Transcripts For CSPAN3 State Officials Testify On Rural Infr

Who wonder if the honorable work is worth it anymore. See this event live tonight at 9 00 p. M. Eastern. And now, the utilities lawmakers on caple tall hill. They testified before the state public Works Community including delaware and wyoming and colorado, and chairman John Barrasso serves as is the rea n Ranking Member. Good morning. I call this hearing to order. President trump has made improving the nations infrastructure a top priority. Infrastructure is critical to the nations prosperity. The senate and the environment and the public works commitment has jurs disdiction over the highways and the roads, and the dams and roads. This allows things to go from the heartland to the coast, and they provide protection to rural and urban communities that save lives. And in addition, they have infrastructure that is modernization. It does not matter the setting of rural or not. The impact is going to be particularly counter productive if they do not apply the kif frens of urban and rural. Our committee has members from both the rural and urban areas. Newport, rhode island, and wheatland, wyoming, and wyoming, delaware. A and the diversity of the towns, and clear and the solutions to pay for closing the roads and the dams and it is not one size fits u all. What works for baltimore, maryland, may not work for bags, wyoming. The scale of the big dig in boston that cost billions of dollars or projects that cost hundreds of billions of dollars are rare in rural states. And the Funding Solutions that involve publicprivate are relationsh relationships. And there may be solutions for the crumbling inter city, but not for the rural areas as the testimony will show. As stated in the written testimony submitted on behalf of idaho, montana, wyoming, north dakota and south dakota, and Public Private partnerships that depend upon a revenue stream are not a form of infrastructure membership. This committee has delaware, alabama, alaska, rhode island, vermont senor or thes here, and just to name a few, but i did not forget West Virginia. I want to make sure that these states are not forgotten. I want to work with my colleagues to address the issues of the state, and not ignore the large metropolitan areas as well. And submitted in the five written statements, federal highways and the states largely ornl gnat nate in certain ares. S and it is going to make no sense while pouring in to use the roads and the inland ports to allow items from rural areas to get to park. As we will demonstrate, rural waterways is have unique chals. They have been inundated by regulations from the epa which reduces the fact they will modernize. And yet, any Infrastructure Solutions that this Committee Considers should help to the address rural challenges. The challenges include funding. Like the road project counterer part, these candidates are not best the candidates for loans. It is important to note that mike mccukuccullty states, due e small Median Income infrastructu infrastructure. This means that they pose a greater risk than the met metropolitan project, and requires a portion of a grant, and not just the loan to make the project feasible. The higher the number of grants will result in less to the correlating i correlating funds. And so we have the find a way to pay for these programs. I hope that this committee will find ways to help yurm america and to help yurl msay that w our gentleman from delaware, and delighted that you are here. And these folks will hear me say more than ever, and born in west va, and grew up in virginia, and my dad taught me that the things worth having are worth paying for. And if if you owe somebody money, and work three jobs until you can pay it off, but youing out to the take responsibility for the obligations. And another thing that my dad eye was toed say to my sister and me, and running around the garden he would say, if it is worth doing, it is worth doing. So with that i took the idea that everything that i do, i can do better. That is true of all of us, and every federal, and state infrastructure, and roads, highways, and bridges, and waste wauer ter. And so i hope that you will ellp to us the pay for this stuff, and easy to come up with the id ideas to, but not so great in paying for it. And how do we get the best are results of money and less money. That is my audible. And now, unanimous consent that a couple of documents be s submitted for the record, i hold them in my hand. Thank you very much. Most of us know that the new president has raised the issue of our need to modernize aged n infrastructure. Some us here recently released a blueprint of not just roads and highways and bridges, but much broader than that including water and wastewater the. And i believe that members on both sides of the isle agree with this and this is one of the few moments in time that we could agree. So that is important. And this is a time. And as a recovery governor i look at the legislation through a particular lenses, and i say, how does a particular investment make for a more nur can churi nurturing job, and presentation, and in this case, we have a bunch of factors for nurturinnu and we dont think about this, the quality of the workplace that is important. And affordable energy. Public safety, and the idea of having capital to Foreign Investment which include job opportunities, and tax policy, and access to Decision Makers and clean air and wa te, and businesses need predictability. 