On Tuesday, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg answers House representative questions on continued disaster relief initiatives by the DOT during a House Appropriations Committee hearing.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 I want to associate myself with the remarks the Chairman made about the tragedy in Baltimore
00:06 and the families who lost loved ones there.
00:11 I think we need to have an honest discussion here about the Emergency Relief Fund.
00:18 Going into this, there was a significant backlog.
00:21 Recognizing that disasters like this can and do happen, but the severity, the number and
00:27 severity of natural disasters as well, wearing on our resources is significant.
00:36 We need to have this discussion because there's not enough in that fund.
00:40 We can argue, "We want to cut spending."
00:41 Well, disasters happen.
00:44 They disproportionately impact one area that simply can't handle this, but they do impact
00:49 the country.
00:50 If you could give us, Secretary, a deeper understanding of the status of the Emergency
00:56 Relief Fund, how you envision a supplemental, at least addressing this Baltimore disaster,
01:04 but perhaps also the fact that we have a backlog and that we need to recognize that spigot,
01:11 that fund has to be larger every year.
01:14 Just to be honest with ourselves, that it needs more money.
01:17 Thank you for the question and for your attention to the Emergency Relief Program, which we
01:21 know is so important anytime there is an incident affecting transportation like the Francis
01:28 Scott Key Bridge collapse.
01:30 For perspective in terms of the proportions that are in play, in May of 2023, FHWA provided
01:35 $749 million in ER program funds to help 39 states, District of Columbia and Puerto Rico
01:42 make repairs for roads and bridges that had been damaged by storms, floods, wildfires
01:46 and other events.
01:48 In January of 2024, Federal Highways provided $729 million in ER program funds to help 34
01:54 states, as well as DC, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
01:59 The last update I got showed $950 million available in that fund, but we are tracking
02:06 approximately $2 billion of unmet need, and that is not including the projected cost of
02:11 the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
02:13 To be clear, that does not necessarily mean that we would have $2 billion of requests
02:18 ready to go looking for reimbursement in a single year.
02:21 What is that $2 billion?
02:22 That is effectively a pipeline that will then be reimbursed as the states are ready and
02:27 do their spending.
02:28 We have had some cases where just because of the length of time it takes to do reconstruction,
02:33 checks may be going out five or even more years after the original incident, just through
02:37 the flow of the project.
02:40 What we do see is there is a mismatch between the $950 million and the $2 billion plus and
02:47 counting that we see by way of need.
02:50 We would welcome support on ways to make sure that that fund is adequately topped up, knowing
02:55 that severe weather is becoming more severe and more frequent, not less, and that even
03:01 though we are separately working through programs like PROTECT to make our infrastructure more
03:06 resilient in the first place against the kinds of threats that weather, natural disasters,
03:11 and other effects can cause, we still are facing an uphill struggle and are going to
03:16 need to do everything we can to be ready on the back end to respond when disaster strikes.
03:23 If we equate this as we often do with a household, it is like operating without insurance in
03:30 a sense.
03:31 Disasters do happen.
03:33 What is the probable need for supplemental?
03:37 If we are going to go to that expense, what would it take to fill that fund with a reasonable
03:43 amount of money and endowment in the sense to not have to have a waiting wait for a supplemental
03:52 when the next disaster takes place?
03:55 I concur that it would be optimal to know that the fund is being refreshed at a rate
03:59 that keeps up with the needs that have come to it.
04:03 If we are using recent years as an index, we would see the last two years, disbursements
04:08 would have been between 700 and 800 million, but we know there is even more, given the
04:14 Francis Scott Key Bridge, and you would want some kind of cushion there.
04:18 While we have not proposed a specific supplemental at this time, that gives you a sense of the
04:22 proportion that we think would be needed in order to make sure the ER fund was at a healthy
04:27 level and would also spare us needing to go to supplementals in the future if we knew
04:32 there were adequate balances for the unmet need that was coming in.
04:35 Again, those details are matters.
04:39 Making sure the committee knows for the future, what would it take to get the fund at a healthy
04:43 level to address the needs as they hit and what would be a normal, appropriate amount
04:49 to fund that spigot every year?
04:52 Thank you.
04:53 Thank you.
04:56 Being authorized at 100 million a year and periodically being supplemented by Congress,
05:01 we can work with that, but a cushion that is more in the line of the levels that we
05:05 have found ourselves dispersing in recent years would help us to stay ahead of that
05:09 and reduce the need for supplementals or additional work outside of the regular budget cycle.
05:15 Sheriff Rutherford.
05:16 Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Secretary.
05:18 Great to see you again.
05:21 Thank you for being here this morning.
05:22 One of the things that I want to bring up is this issue of vehicle technology and cybersecurity.
05:28 You know these new...