STATEMENT OF
NORMAN Y. MINETA
SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION
Before the
COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
April 4, 2001

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, it is a great pleasure to appear before you today and to have the opportunity to work with you again on the challenges that face our nation’s transportation system.

Congestion in U.S. transportation is a challenge that faces every American, simply because the vitality of the U.S. economy is so closely linked to an efficient transportation system. Long ago as Mayor of San Jose, California, I learned that the tool that made the most difference in my community was transportation.  Nothing else had as great an impact on our economic development, on the pattern of growth, or on the quality of life. What I have found in the years since is that this is true not just locally, but also nationally.  Transportation is key to the productivity, and therefore the success, of virtually every business in America.  Congestion and delay not only waste our time as individuals, they also burden our businesses and our entire economy with inefficiency and higher costs.  The bottom line is that transportation is key in generating and enabling economic growth, in determining the patterns of that growth, and in determining the competitiveness of our businesses in the world economy.

In short, three decades of experience tell me that transportation is vital to our national well-being, whether measured as economic growth, as international competitiveness, or as quality of life. Congestion and inefficiency in transportation are not just inconvenient and aggravating--though they certainly are that--they are also a tax that burdens every business and every individual. We have to find ways to lighten that load.

As a whole, the multi-modal transportation system of this nation works well in maintaining the strong economic performance of the United States and, more broadly, world commerce. This Committee and the rest of Congress deserve a great deal of the credit for this sustained good performance. Congressional enactment of TEA-21 and AIR-21 put in place levels of capital investment that will be important in relieving congestion across the board. I’m sure you know that the Administration has done its part in requesting full funding of the guaranteed levels in surface transportation and the firewall levels in air transportation as part of the President’s Budget.

So one might ask: Do we need to do more? I think the answer is "Yes".

When I took this job, I knew that a central challenge for the Department would be to address the gap between demand for transportation and the capacity of our transportation infrastructure.  That gap is what generates the traffic you face on the highways, the delay you experience on the taxiway or at the gate, the inefficiencies shippers face when their shipments are jammed up in a rail bottleneck, a beltway traffic jam, or a port operation struggling with constrained landside transportation access.

The most fundamental challenge we face--and the most daunting--is not just congestion or delays or modernizing the aviation system.  Those are enormous challenges, to be sure, but our biggest challenge is to get everyone working together in a spirit of partnership to solve these problems.  We all created these problems and we can solve them--only by working together. So, as Secretary, I intend to devote the bulk of my energies to working across party lines, reaching across divides, and building consensus for solutions.

Nowhere is the congestion challenge more evident than in air traffic control. In the year 2000, some 600 million passengers flew on U.S. airlines, a 50 percent increase in just nine years. And, as you may have heard announced at the FAA's recent aviation forecast conference, the number of passengers on U.S. airlines is expected to hit one billion by the year 2010.  Now we face the stiff challenge of building the necessary capacity to match that demand. And do it safely.  

Strengthening our commitment to keeping safety as our paramount concern cannot be over-emphasized, particularly at a time when the national focus is on system efficiency and trying to squeeze additional capacity from the system wherever possible.

In 1997, those of us on the National Civil Aviation Review Commission which I had the privilege to chair, saw the coming storm, as did earlier commissions, and we predicted there would be gridlock by the turn of the century.  I take no pride or satisfaction in saying--we told you so.  As most of you know, today's aviation system in major areas is literally working up to capacity.

We need to commit to long-term initiatives, of course, and make use of the latest technology for managing air traffic, detecting and disseminating weather information, and to redesign the nation's airspace to make more efficient use of it. New communications and surveillance systems, satellite-based navigation, and other technological advances have the potential to bring improvements to many parts of the aviation system.  I will talk about long-term initiatives in a moment.  But, first, I want to discuss what we can do in the short-term, specifically the Spring-Summer plan in place for this year. FAA and the industry have forged a partnership through the development of the 2001 Spring -Summer plan, which will use nationwide coordination and flexibility to minimize passenger delays.

The heart of this plan is a process called "collaborative decision making."  It represents a fundamental change in the way the FAA has been doing business by centralizing much of their air traffic management planning, their coordination and their decision-making at the FAA system command center in Herndon, Virginia.

The key to this process is real-time collaboration with the airlines to manage their operations in severe weather conditions.  Last year was difficult, to be sure, but I believe it would have been twice as bad without this collaborative process in place.