2019, an outfit called it a consulting company. They call it gamechanger in how the u. S. Could dramatically transform and expand the e k economy. One of the top Game Changers they gave us was infrastructure e investment. The report showed that we need to invest between 1850 and 180 million each year to make up for the underinvestment, and have robust growth. In the report, it said if we invested in this level, it would add 1. 3 gdp, and almost double. It will create new jobs. So for the people who are need to go to work, this is great for them to work on the project. And also, we need to get most of the dollars from existing the n infrastructure, and to maintain the infrastructure. Infrastructure is important in part to the repairs. And so just as important is the fact that moernd inpra stra mod helps people improve. And texas a m said that they were just sitting in the office doing nothing. More modern would help reduce waste. And so as we rely on the goods and services, the they mo across what is known as the critical inf infrastructure, and it is aging, and in need of sig nnificant investments to help the economy to grow. The report card issued by the Civil Engineers they gave us for dams and Drinking Waters a d. The bridges and other a ears ya were better. And so while there are some tools that are great for some projects, it is great. But despite, whether we are rural or not, we need to find something. While traditional infrastructure to the roads and that is essential i feel that we need to protect the dune systems, and the aqua system restoration. Without the protections the demand increases, and many cases becomes unmanageable. And so we need to embrace getting state and local governments with the shared burden and giving them the flexibility that they need. I also wa want to the know how we are prioritizing the critical investments to working with the critical investments before we build new assets that we cannot afford the play. And finally, i want to say that this is no onesizefitsall approach to the challenge. We have to work on it by a partisan manner. And build it for a shared government responsibility to the e k economy. And so we have a couple of people before us, but i want to introduce tony pratt, administra administrator of the shoreline within the Delaware Department of Natural Resources, and current president , and i call him president of the american shore and beach preservation for the systems, and why infrastructure is important to preserve the roads and bridges. And now, shallen att comes to us from the Colorado Department of transportation, and stole n from the state of delaware where he was the department of transportation, and there he led two responses to hurricanes, and reduced the agency debt by 30 while delivering 2 billion in infrastructure improvements. I wrote a note, we are not blue states or red states, but United States. We have states in rural in nature whose needs are more different than the places where ben and i come from and represent. But we have to look out for each other. And we have to look out for each other, and if we do that, we will be ahead in the game. Thank you, senator cardin, and would you like to have a statement . Yes. This committee and the Commerce Committee have nine members on both, and meet agent the saing time, members are going back and forth, and we are doing a good joob to coordinate the witnesses. And i want to introduce the good looking pan looking witnesses. I have sbree deuced tony. I have known Cindy Bobbitt for a long time, and commissioner of grant county. She has been actively involved in the last eight years with the National Association of county, and serving in many capacities including vice chair of the transportation steering committee, and few ther more serving on the Technical Oversight Group with the fed a ral Highway Administration of safety. As you can imagine, commissioner bobbitt is passionate about the infrastructure needs, and makes sure that she makes a well qualifi qualified part of this state, and including oklahoma which relies on the infrahave uk chu, and has many infrastructure needs. They say that grant county has as many bridges as people. Senator bobbitt know what it is like to grow wheat, and feed grain, and ap capital. They have deep roots as their farm has been in the family since the land run of 1893. Commissioner bobbitt grew up in rural life driving a tractor at age nine and she bought her first piece of land when she was 16 years ole. She knows first hand the importance of agriculture industry to oklahomas economy and the needs in getting those goods to market. Commissioner bobbitt, i want to thank you for being here and for coming all the way from grant county to washington, d. C. Thank you, senator. Could i invite you to please introduce your witness. Thank you. It is a great deal of pleasure to introduce my friend, mike mcnolte who has the general manager of Putnam County West Virginia representing hes testifying on the behalf of Putnam County but also the West Virginia rural Waters Association and the National Rural Waters Association. Mike is known as an expert in our state and throughout the nation in this area. He received a bachelors of science from West Virginia