like to put things in mathematical forms. competitiveness equals risk uncertainty and growth. i learned that from a great economic teacher and absentee teacher frank knight at the university of chicago and is a great book on the subject and when you look at risk is about what we know. uncertainties about what we don't know. it's our innovation enterprise and growth is about jobs and more importantly how we remain competitive how we remain

competitive in the united states and the world. when you are looking at growth you have to think about how you are investing in technology and how you employ it. positive training control is about taking advanced technology that was developed 45 years ago and implementing it today. we are basically running the 19th century -- in the northeast. 50% of positive train control has to be implemented between new york and boston but only 5% has been implemented between new york and washington d.c. and through the philadelphia corridor. without that deployment of technology lives are lost. so oftentimes what i do is i look at what are we looking at the public understanding of science and technology and oftentimes that is what science and technology and transportation is about understanding transportation.

there were seven grand elegies that we are trying to develop and transportation technologies. one is information to elegies. you have heard from the folks at ips who are saying we are trying to actuate and provide information so you can engage in it. the other technology as biotechnology and that is looking at how health issues can incorporate a couple of transportation. we want a healthy transportation at a price that we also want healthy people engaging in healthy transportation. there's advanced wireless sync and medications. transportation is always about make a skill engineering big large projects but transportation is getting smaller. we are doing virtual transportation more often than physical transportation so when we have these wireless medications devices where moving people and ideas that things virtually. we are telecommuting offices but

microtechnology is about computing transportation computing the choices and decisions involved in transportation. researchers are now looking much further 50 years out where things get very small and oftentimes we are going to be looking at molecular computing and 750 times faster than the high-performance meeting we have now. why do we need to compete transportation? we are trying to figure out the traffic patterns in the northeast corridor for daily flight as well as now rail systems. the derailment today is costing our economy $100 million a day. do we want to advance in these advanced technologies or lose $100 million a day and get into

the business of moving derailed trains off the track instead of moving people? basrawi looking at it dances in research and is so important transportation. it deals with human factors. human factors are what positive train control is about but will only look at air travel southeast asia is expected to be the largest growth in air travel by 2050 but we have close to well over 1100 people who have died in airplane crashes in the last year since march 8, 2014 which was the intersection of -- and we are still trying to bind the aircraft and also in other parts of the region in the world impacted by general wings airlines. we had to look at the psychological factors involved in what we call the cockpit post-9/11.

what is it locked cockpit door and who belongs in a? should bring the navigator back so we can make sure when they lock the cockpit door we have very strong human factors and looking at psychological factors of pilots and personnel inside the aircraft. and then finally we need to look at the older technology is in the western societies as we get to an older society how do we engage with moving people ideas and things and mobility issues in transportation? finally i would like to tap into what we are looking at in the government university industry partnership that really involves not only developing the advances in transportation of technologies which includes a lot of uncertainty but more importantly it deals with workforce development. how do we engage a new supply of science and engineer to understand these dances and to knowledge and engage them in more importantly as we look at

heightened engagement to our engaging in transportation this would involve training many scientists and engineers not only in america but across the world particularly when you look at the southeast asia district. for flying we have to look at private shortages but how are we training those pilots were dances and technologies for an airbus or an aircraft which has a glass cockpit and how do we look at those technologies that develop in the western side of the world and engage with the eastern side of the world when you are basically trying to fly an aircraft? etc. -- imagine for example if you are flying an aircraft made in china and largely in a society of mandarin chinese in your english trying to fly that are trapped on the digital aircraft. so would be difficult to advance without cultural issue involved. that is what we are talking about in workforce development as we go forward.

in closing i agree with frank knight and i think frank knight with the infrastructure and transportation is important. how risky are we -- and how certain are we about uncertainties and how will will we grow the transportation and enterprise for 2050 and beyond? is about bringing people ideas and things physically and virtually. >> dr. maggie thank you very much for those thoughts and insight. our final presenter will be the head ahead and president and ceo for project right here that we have all visited many times the union station redevelopment corp. here to tell us what they are doing and what they have done. >> thank you very much and again i want to thank you for the privilege of being here today. i say i have the best job in the world and i've had the privilege of working on washington union station and preparing it for the

