>> friday night farewell speeches and tributes to outgoing senators, harry reid, barbara boxer -- this week in prime time on cspan. >> jason miller, director of economic council discusses the future of infrastructure and importance of innovation. virginia transportation secretary aubrey lane also takes part. >> everyone, my name is rob barnett, i'm with bloomberg intelligence, we're going to continue on with our discussion here this afternoon. so let me quickly introduce the panel here. we've got jason miller from the white house here joining us. we've got lonny ingram from verizon, we have aubrey lane

from the virginia secretary of transportation and mike johnson from parsons infrastructure. and with this panel, i think we have a good opportunity to have discussion amongst the public and private sector about infrastructure investment here in the united states. we had a big election here in the u.s. last week and one of the consensus ideas that you are hearing discussed is interest in doing something on infrastructure across both sides of the aisle. the great place to start, we kind of heard this idea about a rural urban divide in the last panel. what is the role of government in infrastructure spending as you see it? what's the role of the federal government it and how does it trickle down to the states and local level. we'll go down the panel with that broad, kick it off, 30,000 foot idea. >> sure. thanks, so i just wanted to build on to start, a couple of things that the previous panel mentioned, which i think step

well to set the context for this question about the role of the federal government. everybody agrees we have a big funding problem. no matter which way you cut it, investment in infrastructure has been far below what it needs, somebody mentioned this in the previous panel, but i want to emphasize this point. our current funding levels, if we maintain them are lacking in the deterioration in our infrastructure system. so just to maintain much less get where we need, be the kind of competitive economy that we need, we need significant increases in investment. now, in addition to just min tank our systems is a whole set of new challenges that we are confronting. one is the demographic reality of a growing population and growing economy with constrained amount of space. so that means higher freight costs, that means congestion for people getting to and from work or where they need to go to school or what they want to do that day. that creates real strain on the

system. today our estimate is that there is over $150 billion lost in economic value every year just from congestion alone. that's a huge number. it's not just that we're underinvesting, we're creating costs today. the second thing is how are we going to bring new technologies into the systems across the board, whether transportation, energy, water communications, there's a whole new set of opportunities that create new challenges, i spent time this year working on automated vehicles, that will transform how we think about surface transportation systems, that's a fundamental question we need to tackle. not just about pumping more money, how are we going to use that money effectively. and the third is addressing the needs from a changing climate. our transportation sectors an enormous consumer of energy and

carbon emissions, it's not just about changing vehicle technologies through fuel economy standards there's a natural interaction between the choices that people and businesses are able to make and our ability to drive down emissions over time. you have to be able to give people more choices than just getting into a vehicle that burns oil. if we're going to confront some of these long term challenges, so long term plan needs to both address the challenges we've been facing and these new challenges that are going to increase over time. so in terms of the role for the federal government, i will leave some additional ones, i will put two out there. one is the federal government needs to maintain a key role in providing funding for a set of public infrastructure. primarily in surface transportation, but i think it's fair for us to evaluate, particularly as we look at some of the challenges of our water infrastructure, what should be the right role for the federal government in providing funding. the federal share of infrastructure has been

declining, the federal investment in infrastructure, the share of gdp is at a almost historic low, that is something that we need to address and we need to increase. the second is in setting standards. federal government plays a key role in setting standards, from new technologies or how federal funding is used. in the pays of automated and connected vehicles, if we had every state setting policies for how automated vehicles worked, you couldn't cross a border, that would be a complex challenge, you couldn't cross a border. that is where the federal government plays a key role in establishing the standards by which we operate our infrastructure systems. let me pause there. >> as a employee in the private sector, what are you looking to

federal government for? >> i think the whole idea around infrastructure is something that not only crosses lines between parties but it also crosses lines between the federal government, the state government, and the local governments, all the way down to the citizens. the level of partnership that has to happen for this to work, really needs to be seemless across all of those areas. i do believe that the role of the mayors is incredibly important around smart communities and because really it happens at the city level. but the ability to have regulations as was just mentioned, starting at the state level and on to the federal level is incredibly important. but really one of the other main areas is providing incentives and some of those initial pushes to incentivize and encourage copies a cities and communities to jump into this.

