REMARKS AS
PREPARED FOR DELIVERY
U.S. SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION RODNEY E. SLATER
EXECUTIVE FORUM ON "DELIVERING E-COMMERCE"
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
FEBRUARY 11, 2000
On behalf of President Clinton, Vice President Gore and the United States Department of Transportation, I am delighted to add my welcome to this important forum addressing the vital link between e-commerce and transportation.
Let me take a moment to acknowledge my good friend, Atlanta’s distinguished Mayor Bill Campbell, who has helped Atlanta stake out its claim as a ‘world-class’ city. I was here just last week, joining Mayor Campbell, Leo Mullins of Delta Airlines, Archbishop Benjamin Tutu, and Ambassador Andy Young -- on the 10th Anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison -- to help celebrate the inauguration of direct air service between Atlanta and Johannesburg, South Africa.
Linking two continents is additional evidence of Atlanta's global leadership. This is already home to major facilities for such international heavyweights as CNN, Delta Airlines, Coca-Cola, IBM, MCI-Worldcom and, of course, UPS -- Forbes Magazine's "Company of the Year." That is why the Department chose Atlanta as the site for the first-ever U.S.-Africa Transport Ministerial last September. And that is why we at the U.S. Department of Transportation are pleased to be part of the partnership with the Georgia Institute of Technology, UPS, CISCO, and the Council on Competitiveness, that is hosting today’s critically important gathering here in Atlanta.
I think it is important to acknowledge who has come to this meeting. We have captains of industry, representing Forbes and Fortune magazine's lists of best businesses of the year, joined by representatives of some of the most respected institutions of higher education in the country -- distinguished leaders in the art and science of e-commerce, transportation and logistics. I'm pleased that my own alma maters -- Eastern Michigan University and the University of Arkansas -- are among the institutions represented here, along with internationally recognized and respected companies like Wal-Mart, from my home state of Arkansas.
There is another group well represented here today, a group pleased to be here to listen and to learn, that we might better serve. I'm speaking now of the members of the U.S. DOT family who have joined me on this occasion. Among them we have Dr. Steven Van Beek, Associate Deputy Secretary and Director of the Office of Intermodalism; Dr. Gene Conti, Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy; Dr. Oliver McGee, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy -- who came to us from Georgia Tech as a former faculty member; Kelly Coyner, Administrator, Research and Special Programs Administration; Dr. Ken Wykle, Administrator, Federal Highway Administration; George Molaski, our Chief Information Officer; and Dr. Richard John, Director, Volpe National Transportation Systems Center.
These leaders represent the visionary and vigilant U.S. Department of Transportation which is leading the way to transportation excellence in the 21st century -- guided by the belief that transportation is about more than concrete, asphalt and steel; it is about people. Our department's strategic and performance plans have been recognized as "the best in government," reflecting the importance of transportation as it relates to safety, mobility, economic growth, protection of the human and natural environment and national security.
And we have performed. As it relates to safety, President Clinton and Vice President Gore's top transportation priority -- what we call the "North Star" by which we are guided and by which we are willing to be judged -- I offer this:
- Today, alcohol-related fatalities are at an all-time low;
- Today, we have record-level seat belt and child safety seat use; since we took office in 1993, more than 2100 lives have been saved by child safety seats;
- And today, we are experiencing double-digit reductions annually in highway rail-crossing crashes and fatalities.
Our skies remain the safest in the world -- and they are getting safer. And the Coast Guard continues to save one life every two hours.
The President's proposed budget for 2001 provides for a record-level $55 billion-dollar investment in transportation -- an 86 percent increase over the previous administration's average.
We take a common-sense approach to our work, listening and learning from those whom we serve as partners, believing that no person is more important than the one to whom we are listening.
DOT will be a good partner. We must build upon all we have done to create a transportation system equal to the challenges of the 21st century and the new millennium. And we must develop and inspire a visionary and vigilant workforce to operate, maintain and manage it. The transportation system of the 21st century must be safe and sustainable, to be sure; but it also must be international in reach, intermodal in form, intelligent in character and inclusive in service.