second century project. i'm sure you are familiar with the building and the challenges it presents but it was in 1901 thanks to the leadership of the senate senator matt millen saw the need to revitalize washington d.c. and we had the mcmillan plan in washington union station was billed as an anchor to that plan. in the early 1980s it had fallen to major disrepair acid rail travel but again fortunately to the leadership of congress the u.s. rc union station redevelopment corporation was established as a public private partnership with the goal of reinvigorating the station as a multimodal transportation center and commercial center that would revitalize the neighborhood's. i think we can see 30 years later that it has achieved those goals. it's now time however to go into the next century and once again rebuild and build a transit oriented development and link

the eastern side of the city and the neighbors of capitol hill noma and the downtown. two years ago amtrak announces vision plan for 2012 under a number of partners involved in the plan including src. we are nonprofit and two developers as well as city and regional entities. to give you vision for that plan it entails preserving the historic building but completely rebuilding all the infrastructure behind this facility. new rail yard, new cap mary. that infrastructures 100 years old down is not working well and certainly not what the northeast corridor needs in order to address the issues and provide long-term transportation for the next 100 years. it's critical to serving the northeast corridor. washington union station is the busiest metro station in the

system even though it's not a transfer station. metro fortunately has plans to expand the metro services they are. we also have a very if bus station there now. we serve over 37 million people a year in washington union station. to give you some comparison i like to call it the fourth airport the largest airports serving 25 million people so it's a busy place and i'm sure you are familiar. it's bursting at the seams. it's a great place to be but we need to take it to the next evolution. that is what we have been working on and we are deep into the planning phases. we hope next year amtrak begins construction in the current concourse although the full buildout which will take us conservative league -- conservatively speaking 20 years. the plan would be to do the inside of the station. amtrak would completely rebuild

the east side of the rail yard and a private developer will literally develop a transit oriented development of hotels homes offices that would build the west side and the developer were complete the web site so we are not only creating transportation systems but also creating a new neighborhood so it's a very exciting project. obviously to do a project like that is going to take a long time and we need a stable source of funding and we need certainty of funding. we have proceeded however for the past couple of years into the planning an early design and literally the way it we have been able to do that is our partners consist of ripe developers in amtrak public-private and a nonprofit. we literally at the beginning of the year sit down and look at what we want to do to keep the project on schedule and unbearably one partner does not know in that year they are going to have the money to put up the

funding of the project. one of the other partners at the table including the nonprofit has been able to say we will fight you the money this year so we can keep the project going. that is how we have been able to get into the planning. obviously that works when you're talking about tens of millions of dollars but no one has the deep pockets will make it into design and we are talking about tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars. but the next couple of years we will be out of place where we need to know the certainty of funding and stable funding. we want this to be an plan for it to be a significant public partnership. we will have a number of options to fund it but we can't ask the private sector to step up and be there for cam make the commitments for the public funding. they absolutely need certainty. we also do not embark on this project and we certainly can start to build a rail yard and stop building it halfway

through. or start to build the development of courses for the current stop halfway through. i think we have a great example of why we need flexibility in funding and options for the public sector and the private sector can work together to finance projects as well as stability for funding. i am confident. we have the leadership in 1901 in 1981 the vision and creativity to make sure washington union station was one of the most iconic multi-modal transportation centers in the world and i'm sure we will do that again but we need to step up with funding sources creativity and flexibility. >> ireland thank you very much for that update on that very important project and if anyone has a question for any of our panelists you are welcome to ask them. yes sir, in the back. speak up a little bit. i'm old and deaf.

there is a technology deficit. >> beverly i'm just curious this is going to be really simplistic at how much of the project is expected to be public funding and how much is going to come from the private side? >> we have just started to master development plan. hired grimshaw and bbb and starting the nepa process so we are hoping in the next year to 18 months as they go through that to have the details. as i mentioned we have multiple potential sources of funding. we are currently as a nonprofit funded with parking revenue. so i think we will have multiple areas that we can monetize that

the reason that flexibility is going to be critical is to bring these different kinds of sources together and be able to do a financing package so that is what we are working on now and we don't have the answers. one of the critical pieces is knowing how much money we can expect for the public for example. >> let me throw out a question. seems we always hear how other countries in passenger rail transportation like china and japan and from the european models are averaging 150 miles an hour of modern trains and we don't see that in the united states. what are we doing differently in this country and what are they doing differently in these other areas that we might learn from? chris maybe your international perspective for anybody? where they'd doing it differently than us and is it any more successful than we are doing it here in this country? >> i used it coming from