although columbus is the winner and we're going to see some amazing things out of that particular city, all of the other cities that participated in this learned a tremendous amount, not only about what was available to them, but also the tremendous amount of support that is coming from the public and the private sector to make those activities happen. so i think doing more of those types of initiatives is incredibly important for the federal government. and the last thing i would like to be able to say is not only does it cross the lines between these various broken silos, but also within the city there is a lot of silos that happen. and technologies can't be done within those silos, such as transportation department may not have a working relationship with the health care department or energy department. really in the future we can't afford to have duplicate infrastructure across all of these various groups to just have solutions that don't talk with one another. if we truly are going to do

something around say a ton muss vehicles, it will require partnerships with what is happening on the light poles to what is happening in the automobiles to what is happening with policies around how this is going to be -- there is sinnergy cross department in order to afford the solutions and be sure they're working together for the common goals. >> thank you. aubrey, it would be great to hear, what are you looking to the federal government for besides funding and how do you see these kind of silos that were mentioned. >> first of all, i listened to the other panels and they have the direct responsibility for infrastructure being the secretary of transportation, 60,000 miles of roads, we have sea ports, aviation, obviously something we think about daily. what i tend to hear is the same rhetoric we all know we don't have enough money. we all know that the federal government has to be a key

player. but also i think it's responsible of the states and those that use transportation dollars to prove that they're using them efficiently and we make the case for having more money. we've done that in virginia by a couple different ways. number one, we instituted what we call smart scale, the new private ti sags process. we rank them across the common wealth based on six factors, congestion mitigation, economic develop, environmental safety, land use, economic development and from that we get a relative understanding what our needs are. let me tell you also what we get, we understand what we're leaving on the table. it's an out base form of measurement, it's not how much money you get, it's how many projects you are delivering. my background is in business. so i don't know of anything that produces anything until you get the completed project. you wouldn't complete half a

hotel, so why would you allocate money for half a road. so that is one of the things what we've done is that these projects are allocated through construction, fiscally constrained and we also have a list of all the projects we're not doing. so when we talk about what we're leaving on the table, it's not a ester rick conversation, i can say here is what we're not funding and here is what we're missing out. another big important piece of this is obviously public private partnerships, virginia has been a leader, we did some things well and some we could have done better. we transformed that p 3 process because it's not a default procurement. private dollars don't take the place of public, they enhance them. that's why i say there is two ps in public private partnerships, we did a major project here in this area, interstate 66, over the governor just announced first time we had a completely competitive process.

in fact we competed against ourselves, we said that is why we're negotiating from, set those terms. now not only are we putting up state subsidy, we're getting $500 million at closing for that project. that now we can use to enhance other projects in the region. so i certainly agree the federal partners have to be there. they've got to be a component of our infrastructure. in fact, i believe infrastructure is a core component of government, whether state or federal. but it's also incumbent that we prove to the taxpayers we're using it wisely and we can make a realistic case what we're leaving on the table. i think that is going to be the missing piece of this, along with technology. because technology can drive costs down. let me point out that technology should be in the confines of what the policies are, technology is just not for technology sake. i will be at uber tomorrow, a

big part of where we're headed. drones. but they need to fit within the policies you are trying to deliver. not just putting technology to say you did it. and that will be the key. i think technology will help drive where we're going as if you had the right policy setting. i know we'll get in more detail about that later. that is an overview how we attacked this problem. >> thank you. mike, let's build on that, with the idea of technology in mind, you know, what is the potential for government to drive innovation in this infrastructure bill that seems to be potentially looming out there and again still love to hear from you on kind of anything you are looking for from the government at least at the federal level. >> in my view as an investor and design builder, i want the federal government to set that bar high. and we have to develop projects that move the needle. if we go back and look in time whether it's the stimulus act or

others, there wasn't enough ready on the shelves to get things built. you have to have projects. if we look to wood row wilson, that wasn't a formal design build or public private partnership, the feds and two states invested in that program which led to the development of the national harbor. a million and a half in, 3 billion back in private development. so we have to look for projects that are one plus one equals three, that's what we're looking for. and the role of the federal government in addition to setting that bar high and making this a priority, it's a priority for our country. if you look at the bridges or transit systems, many of them are older than our population. our bridges are past baby boomers. talking about bridges that are 70 years old, 80 years, old, trains and systems approaching 100 years old. there is a lot of work to be done, there is a lot of work to put people back in. there has to be the president-elect and our current administration have both supported this.

