have those projects and others will make the system as much as possible see more efficient. it is a tall order for six months. thank you to everybody involved in this. very much.u thank you very much for being here. that will conclude this hearing. the job. -- a good job.

>> d.s.p. i briefed the house intelligence committee on wednesday about the boston marathon bombing. -- the fbi briefed the house intelligence committee on wednesday about the boston marathon bombing. congressman steve cain on the on thebombing -- king boston bombing. how refugees can gain asylum in the u.s. is live on journal" c-span every day at 7:00 eastern. thursday, the dedication ceremony for the george w. bush presidential library and museum at southern methodist university in texas. he will be joined by president

obama and the other former presidents. speakers include condoleezza rice and former first lady laura bush. >> at least one confederate soldier, there were two battles. there were fought on consecutive days. may 2 and may 3. may 2, it was the battle of the generals. it was a day of maneuvering and minimal casualties. may 3 was the battle of the soldiers. morewas a battle of no movements or maneuvers. it was a day where there was no just dial, -- guile, frontal assaults and brawn, overwhelming casualty's. occurred of the losses in just five hours.

>> the battle of chancellorsville maybe robert e. lee's greatest victory. >> faa administrator talked about furloughs enacted due to sequestration saying they will not affect safety. he appeared before the subcommittee on transportation examines -- examining the budget request for the aging. this hearing is just about two hours. >> the hearing will come to order. this morning we welcome f.a.a. administrator michael huerta to

testify the f.a.a.'s budget request for 2014. this is the administrators second appearance before the sub committee. onhink the biggest question everyone's mind today is sequestration and the affects of furloughs on the air traffic control system. while i firmly support the goals of achieving targets to reduce government spending and balancing the federal budget, i do not support across the board cuts like those mandated in the budget control act. this targets the outdated wasteful functions being funded by the taxpayer dollars. across the board cuts is no way to run a government. however, across the board sequester is what the president proposed we're now operating

under this law. in order to avoid the $1.2 trillion mandated by the budget control act, i twice voted with the majority of the house to pass common sense legislation that would replace sequestration with targeted spending cuts with the equal dollar amount. unfortunately, the senate did not consider these bills so sequestration was triggered. further, this goes to show that we need to return to regular order and consider appropriation bills in their entirety and not rely on continuing resolutions to fund the government. under a c.r. there is no way to prioritize cuts related to the safety of the american public. we have questions today about how the f.a.a. evaluated the safety impacts of these decision, the transparency displayed on how you got here

to your furlough and contract decisions. finally, what is the f.a.a. doing to mitigate these effects of two days of disrupted air traffic activity. the safety of our airspace cannot be subject to political posturing. as for the business, of the president's 2014 request, the f.a.a. is questions a decrease of $300 million of f.y. 2012 mostly due to the airport grants program. the president has requested $3 billion for the f.a.a. in the fourth round of a $50 billion stimulus request. until you propose a pay for we cannot give this request serious consideration. i also have questions regarding the f.a.a.'s ability to meet

its mission to ensure safe air travel while modernizing our nation's air traffic control system. the f.a.a. has seen a number of scheduled slippages and cost overruns in this programs, which could threaten airspace modernization at a time when we need to reduce spending and bring our budget to balance. i would like to commend you for your leadership and open communication with congress to resolve the boeing dreamliner issue. we look forward to your testimony. recognizeke to ranking member for any opening remark. >> good morning.

we're starting to feel the affects of sequestration. the f.a.a. must cut more than $630 million to its programs, more than $445 million in operations. bery employee would furloughed and nearly 150 contract towers are threatened to be shut down. 10% of f.a.a.'s work force has been furloughed each day. that will continue each and every day as long as sequestration is in effect. we are already seeing delays in the air traffic system. on its worse day last year the air traffic control system had 3 thousand delays. f.a.a. estimates nearly as 6,700

flights will be delayed daily. no one should be surprised by these impacts. our ranking member issued a report early highlighting the potential impact of sequestration. this is not just a problem for fiscal year 2013. sequestration will hit 2014 as well. we must sign a comprehensive government wide solution as you have recommended, mr. chairman. would the administrator agree with me that the f.a.a.'s most important asset is its work force. tory employee is critical f.a.a.'s success. i hope we can find a way to do better by them and reach a resolution to sequestration without raiding one account to the detriment of another. we should not spare one set of

employees to sacrifice others. we are here today to discuss f.a.a.'s request with the exception of a.i.p. proposal that brings funding at roughly the fiscal year of 2012 levels. i look forward to your mr. huerta. i yield back. >> thank you. we're pleased to have the chairman here this morning for his statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. director, welcome. fore got a lot of questions you this morning. the first one is going be how come you didn't tell us this beforehand of the sequester, the furloughs. not a word. you did not forewarn us this was coming. you didn't ask advice on how we

should handle it. you didn't inform the congress of this sequester impact and what you planned to do about it. in fact, the entire administration has done the same thing. they have not told the congress how the sequester impact will impact each agency. the congress can't operate like that. the imperial attitude on part of the administration, you're the most recent example of that, is disgusting. then to turn around and try to blame the difficulties in flying on the congress, having not informed us of what you planned to do is unacceptable. so i hope you have some answers

for us today. but the first question i want answered is, why didn't you tell us about it beforehand? now what else are you planning to do that you have not told us about? why is it that the administration will not come to the table and talk about a substitute for sequester? there are all sorts of ideas floating around. yet, the administration refuses to come to the table and talk about it. instead they shut down airports, if you will closing towers and now furloughing airport controllers. it would be easy for the administration to come forward and say, ok, let's talk. ways see if there is a around all of these impacts of

sequester. i don't like sequester. it's across the board, it is unintelligent, it cuts good things with bad. people elected to congress and the administration to choose the good things from the bad things. yet, with sequester advocated that responsibility. there's time for the administration, you're the first, to come forward and talk a ways to avoid sequester. thatng as you refuse to do the american public is going to suffer. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. we have the ranking member of the committee, you're recognized. >> thank you, mr. chairman. welcome administrator huerta. furloughs necessary by the failure of congress to prevent the across the board are causing inconvenience to families, businesses in new york

and across the country. to frankly it is mystifying me that some are surprised by these delays or blame f.a.a. for congress' failure. the department of transportation told congress given the magnitude of budget cuts to the f.a.a. "it will be impossible to avoid significant employee furloughs." requiring a reduction in air travel to a level that can be safely managed by the remaining staff and causing delays across the country. without action by congress this situation will get much worse before it gets better. f.a.a. estimates the number of daily flight delays will be more double the highest level of delays on a single day in 2012.

acoss the board budget cuts are having a severe impact on services, investments critical to our economic competitiveness. we must replace these mindless cuts with a renewed focus on jobs, economic growth, and a balanced package of long-term deficit reduction. i agree that this has been very disruptive. but it is amazing to me, those who are responsible for the sequester don't understand that we have to get rid of the sequester. forhen we're blaming you the impact on vital services. i hope that the congress can getting together in a bipartisan way, we haven't had a conference on the budget. we're ready to move as appropriators.

canow the chairman and i move effectively together. unless we get started and working together, the reality the sequester, it seems, the sequester took place beginning march 1. here we are. march, april, may, i can't understand why people are surprised that this sequester has serious impacts. i yield back. >> thank you. after the administrators' opening statement we'll proceed with the five-minute rounds alternating in the standard order. we invite you to present your opening statements, your full statement will be included in the record. welcome. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm pleased to have the opportunity to be here tray to discuss the f.a.a.'s budget for

fiscal year 2014. appearancefirst before you. ofhave a great number challenges and opportunities ahead. andok forward to a long effective relationship with this sub committee. the f.a.a.'s fiscal year budget request is $16.6 billion. it upholds our critical safety programs and deploying benefits to our stakeholders and modernizing our infrastructure. it does this at funding levels that are $451 million lower than fiscal year 2012. a 2.2% decrease. the f.a.a.'s proposed budget for 2014, assumes a long-term solution to the deficit and sequester. the budget would allow us to maintain staffing for air traffic control and aviation safety.

it will allow us to maintain airport infrastructure and equipment and fund research and development. the budget request $1 billion, which is an increase 7% above 2012. this request would help us continue to mitigate congestion in busy airspace and it would help us with the continued deployment of equipment that allows us to use precise satellite-based information to control air traffic. ofs represents an increase just about .5% above the fiscal year 2012 level. this request will enable us to run the agency on a day-to-day basis and the certification of new products. commercialance the space transportation industry and policy oversight and management of our airspace. the operations budget includes $30 million to maintain and operate the modernization system that became operational over the last two years.

it is at the heart of our industry. the 2014 budget also allow tgs f.a.a. to meet the challenge of maintaining the capacity and safety with the kern system while moving forward with modernization and transformation efforts. the majority requested for facilities and equipment is to sustain areas. this year 's request for research, engineering and development is $166 million, a decrease from 2012. we plan to continue critical research such as fire research and safety, fuel systems, advance materials retempling, alternative fuel, aging

aircrafts, and unmanned aircraft systems. this reflects the arrest hard choices we must make to make the most benefit to the flying public. modernizeosing to projects. the budget would allow airports to increase passenger charges from the maximum of $4.50 to $8. this gives airports to generate their own revenue. this change focuses federal resources on smaller airport that does not have the passenger volume yet are still important to our transportation network. the budget request represents a balanced approach to our challenges.

wes is critical when consider the impact of the sequester on the aviation system. sequester forces us to furlough 47,000 of our em employees for up to one day every two weeks. with fewer hours available there are impacts on all operations. air traffic facilities this imposes limits on the amount of air traffic we can take off and to land. it means that our safety inspectors will work fewer hours. i want to emphasize as we undergo the process of implementing these deep cuts we refuse to sacrifice safety. since february, we publicly described the affects of the sequester weavepb been working with our industry partner, including the airlines to share more detailed information on the impacts we expect in the largest airports.

