Transcripts For CSPAN3 White 20240705

Rare. But friends dont have to be. This is joe. When you are connected, you are not alone. Cox supports cspan as a Public Service, along with these other Health Providers giving you a front row seat to democracy. Next, white house senior infrastructure coordinator, mitch landrieu, talking about transportation investment at a conference hosted by the transportation association. He discusses partnerships between federal, state, and local governments for implementation of infrastructure projects. I know you are enjoying the conversation, enjoying your salads, not that im in charge of the meal service but there will be an entree here around 12 30 or so. Enjoy the salad, and have a bit of deserved, and then you will have an entree as well. So we have the extraordinary privilege today to welcome mayor mitch, and white house core nader for infrastructure implementation. Really is a thrill to have him with us. Let me tell you a bit about our speaker. Prior to being named Senior Adviser to President Biden he served as the mayor of new orleans for eight years beginning in 2010. When the city was still covering from Hurricane Katrina in the midst of the ppe oil spill. You remember those, days it is hard to believe it has been that long. Thanks to his leadership, new orleans is widely recognized as one of the nations great comeback stories. She was named public official of the year in 2015 by governing magazine and was voted the top turnaround mayor in 2016 by eight politico survey of mayors. The piers also in his book, shadow of statues, a white southerners recount history, he recounts his personal and his decision to remove four confederate monuments in new orleans. The prestigious john f. Kennedy profile encouraged award. In 2018, he launched an initiative designed to fulfill americas promise of justice an opportunity for all. But breaking down the barriers to divide us by race and class. He brings the same commitment to advancing equality to his role as the president s infrastructure implementation coordinator. Please join me in welcoming mitch landrieu. Putin morning everybody. How are you all doing . This is a good italian name, he said this is not a tally, and this is greet. We have a couple of those. How are you doing . You all i am the fifth child, im used to talking to nobody, so go ahead about your business and do what you have got to do. I know i am not supposed to do home cooking because i work for the United States, i got people from new orleans, ive got to give them a shoutout, what is going on your . Lets give them a shout out . Tell them you all are there. Miss sloan hankins who started off on, well you say that but that is not really how come the claim to fame is. It is her father who ran the most iconic she repair business in the city of new orleans, we remember them very well. That is a good stop right there. So you listen to what they said. And if they invite you to come there from mardi gras youve got to come. Let me tell you a little story, you know im from louisiana, anyone, has anyone been to louisiana . Thank you very much. Do you know to beto in woodrow . In louisiana, like normally, like after thanksgiving, you dont want to go a little duck hunting maybe, a little fishing, but this time for some recent photo and woodrow, they decided to go hunting. We dont have any news in louisiana. So they needed to go to canada and they found someone who had a little plane that would take them loose hunting. So they go up to canada and they get on this plane and this plane drop some in the tundra or wherever and they say go ahead and go loose hunting. So thibodaux and woodrow como moose hunting and they are out there and they shoot six moves. Amazing. But they were good shots because we know how to do that. And so the plan comes back and the pilot says to them, where are you going with all of this moves . We are going to put it on the plane and we are going to fly back. He says no, we cant put six minutes on the plane. And they dont know, we can put six minutes on the plane. Watch, we will shove them on in there, and you are going to take us back and they say no, you can do. That they say yes you can, and apologize okay, so they shove the moose on the plane, thibodaux and what you get on the plane, and the plane takes off. Wouldnt you know it . The plane crashes. And thibodaux and goudreau are laying on top of all of the loose that are dead. Because they killed them already. Antithesis to woodrow, do you know where we are at . He says we are in the same place that we were last year when we tried the same thing. Now, why do you suspect that im telling you that joke . Because if we keep doing the same thing over and over again, we are going to continue to have the same problems, so when our president , took office, 18 Million People were in this country. The lowest Unemployment Rate in the last 40 to 50 years, 12. 