Please all take a fiveminute break traffic in d. C. Is traffic and deceit we are running ahead of schedule because everyone is so efficient. Chat with yourselves for check the emails will be back with our programming just as soon as we possibly can. Stick close, thank you so much. [background noises] police welcome future of federal investment in infrastructure panel. Welcome we are excited to be here. After he got in the right juris yearswe are supposed to sit in. We passed the first test. Good afternoon my name is marsia i am 2024 president of the american Civil Engineers. I want to thank our distinguished guests for joining us today. We have a representative of the House Committee on transportation and infrastructure chairman of the subcommittee on aviation. And we have a representative rick larsen the Ranking Member of the House Committee on transportation infrastructure but im very excited to hear from these cheap members of congress to continue to Work Together to improve our infrastructure system. Like congress hasfr passed they are now tirelessly working to ensure implementation of the ii ja to make sure it is a success. However as outline and bridging the gap economic report republished yesterday hope everyone was able to see that. Cannot start with ii ja or other recent infrastructure packages. Continue to act on the federal Investment Infrastructure investment after the expiration of ii ja will protect u. S. Industries from m losing more tn 1 trillion in economic output over the next decade. Help to avoid more than 600 billion in lost gdp. It also gives the American Families an additional 550 billion in disposable income. I know i could use that, dont know about you guys. Save 237,000 american jobs over the same time. Each of our panel is here today has the nation on the right path for improving Critical Infrastructure but our work is not done. With that in mind, we are here to discuss where we go to keep this economic ecosystem attractive Investment Climate thriving. Ranging from the reauthorization of ii ja and other Infrastructure Investment as we move into the the 119th congress and beyond. So, house and transportation infrastructure bipartisan manner to achieve infrastructure goals. Most recently be expected i guess its expected passage of an faa bill and representative graves and maybe you can help us on that this week. Reauthorizations as well as longterm reauthorization from the project. , thank you and i really pushed to the opportunity to join you today but thank you all for being here. I appreciate the opportunity to be on the panel here with congressman larson who is been a great partner. She brings people together. She brings people together. As we look forward to try and build upon some of the successive scene for decades in the house transportation house transportationcommittee we bipartisan manner to ensure we are building roads. To ensure report in the right policies in place for Water Resources for resiliency, for airports and other m Infrastructure Investment. We also need to make sure building upon the successes and learning from some of the failed mistakes that were made. We look back over the life of the eye ij the infrastructure bill theres no question additional infrastructure is absolutely critical. We also need to look at three really important things. Number one is lucky i ij 870 or 80 to the life of the bill. Feeling executed and some are probably around 20 of the actual dollars being spent about 20 of the dollars. Understanding why it is clear we had infrastructure urgently. We project a Rough Development that reflects the urgency question tonight sevent months o get through an announcement on a project. It is seven years and eight months for an airport project five years and three months to the transit project today. We just passed last summer changes that should cap that out. Should limit it to two years. Thats an important investment for an important issue we work on. Number two is making sure we are focused on the right Infrastructure Investments for the federal government. Meaning a 10dollar problem across the country local recreation projects. A local road. A local project that does not have a federal nexus. Lets focus of the federal obligations and responsibilities are. Beautiful partner fully fund them the third component is making sure we are working with her state and local governments to build the capacity of those things that do not have a federal nexus or interest to wear those things do not fall off the radar. Fall off thel table. Those are three of the key things we need to do moving forward. Or again, looking forward to work with congressman larson in addressing those. Thank you. Thanks again for the chance to be here and answer a few questions about the next bipartisan infrastructure law it will not be called bil it will be called something else. So if you have ideas about what clever acronym we would like. We could have whole contest about it. If youre going to implement what the present calls infrastructure decade, its only five years old. And so we need to be thinking about the continued investments and keep the job creation going. It is many reasons why unemployment is below 4 for the longest stretch. One reason for that is because women and men are working and in construction all over thehe country. Certainly in my state in my district. My district as well the washington states second congressional district. If you are to come to s work iny district we are ready for you. If you want to find workers ahead of us as well. It has been implemented and half years old which is like being a toddler but for iga it is middle age. We are getting through it and you start thinking about what it was going to be. What it will look like next. We are referring to are sitting in a lot of the money is formula money goes to states. States