REMARKS
FOR
THE HONORABLE
NORMAN Y. MINETA
SECRETARY OF
TRANSPORTATION
AASHTO
87TH ANNUAL MEETING AND TRADE FAIR
OPENING
SESSION
FT WORTH, TEXAS
DECEMBER
3, 2001
Good morning. Thank you, President (Dean) Carlson for
the warm and welcoming introduction.
I am pleased to join you, Executive Director (John) Horsley, and AASHTO
members, for your 87th Annual Meeting.
One of my very first opportunities
to speak as Secretary of Transportation was at AASHTO’s Washington DC Briefing
last February.
As I said then, AASHTO and the
Department of Transportation have a long and productive history of working
together to improve our nation’s transportation system. Now, more than ever, that strong
partnership is vital to meeting the extraordinary transportation challenges
facing our nation today.
Deputy Secretary Jackson,
Administrators Peters, Rutter, Clapp, and I, and the entire Department, are
confident that with AASHTO on our team, we can successfully meet those
challenges.
Eight short months ago, when I first
spoke to AASHTO, the DOT’s primary focus was on closing the gap between
transportation demand and the capacity of our transportation
infrastructure.
The solution to this bottleneck
exists in the continued leadership by you – and by your state and local partners
– to examine transportation alternatives and cost-effective transportation
improvements. We will maintain our
partnership with AASHTO and address
these issues together during reauthorization of TEA-21.
The Department will also continue to
focus on streamlining the environmental planning and permitting process to
ensure that needed transportation projects are not unnecessarily delayed. I also spoke with you in February about
the need for effective stewardship when large sums of taxpayer dollars are spent
on public works projects.
With the increased investment in
transportation infrastructure, we must be vigilant in our efforts – and ensure
we have the necessary mechanisms – to prevent and detect waste, fraud, and
abuse. If we pay for 10-sack
concrete job, we should get a 10-sack concrete job – not a 7-sack job. As we begin the TEA-21 reauthorization
process, I want to examine how our oversight of financial management and program
integrity can be strengthened.
Capacity, demand, environmental
streamlining and stewardship of federal funds are all critical issues to be sure
– and we remain committed to that
agenda, but our priorities have been dramatically recast since September
11th. The Department
will continue to work with you to develop a comprehensive reauthorization
package, however, ensuring the safety and security of our nation’s
transportation system is NOW first and foremost.
We have entered a new era in
transportation, an era in which a determined and remorseless enemy has
challenged one of America’s most cherished freedoms — our freedom of
mobility. Under the leadership of
President Bush, I am proud to tell you that the Administration has risen to meet
this challenge.
Throughout the Department of
Transportation, across every mode,
we are moving rapidly to reach
the desired level of protection for the our high-value, high-consequence
transportation assets.
With every part of the
Department on a wartime footing, the women and men of the USDOT have gone above and beyond in
their service to our great country.
These efforts paid off over the Thanksgiving holiday, our first big test
since September 11th, and I appreciate and applaud their dedication
and spirit.
More Americans traveled during this
period than at any time since the hijackings and terrorist attacks. And, thanks to the efforts of
transportation officials and workers like yourselves, as well as law enforcement personnel
around our great Nation, they did so safely and without major incident.
We are moving in the right direction
to restore confidence in America’s transportation system.
Two weeks ago, President Bush signed
the Aviation and Transportation Security Act of 2001, creating a new agency within the
Department of Transportation -- the Transportation Security Administration. The USDOT now stands ready to utilize
the tools, the resources and the authority of the Act to take the next important
steps to ensure the safety and security of every mode of
transportation.
In the short time since President
Bush signed the Act, we have started putting into place the process management
structure and the key personnel necessary to coordinate this daunting
undertaking.
A War Room Core Team, chaired
initially by Deputy Secretary Michael Jackson, and led ultimately by the new
Undersecretary, will oversee day-to-day implementation. Kip Hawley will serve as the Core Team
Coordinator.
Kip returns to the Department having
served with two former Secretaries of Transportation – Drew Lewis and Elizabeth
Dole. His private sector experience
includes, vice president of operations at Union Pacific Railroad and CEO of a
supply chain management company.