1 million jobs, created 800,000 manufacturing jobs great in the United States of america. An economy that is strong and stable and able to withstand the difficult times that we are having with higher rates because of inflation, and because of the unprovoked war that putin has engaged in trying to take democracy back from the world and covid, which by the way, only 2 Million People were vaccinated when we came into office 200 million now. By the way, everyone knows that we came in the middle of an insurrection and the president put together one of the greatest cabin as we will see in a long time. By the way ladies, it has more ladies and inman and the first time in history, sorry guys. Dont you all get nervous, it will be okay. But you know the president understands that moving people from place to place, and doing it on Public Transit is a different way. Weve done it before, but now we need to accelerate that because if you keep doing the same thing over and over again you will end up with the same result and because of climate and because of changes in the way that folks, work it is the Public Transit systems, you everybody in this room, who are moving everyday folks from where they need to be. Whether they are going to work, to church, to school, to play, et cetera, et cetera. You know that its better than anybody else. You know, the president knows how much you struggle with covid, and you havent recovered, yet which is why in the budget that was proposed last year the president said hed give you a bit of breathing room because he is asking congress to let you use some of those capital dollars for operated costs to fill that gap. Is that right . Thank you for that. The president has committed to Public Transit. You know what it is all about. And it is critically important. And, as we start to rebuild the country, 1. 2 trillion dollars, that is a lot of change to rebuild the roads and bridges and airports and the waterways and highspeed internet so a little girl doesnt have to be sitting in the backseat of her moms car outside of mcdonalds trying to do her homework so that she can become the person that is actually going to lead the world for us going to the future. Whether she is sitting on a porch, or let everybody have access to knowledge, because access to knowledge is a great equalizer and if they dont have access to, it you are just out of luck. So the president knows that and he and the Vice President for laying it down. You know what else they understand . About helping kids raise up so that they could save us because of some foolish decision some of our people are making. Clean air, clean water. Kids are sucking dirty water out of lead pipes, getting brain damage because of it. We are changing that all across the United States of america. And we are building a Clean Energy Economy which you are critically in a critical important part of. It is not just what we are doing, it is how we are doing it. The first thing is the say that we are going to stop building the American Made products a goodwill manufacturing back into the United States of america. I told you 100,000 jobs. But as we speak now that the money is going out of the door to 100 billion went out the door last year that our team pushed out the 23,000 projects that have gone on and 4500 counties. Thats about getting it done and going fast. And that is what we are doing right now. But the president s ideas to make sure that we make these products that are made in america and restore the manufacturing base. You know this because any of you, let me see how you are adjusting. Let me pick on you for a second since you are doing this in the wrong. Goodlooking bald headed men, my brother justin dont talk back. This is a oneway conversation today. When justin was in my office he was always with a twoway conversation. Justin is the mayor, it is a oneway conversation. Look at him. Let me just say watch him. When we we change the name to confuse you all. So you are not going to get one. So you all have been on the street car line that is green and we have a red one there. We laid down about a mile of this, and two billion dollars of the private investment. Is that true . So that has happened in all of the country now so now that we are laying all of this stuff out in the public side of this with electric buses, whether or not it is the ev charging systems, or all of that stuff with the transmission, lance progressive starting to come in and put bucket loads of money on the table. 300 billion. 300 billion has come in because Everybody Knows that on the Clean Energy Economy we have to go in a different direction because we have to do Something Different because we keep doing the same thing over and over again and we will be laying with those that move. Since all i want you to remember is about tiptoe and woodrow. We came out and let me give you a couple of examples of sikh transit projects. The tunnel project, 700 million, some of you will from the northeast corridor, you know the hudson tunnel . Youve been up and, dont you know who else does not . The boss. The cost has been up and down. Let me just Say Something about my guy, i mean, our president. When you Start Talking about, it you could be talking about anything important like the war or a bank feeling or whatever and if you say, if you say transit to him, or train, he stops and he says because this is the truth, he has written on amtrak i think more than any other american. And he knows a lot about it. Not like high stuff like i know about it. Like a train, a track, it starts here and it ends there, thats why stuff. He is now telling me about this, what is the circumference of the wheel, what is the curve, i just got there. I dont know what the curve is between delaware. I am telling you that he knows all of it and he wants to make sure that us everybody have the benefit that he had when he was running back and forth from delaware at the capitol, he had to take care of his sons because of the terrible tragedy that he had in his life and he believes it with his heart and his soul, earlier this year President Biden really talked about the gateway tunnel. He talked about chicago where they are advancing 300 and 50 million for the red line extension. Still to a city, go ahead, you can have the. Salt lake city, are they in the house before even start . I feel like we are in mardi gras no. 55 million for the midvalley connective bus. 19. 