During a Senate Environment Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) questioned Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Bhatt about funding and contractor sites.
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NewsTranscript
00:00for having this hearing. Mr. Abbott, great to see you again. Thank you for your and your
00:05team's coordination and responsiveness to the Nebraska Department of Transportation
00:10and my staff as we've been working together. I very much appreciate that. It's been more
00:17than two years now since the IIJA implementation and inflation, we talked about this earlier
00:23I think with Senator Capito, you used inflation, labor costs, all that to justify part of the
00:29reason to make that a major project over the $500 million. That's something we continue
00:33to see rise, material costs and so forth. The purchasing power of the bill is diminishing
00:39every day that goes by. Encourage the administration to instead of pushing progressive policies
00:45that didn't make it into law to really work on getting the IIJA grant agreements done
00:53and signed for critical infrastructure projects that we don't want them to have them delayed
00:58anymore. Continue to encourage you to work to implement these programs the way the Congress
01:05intended and to have them carried out to meet our pressing infrastructure needs. Mr. Abbott,
01:11we talked last time about the August redistribution last year. Last year the August redistribution
01:17was $7.9 billion. This year we anticipate that amount to climb to $8.7 billion. The
01:25Nebraska Department of Transportation continues to be concerned about how they can effectively
01:29and efficiently obligate infrastructure dollars in such an impossibly tight time frame. Without
01:36the action from Congress, do you expect this number to rise again in the next fiscal year?
01:43Thank you, Senator, and I've actually been working closely with Director Cramer, and
01:48there's a lot of response to the storms that have affected your state, so I appreciate
01:52your leadership in this space. August redistribution last year, I had just come on and learned
02:01of the $7.9 billion August redistribution. States and cities and others made a heroic
02:08effort to get that across the finish line. This year at $8.7 billion, yes, it is a feature
02:16now of August redistribution that it continues to climb, and so we're trying to work even
02:21earlier each year, but it would be great. I know that our budget proposed a solution
02:25for that, and there's other solutions out there. It would be great to get this resolved.
02:29So is there any way, though, that you can make a dent in this? I mean, so you're saying
02:32for fiscal year 25, you think that number, $8.7 billion, that we expect this year is
02:35going to go even higher next year? Is that accurate?
02:38Senator, you know, if it doesn't go higher, it's still going to stay in the same vicinity,
02:45and that is just a huge number to try to move around at the end of the year. It's not a
02:49great way to deliver the program.
02:51Right. Well, we agree on that, and again, frankly, you know, again, $7.9 billion last
02:55year, $8.7 billion this year. If you can keep it from going higher next year, that's still
02:59a win, right? So the more that you can do with regard to streamlining the permitting
03:05process, I know obviously, again, we talked about you don't actually issue those, but
03:09working with the other agencies or grantee training, anything you can do to make sure
03:13we get those dollars out so that it just really creates a huge problem when we have that many
03:18dollars in such a short time frame.
03:22Because the number is so big, are you planning on any additional flexibility for states to
03:27help deal with the August redistribution so that state departments of transportation can
03:32better optimize their programming of these federal dollars throughout the year?
03:36Thank you, Senator. We have, you know, again, we've begun earlier than ever reaching out
03:41to states, asking them to identify. I mean, one of the problems for states is they've,
03:44because of all the resources and bipartisan infrastructure law, they've pushed forward
03:48a lot of projects. Literally every year you would find one that was on the shelf but didn't
03:51have funding, and there aren't that many that are sitting on the shelves now. So states
03:55are doing, I think, heroic efforts here. We're going to continue to work with them, give
03:59them every flexibility they need so that we don't lapse any of that oblem.
04:02Great. I'm going to switch gears, John, a little bit. The Nebraska Department of Transportation
04:07has been dealing with issues regarding contractor sites with federal and state agencies. They
04:12deem that the contractor sites are part of the project and that NDOT, Nebraska Department
04:17of Transportation and Federal Highway, may need to account for the impacts or mitigation
04:22on those contractor sites. NDOT's understanding from Federal Highway has been that there was
04:28no federal nexus to contractor sites and that Federal Highway had an internal memo indicating
04:34this. However, recent nationwide programmatic agreements that Federal Highway has negotiated
04:40and signed suggest otherwise. Can you provide some clarity on the Federal Highway Administration's
04:46opinion regarding contractor sites and federal nexus? Does Federal Highway recognize the
04:51issues and burdens that would put on State Department of Transportation on delivering
04:55their programs if there was a nexus here? Can you clarify this, please?
04:59Senator, I'm happy to reach out to NDOT or others to just get more information. I'm happy
05:04to get back to you on that. Okay. So you're not familiar directly with
05:09this internal memo and which way it goes on contractor sites?
05:13I'm not, Senator, but I'm happy to get up to speed and get back to you quickly.
05:16Great. Very well. Then we will follow up with you on that. Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
05:22Thanks for those questions. And I'm going to ask a couple more questions and then yield
05:26to Senator Capito, who's welcome if you have any questions.