oxfordshire to the city of london every day using the great western line and for those who know their history is king pimpernel designed and built that railway and the whole point about it this is back in the 19th century. the whole point it was literally to give you a smooth a ride as you can take. you run the high-speed 125 trains. the point is this is technology which was in existence in the 19th century. there is no reason why, i mean it's a lot of investment but there is no question you can create. >> was it because the investment was from governmental sources as opposed to the government sector? >> this is private investment in

the railways. >> i take it the private passenger rail system pays for itself but the ridership in a serious? >> what i would say if we were looking at public private hardships for improving rail systems particularly on the heavy transit or light rail or in particular light rail the reality is that these projects don't pay for themselves from the actual -- itself and in reality the actual risk of the revenues still sits with the public sector. but you can achieve enormous amount with both the partnership of the public and private sector. >> obviously weather problems with amtrak doesn't pay for itself. jennifer do you have any

comments on i-95 in 495 from a public-private partnership? how are we doing it as far as the funding operations? >> from our perspective these projects partnerships are successful when you can align commercial objectives with policy objectives and that's a difficult thing to do. we have that alignment wherefrom a policy outcome perspective you heard me talk about the time savings increase transit the jobs the economic outcomes that have come from the projects and from a commercial purpose backed up we are very pleased that 495 is on solid financial footing in 95 has come out in a solid position so that we can get returned where shareholders as well. that is what we need here in the

u.s. and if chris could speak to this as well. in our sector we need more examples in the u.s. of projects that have struck that alignment and have been successful on both sides. those kind of case studies will give i hope policymakers encouragement to try these kinds of public-private partnerships to move projects forward like we have seen in other markets around the world. >> any questions from the audience? let me ask one more, and maybe two. you mention positive train control which is obviously been in the news because of the recent derailment in the philadelphia area tragic gorilla. and i do have positive train control would have been able to stop the train before the accident. how are other doing on ttc? do they have it in place or what are we the only ones lagging

behind and can you comment on that? >> shirt. positive train control is a 45-year-old technology that we are dealing with trying to turn a train at 50 miles per hour slower than the cars on the i-95 parallel to it in a turn that was designed for freight system so we have to separate the freight rail from the commercial rail. commercial rail is largely a straight line and when you look at mag lab it's floating. so it really challenges us as the united states. are we really ready to him to make a scale engineering development and a funding model like map-21 that has 27 increments as we step forward? it's very difficult for private enterprise to anticipate making

risky investments to partner with the government that is taking baby steps in increments for mega-scale development by chris is talking about. when you go into the straight line and you have to dances and high-speed rail to elegy then we may not be talking about positive train control but further advances in technologies as i talked about in information systems and wireless systems and digital and computing technologies that could put a glass operation system inside of the train system much like what we see in an aircraft. i had the privilege of traveling from paris to belgium and back and i was on that train and had a glass of wine and it never even shut. i said this is better than flying southwest airlines. we look at flying in this country like we are flying on greyhound. how many people enjoy engaging

at an airport these days? you have to hold on to your wallet once you get out of the cab international airport. we are at basically, it's not an enjoyable experience. right now we are looking $100 million in data costs. we will develop engineering technologies when we are tired of the pain but more importantly in this serious matter this is lives lost. i think our transportation enterprises in trouble when it loses seven lives or over 1100 lives like we have lost in air travel in the last year and that is the most in six decades. so i am eyes mindful about that. it's about safety but at the same time only to advances in technology we get a safer transportation enterprise. secretary slater used to say safety is our northstar and transportation but as we

engineers and scientists develop this new technology we have to deploy them so we can become moving to transportation to price forward. everything we do today is an economic choice and every single morning we have to make a choice on the transportation system. that engages us every day. congress is doing incremental analysis because that is how they bring on the bacon. one of the most discretionary budgets aries and the budget and that is how we say to our constituents look what i brought home to you a new bridge a new parking lot a new train a new curve or line in the highway but that's incremental analysis. as contrary to dances and engineering which is a mega-scale project when was the last big transportation project we have done in this country? i think i can remember the big dig in boston but that was about

