We hope the numbers of would grow. There are 16 airports operating through this program. Thank you for your time. Dan, it theave author. About the book and other issues concerning politics. We are taking a look at this. We will look at the governor. We will have an interview with the courier journal. This takes place. Then they will also talk about the fancy political picnic that takes part in kentucky. This is the chairman of the nga. He will join us at 9 00. Begins at 7 00 in the morning. The summer meeting takes place again in milwaukee. The activity is set to start shortly. D kumar sees on cspan starting momentarily. Eu can see these on cspan starting momentarily. We are live this morning on cspan. We are here at the wisconsin sensor a couple of blocks west of the Milwaukee River appeared governors are gathering here throughout a week and. Livell breed bringing you coverage. They are supposed to start a couple of minutes ago. They are getting things together. We will be hearing from the governors about infrastructure. Anthony fox will be on the panel as well as the as the chair of the house transportation committee. We are going to be taking your calls after that and then a true 30 p. M. Eastern panel. We will be talking about how states are integrating into the local economy. Awill have a panel bowl cannot 12 15 p. M. We will be joining the governors tomorrow at 12 15 p. M. By thears gathering governor of delaware. They will be here this morning. Years nga nga,s scott walker. This is in his home state. Neil abercrombie of hawaii took place in the healthcare panel. If you miss you can find it online. Govnors are gathering. Well also hear from the the chair of the house transportation committee. He will be speaking after the presentation. At 2 30 p. M. Eastern the roundtablell hold a on states immigrating into the Global Economy and them one last panel on cyber security. Then tonight the u. S. Senate candidates will be at the fancy farm picnic. E will show you that tonights just waiting for the governors to get underway here with their first panel of the day on infrastructure. Infrastructure. Back ask everyone in the sit. Please seat please take your seats around the table. Thank you. We will be hearing about infrastructure this morning on this first session. Anthony fox is expected to speak as well as the chair of the house transportation committee, bill shuster. E will take this another session this evening about states integrating into the Global Economy. I am the governor of south dakota and the National Resources committee. It is my pleasure to chair this meeting this morning. I hope everyone enjoys their night at Harley Davidson as much as i did. Paint ont leave much the asphalt. That is the good part. Hank you for arranging that it was a great time. I am glad to see my friend. It will be 125 years since south dakota and north dakota became states. Both north dakota and south dakota will be celebrating our 125th anniversary this year. I want to take this opportunity in the celebrations from anniversaries. You always have this. And south dakota we went to our shores and department and they aeated a 125 and size of circle with ribbons off. Logo. Ated our loca north dakota has offered to take suggestions for their one 25th year i have a suggestion. Wife drafted up for me i do not like being ambushed. I found it at walgreens. It is in the form of a tshirt but i think it can be reduced and put on nice materials. It says south dakota, carrying north dakota since 1989. [laughter] if you will please step forward. This calls for direct retaliation immediately. Were going to develop a t shirt tshirt and wait until ours. Til you see hour i will not be needing that. Im nothing to do but call the meeting to order. There is the Economic Resource committee. Unfortunately, some governors are unable to join us. I am honored to be joined by governor jay nixon is a member of the Commerce Committee to help facilitate this session. Avid is here to my left he leads after the National Resources committee. Please leave after them if you want copies. I want to remind everyone to please pitcher phones on vibrate. I will do that myself. Thank you. Today were going to hear from two distinct panelists. They will be invited to ask questions. Lets get started. Infrastructure is in many ways a back own. Connectionnd the between roads and privilege, locks, dams, and they serve. This annex us. This requires a National Commitment. We are here today to review National Policy on infrastructure both in terms of surface transportation and our Water Resources and have intergovernmental partnerships to meet the needs of our modern economy. This is by no means an easy task. They recently gave the United States infrastructure a d rating. They warned that if Investments Continue to lag behind current needs, the u. S. Economy could face 122 really 120 trillion in lost jobs. Uncertainty at the federal level has only exacerbated this deficit. Our states are finding new and innovative ways to address the challenges we face. Other states have advanced public write it harder ships to complement funding. This is not negate the need for this. Upon fruitful intergovernmental partnerships on sharedrate resources. That is why the Commerce Committee has been dedicated to the task of preserving innovative funding including tools like Public Private partnerships. And safeguarding tax exempt bonds. It is totally in the purview of the federal government. The waterhorized by Resource Development act. They require meaningful engagement with the federal entities that drive project approval and maintenance. This unique relationship was a driving force between be Natural Resources committee. A guides them to the Water Resources act. The principles outlined the recommendations for a federal state partnership and Water Resources development. Forllmark is our call increased coordination. Particularly in the states where projects are located. This