‘Significant Backlog Of Emergency Relief’: Moore Capito Demands Increased Funding For FSK Bridge

4 months ago

Prior to the Congressional recess, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) questioned officials on the relief of the Francis Scott Key Bridge relief during a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing.

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Transcript

00:00opportunity to be here today. I look forward to answering any questions. Thank

00:03you, Mr. Secretary. So I'll recognize myself for the first question, and I

00:08think this really is the question. Senator Cardin's bill is probably in

00:14exactly the same bill that I would put in if it happened in the state of West

00:17Virginia, and same in Nebraska. The cost share issue, I think, is

00:23where we have a question. So I think that we just need to get the answers here. So

00:27I'm going to start with you, Administrator Batt. As I mentioned in my

00:33opening statement, there's a significant backlog of emergency relief that are

00:37waiting on federal funding, and the chairman mentioned the one most recent

00:41that we all recall, certainly what happened in Maui with the fire.

00:45Many of these projects will have a 10 or 20 percent cost share that will be

00:50provided by a state DOT. So I think Congress needs to have a basis for

00:55determining when to waive the statutory cost share for ER projects so that

01:00there is an equitable response to natural disasters and other emergencies.

01:04The Secretary just said other disasters have had this waived, but we know the key

01:11is not every disaster has had this waived. So what factors do you think

01:15Congress should consider when reducing the required cost share for an ER

01:20project? Thank you, Ranking Member Capito, for that question. You know, I think it

01:26is a fair question to ask, and I think that when you look at some of

01:31the examples, both that Senator Cardin has mentioned or that we've used in the

01:36past, I think it is scope and scale of a disaster that would, as Secretary

01:44Wittefeld just mentioned, overwhelm state and local agencies' ability to respond. So

01:49in Delaware, when we had our bridge disaster, when I served as Secretary, it

01:54was, you know, in the tens of millions of dollars, and it was something that

01:58financially we were grateful for the Federal Highway Administration, but it

02:01was not a debilitating impact to our state economy had we had to have come up

02:07with 10 or 20 million dollars. But in the case of a 1.7 billion dollar bridge

02:14replacement with corresponding loss of toll funding that has impacts on their

02:19transportation program, I think that's where you get into a scope and scale

02:24sense of where the federal government may need to come in, because the 10 or

02:3020 percent cost share becomes a quite sizable number at that point. Okay, so

02:35scope and scale. All right, so then I want to go to you, Secretary Wittefeld, and

02:41thank you for the phone call that we had. I appreciate that early on, and I'm just

02:45amazed at the efforts that you all have done in Maryland, along, I know, with a

02:49lot of help. So congratulations on that, and I know there's a big way to

02:53go. You mentioned possible costs of the bridge would be 1.7 billion, so if

02:59you take out insurance and any other kind of legal costs, we don't really know

03:05what it would be, but let's just say, what was the insurance? It was 400? 350.

03:09350. Let's just say you match that with insurance, that'd be good, wouldn't it? So

03:14get it down to a billion, which is still quite heavy, and then a cost share

03:19for Maryland could be possibly a hundred million. The bridge, and I mentioned this

03:23in my statement, because I want to understand, and you explained this to me

03:26on the phone call that we had previously, and Ben and I have talked about this

03:30as well, the 56 million that you collect on that bridge is used for the

03:34maintenance and upkeep of all of the projects in the state, correct?

03:43I mean the tunnels and that bridge, so it's not exclusively dedicated to that

03:48bridge, correct? Correct. It is for the the Transportation Authority, which runs all

03:53of our toll facilities only, not the general highway system. Okay, so if you

03:57took, say, a 30-year payback plan to the federal government for the 10%,

04:03you would be taking probably a 10% off of that toll revenue that the

04:09state of Maryland could use, if the cost share that exists now could

04:15use to pay back the American taxpayer the cost to rebuild the bridge, right?

04:21Sure, if that was . . . Yeah, if that was the direction that we

04:25decided to go. So the other question I have is, if you have a new bridge, which

04:33you will have, hopefully sooner than some of the projections, but I realize it's a

04:38major undertaking, if you have a new bridge, is it safe to assume that a new

04:43bridge demand on the toll revenues would be less for maintenance and upkeep? Not

04:54necessarily. I mean the operations is also a big part of the cost, just the

04:58ongoing operations, meaning policing and things of that sort, cleaning, keeping

05:02things . . . So there's a standard cost. Yeah. I mean my assumption . . . Whether it's new or

05:06old . . . Sixty-year-old bridge is going to cost more than a brand new one. Yeah, for

05:10ongoing maintenance. For ongoing maintenance. For future maintenance, yes. Which is what the

05:14dedication of the tolls is for as well. So is it unreasonable to assume that . . . and I

05:23know we're making assumptions that the bridge that I think was in

05:27Minnesota got the 100% cost share when it collapsed. It was not a toll

05:33bridge. You're going to put the tolls back on when this is completed. You've

05:37pretty much stated that. I think the state of Maryland is going to do

05:41that, which I would do that too if I was the state of Maryland. So I'm not being

05:44critical of that. Why is it wrong to assume, if you're the American taxpayer,

05:49that since you have a dedicated source of revenue there, that over time you

05:54would not be asked to pay the 10% cost share that Maryland would have to bear?

06:01So make the argument there. Sure. No, I think there's some other factors here.

06:05One is we are losing revenue now, right? And we'll continue to lose that revenue

06:10through the next four and a half years, you know, is what we're

06:16projecting right now. So we're losing those dollars now. The other part of that

06:20is, in effect, we are costing businesses and people every day by the delay of this

06:28bridge being built, by any potential delay in this bridge being

06:32built. So all those are added costs that, in effect, we're trying to cover now so

06:37we can get this bridge done as quickly as we can. So are you telling me that the

06:41state of Maryland now, I know I'm over my time, but I think this is really the

06:44crux of the, I don't even want to say it's a disagreement so much, but

06:48is to try to figure out the best way to do this, is that the cost the state

06:55of Maryland is bearing now should also play into what Maryland

07:01should bear in terms of the rebuild of the bridge? No, I guess what I'm saying is

07:06that we are, the insurance comes to $350 million. Right. So that's supporting it.

07:11There is a burden. That will go back to the emergency. Sure, but getting back to the

07:15larger issue of the scale of this project and the impacts of it, there's

07:19this other impact that we are going through now with the loss of

07:22revenues for the toll authority for the next several years. Okay. And I would

07:29just say that we have the rollout of all the projects that have, where there's

07:36been a waiver granted of the 10% or 20% cost share. So I think this would

07:44probably be useful to submit to the committee for the record. Thank you.

07:51Thank you, Senator Capitone. I think your questions are extremely important, so

07:55thank you for the manner.

‘Significant Backlog Of Emergency Relief’: Moore Capito Demands Increased Funding For FSK Bridge

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