we tracking airport delays throughout the system. work my hope we can together to rally around our nation's air traffic system and protect the contribution that the air traffic system makes on our country. that concludes my remark. >> thank you very much. we're all concerned about the air traffic controllers and the effet is having. just -- you believe you've done everything possible to minimize the effects of the furloughs? >> i do. mr. chairman, we have to reduce our budget by $637 million between now and september 30. under the rules of the sequester, the airport grant program was exempted as well as all the grant programs on the department of transportation. but what that means is it falls disproporings in thely on the operating side of the budget. we're projecting savings of

$220 million from the furloughs. that means we cut more heavily in nonpaying areas, contracts, information technology, travel, and a wide variety of other non-pay expenses. thatach the large number we need to reach we have no choice but to look at furloughs as well. >> can you assure the american people that what you're doing will have no affect on safety? >> it will have no affect on safe -- safety but it will affect efficiency. it means we have to do things like combine sectors and we to reduce arrival rates at major airports and the capacity of our on-route facilities. the result is ground delay programs, flow control measure, all of which has impacts on the efficiency of the system.

but what we're focused on first and foremost is to maintain safe operations. samewas taken aback the time we're talking about cuts to, i think to essential services to air traffic controllers. wassecretary announced he giving out $474 million in tiger grants for livable and sustainable communities from the department. that is not authorized, not defined in law, even what that is. do you have any ability to transfer any of this money? have you requested any money to be transfered? >> under the framework of the sequester act we have to cut equally across programs and prgs. the way it works out in the f.a.a. budget, we have four colors of money. ourations account,

facilities account, our research and development account and the airport improvement program. there are further subdivisions. the largest share is the operations account. that is organized according to the f.a.a.'s lines of business. air traffic, aviation safety, commercial space. in terms of -- as i said before, the airport improvement program is exempt so, therefore, the cuts are applied equally over the other three colors of money. that means they disproportionately fall on operations. operations represent 61% of f.a.a.'s appropriations. of that amount, 70% of it is pay for the employees that perform the important safety, critical functions. toget to the numbers we need get to, while we've cut quite dramatically in areas of

contracts and non-pay expenses we're forced with the choice to reduce the amount spent on salaries and this is where the furloughs come in. >> to my question, have you asked for a transfer of funds? have you asked for any transfer? this is from a program that is not authorized, has no definition and it is money sitting there. >> i can't speak to what is available in other parts of the department of transportation budget. >> is there any discussion a, maybe making a request to transfer money into essential services? >> i think what the administration has been clear is that the sequester being a cross the board impact is not an appropriate way to run the, we agree with you.

we're complying with the law that has been passed. aboutthere no discussion asking to transfer? >> there has been -- >> any priorities? >> there's been many options floated in the congress and in the public about opportunities to transfer, until something is enacted we have to live with the law that has been passed. >> so you have not asked for any authority to transfer, the money sitting in other accounts? >> we took advantage of the flexibility we have. >> that's not my question. >> as i said, there's many discussions about transfer authority, until something is enacted we don't have any reason to plan for it. >> ok. you're still not answering the question, obviously. >> thank you, mr. chairman. a year and a half ago when we

voted on the budget control act that passed the house and the senate, sequestration was a possibility. it was always -- i guess an expectation it would not be a probability. but in january this year, o.m.b. started, at least issuing a memorandums to the agencies it may be a probability. as we're getting closer into march -- when did the f.a.a. with its limitations and flexibility was allowed by law and policy begin preparing for sequestration?

reallyegan preparing, with the start of the fiscal year as we saw it as a possibility. >> october? >> yes. but those efforts really became more urgent after we started the beginning of the calendar when we were seeing this is a possibility. at this time, as you pointed out, the office management and budget provided guidance to all agencies within the federal government. ouregan looking at planning. in february, the secretary and i both spoke a what these impacts will look like. we did talk at that time about a likelihood and the need to furlough our employees and the operational impact that would have on large facilities. we talked about the need to reduce our contract expenditures and that got us into the conversation about contract tower operations. throughout all of this, our

focus has been how can we manage these cuca way that we minimize to the extent possible the impact on these on the largest number of travelers? at the same time we have to achieve the savings between now and the fiscal year. as we have worked through this, what we're attempting to do is mitigate the impacts as best we can. for example, we canceled a training program for a new class of controllers that would be taking place, that is our pipeline for new controllers. we have significantly canceled -- we have significantly slashed other training as well as discretionary travel and discretionary activities so we can focus on the activities. controllers have been asked to return to their home facilities. that enables us to mitigate the impact of loss of controller

hours due to furloughs. we've been taking aggressive actions to mitigate the impact of this but there are impacts. >> one of the -- in the memorandum they said to the agencies they said use any availability flexibility to reduce operational risks and minimize impacts on the agency's core mission and services of the american people. core mission, obviously, is the air traffic system. what flexibility have you made yourself availability so the core mission is not minimized? >> we've transfered resource, 2% accounts into protecting our air traffic and aviation safety core responsibilities.

so what suffers, as a result of that is the longer term activities, such as investments and research activities. but that is a tradeoff we think is important to make with the goal of preserving safety and efficiency of the system. >> in an article i read yesterday, you had furloughed air traffic controllers in order to ensure safety but you have controllers who are being paid overtime. so the issue is are we really saving and meeting the objective with the core mission? >> we have dramatically reduced all scheduled overtime. we are preserving overtime to really deal with an emergency situation. for example, there might be a situation where due to illness or other activities that we don't have the excepted

complement of staffing at a facility. that combined with a furlough could lead to a dramatic and significant operational impact. through the use of overtime we're able to mitigate that somewhat. nonetheless, we have 10% fewer hours to schedule in these facilities. >> thank you. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thanks for holding this hearing. there are those who say that you are imposing these bringing pain to the american people for the purpose of shifting political blame for the difficulties caused. a little bit like shutting down

the yellowstone national park to draw down -- draw attention to the problem needlessly so. what do you say about that? >> that is not true. we're focused on maintaining the core responsibilities and doing it to the best extent we can given the constraints of the furlough. recognizing that 70% of our operations budget is people and the f.a.a. is an operating agency, we have done everything we can to cut in other areas before we hit the areas that are carried out by people, that is maintaining the highest levels of aviation safety. the hardest thing we have to do is reduce these hours but in order to hit the target we need to hit, we don't really have any choice.

>> all of this is a surprise to the committee. theto the sub committee, congress to the world. we read about it in the nureps -- newspaper. this sub committee has to find a way to fund government operations but you did not tell us what you plan to do. how come? >> mr. chairman, we've been talking about this since ebb february. we talked about the need to withdraw federal funding and close federal contact towers. at that time, we talked about the need to furlough our employees and we said that would lead to significant delays up to 90 minutes at major hub facilities. as our planning has continued and we've done for granular analysis those discussions have continued now we're at a place to take the actions to achieve the savings. these are all bad choices.

i'll be the first to acknowledge that. but in order to comply with the guidelines of the sequester law we have to take these actions. >> i wish you told us earlier so we would have a chance to plan and perhaps found a way around the problem. when you decided to close those 149 contract towers, you said that you're goal was to minimize the disruption to the maximum number of travelers. but when you decided to find savings in labor costs, just now, you imposed 11 days of furloughs across all f.a.a. employees regardless how critical those employees are to the mission of safe, efficient air traffic control.

can you explain the -- it seems to me, that we have some contradictory reasoning when it came to decisions when it came to contract towers versus the f.a.a. air traffic control work force who are furloughed equal no matter how essential they are. can you explain that? >> yes. let me take first the contract towers. our focus on contracts was with the intent of minimizing the amount of furlough days that our employees would need to have to suffer through. in looking at our contracts, we focused on our largest areas where we could achieve contract savings and the third largest of the contracts is the expenditures in the contract program. we decided to look at the lowest activity facilities. those towers that have fewer than 150,000 annual operations and 10,000 commercial operations.

all but one of these towers currently operate for some portion of the day in a non- tower capacity. they have existing rules as to how to operate as a non-tower airfield. in the contract area we felt this was the most efficient way and most effective way to achieve the savings we need to achieve. turning next to the impacts on the f.a.a.'s work force. our effort on the contract side was to bring the furlough number down to 11 to ensure we had to realize no more than one per pay period or 10 10% of the available hours. as we look at the international airspace system, we did, in fact, consider if we should look at a differential impact between the facilities. we came to the conclusion that the national airspace system is an interconnected network.

how aircraft is moved the system does not make any distinct between large hub facilities or a small hub. an airline could move from a large facility to a major hub to a small facility. the crew will travel to a wide facilities. conducting furloughs in abunquee call fashion would still -- unequal fashion would still lead to delays because of the impacts of the larger and smaller facilities. second, the effect of the sequester is pay cut for technicians to do this in any other way would cause more disruption in the system. if you look at the long history

of pay cuts, every single one has been applied equally to employees at different facilities have to work together and that is difficult when you are treating them inequally. our large portion of the budget is dedicated to payroll and we cannot choose between winners and losers. >> one final question, mr. chairman. air traffic control is funded in the air traffic organization within f.a.a., which has $2.2 billion in non-payroll activities, including consultants, contracts, travel. finderen't you able to

$387 million in sequester savings in that sizable, non- payroll budget? payrollooked at the non- budget and we have had deductions in that. the largest single consultant contract is a services contract that provides telecommunication infrastructure between all f.a.a. facilities. everything in that category are nonconstruction contracts. the second largest contract is aviation flight service stations. our third largest is our contract tower program. where we have achieved cost savings are things like training, travel, and within information technology as a result of efficiencies. we could not get to the number that we need to get to without looking at salaries.

thatposed a hiring freeze became a total freeze at the beginning of march. we have canceled contracts with all of our contract employees and our temporary employees have been laid off all with the goal to minimize the impact on payroll expenditures on employees. >> thank you, mr. secretary for your presentation. frankly, my colleagues -- it is mystifying to me that some are surprised by the delays or blame the f.a.a. for congress' failure. i would like to repeat again that on february 11, the department of transportation told congress that given the magnitude of budget cuts to the f.a.a. "it will be impossible employeesignificant

furloughs requiring a reduction in air travel to a level that can be safely maintained to the remaining staff." we're hearing today that some of my colleagues believe that we should exempt the air traffic controllers, technicians and inspectors from furloughs. however, i have not heard anything -- we haven't heard any proposal to do something about the requirements that the f.a.a. reduce $485 million in f.y. 2013 for from operating budget sequestration. i'm laughing at that because i found by most of my constituents are upset about what is happening at the airport, not only can they pronounce

sequester and they don't know what it means but they know the impacts. if these employees are exempt from the requirements, number one, what impacts would it have on the rest of your work force? ont impact would this have how you implement sequestration for f.y. 2014? now i want to say again, i know the chairman and i, we would like to work together, the budget committee -- the house passed a budget, the senate has passed a budget, they have not gone to conference. to in fact, they don't go conference, chairman rogers and i will proceed, however, if we don't do something specifically to roll back sequestration, what impact would this have in how you implement sequestration in f.y. 2014? we've seen what sequestration is doing right now.

