Secretary Anthony Foxx
U.S. Senate: Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) Subcommittee
“FY16 U.S. Department of Transportation Budget”
April 22, 2015 • Washington, DC
Madam Chairman, Ranking Member Reed, and all the members of the subcommittee, thank you for having me today. And I want to thank you, Madam Chairman, especially, for being flexible in scheduling this hearing.
I’ll jump right in: Last month, we sent Congress a new and improved GROW AMERICA Act. It is a long-term bill, and it would provide $478 billion of funding over 6 years.
Having a six-year bill is very important because it will give communities a stable, predictable amount of funding so they can plan for the long-term.
That said, I know this Committee is very focused on this upcoming fiscal year. So let me tell you what this bill means for FY’16: Of the $478 billion, $95 billion accounts for our budget request in FY’16.
Within the FY’16 request, we’d invest $7.5 billion to clear the backlog of deficient bridges and highway that need safety repairs.
There’s $1 billion for a new freight program – and over a $1 billion increase for Capital Investment Grants, which help build projects that better connect folks to jobs, schools, and doctors.
At USDOT, we recognize that sequestration will take effect again next January absent Congressional action. It will have a devastating impact on our transportation safety efforts, threatening the resources needed to conduct safety inspections and enforce critical safety rules.
What GROW AMERICA does is lay down a marker. It shows us the funding level necessary to actually improve the condition of our transportation system. And GROW AMERICA is fully paid for.
It is part of a larger Administration budget that avoids sequestration, keeps our safety inspectors and air traffic controllers on the job, and makes the investments our nation will need to support a growing population and economy.
I believe we can accomplish this on a bipartisan basis. We have before.
I want to specifically thank Chairman Collins and Senator Murray, who’ve led the way on the issue of safely transporting energy. And I also know this Subcommittee – both Democratic and Republican members – has historically been a strong supporter of infrastructure investments, like our TIGER grant and Capital Investment Grant programs. And Ranking Member Reed has been especially vocal about the need to fix the shortfall in our Highway Trust Fund. I want to thank him for that.
Before I take your questions, let me close by saying: We’re speaking today about FY’16, but we also have to recognize that we have a more immediate issue with the Highway Trust Fund on May 31. Next month, the current authorization for the Highway Trust Fund will expire, and when states come to us looking for their money, we won’t be able to guarantee it will be there.
Plans will be shelved. New jobs won’t be created. And current ones will be at risk.
I know there’s been a lot of talk about passing a couple months of funding to get by this latest highway cliff. But the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
We’ve seen what happens when we put a Band-Aid on our transportation system.
Last summer, Congress patched funding for 10 months. Three months into that ten-month patch, Tennessee announced they were mothballing projects. Five more states have joined Tennessee since then, cancelling $2 billion worth of projects.
More projects will follow.
Maybe if America wasn’t growing – and didn’t need to prepare for a larger population and larger economy – this wouldn’t be so bad. But that is far from the case. America will be home to 70 million more people by 2045; we will have to move 45 percent more freight. Never has more been demanded of our transportation system, and never has its state of repair been worse.
Madam Chair, if we have to go through the struggle of passing a funding bill, let’s do it the right way. Let’s do something big. I’m ready to work with you – and I look forward to your questions.
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