3 billion dollars on the metropolitan and Rapid Transit authority, 6. 9 for detroit. I can hardly get these out of my mouth are so many of them coming out so fast but here is the thing. And this is what i want you all to remember. This money is really important and it is significant and it is the first in a generation. If we dont get it right it might be the last that we see. But 90 of this is getting spent by you all. So i know that i am going to come with good tidings. With Little Things on the Christmas Tree for you all. But when you get that money, were going to get a call like the next days saying did you finish the project yet . And im going to tell you all that my life is like this when i walk in the white house. The president sees me, how many of you will have a lot of kids . You know, we got nine, he will got six, seven . Yeah. You know how your mom says michael, mitchell, what is your name . You know what im saying . That kind of thing . When i see the president of the United States and he looks at me, all he says to me, he doesnt say good morning, good afternoon, nice to see you, thanks for helping out a bit, he says hurry up. That is my name. That is my new name. So when i am saying to you all when you get this money, hurry up. Now i understand, i really do understand that we have permitting, we have contractors that we are working with that somehow always come back and say you know ive been on that project, you know the numbers, like ive got to think the change order, and you go know. No. Youve got to keep it tight youve gotta keep it fast, you all know what im talking about. We are not talking in washington acronyms no more. You can look at me, when people come out of office, weve got to go and get it on time. On time, on task, on budget. You remember that. Guess what . On time, on task, on budget. So my job, i am basically doing three things that you need to know about. One, im building a team, you are part of the team, you are an important part of the team, essential. All the cabinet secretaries we talked, with we had 17, to your breaking down the stovepipes. And you are working with them who are here today. And that is the federal team. Then on the state level weve asked all of the governors to coordinate all of the cabinet and we are talking to all of the mayors, all of the county executives, all the time leaders, all the travel community. If you think about coordination, communication, collaboration, we go in threes. It is really important because that team is really easy. We are all trying to sing off of the same page and in the same book at the same service. So you can pick the song, and you can pick somebody else if you want but that is the point. What we are trying to do is build the team. The second thing is getting the money out the door. 23,000 projects and a lot of this is coming down. You guys have a lot of funding that came to you and you have gofundme that came to you and in some instances you got some of the Inflation Reduction Act coming to you. And then finally to tell the story, 90 of this money, as i said, is going to come to you guys either directly or through formula funding or other places. But it is your job to make it work. You want to compete for this money but you want to make it work. Not only because it is good for the citizens but because we want to prove the point to american citizens that when you invest in Public Transit life gets better for everybody and if you can get it right and you can get it smart and have good design and good execution and good programming a reasonable and thoughtful congress which i want to assume that we have will actually say we want more of that. Thats how we are talking about new orleans. We want more because it works and because it makes sense. The other thing that is really important for the president , make sure you are building towards climate and make sure that you are working with labor, the president s big and hot on labor. You are not the only labor guy in the whole room. You all need to make a bit more than that. But i am just saying. The president s unabashed about this. The president believes the middle class built the country and labor and build the middle class. It is critically important we have high paying jobs that are making sense and that work for everybody and make sure that you have living wages and that the folks that are working for you actually have what he calls dignity of work and a little breathing room in their life. And finally, the made in america provisions. On top of, that the issue of equity is critically important. And the space that you all work in is really important to make sure that folks that have been left behind or left out and have been