could you please respond? >> sure. regarding your first question in terms of classification of employees and if there were to be an effort to exempt certain classes of employees, our pay account in our operations budget represents about 70% of the total. of that, some 40% pays for air traffic controllers. in additional 14% is technicians and supervisors, those are the people who maintain air wave information, radar to ensure it works to delev air traffic. air traffic superers is another 10%. our safety inspectors and supervisors represent about 9% and our field support for air traffic is 7%.

what all of this says is the number and percentage of those activities, which are lawyers or overhead activities is a very small percentage of the total. to exempt the safety critical operations and employees within the agency, since they represent -- 84% of our employees are in the field dealing with safety critical function, it does not get us there. we really have to focus on the entire work force. would you like me to respond to your second question? your second question is impacts in 2014 and beyond. we don't have certainty moving forward until we have a clear understanding of what our appropriation will look for fiscal year 2014 and away will be the ultimate resolution of the sequester.

the sequester is a multi-year program. the combination of not knowing what the long-term perspective on that is combined with needing to understand what 2014 looks like leads to a great deal of uncertainty and having certainty is important. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i do hope that we can move forward in regular order, analyze these budgets and not put in place even greater cuts. you have explained very elegantly of the impact that it is not just moving around 2% of the budget. this is serious and i do hope we can move ahead on a serious budget and roll back the sequester, which is causing such damage not only in this area but other areas of the budget. it is clear that it is up to the congress to do it and we have the authority. thank you, mr. chairman.

>> thank you, mr. chairman. what a great day to have your first day of testimony. o.m.b. for me, did the direct the f.a.a. to furlough controllers during sequestration or was this your idea from the get-go? >> we received no direction from the office of management and budget. for us it because mathematical exercise. we had to find $630 million. we focused on the contract activities and whatever savings we could yield there and what was left we had to get out of payroll savings. >> let me ask you about the contract and you have partially touched on this and i appreciate the explanation but for clarification. we have six control towers, three in my district so we were hit pretty hard, three that lost, you know, support so to

speak. we've been able to provide measures to keep some of those open locally. it is my understanding that we have, what, 251 contract towers and we disfunded 149 of them. that seems disproportionate in what is a 5% across the board cut, granted somewhat substantially increased because it hadn't been set at the beginning of the year. hityou explain why so much in that particular program. andhe program projects activities within the f.a.a. are defined by the color on money and then within that by the lines of business. one p.p.a. is air traffic, that is a combination of air traffic activities and payroll activities. we focused on what we could reduce in the contract area to minimize the impact on

employees. contractad me say, the tower program represents a large expenditure within that account. we believe it is manageable because they are relatively low activity facilities, fewer than 150,000 operations and 10,000 commercial operations on an annual basis. all of these towers have experience or all of these airports have experience you can with the exception of one in operating in a non-towered capacity. there are well-established rules on how a non-tower airport operates. the tradeoff is every dollar of savings i'm not able to achieve in contracts that hits the payroll account. the payroll account is where we fund the employees that operate the large facilities. that is the tradeoff we have to

look at. as i said, none of these are good choices. they are extremely difficult and disruptive choice but it is the law as it is currently enforced and we have to carry that out. >> have you looked at it by airport by airport? did you go down to that level of detail? did you also take into account when you were making these -- i would agree difficult decision, some of these are close to military as well and i have a military function? >> sure. trafficed with the accounts. then we considered what were the impacts of the facilities that were adjacent to these airport hubs. then we consulted with the department of defense and homeland security. priorityided us their

facilities and every priority they identified we elected to exempt from closure under this framework. >> ok. i've got other questions but i'm not going to have time to pursue them sloy yield back my time and wait for the next round. >> i thank the gentleman. >> i'm going to -- i know this line of questioning is going to continue. i'm going to take a chance and ask something else. >> ok. >> so general aviation work fees, i'm not clined to call them fee unless there is an axis between the use and what the money goes for otherwise i call it a tax. both administration have proposed them in general over the last several years. this administration now has multiple times. i've seen this movie before. you propose it and congress says no, partially because i would

assume because the general aviation community or the industry employees $ -- 1.3 million and a lot of it is small business. that what we are in my neck of the woods we're small business. it is very important to me. i guess i would like to ask, it is still unclear to me -- the one response i don't think is appropriate is sequestration. you've asked for this money before and have not explained how it is going to be used and we've not given it. why do you think it is a good time to ask again and what is in use and can you justify this? >> sure. the f.a.a.'s budget is supported through a combination of aviation trust fund and general fund resources. in proposing this what the administration is shrimp saying

is that we would like to place -- is simply saying is that we would like to propose this through the aviation system. we've had this discussion about reducing federal spending and we believe that we could raise significant resources from the users of the system that would be a significant benefit in dealing with our larger fiscal challenges that we as a country need to deal with. now, in terms of what the fee would cover, it would reflect the fact that the government provides significant air traffic control services, aviation services for the benefit of the aviation community. the fee would, for us whether it is -- no matter what kind of flight it is, it costs us the same to operate it within the air traffic control system. the notion is there are services that are provided to

the aviation community and what we're looking to do is see if we can recover that through the use of fees. >> in terms of what is paid in general through ability use and certain airports, hangers, purchases of planes, all the taxes that go into that, so you're saying that doesn't come close to playing a role in -- hey, i'm using this facility and i'm paying taxes and so on and so forth associated with that, you don't think that comes -- >> it does not completely cover the cost of operating the aviation system. >> thank you. i yield back. >> thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. just a few questions. i was wondering, if you're spending -- the f.a.a. is spending $1 billion a year on

the program, which we agree that is needed to address future demand and international operations is down do you think we should defer programs before implementing furloughs of air traffic controlers? tothere's two dimensions your question, sir. programt is the primarily is funded from our facilities and equipment account and our research engineering and development account. we do not have flexibility to transfer between those accounts and the operating account, which is the account that we're seeing the significant impacts associated with the furlough. the second point i would like to make is these are investments that have significant long-term benefits in making the system operate much more essentially and to handle the excepted growth of traffic we expect

without an increase in cost. i think it is penny wise and pound foolish to delay and defer the investments we need to make in the long-term infrastructure that is are going to make the system operate much more efficiently down the road. but given where the program is funded from, from the facilities and equipment and the research and development account, we don't have the flexibility to move those funds to our operations account absent some change in the sequester law. >> thank you. i understand then from what you're saying, you intend to go through with the implementation of the program in a timely man center >> that is correct. we will see some delays in the effects this year. for example, we have collaborative work groups that involve stakeholders, air traffic controllers, facility managers and airports that have been planning for the

deployment of much more optimized and efficient routes for transit and out of airports. this program allows for airlines to use more direct routing, to use professor defense but they all have the same benefit, reduce emission, reduce fuel burn, and for some communities reduce noise. but we don't have -- as we're furloughing the employees, the luxury of assigning air traffic controllers to work in these work groups. we've recalled them to their home facilities so they can work on moving air traffic as we deal with impacts of the sequester. that the g.a.o. indicated the lack of training in the new procedures has prevented them from being used. you're not doing anything to correct that? >> we have done a lot to

correct that but we had to put it on hold. in response to g.a.o. vested a significant amount to ensure we have appropriate controller training and it has resulted in great benefit in these procedures and these investments being used by the aviation industry. we've had to pause that while we deal with the immediate operational challenges to mitigate the impacts associated with furloughing our employees. >> i see that sequestration seems to be the answer of the day. but what bare yus to you foresee in the implementation of the program? >> when we look at the implementation down the road, this represents significant tech hall transportation and it moves us from air traffic control to air traffic management and that needs to be done collect ily with our

stakeholders and work force. it is -- some are have likened it to buying the latest technology and turning it on. i think of it as a significant transformation in how we operate. that mean, we have to work as a shared responsibility to maintain safety and operational efficiency with the users of the aviation system and we're committed to doing that. we also have to invest in the things you talked about, training, operationalizing all of these investments we're making. i think of it this way, we are not investing in technology for technology sake. we're investing in technology to yield benefits. if we cannot measure and achieve the benefits for the aviation community then we're not doing our job. >> thank you. i see i'm out of time.