has not been authorized since 2000 and 2007. It is my hope that congress can finish the work of passing a bill that moves forward with the project authorizations and modernizes the core relationship with governors. A National Commitment to bring this into a state of good repair with not only strengthen our competitiveness but will help us meet the goals of reduced congestion and the environmental sustainability. I would like to turn things over to governor next and for his remarks. Thank you. Thank you for your leadership this year. Of the finer all work theyre doing. Thank you for the incredible hot tablets he. It is the best beer state. The second best beer states. Excuse me. We can do a lot of things here. I get my picture taken with a miller beer it is the most dangerous thing that could occur. He is taking care of me. Really workt though, doesnt it . Anyway. The joint session was an important one. Ive got the mark microphone. We have been busy. Thisll be a great opportunity to explore the challenges that that lie ahead. Were trying to show you helpful get along. Know you feel that way we want businesses to go back to your brother and washington, dc dc how we can argue about things as important as were and do so in a positive vein for our country . We share the concerns for the state of our infrastructure. We agree that partnerships are exchanging important. E are ready to do that were doing a lot of things. We have a nation six largest highway system. This has been identified as a key part of our Strategic Plan for the future. It is all connect it. Not justindustry does use new vehicles over the road but by a rail. This is often transferred to why an integrated solution is essential. This cannot be fixed with a one time investment. We reduce this by a half a billion. We have completed the largest bridge Improvement Plan in our history. Just last week had had the opportunity to stand on the deck of a new bridge over the mississippi river, 16 feet board to go. I could watch this go down the nations greatest river. Theas an awesome view. People that we serve know that we need to build the next great bridges and maintain the futures that all americans drive on. Were tremendously honored. We want to hear from our first guest here, congressman bill shuster. He oversees house action on all the transportation including maritime, highway, mass transit, and railroad. Obeying hiss is ninth Congressional District and has searched on the committee since his first election to congress in 2000 one. Welcome. Thank you very much. Great examplet that i can take back to washington as to how the parties can Work Together. We need a good example. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here. At every state i have been to this is my first visit to wisconsin. Penn state is going to prevail this year. I look at a couple of other governors. Thosek forward to engagements. It is an opportunity for me to engage with governors. Have traveled around the country, seeing what other states are doing the federal government should be looking to you to get the ideas that you are implementing. Example ofur putting those dollars into infrastructure. It is something we need to do more and more at the federal level. The federal government needs to be assisting. The best thing is to get out of your way seek in these forward. And traveled the country salt time and time again how states can move things very quickly. Government makes projects cost more. That is not what we want to do. I will talk about the funding. Time is money. If we can reduce these objects by half or a quarter, that saves money. Her state and sell the crosstown expressway. It took 15 years to build 680 million. 10 from inflation alone is or 12 . A tremendous savings we can use to invest in that. He could understand the save, Transportation System. All of us working together from the local and federal government making this what it has been throughout our history. We can continue to make those investments and make sure the stakeholders are involved as we move forward with policies that are able to drive the system. Transportation is important. When i come into a room like this and they look over the crowd, everybody here has today affected by the Transportation System. In louisiana talking to a manufacturer of our masuda goals, he told me were the most important things was getting those things from the market. He stopped. I can pull this out. I said im in the transportation business. We are all in a transportation business. We have to get the serial in the milk out in the morning. She was touched by the system. It will cost more for the milk. T impacts us all good progress. I think there are some very good reforms. We are still slowly getting the information. Secretary fox will be here later today. I am encouraged. We had dinner the other night. I didnt know was several republicans. We had a great conversation. I look forward to it i did. It is always a positive thing. Sometimes you have to leave politics at the door and get things done. Im sure you will appreciate with the signature has to say. They gave us a poor grade. We are at a point where we have got to figure out how to do this anyway that keeps us competitive in the world. There is a federal role. Working with the state and the local governments. When you look after our our history, it is lost on some folk that the articles of confederation failed for a lot of reasons. The breaking point was the transportation issue. They cannot navigate the Potomac River and into the ohio territory. They realize if we are not able to move our goods and connect our nation we are not going to be a nation. When they went back to draw up the constitution, they talk about commerce and establishing the roads. He said something that is lost sometimes in the debate. That is government should provide three things for the will, security, maintain justice and maintain security. That is good for all of the people. As