it and we do these big projects it engages in public understanding of science and elegy and we have more hope in a transportation system and that is what infrastructures about this week providing that hole. >> thank you dr. mcghee and i would like to thank our entire panel. chairman shuster left baltimore and is tied up in traffic or properly for a transportation conference but i think this panel very much for their presentations as well as our audience. [applause] let me bring up secretary slater to come up and close the program. thank you. >> senator we would like to thank you for the great job you did moderating the panel. let's get the senator in here of applause. [applause] just a couple of points to close out. you should know that coming into this room we actually asked the chairman and the ranking member

if we could sit in these chairs. you know they are elevated. can you imagine sitting up there and that is the thing they told us you imagine? no you cannot sit up there. you have to sit here so we are here willpower thing that we have enjoyed the experience.

ling through the online store. >> next, west virginia senator joe manchin talks about improving government. this is brought to you by the brookings institute. it runs 50 minutes. sglp >> good afternoon i am a fellow at the center for effective public management and managing editor of the fix gov blog. i would like to welcome you to the brookings institute and today's event. i would like to thank c-span for

being here and invite everyone watching to follow along on social media. it is no secret the american government is in a problem of dysfunction. gridlock crippled the institutions trust in government plummeted and instead of getting answers, all we are getting is more problems. too often we adapt to a dysfunctional system rather than work in a way to reform it. that is a serious problem. it results in a system that makes ills rather than cures. through the political realism project we are engaging scholars in and out of house to look at the types of reforms that will help rejuvenate the system get it back to work get public

policy moving in the right direction. it is a robust and decisive debate sometimes but it is vital to public democracy. we are joined by a member of the united states senate who is engaged in similar types of debates with his own colleagues in his own institution. we are pleased to recognize an additional voice. joe manchin serves in the senate coming with a unique perspective. he is one of ten senators who formally served as governor. they bring a critical perspective. they are problem solvers and charged by the their state to govern. they oversaw state agencies and crisis and a public that demanded a lot out of them and the expectation for them was to deliver. together these ten members have formed the former governor's

caucus. a group committed to bringing their governing experience to bear in ways that reform public policy but the new institution they serve in. before turning it over to the senator i would like to offer a brief introduction. joe manchin is the senior senator having been a senator from 2010. he served as governor from 2005-2010 and a 30 year career in the public service serving in the west virginia house of delegates, state senator and as secretary of state. it is my pleasure to welcome senator manchin to brookings. [applause] >> i want to thank brookings for hosting this event but importantly for helping to tackle this important issue of how we can make government

working. i want to thank you john for the introduction and your hard work on this effort. i know it isn't sexy and doesn't grab headlines like the divisive issues when you operate from the fringes of the right and left it gets people fired up. but making government work more effectively is critical to getting the country back on time. in 2010 when senator bird passed away in june of that summer i had to make one of the most difficult decisions of my political career. i had to decide should i try to go to washington and leave the straight state i love? i was two years in my second term. i made the decision and it was the toughest decision i made but it was made on this premise.

i felt like we contributed so much. we brought people together. we had a super majority of democrats in the senate and legislature and never let them beat up on the republicans. i said by the grace of god it could be us. we need everyone work together. we would work together identify problems we had for the state we didn't make it political. we took that premise and did everything in state that needed to be done. it was critical. i made the decision and said if i can take the experience i had and the successes we have enjoyed in west virginia and bring that maybe i could be of help. i could contribute to something. i made the decision and felt good about leaving the state with the job we had done. i remember senator bird telling us about the senate and he was a master of the senate and wrote the book.

he truly loved this place. he had the upmost respect for this senate and we still abide by a most of them. senator bird served in a time when the senate worked and policy trumpet and when members sat down for a meal together and knew each other's family and children and what they liked and disliked. unfortunately today in washington we live by the concept you are no longer guilty by association you are guilty by conversation. if someone sees you talking to the opposite side or somebody that might not have the same thought process or philosophical belief it is like you have gone to the dark side. i said how can we learn our differences if we don't communicate? gone of the days are the days

where they would break bread in the main room. i used to hear about the main dining room and the dining room on the left. senators went in there having their meetings. when i first came i said i don't know why they are not doing that. every tuesday we have a caucus lunch. tomorrow both the democrats and the republicans will go their separate ways for lunches in two different parts of the building. very seldom do we ever get together for a bipartisan meal. when you see us on c-span on floor it that is the most time we spend together. sometimes when you serve with one member on one committee you don't have that. i tried to break that.