>> thank you gentleman. mr. price? >> thank you, mr. chairman. good morning. i appreciate you being here and i appreciate the earlier answers, which i won't have you go over again regarding the impact of sequestration and the flexibility your agency does or does not have in dealing with these personnel reductions or furloughs and the reduced service at major airports. things that all of us know to be highly undesirable. yet, we have to say there are very much in line with intent of sequestration, which was to be unacceptable. the intent of sequestration was to make deep cuts and to be unacceptable and to force everyone to the table to conclude a broader, longer term budget agreement.

sequestration does not touch the main driver of the deficit, we know that. it barely touches entitlements, it does not touch tax expenditures, those are the main drives it goes back to discretionary spending and cuts it in ways that is designed to be undesirable. to pretend that it does not hurt much and the fact that the f.a.a. with a flick of the wrist could make this different is disingenuous. we need to get a long term budget agreement, instead of looking at putting out this fire then than is a budget policy. it isn't a budget policy and it is not going to work. the sooner we can get to a long- rage budget agreement the better off we're going to with. let me turn to aircraft certification, which has not been raised this morning and i want to raise it.

you're aware that products can only go to market once they are certified. it puts american aviation manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage. the number of new technologies requiring certification is expected to increase. in recognition of this, congress included language to identify some needed reforms in the process and to focus resources more effectively on a critical activities. while beginning to address the backlog of requests. i am wondering if you could give us an update on the implementation of these reforms. what are some of the specifics for increasing time limits? what kind of challenges are you

encountering? >> the certification process is something that is important for the reason you have talked about. new products cannot come into the market without having cert. it is a very significant creator of jobs in the country. we have focused very much on how we can take better advantage of our certification resources. we recognize that fundamentally preserving safety is about managing risk. managing risk involves developing data. where are we likely to have problems and how do we focus our inspection and oversight responsibility on the areas that might have the greatest potential for problems? we have been passed by congress and we have moved the line on designations of trusted agents in organizations throughout the

aviation industry so that we can share the responsibility for bringing new products to market. we never give up our responsibilities to certify and insurer that new products are safe before they come to market. it is an evolution that needs to take place over time. what we have seen is a real pickup in that the pace of requests for new certification. that reflects positive economic trends within the industry. the flip side is that the aviation certification workforce is hit by the same impacts as everybody else right now. that does cause us to focus on aircraft at the expense of

certification activities for the immediate term. >> the fiscal 14 request is about level. it does seem to underscore your commitment to providing the funding and staffing necessary. what about the funding and staffing levels? how was that related to the situation you described? >> the staffing is something -- we have staffing model selected the full scope, our need for resources and aviation safety. that has proven to be a complex process. but we are trying to do is strike the appropriate balance between having a responsible budget request, recognizing the tight fiscal conditions, and providing resources that will support our continued growth and evolution. >> thank you, mr. chairman. with respect to the notifications about the furloughs and what is happening with air-traffic control, a lot

of the american public felt blindsided. the airlines, the unions, the flying public, compared to the way the contract tower issue was handled, i got the sense that faa had consulted with other interesting partners and stakeholders. why were they given that courtesy but it seems all the other folks -- the airlines, the unions, the flying public -- feel completely blindsided? >> we talked about the contract tower decision back in february, we did say that we expected impacts on major facilities.

as a result, there would be furloughs of employees. it is fair to say the thing that captured the media attention and that was something that became a matter of intense public focus was the contract towers and its longer-term impacts, which we said would not emerge until later. frankly, despite our efforts to talk about them, they were things that did not sink in with people. last week, and we began that process, what we did was we asked each of our air traffic facilities to build schedules based on 10% fewer available hours per each pay period per employee. those form the basis for us to use the tools that we use every day to model our abilities to handle aircraft within the air

traffic system. those operational details are what we provided last week to be users of the system. we are continuing to monitor its and have been monitoring it since sunday as we have worked through to do everything that we can to mitigate the impacts of these we have been talking about this since february. >> there was an editorial today in "the wall street journal.? i realize it is an opinion. there was a paragraph -- ponder this logic. it limits the agency to what it spent in 2010. it has the legal discussion for air traffic controllers. the 4% faa spending cut that translates into 40% flight delays. >> we need to find the savings

and half of the year. that one furlough day gets us about $220 million of the total savings. these are not great choices. these are difficult impacts. we have focused on achieving savings in contracts. achieving savings and non-pay expenses with the idea of minimizing the impact on employees. we had a gap we needed to close and we had no choice. >> with respect to the contract power program, the

administration's decision to close the contract towers has garnered a lot of attention. the capital city airports in my district will be impacted by the contract tower closures. they cite the inspector general and saying the contract tower program is a cost-effective method of providing air-traffic control. what analysis was conducted in parallel to analyze the impact of these closures will have on operations and safety of neighboring airports? >> when we looked at this, we focused on what is the activity level of each of these facilities? these represent the lower activity facilities throughout the system. we did consider the facts on

adjacent hub airports. on whether they wanted us to exempt certain facilities. in terms of the operations of these airports, we are not doing anything that is not safe. the difference is it operates less efficiently. in order to maintain the highest levels of safety. we did analyze each of these airports and in looking at each of these airports, one thing that was apparent was that all but one of them operate for some portion of the date non-towered. >> thank you. >> you mentioned earlier the contract towers, you contacted or got guidance from homeland security or the department of

defense. >> it was those two agencies, we consulted with airports and would airports to determine the fate serve an important function. >> did you get any direction from the department or from the white house as to how to inflict sequesters? >> we shared what our analysis showed in respect to the operations of our facility, but we did not receive any specific direction. >> from the white house? >> no. >> he was asking about engaging of the stakeholders. how and when did you engage the airlines as to what your plans

for? >> we talked starting in february that we expected to sequester -- it would result in the closure of contract towers and we identified a level at that point and we talked about the process. we said we would be furloughing the employees and that would have significant impacts at major hub facilities. then we went to the process of the contract tower side, the consultations i referenced. on the air traffic side, we went to the scheduling process. >> when did you do that? >> starting in february. and then into march. we first had to make a determination of what were the minimum number of furlough days. that is where we made the decision to plan for 1 per pay period it. that was handed out to all of our facilities and they did their analysis in the course of

the month of march. they needed to build schedules that would reflect this reduction in hours. that was shared in detail with the airline industry last week. >> if you wanted them to adjust their schedules, to me, you keep talking about february 11, why couldn't you share that earlier? >> we did share with them what we expected the broad systemic impacts to be. we did not have the information until it had been built by the facilities and we understood how it would affect particular rates at each air traffic facility. we shared that after we had done the appropriate work on it to make sure that we were confident this represented the expected

outcome as a result of these activities. >> even though you are telling us that we all knew about everything february 11, you did not tell anybody at the airline's to change their schedules or to adjust to it until last week. they got no details until last week? >> we tell the airlines they should expect impacts as a result of reduction in available hours for air traffic facilities starting in february. we continue to make that case. what we shared last week were specific operational details. >> they cannot do anything until last week. >> i would not agree with that. >> if they do not know what that means how in the plan? >> the same way that we do. plan for various scenarios. >> without any specific as to

what you are going to do? >> we were going to furlough employees one day per pay period for a long time. that is a 10% reduction in available controller hours. >> moving on, i guess, last year, you spent $149 million in travel. what have you done to reduce travel and how much are you going to save? >> last year, we spent $149. we have reduced that to $125 million. that is limited to operational travel. a safety inspector needing to get to a particular facility. >> my time has expired. >> now that you have made that determination about the

furloughing any hours, what are you doing to communicate with the airline industry so they can continue to plan and avoid the problems they have had the last few days? >> we had a twice daily -- every two-hour operations call with the operation teams at the airlines. that takes place at our command center. what we share with them is what we are finding in terms of specific facility impacts as they develop over the course of the day. you have to overlay on top of everything the weather. that will also affect how we

facility is going to operate. we want to keep that level of communication. we need to understand the network impacts of how all of these combinations take place. the command center is where all of that comes together and these conversations take place every other hour. >> you had to extend the closing of the towers until june. that was because of the lawsuit. as i understand your testimony this morning, basically that determination was made because of your -- in order to ensure safety with the air traffic

controllers who decided that was the number you had to eliminate. we do not know what the decision is going to be. but if their decision was -- you have to reopen them. >> i cannot comment on how the litigation will come out. >> it is a hypothetical. >> for every dollar i am unable to save through contract tower savings, i have to find savings someplace else. either in contracts or payroll expenses. is it possible to look at the contracts you have that you

decided not to deal with in this round and maybe the problems we are having for the delays that you may be able to look that and say, i will go back to salaries and see if i can bring back more air traffic controllers and continue to avoid the other contracts. >> this is something we are evaluating on a regular basis we have established targets for savings for particular contracts. i've talked about some of the areas where we have focused. contract towers are one, but we also focused on training contracts. as well as maintaining inventory.

we cannot cannibalize contracts they would not be able to carry out their jobs because they do not have the equipment, the tools they need to do their jobs. that is something we will monitor and we will continue to monitor very carefully as we go through these weeks and months. if i am able to achieve higher levels of savings in contracts, yes, we can certainly consider whether we have the ability to relax the furlough. that is something we will continue to monitor. >> when did the furlough policy go into effect? >> april 21.

the furlough itself, we had to notify employees -- there were two notifications starting about five weeks ahead of that or we notified them of the possibility of furlough and then the intent that we were going to carry it out. >> that was april when they got the detail order? >> i will get back to you with an exact date. we did provide an official notification. >> nevertheless, it was a week ago, 10 days ago? did i hear you correctly say that he first gave the airlines

and airports notice of how this thing was was gone to be applied last wednesday? >> we provided operational -- >> i am not worried about general impact. i want you to tell us when you told them the details. which airports and what times they would have trouble. >> tuesday. >> a few days before it went into effect. >> that is correct. >> we have hundreds of airports, dozens of airlines, millions of americans want to make their plans for travel. why did you wait until that long to tell them the details impact of sequester?

why wait this long? you have had this under consideration for several months. i find that shocking. a shocking lapse of management. would you comment on that? >> we built detailed schedules within each of these facilities and we shared this information with the airlines as we had it. >> that was a few hours before it went into effect? you have been doing this for months. wha been talking about general impacts. >> general impacts, they knew the general impacts.