are either programming it like my state, i know were all of those dollars are going to ao the federal formula program. Some states have not. So one thing you can do to help us is talk to your legislatures or members of congress. Get the dollars out the door for whatever reason being held in a transportation budget not being spent on the program yet get on it. We need to show looking ahead as well road and highway deaths safety continues to be a priority producing some dollars being implemented locally in order to improve safe routes to schools. Safe routes tos, anywhere. Need to rebuild and get safely for school and work in a few anw projects in mind districts on that. Transit agency at low and no admissions present electric buses for single largest investment in order to these projects. I was on a committee in 2005 to write a report. Came up with but discuss how we needed to get to vehicle miles traveled those in 2007. My math is not too good but that is like 19000 years ago and they came up withik that recommendation. And now is still call innovative. Theres nono such thing as innovative financing and transportation. It either pays for it or it doesnt pay for it. An tricky way toth do it when yu think about things the state commission is able to see aggression g oregon, utah, neva, idaho and its kind of like vehicle miles traveled for it how to implement iraq. I think thats them. Something we need to look at in addition to many other things including traditional funding but also what else weit are goig to do. The options are outfits whether or not were going to use those options to fund the trust fund into this work. Thank you both. You both hit on this. We have had historic legislation and investment andio infrastructure. He both referred to implementation. What are some of the successes and challenges that you are seeing with the state and local partners with the federal government as part of the implementation of this . Cooks i will start it and then turn it back. I think one is a people. Think about it in a couple of ways. We passed the bil we put in several many new programs the Transportation Department had te create rules around these programs. Some are getting implemented and like everyone else was a lack of people on the federal workforce to implement those programs. Seem to be over that hump. The dollar is getting out the door. That is onene reason might needo keep the while going. We do dont you lose the muscle memory to get the dollars out of the door. The second is workforce locally to challenge a lot of you a challenge to a lot of you because having people to do the work is very important. So at some of the programs that the neatlyha approved or tied to Workforce Development as well. It is in washington and my states they have a project where they have a grant for 78 chargers for the Library Commons project. The ibew s union work with their incoming students to basically how to install charging stations think of it effluent the next Generation Infrastructure we need to tie that into the workforce and infrastructure. A couple things you need to think about the challenges of the workforce. Need a job to some all for that. [laughter] workforce in regard to workforce to deliver on these projects. I think you have two problems. One of them is you do have a lack of capacity in the space of purse professional junior engineers and others. We have seen this. Its a Long Time Coming we dont have the workforce on the pipeline for the students pursuing those engineering degrees. I come from a long line of Civil Engineers and my family. I think one of the disincentives there is the long lead time to get your professional engineer. To get your stamp. Going to the engineering intern, it programs i think its five years and now to go on be on college to get that stamp. I think we really need to take a look at that a and figure out if there is a way for us to expedite that . Obviously safety and professional is key. If theres something we could be doing there to help incentivize or not make that while so far away. The second is in the Skilled Labor side. The bluecollar side. Theyre creating all these programs were literally fed federal Government Social welfare were competing with workforce. Meaning to ownrk to stay here ad stay on unemployment and other programs or am actually going to into the workforce . I think we preintroduced this whole new lifestyle to a number of people who were still trying to get over the hangover right now. There is still question of the congressman larson noted we need to make investments the Training Program into the apprenticeship programs to help to get the workforce at the workforce trained and ready to go to build the capacity. I do think the pe say we take a fresh look at what the right training and curriculum is to get to the point where they actually have that professional engineering stamp and are able toto participate in those projects. Thank you. We are seeing such a downturn in enrollment thats why we are just released the imax movie cities of the future proof got to get the fifthgraders and thirdgraders who want to become Civil Engineers. I appreciate that. Just 10 seconds also add. [laughter] soki also looking at how the redesign is. Its not the same as it was. Quick thats what that movie is yes. Resilience, we are understanding is becoming increasingly important as part of the design process. As we experienced a number of extreme events. Even our Bonding Community the projects are not lasting the length of time that the bonds are. We have severe economic social and humanitarian consequences. The resilience of project offends our roads, rails, bridges, etoa cetera can meet te extreme weather events it. 10 presented land areas10 ly the coastal counties and burros from the United States for over 40 of population lives there. We are seeing