Together in friendship as well as in infrastructure. As this weeks infrastructure week, its a great opportunity for us to highlight the critical needs we have in this country. Senator inhofe tomorrow we will question secretary chao on the administrations priorities and its my hope todays hearing will be a productive lead into her visit. Last congress, the e. P. W. Committee led the charge to pass the fast act, the sixth highway reauthorization bill that i personally worked on. This was the largest one since 1998. Nobody believed we could get it done. Others thought wed get an 18month bill but senator boxer and i as the chairman and Ranking Member insisted on five years and it shows people of opposite different philosophies can get along and make wonderful things happen. However, the current investment is not enough to fully address our needs. The fast act authorization is about 305 billion over five years. Yet, according to the United States d. O. T. Report from this year, the backlog