and i think it's now time to come together, all right, and drive this. it can be driven from the top and it can be driven from the bottom as well. >> so with that in mind, i mean, i think everybody has mentioned autonomous vehicles of some sort and they're are optimists talk about them coming rapidly. what are the main problems that either the federal government or local governments have to solve to really facilitate some of these innovations like autonomous vehicles, we'll start with you. >> one of the key things is to be able to look at infrastructure as a whole. this is not a problem that can be solved by just going to one particular company. this is going to take an ecosystem of different types of technologies, different type of players, both public and private. to be able to make this happen. and a good example of that, we were talking about it earlier is let's say the power of driving

the lighting solutions and autonomous vehicles at the same time. wherever there are automobiles generally speaking you have street lights going along the exact same manner. can we at one time build infrastructure into that particular light pole that not only saves energy but also provides solutions around traffic flows and traffic management. thus allowing for that autonomous vehicle to actually take place in the more efficient manner. this is the only way we're going to actually be able to truly afford these solutions as well as being able to leverage the infrastructure in a way that we're not creating massive redisruption every time we have to go back in for a different solution. that is one of the things that i think are really important. and the other thing i just wanted to tag on, first of all i totally agree with you saying go bold, basically with the federal government, raise those standards high and push the rest of the players in this area to kind of shoot for the moon. i think that we're ready for

that. as a industry. there has been a lot of conversation, there's been a lot of work that's been going on, a lot of solutions that have been developed. in order for us really to do something in say the autonomous vehicle area or other areas around smart kmcommunities we nd to do it at scale or we won't get the sinnergy levels to make it affordable and role out in a matter that will impact all communities not just one particular neighborhood. those are some initial thoughts on that. >> jason, maybe share some thoughts on where president obama's situation is with -- is it more about standards? >> sure. so this summer the administration released our federal automated policy. vehicles policy. the president wrote an op ed sharing his views in the pittsburgh post ga set when we rolled that out. i think first, one of the interesting things right is if

you take this from the body that has regulatory authority over vehicles. nhtsa, the department of transportation. the one number they talk about at the beginning of every single meeting is 35198, that is the number of americans that died due to vehicle accidents in 2015. 35,000 people. that's enormous and something that you know, when we think about automated vehicles, we think it will be awesome i can sit in the car and not worry about getting from point a to point b, the prospect of saving tens of thousands of lives every year has huge implications. and that is first and foremost in the regular's mind. this is the tech nol ghi that has the ability to dramatically change your tra jektory on safety on the road. but when you ask people, do you feel safe in these vehicles, there's a lot of people that are skeptical. and so part of the role of the

federal government in outlining policy guidance and potentially regulations is establishing a path by which you can deploy these vehicles in a way that is safe and the public feels confidence in it. you need both things. what we rolled out in the summer required auto makers to submit or not required, but sougt voluntary letters from auto makers laying out ways in which across 15 different dimensions they were testing and managing the safety of automated vehicle systems before they're on the road. that is a really key thing. the second is making sure there is cohererence, consistency between what the federal government is doing and what the states are doing. that is absolutely key, you need clear, strong partnership there and everybody to understand who is in charge of what.

so that you have consistency so that this can get rolled out. the third thing here is there is going to be a lot of learning that happens. there is going to be a lot of learning and a lot of data that is captured. if that is done in a hundred different ways with a hundred different teams of people, we are losing a huge opportunity. it needs to be done in a way where there is strong sharing of data, strong sharing of learning so that in these early stages when we are testing and learning, it can then be deployed ask scaled. you can't move to scale right away. you need to test and learn. and the federal government can play a key role in enabling and supporting that testing and learning, but it has to be done with states with communities and with the private sector if it's going to work well. >> aubrey this is a great point for you to jump in. we were talking before about the divide between someone living in the valley and someone living in the d.c. area. how do you think about this question maybe from that rural