In order to bring this kind of system into being, it is essential that we invest resources adequate to the task of nurturing a climate of transportation innovation and that we reach out to a wide range of concerned stakeholders. That is why we are establishing a New Transportation Policy Architecture for a new century and new millennium. That is why we are conducting a "2025" Visionary Exercise that will result in a report to the nation this summer on Trends and Choices in Transportation for the next 25 years. And that is why we will host an International Transportation Symposium in Washington this fall for our partners and colleagues from around the world.
The new electronic economy does not obviate the need for investment in our nation's physical infrastructure. In fact, the time-definite, point-to-point delivery needs of e-commerce require an even more flexible and resilient transportation network. As I said in my address to the Global Summit on International Aviation Infrastructure last fall, "You can order 'Steaks from Omaha' on-line, but you can't download them to your plate. E-commerce delivery still requires transportation to move products from the warehouse to your house."
Today, at the dawn of the e-commerce revolution, we ask, "How do we best continue and maintain our country's extensive transportation infrastructure." Clearly, we need to anticipate the shifting demands of a "next day" economic system. We must integrate our physical infrastructure with information technology to ensure consumer access "to anything, anywhere, all the time -- on time."
Over the past three years, the Internet and information technology have accounted for over one-third of the real growth in U.S. Gross Domestic Product. And price declines in information technology have reduced our overall inflation in the U.S. by one-third. In an effort to encourage this growth, and develop some basic international understandings on the subject, the Clinton -- Gore Administration announced a framework, or set of principles, for global electronic commerce in July 1997.
As expressed by the President, our policy is to "Encourage the private sector to regulate itself as much as possible. E-commerce creates enormous potential for growth -- and it will continue to do so, if we can resist the temptation to put up barriers to this important area of our new economy."
Avoiding regulation does not imply that we have taken a passive approach to e-commerce. On the contrary, creating a broad economic, social and technological foundation that supports continued economic growth is our policy. The President and Vice President’s strategy of fiscal discipline -- and their programs fostering strategic investments in our people through support of innovation in education, health- care, the environment, technology and transportation and investments in New Markets and their work to open new markets to U.S. goods and services around the world are all intentionally designed to contribute substantially to the new economy.
And this strategy is working. We begin this new century with over 20 million new jobs; the fastest economic growth in 30 years; the lowest poverty rates in 20 years; the lowest African American and Hispanic unemployment rates on record; a 46-year low in unemployment among women; the first back-to-back budget surpluses in 42 years and -- as of February 1, 2000 -- the longest sustained period of economic growth in our history.
Consider what the President said about the Internet and education in this year’s budget message: "We know we must connect all of our classrooms to the Internet and we are getting there. In 1994, only 3 percent of our classrooms were connected. Today, with the help of the Vice President’s E-Rate programs, more than half of them are -- and 90 percent of our schools have at least one Internet connection."
However, government must also invest in basic physical improvement of our schools. One third of our classrooms are in such disrepair that they have walls and wiring "too old" for the Internet. That’s one of the reasons the President has proposed to make immediate and urgent repairs on 5,000 schools per year -- and that’s why he has proposed to help build or modernize 6,000 more.
As the President said, "Sustained growth requires investment in human capital education, health care, technology, infrastructure. Particularly in an economy that runs more and more on brainpower, no investment pays off more than education."
This is also the way I look at what our administration is proposing for transportation in the new budget year. We are calling for broad investments in people and programs in order to assure safety and foster growth. In the area of education, our Garrett Morgan Technology and Transportation Futures Program has already reached some two million young people with the message that they need a solid education in science and math to compete for high-paying transportation jobs in the year’s ahead. These are tomorrow’s innovators. It is they who will help insure that our transportation system supports Internet commerce.
We should keep in mind that not all "infrastructure" consists of Interstates, airport runways, global positioning satellites, or large-scale hardware systems. Some of the most important features of the transportation policy architecture we are formulating to guide us in efforts to build the transportation system of the 21st century and the new millennium, fall under the heading of political, governmental or regulatory policy.
