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Congressional Testimony
July 23, 2001, Monday
SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY
LENGTH: 1547 words
COMMITTEE:
HOUSE ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
SUBCOMMITTEE: TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HEADLINE: FEDERAL ROLE IN TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE
TESTIMONY-BY: GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, SENATOR
BODY: JULY 23, 2001
STATEMENT OF SENATOR
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC WORKS
Thank you, Mr.
Chairman, for conducting this hearing today on the federal role in meeting our
nation's infrastructure needs.
Mr. Chairman, infrastructure needs have
been the focus of some attention over the last two decades ever since the 1981
report, America in Ruins, initially focused attention on the issue. And in a
February 1988 report to the President and the Congress, the National Council on
Public Works Improvements concluded that the quality of America's infrastructure
was barely adequate to fulfill current requirements.
While there has
been progress in the last decade at the federal, state, and local levels to
better manage our public infrastructure, these efforts are undertaken
sporadically and more in an "stop gap" fashion while large capital investment
and operation and maintenance needs are not being addressed. I recognize that
simply devoting more federal resources to infrastructure needs is not the
solution. Issues of appropriate federal and state roles, adequate project
evaluation, priority setting, and program efficiency and management must be
addressed. I believe that a first step in dealing with the need for a coherent
national infrastructure strategy is an assessment of our nation's unmet
infrastructure needs. I realize that even the concept of "unmet needs" is
difficult to define and that every federal agency will define the term
differently. That is why, as Chairman of this Subcommittee last year, I asked
the General Accounting Office (GAO) to prepare a survey of unmet needs based on
information that the agencies have available in the major public infrastructure
areas where federal assistance is provided.
Specifically, I asked the
GAO to report on the needs estimates of seven federal agencies: U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA), Federal
Highway Administration (FHWA),
Federal Transit Administration (FTA), General Services Administration (GSA), and
Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC). I requested GAO to focus on water
resources (inland and deep draft navigation, flood control, and shore
protection), hydropower, water supply, wastewater treatment, airports,
highways, mass transit, and public buildings.
In its
just-released report, U.S. Infrastructure: Agencies' Approaches to Developing
Investment Estimates Vary, the GAO provided a survey of the seven agencies'
estimates for infrastructure investment; looked at how the agencies compare in
terms of how their estimates are developed and used; and examined the extent to
which the agencies' procedures for developing the estimates embody practices of
leasing government and private- sector organizations.
Of the seven
agencies reviewed by GAO in the report, each estimated billions of dollars in
investment needs. The figures ranged from the General Services Administration's
(GSA) estimate of $4.58 billion over one to five years to repair public
buildings, to the Federal
Highway Administration's (FHWA)
estimate of $83.4 billion per year over 20 years to improve
highways. Independent assessments of our nation's
infrastructure needs, such as the one conducted by the Water Infrastructure
Network (WIN) last year, suggest that trillions of dollars are needed to address
this country's drinking and wastewater needs. These are impressive figures.
According to the report I requested from GAO, the agencies'
infrastructure needs estimates cannot be easily compared or added up to produce
a national estimate of investment needs because of the differences in the
methods used, time periods covered, spending sources, and purposes for their
use. I would be interested in hearing GAO's thoughts on how a national
infrastructure needs survey could be developed.
The GAO also looked at
the procedures each agency has in place for developing infrastructure needs
estimates and whether they reflected some practices used by leading government
and private sector organizations. The GAO further examined the strengths and
limitations of each agency's estimate. A number of the limitations identified by
GAO suggest that many of the agencies' needs estimates might be understatements
of actual needs. I would also like to hear GAO's thoughts on how these agencies
estimates could be made more accurate.
Mr. Chairman, Congressional
authorizations of projects are a very important first part of the process of
developing and maintaining our nation's infrastructure. Equally important is
having an adequate level of
funding to construct as well as
operate and maintain these projects.
It's no secret that this nation has
an aging national infrastructure. If we continue to ignore the upkeep, and allow
the deterioration of our infrastructure, we risk disruptions in commerce and
reduced protection for public safety, health, and the environment. In my view,
it is up to Congress to ensure that operation and maintenance
funding levels are adequate and efficiently allocated to
priority needs.
There are a number of reasons why the we have such great
unmet needs. The most significant reason is the decreasing federal investment in
infrastructure since the 1980s. For example, GAO reported in February 2000 that
infrastructure as a percentage of federal spending has steadily declined since
the late 1980s. At the same time, we are asking agencies to do more and more.
For example, last year I conducted a hearing as Chairman of this
Subcommittee to examine the Corps's $38 billion backlog. At the hearing, I had a
number of charts showing the breakdown by mission area for the Corps'
construction appropriation by representative year from the decades of the 60s,
70s, and 90s. The charts clearly showed the mission growth of the Corps into
areas such as environmental restoration, remediation of formerly used nuclear
sites (FUSRAP), and environmental infrastructure.
At the hearing, I also
had another chart that measured our capital investment in water resources
infrastructure since the 1930s shown in constant 1999 dollars as measured by the
Corps of Engineers Civil Works construction appropriations. The chart showed
that there has been a sharp decline from the peak in 1966 of a $5 billion
appropriation and appropriations though the 1970s in the $4 billion level to the
1990s where annual Corps construction appropriations have averaged only around
$1.6 billion.
I strongly believe that Congress and the Administration
need to develop a strategy to address the backlog of unmet needs in this
country, and I fully intend to make meeting these unmet needs a priority in the
Senate.
For instance, the condition of our nation's water infrastructure
has been a long-standing concern of mine. I like to use the example of Mayor
Reid of the City of Mansfield, Ohio, who is facing having to raise sewer rates
from $30 a month to $100 a month in order to comply with environmental
regulations. I have also heard from a number of other Ohio municipalities about
their water infrastructure problems at two meetings I held in Ohio on this issue
during the last year. Senator Mike Crapo also conducted a field hearing on
Ohio's wastewater infrastructure needs on April 30 in Columbus.
Aging
water systems and increasing federal requirements are placing a heavy burden on
our communities. That is why I have introduced in the 106 and 107th Congresses
the Clean Water Infrastructure Financing Act. The bill, S. 252, would
reauthorize the highly successful, but undercapitalized, Clean Water Revolving
Loan Fund (SRF) program at a level of $3 billion per year for five years. In
comparison, Congress currently appropriates $1.35 billion for the program.
I am not advocating increased levels of federal spending as a general
matter, rather, spending our federal resources on the right things, and among
the right things that are not receiving adequate
funding are
many of the worthy projects and programs authorized by this committee. So often
the attitude in Washington when approaching unmet needs is not to address
anything that isn't high profile until there is a crisis. This is not the way to
deal with things.
I would be interested to hear if today's witness could
possibly shed some light on what they see as the role of the federal government
in infrastructure
funding. To what extent is investment in our
nation's infrastructure a federal responsibility? How should the federal
government finance public infrastructure investments? Who else should be
involved? What are other non-capital ways to address our unmet needs?
Mr. Chairman, thank you for including the findings of the GAO report I
requested on today's agenda for this hearing. I just got the final report on
Friday, and I look forward to reading it in greater detail. I would also like to
thank the GAO for their hard work on the report, and I look forward to hearing
from Mr. Guerrero about the details of report and what conclusions may be drawn
from it.
Finally, I look forward to the testimony of today's witnesses
who I'm sure will testify to their own respective infrastructure needs.
Thank you.
LOAD-DATE: July 25, 2001