forgotten that we really need to get to where they are going actually are in your minds eye. So that is critically important for the United States as well. Climate and equity are important to him, so let me just say this and reiterate one more time, and then i will take a couple of questions. The president understands the importance of Public Transit and the president has not only talked the talk, he has walked the walk. 90 billion dollars, 90 billion, that is a big number that you have not seen in your lifetime. Come down to invest in Public Transit in a number of different areas that i know theyve spoken to you about. Low and no emission buses. Critical not only to your riders, thank you, because i have a personal story about this. When i caught the bus to school on the corner on napoleon avenue and johnson street, and i went down the street. I cant remember getting off of that bus and having that exhaust puff up in my fees. There are two consequences that occur. One, i lost all of my hair. And that is the reason why it got serious. My mother, that is what i told my mom, but she wasnt buying it. All of you know this because you lived in this experience. This is an experience many people have. And you can still see it sometimes folks are driving themselves home late at night after being at work all day like the folks who are serving you today. They put that nice cheesecake or whatever it is that i really want to piece of on your table. And the way that they are getting home. They are tired they cant walk, and it might be raining outside. The last thing they smelled before they go into their home is that exhaust puffing up in their face. Actually challenging them as if work is not hard enough. So when the president says that he sees people, he actually does. And that, to me, is always the best example of how we have to change those lives to meet with the kind of goals that the president has set for a. So it is not just about getting people to and from, it is about helping people build generational wealth. By the way, making sure that majority of the communities that are building the buses are not just writing on them. Can i get an amen from that . Making things in america. Then making sure the environment is healthy. So it is affordable. Because that is what you do when you leverage. So communicate, collaborate, coordinate, facilitate, and leverage. That means work with everybody and also on time, on task, on budget. You can remember those things, we will collectively in a short order of time rebuild this country anyway that has not been built before and prepare america to lead the nation as you always do. Thank you very much, i appreciate, it and i will answer a couple of questions. Thank you. You got us riled up. Love it. I love your energy and your approach to this. I know your time is very short but we have a couple of quick questions before we move on. I feel like alice in wonderland. That is first of all, on behalf of our membership i just want you to know how much we appreciate you taking on taking on this monumental task. It cannot be easy to rally the country across all these infrastructure sectors to get things done. And i can tell by your energy and your approach to things that we have got a great momentum picked up. A couple quick things, this group is into businesses that you all have recognized of operating services and building projects and the like. Are there things that we are not doing from your Vantage Point given all of who you talk to in rallying the troops to implement that we can benefit from . ,. , it came from and from local government. And the guys from new orleans will tell you that i will ride my bike, i used to ride one when i was a bit younger. And i would basically come into the Mayors Office and with precision talk about what is going on in one corner. If you told me about a pothole i would know exactly where they were. If you told me about a bus stop or a transit stop, i would know exactly because i will see it. Not that i dont trust you all, to tell me what it was, but i wanted to see it with my own eyes. So one of the things that i wanted to bring to washington was the idea that when we are in washington, and you are way up here and you are thinking about how you need money for these big boxes are projects to accomplish this thing, that there is a lot of distance which president clinton used to say, and youve got to make sure that they line up. So that they landed more simply than the person should. If you are in washington when you think that you are designing, you dont want to look like a pig. Alignment and authenticity. And the country had for many years, just because they had it for a long time, it is a matter of how a bit of collaborating, coordinating, and communicating, and i am not trying to be overly simple here. It is a simple idea but it is really hard to do. Because you know what it does . It requires cooperation. It requires you to find out who your partners are. And the horizontal and vertical. I mean, one of the reasons why i brought this up and i kind of mean people feel crazy about this is because youve got to make sure the federal partners on their own are talking to their region and the state directors but then you have to make sure that they are talking to the state counterparts in the region and they have to make sure to talk to them