i started the bipartisan lunch and it has worked. you can understand most of the former governors are the ones that show up quite a bit because they understand we have the same problems; highway education medicare problems. and they want to find out who had something that worked. we would exchange back and forth. i had no problem calling mitt romney in massachusetts or rick perry in texas. so problem whatsoever. we had great relationships. we are lucky to have ten former governors. five democrats, one independent and four republicans. the caucus is with the democrats. we bring a more common sense approach to governings and we don't get to meet as a group as much as we would like we

gravitate toward each other for gills and common sense legislation. when we ran our states basically most of us had -- 46 states have balance budget amendments. that means the first thing you want to know as governer and get elected they take and show you the revenue of the state and what you have to work with. you work on your budget for the coming here put things together, and every tuesday afternoon i would have the budget analysis and all of my budget people would come and meet with me and they would tell me what our forecast was, how our collections are going, how much we had to work with and areas we had to changing and make adjustments. that was something always on our minds. can we pay for what we promised or would like to do. you start picking priorities based on values. what is the value of the people in west virginia.

it was about children getting a start and children being able to obtain an educational degree getting the skill sets to compete, taking care of veterans and seniors. people said how can you balance the budget and i said i said no more and yes more. everybody wanted all of these things to be done and i said here is what i have to work it. tell me the group you want to tell we cannot do that anymore. if i picked one that was wasteful we will pick one that is more. we will take the same approach and find common sense ways to approach and make a goal work. it is a challenge. the first day about the first day i came to the senate, i said what is our revenue. i was told we will spend $3.5-$3.7 trillion.

how much money will we have? we don't think we can cut much out. and i said you want to spend $3.7 trillion. how much do you think we have to pay? $2.2 in revenue. i said we are not high end mathematicians but we can add and subtract and finish you are 1.5 trillion short. it doesn't work that way in washington they said. i have not figured out the new math in washington. i am trying. i am having a hard time myself. you know we had efficiency of using taxpayer dollars. i will share another example as governor. this can be done through property funding and the revenue positive office. the revenue positive office is one that we would have that basically would do budget reviews general counting

offices, and things that say if you did this and this you can save a 100 billion and you have a redundancy in government. every president like every governor has a platform. and every legislature wants to -- the first honeymoon session wants to get the new president or governor a honeymoon if you will and abide. what we had is a layer on top of layer adding up over the years. and every now again you have to have a correction. and you have to change and you have to consolidate. it makes government harder and hurts the country and our government when you don't do this. most people tonight realize offices particulary inspector generals, can identify inside and outside abuse. when we had to cut back and they would say revenue is short in the state of west virginia.

i would say show me where there is an agency putting out more than we are investing. the department of revenue. for every dollar i spend on outside audit i get a $100 return. people would say this is a gray line. we will stop it there. if they say something we will say it was a mistake. you have to have auditors watching continuously. when we cutback budgets i would increase it because it would help me get out of the whole quicker. it is common sense and no different than how you would run your household or business. spending is positive investments. we tried to cut funding and did netloss to the government. when the offices experience funding cuts the federal government loses money and we

lose out on their about to save from other programs. that is why i am introduced legislation that will show offices that saved more than they spent. we needed to know if the taxes we imposed helped or hurt. if we reduced taxes and accelerated the reduction it would catch up. and we put triggers in to stop and take a pause to see where we were. there are things people would do. if you run out of money, people would rob a piggy bank and sweep the agencies so it isn't noticeable to the average public. then they will make cuts within government. they will cut back and lay people off. and the last thing they want to

do is raise taxes because then somebody messed up. that is what they believe. so basically what you have to do is look at the wholistic approach. everybody is afraid to talk about taxes. you look now and we cannot even agree on the definition of revenue. that is hard to believe. you would think we cut the taxes right? if we got rid of the junk in the box, the give away and the problems that ever lobbiest has done, every one of them with all of that being said, that is a tremendous with drawl on the revenue. no one says how much does that cost? and that is what we need to