increasing challenges with living in the coastal areas and the population is continuing to migrate to those places. In fact congressman larson and i represent coastal districts. We havest got to get good. We have got to get good at living in sustainably living in coastal areas. I think one of the problems of the resilience of projects is the processing of the regulatory. It got to have important dynamic process and Say Something earlier that i said, when you Say Something again that i said earlier. Weve got to project Development Delivery project that reflects the urgency of thehe projects we are working on. Number two w is youve got insurgency with storm intensity. With the storm frequency and all of these other factors. One of things youve got to do is make m sure we are developing project solutions that do best and transcend through those in brackets of insurgency for these things we cannot totally protect and nail down with appropriate margins of error. There arere ways to do that for the most important thing youve got to incentivize adaptation by having a regulatory structure that facilitates it. Another thing on the funding side is there are a couple of funding sources. The protect grants and graves as a champion of that program. The first round of grants i know came out recently in myec state the Seaport Alliance 24 and half Million Dollars to do some work as well as he counseled the counseledgovernment again i. Just a baseline but they need to do. We have not funded people doing thesee plans. The need to know what they need to do to then go pursuit dollars to address that resiliency concerns for the second thing is we had a hearing last week i think it was last week time travels strange and congress appeared i dont know when it was. [laughter] most risky had a hearing in the Emergency Management subcommittee on the Brick Program and some of the hazards program. Get ahead of the next weather event rather than rebuild where we are is literally money available to rebuild differently through the building resilient infrastructure communities grant. That is a critical tool as well. It also means we have to be communicating a lot were not going to rebuild like we did in order to have the next extreme weather event come and do the exact same thing. In november 21 fema bureaucratically as three separate events which drives us all crazy the big long weather events administratively as three events. We are trying to reel wells after that trying to rebuild on those lessons at the same kind of for that which will the northwest. We wont have the same after these events the lower the likelihood a mind shift in the d extreme weather and resilience. Thank you we could have a whole other session on standards being adopted. I didnt want to talk about the permitting process. Deployinglo Infrastructure Investments quickly and safely means rightsizing the permitting process required to get these underway. Permitting rules seem to be the issue. Not necessarily the legislation. Could be just as easy. What are some ideas you all have, you are considering streamlining orml permitting permitting and future legislation . Yes. I do want you to save some time. An of six minutes left. [laughter] so real quick, i do want to do a little bit of a celebration for it back in june of last year despite the crazy dysfunctional divisive congress that we have seen in june of last year were reach a bipartisan agreements the National Environmental policy act which is the first time effectively that law has been amended. We amended 35 pages of text huge changes to it. Did things not a sevenyear or eightyear Environmental Impact statement that limits and lot to two years and 150 pages. Limiting eh when young 75 pages limiting the scope of Environmental Assessment or impactro statement to quote reasonably foreseeable impact. Not all these other pipe dream type things. What is realistically going to happen and how do we look at the mitigate . Looking at a future without action and ensuring positive and negative consequences really Good Progress i will make note and do some things to be more complex and longer. In terms of next level stuff, one of the key issues is judicial review. Right now we are seeing where we have attorneys awaiting the statute of limitations is about to expire coming in at five years outward filing the lawsuit five years after record decisions. On over one or 50 lawsuits and a year. Ed they take in excess of two years in the majority of them resolved in favor of the record decision the governments favorite. We have got to stop this. Fact i had at meeting a few years ago, they walked into that meeting. I did not say a word. They said youve got to address judicial review. Coming out of their mouth. Its a key, key issue of got to get judicial review. We came close to negotiate with the white house in exchange for forchange to the community engagement. Its going to be one of most important things we could do moving forward as well expanding the use of categorically exclusions weve done the exact same type of project over and over and over again. We do not need to go to this whole ridiculous process progressed to had an answer one is related to this and one has nothing to do this because of two minutes ahead of where to skip ahead as well one message i want to deliver to folks. We have made changes in 2012 and 2015 and the act, 2021 in the bil and of course 2022 the responsibility act or talk about permitting preto see that not working, not doing well, or theres always the next thing people want to do and permitting. Probably not. Were always in the permitting reform. It sort of Like Congress it goes on forever. And so certainly i am open to look at permitting reform. But at some point, when are we no longer doing permitting reform . And ii dont know the answer to that. Just a heads up. Challenges i