>> we've been talking bout reduction in available controller hours for months. >> you did not tell them which airports on which airlines. >> they should expect significant impacts. >> everyone knew that. that is what sequester is all about. it is important for them to plan their schedules and their hours and their management personnel. they needed to now details, impact on them as early as could be had. you had months to do that. i find that shocking. >> i do not think we refused. what we wanted to do was conduct a proper schedule and analysis and provide them the best information we could. >> how did you inform them? >> in a meeting that we had at the command center. our operations team led by our air traffic organization. >> who did you informed? >> how did you inform them? >> in a meeting. we have had a number of meetings

with the aviation industry about contract towers and talking about the impacts associated -- >> you got all the airlines in the room? >> we get together with them every day. >> there are hundreds of airports. >> we certainly -- not every airport is affected by the impacts of the furloughs. we certainly identified the major impacted airports. >> you did this with a conference call. >> with a meeting. >> did you ask them for your input? >> we are continuing to have this conversation.

this is what our analysis showed and we will continue that discussion every day. >> did you take into account the complaints, the information they gave to you? >> absolutely. >> were they shocked when you told them at the last minutes the impact on their airport? >> you would need to talk with them about their reaction. they expressed great concern. >> you mentioned there were some long-term projects that the faa has invested in and you do not want to take much from those projects? can you tell us what those projects are? >> that is the investment in our next generation air transportation system. >> in light of the current situation, do those projects have priority over the operation of the commercial aerospace? >> there are two pieces to the answer. i do not have the flexibility to transfer it. these projects will have

important benefits for efficiency long term. >> have you asked the congress for those changes? >> no. >> that is what i thought. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> let me briefly revisit this matter of the contract tower closures. in february, you anticipated the closures at 149 contract hours. in march, you announce that you would delay the closures of those towers until june. you have stretched out that timetable. you've already talked some about the kind of consultation that took place at various levels. let me ask you about the consultation that takes place with the local communities. the airport, the airport authorities.

some communities, maybe 50 or so, are trying to come up with their own resources to keep towers open. what steps would need to happen to make that a reality? how can you facilitate that transition? can you shed some light on that? >> it is about 50 that have requested the ability to locally fund the federal contract tower that is currently existing within their particular community. it is relatively straight forward. a change in who is paying for the cause. we have offered that they could simply cover the cost of the faa contract or we have put them in contact with the contractor directly in order to negotiate their own agreement to carry out

these contract tower services. dating to june 15 enables more time for those arrangements to be worked out. we adopted a liberal approach to the equipment. if the community wants to take over the use of the equipment, we will continue to make it available. >> thank you. let me return to another item. the next generation performance based navigation procedures. you have spent a lot of resources to develop these procedures to streamline the arrivals and departures. the industry supports the implementation of performance based navigation procedures. reduce the number of fuel consumed. a couple of questions.

there have been some studies that have indicated that one gap in this program may be a lack of controller training it has prevented them from being useful. i wonder what you are doing to correct this. what impact has sequestration had on the development of these performance based procedures? you talk about the desire to protect this program. you talk about the fact that you do not have a limited flexibility to transfer funds back and forth. >> that is something we concurred with and we made a

significant area of focus. controller training is essential, not just training, but consultation in a collaborative fashion to understand how a new piece of technology is going to work. all of that is extremely important to yield benefits. that has been an extremely high priority for us. as we have focused on deployment of technology, but also the focus on procedures. there is a near-term impact of our scheduling problem this year. in order to focus on preserving the activities of the operation,

we have called controllers to their home facilities. that is affecting their ability to work in the collaborative work groups as the works crews sequestered. the president's budget for 2014 assumes the sequester has been resolved and it does provide resources to enable us to restart those collaborative activities and to ensure that we have the appropriate levels of involvement and training. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> i want to pick up where you left off. there was a line of questioning i was interested in pursuing. sequester will end, what do you base that on? are there alternative revenues to justify that assumption?

>> the entire budget is based on the premise that the sequester is resolved and we simply conform to that. >> has the president put forward a plan as to how it will be resolved? >> he has put forward a plan that represents an appropriate balance -- >> not exactly my question. does he tell us how he would replace the cuts? >> what the president is suggesting is that there needs to be an appropriate balance of expenditures and revenues. >> are you making alternative plans if this assumption -- it seems to me that is what got us into this problem. everybody assumed the sequester

would not occur. i think that was probably the consensus in congress as well. everybody assumed it would not happen. it seems a pretty dangerous thing to assume that it will all go away. >> until we have the 2014 budget resolved and the issue of the sequester resolved, that does create for us a great deal of uncertainty in our ability to plan going forward. >> are you thinking about possible scenarios if you have to live with the sequestered? >> yes. >> could you tell us what some of the things would be? you have operated within the limits of the law, obviously. if you could change -- what ways would you change the law today if you knew you had to operate? what additional flexibility is my you like that under the current law you do not have? >> what does this mean for the national airspace system? the operation of the aviation system? we have put forward a plan that would suggest lower activity facilities are an area where we would want to perhaps focus on withdrawn federal resources.

the rationale behind that is these facilities can continue to operate safely and they have less of an impact on the total operation of the national airspace system. that is not something that everyone agrees with. that represents what a path forward could be. >> what about the grant program? that has been one of the sheltered areas. is that something you recommend changing? >> we have put forward a proposal to change the structure of the program. for large airports to enable and increase the facility charge from $4.50 to $8. this is widely supported by large hub airports.

that would free up -- it would enable us to have a smaller program and that program could be focused on the smaller airports. >> if we do that, assuming the sequester would go way, i am suggesting it may not go away. given that, would there be additional -- i do not know what it would be, but do you have other ideas? it is a long way from certain that the sequester will disappear. >> there are two dimensions to that. the nature of what is the will that we all have for where the federal interest is in aviation. is it in all facilities providing a basic level of services? should be focused on the larger facilities?

related to that is the appropriate balance between short-term and near term investments. we should not sacrifice the long term because that is how we get maximum efficiency and savings in the future. there is the balance between operations and infrastructure. the question you're asking is when you to relive that balance. that is an appropriate area of consideration. that is something that we need to figure out going forward. >> as a word to the wise, i am not singling you out, i think this is a problem we face in every single department, we assume the sequester was not going to happen and it did. i would be very careful in assuming that it will all go away. thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. good morning, sir.

the president's budget allows airports to raise their passenger facility charges up to $8. in exchange for their willingness to spread some of those dollars to smaller airports as well to improve facilities. given everything we understand tight money and sequestration, isn't this the only way a lot of these improvements are going to take place? >> the proposal would reduce the basic program, but by allowing everyone that has it to raise it to $8, it does provide them significant offsetting benefits and they're able to raise local

resources to find significant improvements. that is something that is supported for the most part by large airports. that enables us to focus the aip program on those areas that they do not have the base of traffic they would be able to generate sufficient revenue. >> not just the large hubs, but all the airports should support allowing these airports to raise the fees? >> i cannot speak for all the airports, but in general,

they're like having a passenger facility charge. for them, that gives them a greater degree of certainty and the ability to plan for long- term infrastructure programs. >> can you talk about policy decision -- i believe the expression it was going to be like a spread so everyone feels the pain when you have these furloughs. the policy decision to do this across the board versus taking less strain off large hubs. the rationale would be the sheer volume in how many people are connecting to these large hubs. if you want to minimize the impact, we would reduce the furloughs.

>> we did look at that option and the conclusion we reached is the national airspace system is very much an interconnected network. aircraft crews and passengers move through the entire system. it is a combination of both large hubs and smaller facilities. weather also factors in. things they could not possibly completely understand or mitigate. the other thing is that what happened at a particular facility is affected by a number of factors. clearly, our availability to except aircraft at the facility is one factor. other factors relate to how an airline chooses to build its schedule, how it chooses to manage its traffic and we concluded that we could not be in the business of picking winners and losers between particular hubs, particular geographic locations. the most equitable way to deal with these impacts was to the universal application of the furloughs. >> there is a calculus here that you described beyond my pay grade. with all due respect, i have a hard time believing that atlanta, chicago, and several

other hubs impact on the entire syst, even with connectivity, it is a lot bigger, no matter how you slice this, then several of these very small regional airports. >> let me cite examples of the last couple of days. one of the things -- we have seen the differential impact on different days. based on what we are seeing in terms of actual traffic. for example, over the last two days, there of not been significant impacts in chicago. we are seeing that today. what we have seen in terms of impacts in atlanta have not been as bad as what we would have modeled. >> we are not in the busy summer travel season yet to be there. >> fair enough. we're trying to anticipate, what

are things going to look like as we get into the summer travel season? >> you do not want to pick winners and losers, but you might want to pick volume versus smaller volume. thank you. >> following up on my colleague's question, you mentioned before that there were some airports that are not impacted by this. can you tell me which ones those were? >> it is a number of airports. the washington airports, they have a lot of available capacity. they are able to manage. the impacts are -- we would project would be less than we would see in some other areas of the country. the major impacts that we see are in places like all three new york airports. it is a complex air space, these are large facilities.

there are complicated to manage it. complicated to staff. that is one example. i mentioned atlanta, atlantic is one where the impact could be significant or they could be manageable. that is a function of the design of the airport. they have five parallel runways. they have a lot of available capacity. it is the relationship between the facilities, but also the design of the airfield and the schedules. >> because we determined the network impacts on the entire system were such that if we were to do anything different, there would still be significant disruptions and it would put us in a position of picking winners and losers.

>> when was the first time you heard the term sequestration? >> it was the whole discussion that took place with the original passage of the budget control act. >> did you prepare an alternative budget? >> alternative? >> one with the money that you thought you were going to get? >> we started focusing on to plan to what a cut look like against our budget? >> ok. could you tell us what you cut? >> we did reductions in all of our non-pay activities along the lines of what i talked about. training, travel. >> $125 million? >> 149.

we also reduced our i.t. expenditures. we have put a hiring freeze on. we got rid of contracts that were personal services contracts, letting go temporary employees. we have greatly reduced our expenditures in spare parts and equipment. everything associated with that. in terms of the overhead functions, things like general counsel, finance, i think a disproportionate reduction in those areas with the goal of preserving the operating of the agency. >> those preparations took place over months? >> ok. >> who do you represent to you feel? the american public, the airline industry? who do you view as being your

end client? >> the american public. >> why would you think that the last week -- you told them what you're going to do. why wouldn't you have engaged them earlier on? >> we have been working as diligently as we can to deal with what is an unmanageable situation. none of these are great choices. what we want to do was to identify as precisely as they could impacts and manage them as best they possibly could as information became available, we did share it. >> i want to know why we are all of a sudden getting to this point and it seems in the last

week, it has all come into play when you have so many big stakeholders that should have all been at the table. >> i have been talking about it since the start of the year. >> you just told the people about it last week. >> we have talked about what they should expect in the wake of impacts. >> last tuesday. you never felt you should engage them before last tuesday? >> we engaged with them on a daily basis. in operating the national airspace system. what we shared with them was specific schedules we had built based on the impact of the furlough. >> the gentleman's time has expired. we will have a quick last round.

i know you were scheduled for about noon to depart. a couple of questions i have. a lot being made about the fact that domestic flights are down 27% from 2000 levels. the budget has grown 109% since 1996. can you explain the math on this and why the operation budgets are up that much? >> the nature of the system has changed quite dramatically. the biggest increase has been consistent with the economy as whole. we are a people driven organization. we have made significant investments in new technology since that time. that is with the long-term goal of transforming from a radar based system to a satellite

based navigation system. we have also introduced significant new procedures that are intended to yield benefits for the traveling public for reduced fuel and greater efficiency in the system. we are in a period of time or as we introduce the new technologies, we need to continue to maintain the old technologies. long-term, there will be significant savings. >> when we went through the process of doing the continuing resolution, omb set up a list of hundreds of anomalies to address individual funding problems and mandatory issues. you had to pay raises to some people so we had to fix this or we could not continue. was there an anomaly request to fix the furlough problem?