Last fall, the FAA and the airlines reviewed their performance of the previous spring and summer -- what worked and what didn't -- and they have made a number of changes in terms of procedures and increased training that should substantially improve the performance of the system.  To date, more than 3000 people  -- FAA controllers, FAA supervisors, airline dispatchers and operations personnel, as well as pilots have completed training on the Spring/Summer 2001 plan.

The fact is that nearly 70 percent of all Air Traffic control system delays are caused by weather—meaning that conditions do not allow for visual separation. It takes surprisingly little to curtail the capacity of our system, either at airports or in the enroute environment.  We cannot reduce delays in any meaningful way without finding a better way to respond to the 70 percent of delays that are weather-related. We simply have to work smarter in this area.  This is where the battle of the spring and summer will be won or lost.

We also are taking action to relieve pressure on seven so-called "choke points" in the system, airspace within the Chicago/Boston/Washington triangle where procedural changes can greatly improve the system's overall efficiency.

We are already seeing benefits from the initiatives we have taken to date. By rerouting departing traffic, for example, from some New York area airports, departure stops are down 30-40 percent from what they were just a year ago. The enroute altitudes, especially in the triangle, are a key battlefield for us. This is where small problems have tended, in recent years, to become big problems, and to ripple across the country. Again, we simply have to work smarter in this area. In addition, we are completing work on the airport capacity benchmarks for 31 major airports that you have heard discussed before.

In cooperation with the airlines, the FAA also is developing an operational evolution for the National Airspace System (NAS) Plan that spells out what is required over the next ten years. It not only discusses needed changes in air traffic control technology, but also the operational procedures, the avionics that the airlines will need to install, the certifications requirements and the budgets necessary to implement all these changes. We hope to publicize this plan later this spring. And FAA Administrator Garvey and I are committed to more business-like operations at the FAA, and to hiring the Chief Operating Officer called for by AIR-21.

On the issue of runway capacity, we must keep in mind that it is only one piece of the delay puzzle and therefore expanding capacity will alleviate, but not solve the delay problem.  For example, some of the airports at which capacity is most constrained may not be ready or may not be able to construct new runways. Therefore, we should explore ways to best utilize existing capacity and plan our new capacity to ensure that we can   manage future air travel demand.

Although we need more runways and more airport capacity in the long term, it's a fact that constructing new runways takes a long time -- as much as ten years from initial planning to completion. New runways must be initiated at the local level, but once the local decision has been made, there are ways that we can assist localities in expediting the process, including the environmental process.

There are 19 runways currently proposed by airport proprietors at large hub primary airports through the year 2010.  Of these 19 runways, ten already have been environmentally approved by the FAA.  Another five runways have environmental impact studies (EISs) underway, with draft EISs issued on four of the five.  Of the remaining four, two runways are under consideration at Washington-Dulles airport where an FAA EIS team has already been established and preliminary EIS discussions held.  The other two runway proposals--at Dallas-Ft.Worth and Baltimore-Washington airports--are beginning the environmental planning process to address increased traffic forecasts.

Without compromising environmental protection and concern for public sensitivity about noise, air and water quality and other natural resources, we are looking at ways to make the process of environmental review for expansion of airport capacity more efficient and are completing an environmental streamlining report to Congress requested in AIR-21.  Options include improving staff resources, improving interagency cooperation, and better use of current streamlining tools.

The FAA has already taken administrative actions to place immediate focus on environmental streamlining.  For example, the FAA will expand the use of a successful "team" approach to conduct EISs.  Teams concentrate a group of environmental experts, airport planners, environmental attorneys and consultants on a priority airport project.  The FAA will form teams for every large hub airport with a runway project.  FAA will ask each airport to contribute members to perform work not specifically reserved for the federal level. In addition to the team concept, the FAA has begun using both formal and informal agreements with other federal and state agencies to improve interagency coordination during the EIS process.  And the FAA will publish a guide outlining the best management practices to follow to reduce problems and delays in producing an EIS.  The guide will be available on the FAA's web page in early summer.

The important thing is to get the appropriate federal and state environmental safeguards identified early and built in as the project progresses.  Slow decision-making does not translate into better environmental results.  However, as you Mr. Chairman have noted, local cooperation is a key component of speeding the environmental process. Local officials must be our active partners in this effort if we are to make significant progress. That means, for example, that we have to continue to reduce the problem of aircraft noise and deal with local problems of surface traffic congestion and air pollution near airports.