I am excited to have him on our team
and I know that he will be a great asset in helping to get the Transportation
Security Administration up, and running.
While the Aviation and
Transportation Security Act provides the Department with substantial rulemaking
flexibility, we want constructive involvement from our transportation
stakeholders and the traveling public.
Like so many times in the past,
AASHTO has been among the first to answer the call to duty. I want to thank John Horsley and his
staff for meeting with Department’s Surface Transportation Direct Action
Group. You provided substantive
information on surface transportation security, which will be used by the
Department as we develop security procedures and practices.
I know that Administrator Peters and
the Federal Highway Administration are already working with the State DOTs and
local transportation agencies to identify their most high-consequence,
high-value, high-vulnerability
facilities. These assessments
consider how the loss or partial loss of these facilities would affect large
population centers and multi-modal transportation locations; military defense
movement; key industrial sites, energy and communications corridors.
We are carrying out case studies of
what actually happened in New York City and Virginia on September
11th, as well as looking for lessons learned from several other
disaster instances when cities had to immediately move masses of people.
We plan to conduct a set of tabletop
exercises for State DOTs and military counterparts on sudden military
deployments. Our pilot will be
right here in Fort Worth early next year.
I want to thank and congratulate
President Carlson and AASHTO for your continued leadership role in the
infrastructure security discussion.
Your Task Force on Transportation Security has identified a number of
action items to be completed in the next 60 to 90 days – including a
Vulnerability Assessment Handbook – to assist the States in their efforts.
The Department of Transportation
plans to be an active partner with you in this effort. Protecting transportation infrastructure
and our ability to quickly respond to attacks is crucial to daily life in
America. We need to protect,
prevent, and remain vigilant.
We are also looking to new
technologies to enhance our transportation safety and security efforts.
The Integrated Incident Management
System, already being field-tested in the New York City area, will make it
easier for first responders to collect and transmit incident scene data to their
operations centers. This system is
designed to reduce the time needed to verify and clear incidents.
Wireless Enhanced 911 (E-911), is a
new initiative we plan to launch to ensure that cell phone calls to emergency
dispatchers can provide the same kind of location information that is provided
by calls made from residential phones.
Our plan is to host a national summit on Wireless E-911 in 2002. We will be looking to work with our
transportation partners to advance this effort.
September 11th showed us
that there is a real need to develop and deploy a National Highway
INFO-structure – a nationwide system of sensors and information systems that
gather and correlate data on usage of, and conditions on, the 160,550- mile
National Highway System. The
“INFO-structure” would provide a comprehensive view of traffic movement on the
NHS, collecting and integrating data from multiple sources.
Finally, we believe good,
old-fashioned American ingenuity will help us to improve transportation security
at realistic costs and without undue delays. Recently, the Research and Special
Programs Administration at the USDOT asked
private industry, as well as the academic and government research communities,
to submit white papers with ideas and innovative technologies to predict and
detect threats in multi-modal transportation services and operations.
Ordinarily,
when RSPA conducts this kind of formal search for new ideas, we expect to
receive around 50 responses. So
far, this most recent solicitation has generated almost 600 proposals, an
overwhelming outpouring of ideas.
These white papers cover a full
range of multi-modal transportation security applications, including proposals
for new systems for infrastructure and disaster surveillance, and for terrorist
identification, warning and control systems.
Other proposals outline new ID fraud
detection systems, safe freight technology, emergency response systems,
biometric access controls, tanker fuel security, and so forth. The DOT has established multi-agency
technical review teams, and we plan to fully address all of these white papers
before Christmas.
In times past, when challenging and
complex situations faced the United States, our best minds have responded with
advanced technology to meet our national needs. I’m from the heart of Silicon Valley –
and we need to tap into the same talent that gave us the computer chip.
In the days ahead, as we phase in
the new Transportation Security Administration, some of the traveling public may
experience a few minor
inconveniences. The USDOT
will do what we must in order to protect our itizens and transport workers —
with safety and security as our highest priorities. I trust that the public will understand
the need for patience, recognizing that today patience represents a new form of
patriotism.
And, as we move forward from
September 11th, all Americans can — and will — continue to enjoy a
transportation system that is safe, secure and ensures the mobility of
America. Thank you, and
God bless America.
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