there because all of you know this, it will make you insane, when you try to get the project done and one of the federal partners when talking to the state partners and if it is a system, and you have got a ton of county executives, one is more important than the next you all are feeling me about this, everybody is on the same page. And you have to have this kind of crazy thing about getting away right. If you get the weight right, that is the way, you can build a lot of things. If you dont get the tweet right you can hardly build anything. You might get lucky and build one nice thing in brag about it but that will be the end. You want to create a system of design that allows you to do that. The second thing, and you will know this, but it is a perennial problem. You have got to make sure that the scope of your projects, and the design of your projects is outs right as it could be at the outset. This whole idea, it drove me crazy when i was mayor, when people would bid and they would win the bid and they would come in and ill tell you about this in my speech, and then all of a sudden youre spending all of this time, it is a game. The contract is played, and i think youve got to call people back in, because we dont have time to mess around. Were going to try to be much better and we are going to try to have much better oversight and accountability, let me just say this about my boss. One of the first things he said to me was get the Inspector Generals in here. And make sure that they help us design these programs and that they monitor these programs and control them. You should be doing that on your level. The Inspector General can be your best friend, i promise you. Because the country is not going to want to have any fraud or abuse. So i would ask you to think about that as well. And finally, there is nothing that is in this bill that is not going to affect you that doesnt require Regional Cooperation. This is just where the country has gone, small town, small communities, cities and folks are not thinking to themselves i dont want to get on the bus or the street car where the realign and not cross over into another jurisdiction. Thinking about the geographic and the political boundaries and she lived. And there are just trying to get to their kids about the can pick them up in the afternoon so the more Regional Cooperation you can begin to bake into what you are doing is going to help the execution of it of swell and those are not mistakes that weve made recently. Once we continue and start working well together, you will see the execution like a well run football or basketball play. Just a few more questions. Last year the administration announced a new initiative to include the government effort. How does that accelerate infrastructure delivery . There are the slope projects there. One is the payment, all that stuff, the other is permitting. That is a huge problem that we all have to get better act that reflects that. The third is just making sure that you accelerate projects by everybody being on the same page. Ill give you an example outside of transit but it is still applicable. When i was aware we had to hire more police officers, it took us 14 months. I was like, why didnt take so long . So we peeled apart every opponent of the project and we started to see how can we accelerate doing this while still making sure that we hire the right person who is trained appropriately that made sense . You have to do that with the system that exists today. All the folks in a really good about this, the gm, so all of you have to really start thinking about exactly why when my projects taking so long . Is it because we dont have enough workforce, or contracts, which by the way is a huge challenge that i will say is really the number one priority for all of us here that i talk about in a second, but on the acceleration, you will actually know how to do, this you just gotta work, and this is not your grandma would, say elbow grease. Because this is not complicated, it is just hard. And it just requires all of the folks pushing out all of the ways in the finals sitting on somebodys desk for a week longer than they have to, making sure that the supply is where they have to be and we can sure everybody is worthy are supposed to be and you just keep pushing it and pushing it. We have a project that we are working on to help make that happen across the country. But let me also say that, in the next question, the biggest challenge we are going to have been getting this done is finding enough people to do all of this work. So i want you to understand this. This is a 1. 