urban divide perspective? >> well, let's go back a little bit and say, back to the funding and there are consequences for having limited resources. none of them are bad quite frankly because necessary is the mother of invention. i'm quite sure because of the resources the technology will be in the car. certainly in the roads make a lot of sense, initially it will have to be in the car as we merge these in. one of the side things we develop hot lanes because of technology in the road, also we have to figure out how to use our current roads more efficiently. you know, in other words how do we get more through put not necessarily more vehicles. autonomous vehicles can work very well under that, particularly if you are trying to introduce them in a rural area versus into an urban area where there may be more acceptance of them. from our perspective, i'm quite sure when they're out there they will be different than what we

contemplate today. that's why we set up tests where we have the vehicles merge in and coordinate not only vehicle to vehicle but some of the smart things in the roads and it is getting back to education. because 50% of the driving public are scared to death. they don't want them because they don't think they're safe. so that is what we're trying to do is use real world applications, our test site in virginia tech, we have a roadway where we put them on and the whole bit. is to see how do we best merge those in. i think it's going to be quicker in the urban areas. quite frankly, if you look at the stated objectives of uber or lift or some of them it's to get rid of personal car ownership. i think we're seeing that with smart car and all the things that are happening here. but it will be a difference as we introduce them into the rural areas and i think that goes a lot into how we actually use the technology instead of forcing it on people.

let it take itself naturally. >> mike, i think this would be great for you to jump in and talk about just what do you see outside of the u.s. just mean autonomous vehicles. you have elon musk talking about hyper loop. how are you seeing it, sort after global perspective, looking at innovation and infrastructure and transportation? >> if we start in the middle east as a good example, if you look at whether it's elon musk or any others looking to invest, what makes the middle east attractive is they've got the political will to get projects done. you see that in southeast asia and you certainly see it in europe. i think the hallmark of what's making those projects really progress forward faster than here is our ability to share and manage risk.

and i think it's going to start at the backbone of cyber security. if you just take a step back and think about how much data right now your transit agency has. but it take wmata or new jersey transit or vre, think about all the data they have about you, your credit card information, the fact that they've got ez pass, ez pass is the third largest holder of financial data in the united states. we talk about banks being secure. that's why public/private partnerships come into advent. we know that's working in other parts of the world such as in europe. what are we learning from that part of the world to help us here? >> thanks. i want to build off your idea about the speed with which you're seeing maybe other regions, other countries tackle infrastructure spend. what do you think is required of the federal government to sort of have that same type of speed and approach? aubrey, you mentioned it's more

than just money. but i mean, what's the criteria? >> it's political will. i mean, you've got to have the political will. we just had a project in the southeast part of virginia that we had funded, transportation project. but if you ask the public, many times they have to pay for it, they always say no. they want the infrastructure but they don't want to pay for it. political will is part of it. the federal government can set examples of how to utilizes monies. i really like their fast lane grant program. we just received $165 million where we competed for -- against -- around the country, but brought in private money, brought in new technologies, both rail and vehicular traffic on 95, to open up a congested area. so i think when you really get

down to it, we can set all the standards. we can set all the other parameters. but if we don't have the political will to provide the funding necessary to do these things, then we're still back to the same loop we've been in i think for the last several decades. >> jason, maybe you've got some perspective on the political realities of finding ways to seek funding. so what's the easiest lift here? you guys have probably studied it and seen that it's hard to maybe raise the gasoline tax or do anything else that sort of traditionally provides transportation funding. what are the sources available in your mind? >> sure. i mean, you know, when the administration stepped into office, there was an opportunity through the recovery act to get a temporary boost in funding. i think in some places there was a bunch of projects ready to go, and in other places a scramble to identify potential projects.

but that wasn't a long term solution. in december of last year, the president signed the fast act, a big improvement over where we had been, a big improvement because congress was doing these short term punts which create enormous uncertainty in many parts of the country who don't have the pipeline that aubrey and his team have developed. and you need that long term certainty if you're going to have the entire country evaluating projects from an outcome orientation. in 2012, we laid out an approach that i think still works, which is the combination of business tax reform and using the transition revenues, the one-time transition revenues of moving to a new business tax system to fund infrastructure in a very large way. that proposal would have created enough increased investment for five to six years.