he moved forward and as we have moved forward through this country, whether it is the Transcontinental Railroad or the highway system, those were all significant works that brought this country together that made this country which i we had it is the giant today. We had a Transportation System that has physically connected this nation. We need to me forward with something. It needs to be on a bipartisan basis. That have beens bipartisan. Transportation is one of them. We are making sure we give you more flexibility. It is essential. Our committee has mentioned the development act. Ready to mark it up in september and has an floor action in october. The senate has artie passed their version of it. Weve learned a lot from watching the senate to go through that. We worked closely. We met with members of congress on both sides of the aisle. We have a bipartisan project that puts the number on the committee and said committee. When a number of stakeholders. I cannot distinguish between a republican and democrat because they have the same kind of complaints about not having bringing themr having more influence in the process. That is a big reason we are able to have that. There are significant reforms. I think the state will be encouraged by what they have to say. It is about trade and jobs. Certainly you are going to get locks. N you a rebuilding jobs. Are shortterm if you look at the trade in the next few years it will double and then double again. These are good jobs for americans. They cannot export their goods if it is not an efficient system. It will not be competitive. This is a jobs bill. On thets hard deadlines time and cost of studies. They do not pass it up the line. We have concurrent reviews. Were she mining the review process. Tll be a responsible though we are authorizing programs that have been authorized over the past 40 or 50 years. They will not continue to build this massive backlog. Were looking at some of the smaller underserved perks. We need to make the investmentt. It maximizes the ability to contribute their own funds. Miami has had their money in the do this for about three or four years. Have theot authorization. This extensibility. People want to put this into the mix. It can accelerate things. First word that has no air marks. There are projects in it. This would be the first word. Thisll have a new process. States states will be involved early on in this. There is a lot of positive things in the senate bill. After they passed the word there will be the corps of engineers. The congress has to authorize these projects. This is one of the things i am adamant about. The word is on its way. This is very difficult to do. I believe there needs to be a passage to rail system. There are some that may not be a great ideas but there are places we need to focus on to get it done. I do not live long in the northeast quarter quarter were. That makes it should be the place the focus is that we own the lines there. The other thing is you have 18 of our population living on 3 of our land mass where it there to get them. Y we need toething take a serious look at. The most congested airspace is above the north these core door. 70 of all that are delayed or ofceled occur because interaction with the northeast corridor. Bringing the private sector to her in. The ridershipn, has grown. There is a significant reforms that needs to take place in the operation. We will continue to work across the aisle. It is made up of several state. Especially if they are putting their money into the system. When we have a divided we are figuring out the solutions together. We will be working on reauthorization of map 2001 matt 21. How do we find it . We need to consider everything that is out there. These dollars in we are looking at that. I know the house is committed to doingeform. They are looking at these types of rings. The senate is committed to doing tax reform. Encouraging our brother and over there to move on a lot of these tax reforms. Know aviation oversight is important to many of your states. I think they are finally right size. As he me forward we need figure out a policy to encourage the Airline Industry to continue to work i make these investments. Money. Not take theyre making the profits to jive that back in without government support. Finally, i come to you today to ask for your help. Certainly i cannot do it alone. Not only learn from what you do but to help us engage your constituencies to the importance of this. Everyone one of you mentioned infrastructure. It is the act phone of the economy. We are needing you to help explain to them the importance of moving a transportation bill. It is good for the business. It is to advocate for the transportation bill. Working with groups like that, there is another one that has been formed in washington. Mary peters who is here at us today has an very much an advocate of americas Infrastructure Alliance that ,as an funded by the airlines water transportation, put this together to form the alliance to advocate and put the American People. You do not understand the importance of the waterway system. Making sure the American People understand that is important. It is a big effort. Were all going to need to pitch in and make sure we are involved in this for. An absolutely Critical Role in moving this agenda forward. Congress needs to hear from you. I believe we can have success. We will be able to do what is necessary to keep this country in a competitive state. If you have places like brazil they want to drive down the. Ost these are the kind that competitive situations that are occurring out there. They have signed a deal that they will not go through the panama canal. The world is getting smaller. We have to remain competitive. Area. K this is a vital i appreciate the opportunity. Thank you very much. [no audio] [applause] thank you very much. Lets open up to questions. Thank you very much for joining us. I to officially welcome you to the