Improving our aviation infrastructure and enhancing the level of capacity can also address concerns about the competitiveness and openness of our aviation system.  After all, the traveling public is entitled to more than the opportunity to have its flights depart and arrive on time.  It should also have a range of services and fares from which to choose.

We have before us other options that offer the potential to substantially ease congestion. These include market-based approaches that include all market-pricing regimes that would encourage air carriers to use limited capacity more efficiently. One such approach is the concept of "peak-period pricing" to try and spread the flights at the most congested airports across a broader band of hours in the morning and evening. It is fundamental to keep in mind that each of the candidate airports is effectively unique in terms of the problems faced, and that there are obvious issues of equity, such as not crowding out service to and from the smaller destinations, that must be faced in developing a solution.

I also place great hope in the capacity benchmarks that are being developed. Our plan is to release the report soon. This information will go a long way in establishing the maximum number of operations that can be accommodated consistently during peak demand periods at 31 of our busiest airports.

Of course, congestion is not only a problem in the air; it is a problem in virtually every mode of transportation. That is why the President's Budget Request proposes full funding for the transportation capital improvements critically necessary to solving our capacity challenges over the long run. Highway, transit, aviation, and rail infrastructure investments total $42.8 billion, 39 percent above the average annual investment over the prior eight years. In the case of air traffic control, proposed funding puts new emphasis on congestion-related problems--for instance, we fund weather systems for towers becoming operational in 2002, allowing controllers to minimize disruptions to traffic flow from severe weather and reduce delays and diversions caused by imperfect knowledge of the location of severe weather.

A record amount of money has been available for transportation. You have provided the Department with generous levels of funding in TEA-21 and AIR-21 and, as we are all well aware, the potential for waste can increase as the pot grows in size. Like you, I am committed to seeing that waste and fraud do not crop up in our programs and that, if a particular project calls for a certain amount of concrete, we get the amount specified

My credo on waste, fraud and abuse is simple: If the project calls for concrete and it's a "10 sack job," we at DOT are going to be sure we don't end up with a "7 sack job."

TEA-21 not only provided more funding than we have ever had before, it provided unprecedented flexibility to use the funds for a wide range of transportation solutions.  The Department's surface transportation programs include formula and discretionary grants as well as programs that provide direct loans, loan guarantees and lines of credit. These varied and unique approaches to funding give communities a broad range of incentives to expand transportation choices.  They put unprecedented emphasis on developing a seamless, intermodal transportation system that links ports, airports, highways, rail and transit effectively.

I want to mention in particular the congestion problems we have in highways and transit. Highways are the very backbone of our nation’s transportation system, and the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System did an extraordinary job of knitting our country together and making efficient nationwide highway transportation a reality both for people and for goods. The result was a quantum leap in the productivity and the competitiveness of our economy.  But we are now losing that productivity to specific bottlenecks in the system, and gains made nationwide are too often being lost to lack of coordination among the affected parties.

In the ISTEA legislation in 1991 we attempted to address this critical problem, and it is something we are going to have to continue to address.  We recognized that effective solutions to these bottlenecks would have to involve a high degree of local, metropolitan, and state involvement in order to build the broad spectrum of support necessary to overcome resistance and to get the problem solved. We also recognized that this could not be a one-size-fits-all approach, and that the combination of solutions needed in one location would not be the same combination of solutions needed in another location. Every instance requires its own mix of new highway capacity, better management of existing capacity, Intelligent Transportation Systems, transit, pedestrian improvements, and so on. To be effective in dealing with these bottlenecks we have to be prepared to use whatever mix of transportation alternatives will work, and we have to take a balanced approach to all alternatives. We have to constantly be looking for what works and what is the most cost-effective solution to the problem. TEA-21 has continued that approach, while providing badly needed additional capital investment.

Major action is underway at the Department to tackle surface transportation congestion. Technology offers particular promise for transportation.  Federal research helps build stronger roads and bridges. With new technologies and new, longer lasting materials that are easier to apply, we can “get in, get it done, and get out.”  The safer and less disruptive that infrastructure repairs and improvements are to the user, the better.

We are working very closely with our partners in the urbanized areas to develop a national architecture that will support ITS and operations technologies.  These technologies will be a key in reducing travel delay and improving mobility for the traveling public and the freight industry.  The technologies include: traveler information systems, emergency response systems, electronic toll collection, traffic responsive signal systems, and state-of-the-art transportation management systems. The President's Budget proposes $253 million in ITS initiatives this year, a 32 percent increase over the current year.