so five to six years is a meaningful period of time. but it's still not the long term solution that we need. at the beginning of this year, the president laid out a proposal for a fee on oil. that would be one way that you could fund over a long period of time. but decades from now, you may need another approach. so i think part of the question that people need to grapple with is, what is the problem that we're trying to solve from an infrastructure standpoint? are we trying to provide a temporary boost of funding to address the fact that we have been underinvesting in things like maintenance so that we had, you know, structurally deficient bridges around the country and we want to prevent bridge collapses? or do we want to try and provide a long term solution that allows us to really evaluate the kinds of projects that we need to transition the country's infrastructure systems forward into what we need 10 years, 20

years, 30 years from now? there's a lot of other challenges in between. but those are some of the questions people need to grapple with. i think we need to do both. that's why at the beginning of this year, we laid out what we think is a long term solution that also provides a near term boost to deliver on the short term. but, you know, people are going to need to grapple with that. >> mrinalini, are you seeing examples of states and municipalities that are sort of getting that equation right, finding the funding and sharing the experience? >> i think one of the key things for us to make this being successful is to break the fact that this just seems like an infrastructure physical object technology play. because by doing that, we kind of forget about the human aspect of this. we're talking about people's ability to actually get from one place to the other, the security aspects of it, the freedom that

people can have who may not have the same mobility capabilities as those of us who can just jump in a car and drive. and in order to do that, it almost feels like we need to move more into a 4-p model versus just a 3-p model. it's not just public and private. it's public, private, and people. and that's incredibly important. we need to figure out a way to get citizens involved in the solution creation, not just feel like we are creating solutions on their behalf and then wondering why they're not actually getting adopted as fast as they should be. people know what their issues are. they understand very well how solutions should be done within their own community. somehow or other we have to figure out how to tap into that as part of that model, a 4-p model, p-p-p-p, is the way to go in this area. different cities that are getting it right and how we're learning at overall solutions, actually i think washington, dc

is doing quite a bit in this area, when it comes to looking at traffic solutions, et cetera. boston is doing a tremendous amount. what i love about the way boston is doing it is they're starting from the overall communications. you know, obviously you can't have any of these technologies work if everything doesn't talk with one another. they're starting right from that base. if you look at what they're actually driving at, solutions such as vision zero, and the amount of data they're able to get from providing different solutions and integrating them together in a very safe and secure platform is incredibly powerful. that's another really good example of where we're seeing solutions starting to arise. >> great, thank you. time flies.

the panel will be around afterwards, if you have questions. we were hoping to have a little bit of time but we want to be respectful of the end time here. join me in thanking the panel. i'm going to turn it over for some quick closing remarks. >> thanks, rob. thanks to your panel. another great conversation. we've had great conversations this morning and guests that really gave us some great insight into this. thanks to all of our panelist and moderators from this morning. if you enjoyed today, just a reminder that today is the kick off after series of events hosting across this week. i'd encourage you to look at bloomberg next.com to see the full schedule for the week and hopefully get a chance to see you across the week. last but not least, a big word of thanks to partners of building america's future, particularly marcia hail. we enjoyed their partnership today and look forward to future events with them. thank you for joining us and look forward to seeing you at other events too.

c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. >> tonight on c-span 3, it's american history tv in prime time. first we hear from three medal of honor recipient who served in the vietnam war and the war in afghanistan. then a discussion with two recipients of the silver star medal. of that, one of the original members of the u.s. army's 101st

airborne division talks about some of the major events during world war ii. later, two female officers talk about their experiences as trailblazers in the u.s. military. >> next, on american history tv, we hear from three medal of honor recipients from the vietnam war and the war in afghanistan. the medal of honor is the highest military award for valor during combat given by the president in the name of congress. this 40-minute talk is part after three-day conference hosted by the american veterans center. >> all right. let's get under way here. another highlight panel of our conference. if you've scent program, you know that's an understatement. to moderate this panel on the medal of honor, i'd like to welcome to the podium michael g. glad well, chief operating officers from the congressional medal of honor foundn.