>> i cannot comment on what they might have sent, but we were discussing with then the department of transportation but this was going to be. >> you never talked to omb about an anomaly to fix the problem? >> we shared with them what we expected the impacts to be. we had discussions about how we were going to manage and what we expected the impact to be. >> you did not request that they bring in an anomaly on their list of hundreds of changes that they needed to do the cr. >> i am not familiar with a list of 100 changes. >> they have a list of things they needed to address certain problems. but you did not tell them you had a problem?

>> it was well known that we had a problem. >> they did not respond to your request. >> i cannot comment on those discussions. >> you do not know if there was a request. >> i cannot comment on how priorities were established. >> you are not aware of them having any request to fix this? >> i am not aware of that. >> they insisted on a sequestered and when you have this problem that is very disruptive, they made no effort to fix it. no request. >> as i said, i am not familiar with what might have been sent out on behalf of the government as a whole. >> i am going to quit a little bit early. can you say the sequester will have no effect on safety?

>> yes. the impact will be on efficiency. we will not do anything to compromise safety. >> i am going to follow my colleague and this budget is based on sequestration being removed by 2014. i have to tell you my expectation is that 2013, we had sequestration. i think we will be at least part of the fiscal year in sequestration. i hope regular order comes about.

sequestration will continue into 2014 and we should be prepared for it. >> no question. >> a lot of frustration, you are keenly aware of that. i would hope that is we go through this process for next year, we keep an open communication line because we have some tough decisions to make and there is a lot of concerns that we all have about going forward, an emphasis on

safety. we want to continue that relationship. you are in a difficult situation, obviously, i wish you had come to us to let us know what we could do to fix the problem. we have heard nothing before and that is the frustration that is shared by the chairman and a lot of us here. these are not insurmountable problems if they cooperate and work together. thank you very much for your testimony today. the hearing is adjourned. [captioning performed by

national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2013] collect information about and members, supreme court justices in the nation's governors were --governors. hoper online at c-span.org/s . >> an interview before president george w. bush and laura bush on the opening of his presidential library. a hearing on increasing the safety of freight transportation. although by remarks from attorney general eric holder on civil rights and immigration policy. >> i went in, i walked into the kiosk and said i am here to report. the guard came up and said i knew one of your campaign managers in ohio. i said ok.

cut down in their, the guard said you have some hate mail. it was from california and massachusetts. they gave me the mail. you go through this stripped- down and then i got into the intake, walked into prison down into the courtyard. the wooden - wharden told the man to take me around to get away from him, he confined find his own way. i'm sitting there not knowing where to go. these nwbewbie clothes. another prisoner set where is your escort -- said where is your escort? he took me in the back way of the laundry room. a man is sitting there and he said are you the congressman? i said used to be. he said you are a republican, aren't you?

i said republican put me in here. he said i was the mayor of east cleveland. welcome, i will get you some close. q sunday at 8:00 on c-span's and a.

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[captions copyright national able satellite corp. 2013] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] you can't wish these things will happen, you have to have the money to fund them. >> thank you. >> i agree with everything that as been said by the panel. you will have to have more revenue. this is no longer a question of people saying that the government is somehow inefficient maintaining the highway system. we are approaching a crisis. the interstate highway system 50-year lifewith a

and it was built about the two years ago. we're going to continue to go downhill. i think the panel is right in saying the most effective and efficient and quickest way to do that is through the current mechanism, which is in the form of gasoline and fuel tax. >> the only caveat i would add -- i concur. e think that fuel taxes are quickest and most readily available way to raise revenues and provide revenues. the caveat would be with the specific and intended use for the infrastructure of the u.s. not for alternative sources or for other projects, but for the intended use we as the industry are willing and able to subject ourselves to a higher tax with that partnership an agreement that where the money goes.

>> i may have covered a lot. we had to recognize that maintenance -- we have to look at that accordingly. we have to see the army corps of engineers has made a lot of rogress. i'm going down the road to identifying. we had to be comfortable with that. we have to move the projects faster. > i agree. it has to be reformed with a bipartisan bill. we need to get the process streamlined so it does not take half a generation to get things done. the fuel tax needs to be raised. we have had that position for years.

it is the purest form of user base system. you pay a fair share. it is the way to do it. we cannot lose sight of the fact that the aviation continues to operate under fits and starts of funding. those trust funds are in trouble as well. we subject the agency to these washington like fights that you only see in washington that makes them start and stop and start and stop. many care about flying airplanes in the sky. when things get done, they get done too slowly. >> thank you. >> i will let you go on for 11.5 minutes. [laughter] >> i have seen her get mad before, but never at me, i think. >> thank you. the elephant in the room is how we pay for all of this?

i come from new york. we pay sales tax on all the gallons. a real issue with all the economic issues new york has. they have been consistent in their desire to have their own axes raised. however, they may say they do not want their taxes raised. i believe you about $.15. is that correct? is roughly where you would like to see the diesel tax rates? >> yes. r something. >> we all want our taxes raised and comfortable having taxes raised. it would affect each and every one of those members. i understand that. comfortable having taxes raised on every gallon of gasoline he uys.

in congress, we see a real problem even reaching the subject. we have an efficient system that has worked in the past. all three branches were held by the democratic side. we were unable to raise taxes. in other dynamics in congress. it is so much different. it is more difficult now than ever. do you think the vehicle mileage use traveled is a particular onerus thing. we don't have a particular mechanism to do this right now. is there is a way that could allow us to include cpi and standards in terms of raising the gas tax if that is where we wind up? apparently we have unanimity on that. lay level what you would call a playing field.

how much would you like his taxes raised? [laughter] >> i love him, but substantially. [laughter] let me address that point. specifically, most of you on the panel know there have been a number of studies in the past that show in terms of the matter ware and tear on our highways, they certainly pay fuel taxes, the amount they pay is disproportionately low compared to the damage that they do to the highways. we certainly strongly advocate that there should be a level playing field. in that regard, the committee is

commission another study to look at the impact of not only current truck size and weight, but a -- proposals that have been made for more significant truck sizes and weights. that is reportedly due out at the leave next year. if it shows what most studies ave shown before, it would indicate taxes should certainly be higher. we will see where that study oes. we work in partnership with a lot of trucking companies. rail and highway together making better solution in this many situations. in the future, all that we advocate is a level playing field. >> safe to say we have unanimity

, raising taxes for gas selected because it is a system that we have. it cost 1% to raise. everyone here understands. you would like to have a tax raise on harbor fees. i understand that. i just wanted to have everybody have a chance to say -- maybe you would like to respond. i've heard 95>> probably a little low. cents. but go ahead. [laughter] >> the issue of indexing will be important. i would like to have a study to come up with the right index over time. we fuel our truck, if that gets is moving violently, it is unintended consequences. we do think it should be indexed. whether it is the cpi index or the café one, it concerns us.

there are jump moments in that index that would translate to sudden and abrupt changes. as for we weathered to our don't pay our fair share, i think that will be debated. it is delivered by trucks. they can have the goods and services that they enjoy everyday. we will continue to work with ail. at the end of the day, i suggest that we continue to focus on the task at hand. how do we invest in american nfrastructure so we can deliver good to the people? >> thank you. i yield back. >> the port situation is perhaps different. we hasn't said no -- we have a significant bucket of money.

on the other hand, he had this eed to deepen harbors. there is no predictable way to determine how that will be funded. two different issues. separate and distinct. obama administration has moved that the wood. the we can't win initiative. we have to figure out authorized deepening and what money will be appropriated. >> i think you make a lot of very important points. at the state level, is initiatives to raise transportation revenues are passing. the vast majority are passing. the voters are voting for hem. which is the purest form of democracy. he put on the ballot and you go forward. the voters are further along than many members of congress realize. it is just not translating into action in washington. that is one of the problems that we have. >> thank you. >> thank you.

here are a lot of things you can look at and say it is not translating into washington what we should be doing. i want to apologize for jumping in. i want to emphasize that i think this is a very important panel. it is a very smart thing that has been done. a ranking chairman put this ogether. we really do need to look over freight. having chairman duncan and another member also, i think we will have a successful panel here. i say thank you to all of our witnesses who are here today. i'm glad mr. smith mentioned next gen is critically important.

hopefully we will not lose that in the panel. nexgen and how we can more efficiently get next gen moving along. there have been fits and starts with next gen. also something else i want to mention is inland water ways. i want to ask a couple questions. i tried to figure out some ways we can work our love of cycling into this. i don't think we move much freight on bikes in this country, fortunately. i want to look at -- it's very important to the ntire country. 1.3 billion dollars in federal and state local private dollars

that have been invested so far into the project. still a long way to go to to see the program through its ompletion. i would like to ask you if you could describe what it means for folks and why you believe it is important from a national perspective. >> thank you, congressman. we do not haul a lot of recycle, -- bicycle either, but we still enjoy it. as i mentioned earlier, approximately 1/3 of rail freight moves through chicago. historically the infrastructure was routed that way. it is absolutely medically important. i can tell you when things don't

go well in chicago, an example being the blizzard that week space up there, all of the freight rail networks started to slow down. it is that simple. if you look at our operations into chicago, the single most important link. we run about 100 freight trains a day in and out of chicago. once you get into chicago, because it was infrastructure and built over a long amount of time. the routes are not sufficient. there's a lot of work needs to be done. now, at the same time, that infirst quarter si of moving traffic to chicago results in ignificant delays to the community because of rail crossing congestion. it chris problems for metro. of all of the things and all the locations that matter that only to us but the rail network, chicago is number one. that is the significance created.