2 trillion dollar change. We already pushed out 200 billion dollars. We have 23,000 projects and some level of formation. As i, said it is roots, ridges, airports, courts. It is also highspeed internet everywhere in the country. Its also cleaning up and didnt mind lanes. So superfund sites. And of course, lead pipes. It is also completely building you know connery, 500,000 electrical vehicle charging systems, when we are driving electric cars and the not too distant future and only folks out there if you have a 40 1 50 right now, this is my son, he has one of these trucks, its powerful, goodlooking, and he is like im going to drive a truck, i bet him 100, i bet him his daughters to wish an to college, and a not so distant future, hes never looking back. It is powerful, fast, cheaper, this is just where the future is going. But we have to find a number of people to do this work. But here is the challenge. The Work Training and development, and you have to find the people, and you have to find the job that you are training for. You need the possibilities for where this is, so it is all over the country, but it is not necessarily true about chips. Everyone will be competing, but it is a very local and i would encourage you all to spend a lot of your time as you are here thinking about where your workers are going to come from, how you are going to train them, and who is going to train them, who is going to be trained, and whether or not you can guarantee to them a good living so that they can bill daniel well. So if we can, the economy is going to explode, because i think it is a great problem to have and it is a whole lot better than having no buses or Transit System or manufacturing coming on in new jobs. But it is a challenge nonetheless and i think that we have to focus on it. We believe that we are well positioned given the funding that is coming our way, the fact that we have an administration with the energy and foresight to build this. A very talented group within the Transportation Department and we work with them every day. If you have an ask us, we touch on some of these things, please and bark that on us as a group that wants to deliver. We see this authorization that we are working with here, it is not the end, and we believe this is the power of what we can do in public transport. I know that all of you believe that Public Transit is critically important part for Public Transit, and not just as an afterthought but as the real fought. If you put a number of public off of the road, if you do it with rail, and he believes, i believe that hes completely, right in this instance experience, that if it is clean, if it is fast, if it is sufficient, if it is easier costeffective, more people will take it, people can build wealth, it will impact equity, climate, and the country is going to be the metaphoric. I will say this again to everybody, ive been doing the 31 years now, i dont remember a time when there has been as much alignment from the federal state and local and political fields. There is no republican or democratic way for whatever reason theyve done, they want the money. So you are not going to have a congressman or senator or anybody unless they are not really smart politically which is to say this. You have to seize the day. We are in a moment that is not going to come back to us if you do not do what we are all concentrating on doing. The first part last, year my team was about building the team and getting money out and telling this story which we always have to do. Do not forget to tell the stories of your folks as you are rebuilding this. Take pictures, tell stories, where are you now . Where are you headed . Why are you better . Et cetera, et cetera. So that we can tell this to the eyes and ears and experience of real people who actually are doing the work. Thats really important. But in the second year, what this is all about, 100 is execution. Getting the money to the ground and getting the stuff done and then demonstrating to the American People that this was a major step forward because if we get that right, not only will we create generational wealth, but america will never have to push over again at the thought of anyone surpassing us because we do it better than anyone else. Thank you guys so, much of gotta get out of here, see you. Mayor . We thank you. We would like to take a photo before we go. And please know that we are on your team. We are on your team and we want to execute, thank you all. And come on wednesday, fbi director, Christopher Wray testifies on an oversight hearing before the house judiciary committee. Watch live at 10 am eastern on cspan 3, cspan now, our free mobile video app, or online at cspan dot org. Cspan is a place to turn to see this Years National Governors Association meeting with comprehensive coverage. It all starts live from Atlantic City on thursday, beginning at 10 am eastern on cpan 3. Governors will addresssues around youth mental health, maternal and infant health, and pulic health, along with disaster response. First lady, dr. Jill biden, will also speak. Then, on friday, watch cspans washington journal live at 80 am eastern as outgoing chair, new jersey governor, phil murthy, an incoming chair, utah governor spencer cox make a joint appearance, and at 10 am eastern, the live coverage continues on cspan two featuring the transition of leadership and the discussion of discourse. Watch comprehensive coverage of the National Governors associations summer meeting live, thursday, on cspan 3, and friday on washington journal, and cspan 2, cspan now arent free mobile video app or online at cspan. Org. Cspans campaign 2024 coverages your front row seat to the president ial election. Watch our coverage of the candidates on the campaign trail with announcements, meet and greets, speeches, and events to make up your own mind. Campaign 2024, on the cspan networks, your unfiltered view of politics. Cspan is your unfiltered view of government we are funded by these Television Companies and more, including mediacom. 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