know. and that is what we will be working on. i focused on the tax reform and there is no question i have been a big simpson supporter. i thought the president missed that to make it a bipartisan effort and tweak it but had a three-prong approach. you fix your revenue and you can take care of everything. if you get your revenue under control you are in great shape. if you don't, you have an eight ball and indebtness to see unmanaged makes you a cowered. it certainly does. tax expenditures have the same budgetary affect as spending increases. we know about the charitable deductions and don't appreciate the cost of the tax

expenditures. we can start the process of overhauling the process and not harm businesses or our own voters. i will introduce legislation to allow congress with the budget office to include tax ex expenditures. they are line items today and they will have to take them the same way we do. as a form were governor i warranted to know if the actions we took were working. in washington every time we do something we think of it as something that needed to be done. we never acknowledge we made a mistake. it didn't work. if that is the case why do they need us to come back? we fixed everything if we are that good. the reason i think our founding fathers had us coming back is to make adjustments. i made a mistake.

it didn't work out. the information i got was wrong. we will fix this. that is what i am trying to say. in washington it is no different than back home in west virginia. i told people if i got something wrong, i made a mistake and i can fix it. it didn't work out that way. so let's go back and correct it. one way to address this is to reform the regulatory system. i am introduce legislation to reestablish the office of technology assessment. up until 1995 this office provided non partisan information to congress on cost benefit analysis on regulations and reg lor tory changes. the only source for this information is the whitehouse office of information and regulatory affairs. it should not x from the whitehouse's office when it comes to make state department's decisions in the government. congress needs their own system for ret prospective review with

existing ways to identify various regulations and terms. there are common sense bills out there to help identify ways for the government to work more efficiently. last congress i introduced the duplication elimination act to make it easier for congress to eliminate duplication and overlap. the bill would require the government to submit a proposal each year on how to carry out recommendations in the outlining of the government's accountability office. some years it could be $3-$400 billion in cuts. in 90 days of the goa's report the president must provide congress with a draft proposal and report explaining which are

excluded and why they are not included. why did you pick some but not take the recommendation to consolidate. we think that would work well. both chambers of congress must vote proposals in ten days. and any dollars achieved must be used for deficit reduction. we are not making tan attempt. and no one is worried about the $18 trillion deficit. this is a win-win deal. it gets rid of government waste and holds the government accountable for unnecessarily and unacceptable redundancy. we are starting to see a glimmer of hope and that is one reason i decided to stay in the senate. if it was ability personal politics and not private.

i felt like i accomplished something back home. i left the state in better position. i see the changes. i think there is more to be done but i feel like we can make a difference. but we are making more. we are having more bipartisan talks and debating legislation and i feel there is more work to do. i know the campanile seen is ramping up and we are likely to see political combiefbknives coming out. i am hoping colleagues will join

me in the pledge i took. they said why doesn't the place not work? and i said let me give you the scenario. human nature is this. it is hard to say no to your friends. it is truly hard. with that we have no relationship and not many friendships. and i will work with you. i said on top of that every day i come to work, they expect me to make phone calls and raise money so that can be spent against our colleagues. i am a democrat and they expect me to go on the trail and campaign against a republican. they expect all of my republican colleagues and friends to do the same. how in the world on monday can you come to me and say let's sit down and work on this. i have a good idea. i know last week you spent money on ads against me and went to my home state and told people they should not vote for you. what makes you think i will sit down with you and work it out.

i took a pledge i will not raise a dollar and not campaign against anything. i will not. i think it makes it horrible and if you want to know why we don't get along is because everybody is afraid to talk. guilt by conversation. they are afraid to talk because it could be used against them in an ad. that is one pledge i would like to see the whole town agree to. we cannot campaign against each other. that is what i am joining and trying to do. there is not one colleague of mine even ones i disagree with who i cannot work with and one who can look at me and say joe manchin defeated me and tried to take my job away. not one. so it is easy for me to cross over the aisle and work with the

them. i always say i am a the dull weather person. they bring it to me and i say let me bring it to my colleagues. i don't believe it is working like senator bird told me it did. but i am not going to stop fighting. i think it is well worth the fight we have in it to make this fight work. we have had a lot of greater challenges than this and we have overcome them all. i think we can overcome this, too. i guess we will have questions now. thank you. [applause]