you mentioned that you were talking to this subcommittee about going to look at chicago. it is something that i would encourage at some point to get an idea of the scale and the scope and how complex the rail network is. >> thank you. it is something that i think that people need to understand the issues. we're looking at least $1.9 billion and may be more to complete it right now. i think it does not just that. there are a lot of other points in chicago the matter what mode that we are talking about. we talk about choking in chicago, it is not just the cubs. i'm a cubs fan. i can say that, even though i'm a south cider.

we talked about aviation. i think that projects having a funding mechanism available is critical to solving problems across the country so can look apprehensively and act comprehensively on some of these points across the country. but my time is up. there's a lot more we could go into. but i yield back. >> thank you. mr. webster. >> thank you, mr. chairman for doing this panel. it is a very important thing to our economy and to our growth or the infrastructure. swerm appreciate all of you coming today. i have a question about something about -- he said correctly, that the trucking

industry doesn't have the ability to determine their right of ways or access. they basically are determined by the building of roads. then they run on those roads. i heard you mention a couple of times about, i think it is the crescent corridor. could you tell me, because i'm not familiar with ow this takes place. ow do you determine -- how was that determined as far as developing that corridor? is it a partnership with government or can you do it on your own? >> thank you. are you a georgia tech graduate? >> i am. i'm an engineer. >> good. i love the yellow jacket. how about you? it has been identified as he

started to look across our network and started to see on the highway system and enormous amount of freight low traffic. millions of truck per year. essentially moved into south and the southwest and up into new york and new jersey and new england. it was is largest such freight quarter that never really had effective inner rail service. but it matches up very well. we started to develop a plan to start to add terminals. such as the one at memphis. one of birmingham. several in pennsylvania. to add infrastructure and tons to provide service tter and hise mr. le customers.

it took us an lot of planning. the federal dollars made a lot of difference. most of the investment is ours. it allowed us to accelerate a lot of the projects that we might have done over a 10 or 12 year period. and we can do them in three or four and realize those public benefits as well as a private benefits. it has about 2 billion dollars in public benefits built-in. it has been carefully analyzed by outside agencies. the culmination of the eight project on our part, but as we approach both federal officials and state officials until the mo we were doing an impact it would have, it was enthusiastically embraced by a lot of people. >> i guess then was their necessity to acquire new right of ways? >> only in certain instances

where we might have to exand from one track to two. a lot of money spent to enhance t. >> is there condemnation rights that are vested in someone? how does that work? >> the railroads have always had condemnation rights for rights of way. it is something we employ very, very rarely and to my knowledge did not ever employ in this orridor. >> there are rights of way. those are employed very rarely. it did not ever employed in this quarter to my knowledge. >> it was expansion or rail improvements. >> exactly. from a southern standpoint, our route structure really matched the freight flows. >> mr. chairman, i would like to make one comment about florida.

we very strategically used tolls to produce an expanded limited highway system. we have chosen to do that. it has been effective. as for the costs, do not think it gets into the -- every dime that is collected goes back into t transportation projects. we have another in a local and everal other areas including tampa, miami-dade, orlando. we have recently in the last several years, i think they started off as lexus lanes. now they are price management lanes. maybe they can mitigate.

everyone can use them. they are price management and that the tolls collected out there and how much better that traffic is flowing on those lanes versus the others. i can contend with that more than anything. a user pay system that works. i understand gas tax. we have a supercharged -- maybe a turbotax. as system in florida where the gas tax is indexed. most of the new roads have been built by tolls. i would add that to his committee. >> well, thank you. while you're making those comments, i remembered the comment from my friend, joe,

it'll just go -- they built a highway. i said, it you give me his money hen. [laughter] >> thank you. for most people who move for internationally, do you or your customers see difference between the u.s. infrastructure versus the international trading artners? and where are the gaps, if there are gaps? >> it varies around the world. if you go to china, they have a

fantastic infrastructure of airports and ports and rail that have been put in place in the last 30 years. in europe, it varies from ountry to country. think the european of passenger rail makes it so that it is hard to compare with the u.s. our transportation system over the last decade or so was a model for the world. the problem is it has been allowed to atrophy. we were spending in the 1960's about 4% on infrastructure. we're down to 1% now. was mentioned several times that it is very difficult to simply aise the fuel tax on inflation

adjusted basis back to where it was in 1994 despite the fact that fuel efficiency and automobiles over is significantly greater. the reason for that, quite frankly, is that we have had a vast increase in fuel taxes. it has been imposed by opec by the price of fuel. people are sensitive to the fact of how much they're paying. 2001, 67 cents for a gallon of et fuel. average family in the u.s. is now paying more for gasoline per year than 10 years ago. that is why you have a hard time

in increasing the gasoline tax. it adds to that. t still doesn't mitigate the fact that the infrastructure is aging. ur entire economy depends on our infrastructure. we either fix it -- improve it, modernize it and expand it, or we'll have a lower standard of living and a lower national income. that is just absolutely 100% predictable. >> thank you very much. i'm glad -- i have a few

minutes. i want to talk little bit about your comments. you mentioned that you spent $300 million to deepen and the ports. is that the right amount? >> we haven't spent it yet. we put it aside in an account ith anticipation of spending n the project. >> obviously there is no help. you have got to put the money aside and the people of south carolina have to pay for it. >> that is correct. we are probably the only port in state that does that. some of the best jobs we have in the country come from ports. i think the freight will grow nough.

all of the ports on the east coast are going to be able to take advantage of the growth that is coming in the future. unfortunately, we do not participate as a government. it is the people who wind up paying for it. the reason i say that is because in new jersey, when you talk about the bay bridge, we need the money to raise the port -- he bridge. the costs by trying to go up to the lincoln tunnel today into new york is like $13. it will raise up to $14 or $15. someone has to pay for the ports and keep those good paying jobs in new jersey. there was a great billboard

going into the lincoln tunnel. it was put together by people from the park and ride. it read -- president lincoln, great president, lousy tunnel. [laughter] the reason being you going to new york city and you have to pay the expense. we're now working on another unnel. if we do not participate as a government, all of those good jobs will be impacted. it has got come from someplace. >> there are federal harbors. it is not fair that they have to pay for the entire costs. we hope that is not the case. we are optimistic that it will not be the case. >> how many good paying jobs are related to ports? >> 1 out of 10 jobs in the state

of state carolina. our ports. are not in the cities like los angeles or new york. it is serving a fast growing region in the southeast. we need a 50 foot harbor. a priority because four other harbors are authorized to be at that depth today. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> i have been told that 42% of the house is needed in the last two elections. the only representative we have at this year's freshman class is mr. mullen. you may begin. >> thank you. i do like the opportunity to

speak to everyone and say thank you. it's a frustrating thing as a usiness owner. we run about 80-plus trucks on he road, my company. the frustration and the lack of common sense to comes out of this place all the time is literally what drove me here -- the frustration of lack of common sense that comes out of this place all the time is literally what drove me here. we are still little bit wet to -- behind the ears. we were welcomed by the chairman to join the panel and to see we're bringing in industry leaders and listening, i hope we will take your advice. politicians thinking we will fix the infrastructure is a oke. we had to take the suggestions of those there sitting in front of us. thank you for taking your time. it is not a waste of your time to sit in front of us. i believe this panel of the 11th

have interest. most of us all agree that we have got to do something with our infrastructure. it is the backbone of our country. it is a way to get around. it is also the biggest expenses, too. it slows us down and slows down our production. with that being said, thank you. 70% of the states freight travels through oklahoma. 70%. we are the center of the country. it is important that we invest in the infrastructure getting around it. we have one of the largest inland water ports. it is in our district. chairman schuster visited it friday. he made the made the comment, this is in oklahoma?

i said yes. it is right here because it looks like it doesn't belong in oklahoma. we have invested in the nfrastructure. in your statement, you said you want to increase your tandem from 28 to 33. correct? >> yes. >> what type of increase would you see in the number of trucks in the production that you build, the efficiency of delivering products? > as i mentioned, congressman, the parcel and less truck business, both network businesses as opposed to the truckload business which is more point-to-point. pick up in one location and deliver to another location.

the problem with the less than ruckload is that you get out before you -- you may will have truck that is very heavy. in the parcel business and the business -- ltl business, you're underutilizing the pulling power f the vehicle. it is about a 18% pay cut and -- pick-up in productivity. over time, you would have roughly 18% fewer vehicles that are involved in l.t.l. and grand parcel and over the road transportation by making that one change. they are safer. we have tested them in florida and so forth. we had, i think it was

university of michigan, look at them. they are more stable. with fewer vehicles on the road, you burn less fuel, have fewer politicians. the way the transportation system is evolving is truckload transportation built around the 53-foot unit is the standard unit as well for inner mobile. he was kind enough to put up that picture of fedex up there. in reality, the majority of our rail transporters trailer flat cars, i'm confident that they will transition to containers. they are more efficient for the rail transportation. we went say that one of the simplest ways to improve the nation's rocktivity simply -- roductivity -- >> that is a common sense

approach. i appreciate it. common sense is a rarity and oes not belong in d.c. hopefully we can bring that along. you mentioned the weight increase. what is it that you would like to see that increase to? is there a stopping concern? >> first, our organization, we are a truckload carrier that goes from a to b. we cube out before we weigh out about 80% of the time. 1 in 5 customers would have a benefit for heavier weight. my position on it is that we ought to allow as technology advances. it has the same exact stopping system that it does in the past or historically with 80,000

pounds over five axle. when i made the, that there should be extensions and state hould be given the authority for other vehicles or more appropriate heavyweight vehicles with application is designed appropriately, that is what we are speaking to. i will tell you in the own network and organization, it would not be something that would benefit us. i think the purpose of the panel is to talk about it in broader terms. >> if i could quickly add one more thing -- sorry about taking up the time. would you prefer to see a flat tax increase or a percentage increase? if guys can either -- i do not care who starts. >> we have taken the position of both options. both would be fine.