Other ways of using existing transportation facilities and services more effectively can also contribute to relieving congestion.  High occupancy vehicle lanes, incentives for ridesharing, and other options are available for more livable transportation systems.  Telecommuting offers another approach to enhance highway capacity by allowing employees to work at home or at centers close to home.

In addition to maximizing our system capacity via improved operations, we recognize that we must improve our capacity with new facilities when appropriate.  We commit ourselves to work with all of our partners and stakeholders in the other modes, environmental community, etc. when instituting new facilities. We are working very closely with the States, MPOs, and local governments to integrate land use policies with the planning process.  These issues remain under the purview of State and local officials, but we can serve as a technical resource to encourage positive land use planning. Full consideration to the needs of freight movements are incorporated into the planning and program developments processes.

One long term strategy we are continuing to explore for highways is value pricing.  The concept of assessing relatively higher prices for travel during peak congestion periods is the same as that used in other sectors of the economy to respond to peak-use demands.  For example, hotel rooms cost more during peak tourist seasons.  By using fees which vary by time-of-day and location of use to manage demand and reduce congestion, system performance is improved.  It provides improved service to transportation users, makes more efficient use of existing transportation capacity, and reduces the need for future capacity expansion.

Also in aviation, the Department is taking steps to streamline the environmental process for highway and transit actions. Sound progress has been made in speeding the delivery of highway projects without sacrificing environmental concerns.    FHWA and FTA have enhanced interagency coordination by signing a National Memorandum of Understanding on Environmental Streamlining between DOT and six other Federal agencies, meeting regularly with other agencies, and conducting a national training workshop for Federal agencies.  FHWA and FTA published proposed environmental and planning rules in May of 2000 that included measures directed at environmental streamlining, and the Department will be working to address public, stakeholder, and Congressional concerns about these proposals.

Transit clearly has a role to play in easing congestion. Certainly there is increased local interest in transit, as evidenced by the fact that states flexed up to $1.6 billion in FHWA program funds to transit in FY 2000, as well as passage of a number of referenda on transit, such as the effort in Santa Clara County to extend BART to San Jose. But as transit ridership has grown steadily since 1993, we are now seeing transit--as demonstrated in Washington's METRO system--where trains are full for a good part of the peak hour, and then some, and where people have to wait for one or two trains to pass to get on. New York City Transit has been reporting similar events. Well established commuter rail systems are experiencing record growth and new systems are being planned in other metropolitan areas to improve access to the urban core from fast growing suburbs.

At the same time many states are turning to higher speed rail service to contribute to congestion relief for travel between cities. FRA and Amtrak are working with the states comprising the ten high-speed rail corridors designated by the Department under ISTEA and TEA-21. In just the last decade, states have spent over $1.5 billion on high-speed rail investment, much of it in my own state of California. FRA’s Next Generation High Speed Rail Technology program is working on technologies such as non-electric locomotives and positive train control that will facilitate high-speed rail development on existing railroads by lowering cost and improving performance.

Another tool for the delivery of infrastructure improvements is the use of financing programs. TEA-21 authorized two innovative financing programs for major transportation projects.  The Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation (TIFIA) program provides loans, loan guarantees, and lines of credit to fund major transportation investments of critical national importance.  The Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing Program (RRIF) provides direct loans and loan guarantees for companies that cannot obtain credit elsewhere for terms up to 25 years to acquire, improve, or rehabilitate intermodal or rail equipment and facilities.

We need to step up to the challenges of addressing port congestion and improving our marine transportation system as well.  Ferries and short-sea services are alternatives that can reduce passenger and freight congestion on our overcrowded rail lines and highways.  Our marine transportation system is one of the nation's vital links -- with about 90 percent of our international trade and a significant portion of domestic trade carried by water.  International trade is an essential component in the growth of the U.S. economy, but it is already creating severe congestion at our ports and on our highways, and the volume is expected to double by the year 2020. While the investment in maritime infrastructure has been and continues to be substantial, much of the infrastructure is aged and in need of renovation. The pressure is particularly acute for certain intermodal connectors, and the potential for gridlock exists.  We are aware of these problems.  We are reviewing the available options and want to work together in the spirit of partnership with state and local authorities that provide most of the funding in this area to ensure our marine system helps to provide American businesses with competitive access to markets in an increasingly global economy.

In closing, I appreciate the opportunity the Committee has provided to explore the options open to us to make a real dent in congestion across all the modes. I look forward to working with you to make a difference.

This completes my prepared statement, and I would be pleased to respond to any questions from you and members of the Committee. 

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