tech and a masters from marshal university. He served as the general manager since 2004 and he was previously the director of the West Virginia rural water association. Rural communities and everybodys referenced this have had particularly challenges in West Virginia. Not only do we have Rural Communities but tough terrain that pose challenges in the maintenance of Drinking Water. And wastewater. Mikes found a way, very creatively in his area to work with the Regulatory Compliance and leverage the federal dollars. To extend a lot of municipal water to a lot of people. And we talked just yesterday theres still some people left that we cant forget about it and we wont forget about but i know hell bring valuable insight to this committee. Thanks for coming from West Virginia. And the others from the West Virginia rural water committee. Thank you. Thank you, senator. Id also like to introduce bill panose. Whos the 17th director since hes a graduate of California State University where he studied both physics and forensic sciences. His previous work is engineering with the trw corporation. Immediately prior to heading wydot. He was the director of Wyoming School Facility Department for two years. Well hear from our witnesses and well start from the department of transportation. I do want to remind the witnesses that your full written testimony will be made part of the official hearing today so please keep your statements to five minutes so that we may have some time for questions. I look forward to hearing all the testimony today beginning with mr. Panose. Thank you. Members of the committee, director of the wyoming department of transportation. Today im presenting a statement for my own state of wyoming and the transportation departments of idaho, montana, north dakota and south dakota. As Congress Considers Surface Transportation Infrastructure investment we hope that our comments will enhance understanding of transportation challenges facing rural states. Let me again get right to our key points. Federal transportation investment in rural states benefit the nation. Highways in our rural states enable truck movements between the west coast and the large cities of the midwest and the east. They benefit people and commerce at both ends of the journey. Our highways enable significant agricultural, energy and Natural Resource products to move from their rural points of origin to national and world markets. They enable tens of visitors each year to reach scenic wonders like mt. Rushmore and Yellowstone National park. So those highways ensure that tourism dollars are spent in america furthering economic goals. So there is a national interest, and plenty of good reason for the nation to invest in rural states. There are needs for Surface Transportation Infrastructure investment in rural states as well as in all states. If Congress Advances the Surface Transportation Infrastructure would be put to good use in wyoming and other states. They would create jobs and provide safety, economic efficiency and other short and longterm benefits to the nation. Next we have some thoughts on providing some of those benefits. Public, private partnerships and other approaches that depend on a positive revenue stream are not a Surface Transportation Infrastructure solution for rural states. The traffic volumes on projects and rural states are low and almost never feasible for Revenue Generation. So rural states are unlikely to attract investors for those projects even, if any, project revenues are supplemented by tax credits. Also, with sparse populations and extensive Road Networks, the cost per capita ever of paying off principal and interest is high in rural states, a deterrent to borrowing for those projects. We do not oppose a rural and improving the nations Transportation Network but they are unlikely to result in meaningful surface approximate four to one ratio funding. Also, we would have particular concern, if any, Surface Transportation Infrastructure were structured in a way that made rural state participation unrealistic. New Program Elements limited to extremely expensive projects would not be accessible by our states at least in the substantial way. That type of initiative may very well lack urban rural balance. Strengthening the Highway Trust Fund is a very important objective. The Highway Trust Fund are critical to maintain and improve americas surface infrastructure. We appreciate that in the fast act congress provided Financial Support to the trust fund and its programs through fiscal year 2020. Yet without legislation after 2020, the Highway Trust Fund will not be able to support even Fast Act Program levels much less meet the needs as the economy grows. So strengthening the htf, the Highway Trust Fund is worthy of consideration and action. While our focus today is on funding and Financial Issues we also encourage congress to take steps to increase federal Program Flexibility and simplify program deliver ywe want each program dollar to deliver more benefits. Before closing ill briefly mention that our rural states face significant Financial Funding challenges. We are geographically large. We include vast tracts of federal lands. And cannot be taxed or developed. We have extensive Highway Networks and low population densities. This means that we have very few people to support each lane mile of federal highway yet