we have set a straight line tax increase. think index is important. getting it index is important so e don't you follow behind. we are now in the 1993 budget in 2013. > thank you. >> this talks about the ground operation. >> wow. thank you. >> we always try to save the best for the last. > thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for hanging around, you and ranking member nadler, with me. this has been a fascinating discussion. i'm so pleased am able to be here on this panel. i think we will be able to get a

national freight policy. it really begins to address this issue that we have never had efore. being the last person, obviously, most of the questions were already asked and answered. i want to say again how pleased i am that we are talking about the harbor maintenance trust fund. i think that is a problem in search of a solution. $9 billion that the surplus and is not been used for intended purposes. when we collect a tax, i think people in the industry is ok with that as long as we continue to use the tax for appropriate intended uses. we lose the public's trust when we continue to ask for taxes and raise taxes and don't use them for the intended purposes. l.a. long beach is a donor for that port harbor maintenance tax.

we only get 0.1% back of what we give. i would really like to do a deep dive into the harbor maintenance tax trust fund and talk about are we ready to achieve some ort of equity? like to see the money go back to i would the ports were it was collected. many of them are on the receiving end tax. i do not feel that we have the time to deep dive into that. one of the things i have not heard today which i do think it's going to be a problem that we need to address and that is the environmental impact of our expanded transportation project nd initiative.

i'm wondering if that is something that we need to look at an address in a commonsense way when we come up with the national freight policy. i know in los angeles and hung -- long beach we had to address environmental mitigation as we have grown our ports. we do have to clean trucks program. we are expanding the ship's ability to plug into shore side power. e have an intermodal project that i fear will be held up because the environmental impact of that project, even though it is a good project. it makes sense. it will help the transportation system. unless we address the impact that we will have on neighborhoods, many will be stalled until they are etter.

are we moving towards cleaner, greener fleets with fedex? any kind of rail cleaning? trains and trucks? i know we're not close having an electric drive system that can work for a long haul, but where are we? should we address this in a proactive way? so any kind of expansions or more investment in infrastructure projects, we address this at the same time so as not to have a conflict with environmental mitigation. i would like to hear all of your comments on that. >> i will start and simply say that the easiest and best way to reduce omissions and pollutions

-- emissions and pollutions is through making our transportation infrastructure more efficient. verything that we talked about today, next generation air, infrastructure funding by increased fuel taxes, as long as that money is spent on nfrastructure, it will produce -- reduce the number of vehicles or activities. there will be a reduction in emissions. it follows one to the other. as i mentioned in fed ground lone by making a change in the twins makes -- it is a fantastic improvement. second, technology is allowing us to do what we do more efficiently.

we are buying new airplanes that are more efficient. the airplanes are lighter. fedex express is almost 40% efficient -- almost 40% more efficient. the quickest way for the congress to reduce emissions is to change the corporate tax rate make it more advantageous to invest in capital assets in the u.s. and modernize them. those key things, you don't have to worry about efficiency getting better. it will happen as a result of hat you have done. >> we got rid of 200 crossings. what started out to be an efficient way to move cargo turned out to be an incredibly

environmentally sound project that reduced omissions with cars. thank you. i would like to hear from the rest of you. >> let me go very thickly. - quickly. there is an enormous amount in terms of reducing omissions. we have a three-fold advantage in terms of fuel efficiency. we are generally viewed as the cleaner form of transportation, but we have in addition to that, we have lots of programs to reduce emissions and increase fuel efficiency all over. the other point i would build on in terms of what you can do and what congress can do is that all of us in this panel believed in being good corporate citizens and environmental stewards, but

one of the things that happens -- and you pointed out a great example of it is that quite often there are often very good products out there with significant environmental and economic benefits that get snarled up in layers and layers and not only federal regulation, but state and local regulations. it can add years and years to the time when we get a projects to realize those benefits. think about how to streamline proses to get a lot of this important work done i think is an important thing to keep under consideration. >> i will also try to be brief. i echo the sentiment. the single biggest thing we can do to positively impact the environment is takeaway congestion that otherwise results from inaction. the cost of congestions was $121 billion.

trucks bore the brunt of that in the term of $29 billion. the real issue is as those trucks and other vehicles are congested, the emissions of pollutants may happen. as for our industry, we have invested heavily. we have reduced emissions over the last five years. for a truck going down the road today, you may need 60 of them to have the same emissions as one truck would've had in 1985. tremendous progress has been made. we're going to continue to go down that path. by allowing us an environment we can invest by a better tax structure so we can invest in better technology would be huge. we are experimenting with natural gas. it allows us to take risk. that would be beneficial as well. we have eliminated thousands of

tons of pollutants in the past two years. we will continue to do so. it is really an industry-wide effort to try to run cleaner and safer at all times. >> international industry has been on the forefront of environmental efficiencies. the very building of large ships is very efficient. we will carry more cargo on the same number of ships. it will be more efficient ships. i think the main benefit and harbors will be from the north american emission control area. it was implemented in the u.s. in august. it will reduce sulfur content and maritime diesel fuel. it is dramatic across all ships in the harbor. we have a puerto rico carrier

today. i think the ports have stepped up to the plate in terms of retrofitting and having more efficient engines. >> if i might, i will add one small comment. on the next gen, it will reduce the footprint of the airline industry. reducing congestion is good environmental policy. there's too much light gets in the way of environmental rogress. letting the freight rail industry expand, making policies in our government reflect that ability to expand is good policy. i know no one has mentioned other transit in this hearing. if you boost public transit in large metropolitan areas and

give them more resources so they can expand and not have to cut services, that would relieve congestion and leave more room for freight. that is good policy as well. >> thank you. >> thank you. before i make my closing comments, i believe there are some more questions. >> mr. chairman, this is very educational. the chamber from miami was here and they were watching. keeping in mind that we have the support of the business community, they are interested in us working together to move transportation bill that would give us a revenue enhancement of taxes or whatever you to call it nd make sure that we reinstate the earmarks said that the

communities, to get -- so that communities can work together to get the needed resources. yesterday the department of transportation released the grants. we will have billions of dollars to fund because of the pent-up demand in the community of those points that you talked about. i want to say thank you. thank you, mr. chairman, and the ranking members for this committee. thank you for all of your testimonies. it has been helpful. >> thank you. anything else? >> you do not want to take up any more time, do you? i talked to some engineering companies. they were also excited that this is going on that we are talking about this. they understood the need to get

this done. thank you. >> thank you. i was a judge for seven and a half years before i came to congress. i always try to start court right on time. then i came here and every hearing started 15 or 20 minutes late. i tried to start on the minute every time. my goal is to hold these hearings for a few hours. i found that you had better participation if you kick started these hearings on time and get them running. i always try to do that. we have gone over a little today. the testimony has been fascinating. i want to say just a few things. there are many challenges within transportation. we are all in this together. there is an important local role.

there is an important state role. i always thought there was an important role in all of these topics. the people in california sometimes use the airports in texas and vice versa and people in highway sometimes drive on the roads in tennessee. we're all in this together. it seems to me that there are many challenges. the three biggest to me are -- the number one is funding. most of you have said some things about that. that is a problem for all of us. i have said in here for many years. we need to stop spending trillions of dollars on unnecessary wars and other countries and start taking care f our own country for a while.

a second is to speed up these rojects. i remember when i was on the aviation subcommittee. 14 years from conception to completion. they were relieved to get all of the final approvals. they did that in 33 24-hour days. when i chaired the highways committee, federal our people told us -- federal people told us their last two studies once in 13 years and the other one said 15 years from conception to completion. they talked about that norfolk project that they basically get -- did on their own to try to speed things up. hopefully there'll be some effect on that. when we are forced into it, we can move quickly, like on

interstate 35. we all got together on that. third, how do we balance resources? what you have got is people moving awl all over the country from the high-tax states to the low-tax states. they're moving to the popular urban areas. i see that in tennessee. you know the fast growth in tennessee is in a circle around nashville and a circle around knoxville. half of the people i represent have moved from someplace else. it is phenomenal. when you have got is that you had these big cities primarily in the northeast that have such an aging infrastructure. they need a lot of work. then he had the fast growth areas like nashville and a lot of other areas out in the country.

they need a lot of work done in growth. all of us have a soft spot in our hearts for the small areas. you don't want to force people out of those areas. those are poor economic areas so they need a lot of help. all of these jobs, these are jobs that cannot be outsourced for the most part. that is important to me. i represent the university of tennessee and lots of other mall colleges. we have the best educated waiters and waitresses in the world. i would hate to see people leaving with advanced degrees and they cannot find good jobs that they used to be able to. the most fascinating slide i think you showed was one showing

the panama canal moving to allow ships with 12,600. hat amazes me. i've seen presentations of that. i remember when they got 8000 was almost unbelievable. then he go back into the 1950's. we have got to keep improving these ports. i had the opportunity to open and close the panama canal. been to most of the ports. you are doing what you're doing. let me at this. we need specifics, as many as we can. i was glad to see you mentioned

the corridor project. i put in the first money to do the first study of that project. hat is something that would be good for my area and many other areas as well. at any rate, we have been asked to go around the country and to make recommendations to all the different subcommittees. if there is any specific that you think of after you leave here or do not have an opportunity to get into in the testimony, we submit it to us. we want everyone to do well. we've got a great transportation system, but either as an individual or as a company or whatever, you lose the desire to improve. it is sad for you and it is sad for the people you work for. i hope i'm a better congressman now that i was five years

ago. i hope that i am here a while longer. that i'm a better congressman in the future. we have got to keep trying to do more. we have to do better. that is what this panel is all about. as many specifics as you can give us for our final report. six months from now , we would certainly appreciate it. we appreciate the work that you put into your testimony and your responses here today. i would like my friend to close out the hearing. >> thank you. thank you to the witnesses and the members. this is the beginning of what will hopefully be a very fruitful investigation and result in a unified intelligent comprehensive freight policy for this country. something we have not had in a long time. we will look at the different modes and figure out how to inance them.

obviously the elephant in the room is how to finance all of this. the gas tax, diesel fuel tax has been the primary source of resourcing infrastructure. we have to do something to and replace it, obviously. something that we can pass politically, which may be more difficult than intellectually. we have to figure out how to cut down on the red tape and delays in implementing projects. from a national point of view we have those make the freewill system as much as