This morning I am also pleased to announce a major trip to Asia to meet with my transportation counterparts and other government officials. I am planning stops in Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing and Tokyo. The goal of these meetings is to promote a more integrated, safe, secure and efficient Asia-Pacific transportation system as part of a global 21st century transportation system that is "international in reach, intermodal in form, intelligent in character and inclusive in service."
We now have bilateral "open skies" agreements with 42 nations around the world. We want to replace the present regime of bilateral agreements with a global system of liberalized aviation that will support the free flow of people, ideas and products from ‘anywhere to anywhere’ as envisioned by the pioneers of e-commerce. Our present network of agreements -- and the more global framework we seek to replace it with -- are a vital part of the ‘transportation infrastructure’ that supports e-commerce, especially emerging logistics giants like UPS or FEDEX.
Transportation is clearly a critical, if often unacknowledged, component of the Internet economy, which Jim Kelly of UPS and John Morgridge of Cisco Systems spoke of so eloquently at last night’s dinner. It may be true that e-commerce operates ‘by the click of a button.’ However, it is also true that e-commerce still requires planes, trains, and trucks to move goods to their destinations after they are ordered over the Internet. As I have said before, you can order ‘Steaks from Omaha’ on-line, but we have no replicator that will let you download those steaks to your dinner table.
I thought Jim painted a particularly vivid picture of how much e-commerce depends upon our transportation infrastructure, when he talked about UPS operations over last Christmas. To handle the nearly 19 million packages his company moved on a single day -- December 17th -- he needed 152,000 trucks and 90 thousand extra workers, not to mention two- dozen extra planes for what was already the 9th largest airline and the largest transportation company in the world.
The growth of e-commerce is one of the reasons why we expect the value of cargo shipped by air to triple in value by the year 2015. On the positive side, e-commerce will not only stimulate more air traffic, it will also provide us with new ways to simplify and speed up operations in every aspect of transportation. Last night’s speakers spoke of some of these innovations. You will discuss more of them today.
One of the objectives of this forum is to advance the climate of innovation we need to foster the physical delivery systems that can foster e-commerce. A few minutes before Midnight on New Year’s Eve, the President said that ours is a nation that is "always reaching beyond, always becoming."
And that ‘can do’ attitude characterizes the Department’s efforts, as we create a transportation policy architecture for the new century and new millennium that fosters, nurtures and sustains a climate of innovation in transportation to delivery electronic commerce. One key to encouraging innovation is building partnerships and exchanging ideas. To ensure the continued growth of this industry, we need to bring business, government and academic experts together to examine electronic commerce.
For me, today’s forum is the next stage in our efforts to frame the ‘visionary and vigilant’ transportation architecture needed to support e-commerce -- and all commerce -- in this new century and new millennium. Earlier this year, we began a series of what I am calling ‘visioning’ sessions to systematically explore how our transportation system might evolve over the next 25 years. At this forum, this inquiry continues because we have gathered here, in one place, the stakeholders whose vision and ideas, in partnership with our own, will shape our transportation future.
In that same spirit, I am pleased to announce our intention to expand the cooperative relationship between the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Council on Competitiveness in the area of transportation and e-commerce. Later this morning I will be signing a Memorandum of Understanding with Council President John Yochelson. This MOU will create a formal relationship that will continue today’s conversations into how transportation supports the e-commerce revolution -- and what can be done to make that relationship even more supportive.
Two weeks ago tomorrow, the President spoke to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He asked his audience, "What does making a difference and new beginnings mean in an era of globalization?" Today in Atlanta we are developing part of the answer to the President’s question. What ‘making a difference and new beginnings’ means in an era of globalization, is to bring together in one place, the best minds available to create a new vision for a new age. This we have done. Let me conclude with a quote from the prophet Isaiah that captures the spirit of expanding our vision to capture the full potential of the e-commerce revolution:
"Widen the space of your tent; stretch out your hangings freely; lengthen your ropes; make your tent pegs firm--for you will burst out to the right and to the left."
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