21ST CENTURY COMMUNITIES: EXPANDING OPPORTUNITY THROUGH INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENTS
Summary
The printed record of Senate Hearing 117-284, 21st Century Communities: Expanding Opportunity Through Infrastructure Investments, a hearing of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on Thursday, May 20, 2021, conducted via Webex with Chairman Sherrod Brown presiding. It examines how infrastructure investment will help workers and their families. The witnesses are Marcia L. Fudge, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of Transportation. The record contains opening statements of Chairman Brown and Senator Toomey, prepared statements, and responses to written questions from Senators Toomey, Warren, Van Hollen, Cortez Masto and Kennedy.
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“21ST CENTURY COMMUNITIES: EXPANDING OPPORTUNITY THROUGH INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENTS.”
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[Senate Hearing 117-284]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-284
21ST CENTURY COMMUNITIES: EXPANDING
OPPORTUNITY THROUGH INFRASTRUCTURE
INVESTMENTS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
BANKING,HOUSING,AND URBAN AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
EXAMINING HOW INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT WILL HELP WORKERS AND THEIR
FAMILIES
__________
MAY 20, 2021
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban
Affairs
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available at: https: //www.govinfo.gov/
_________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
47-787 PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio, Chairman
JACK REED, Rhode Island PATRICK J. TOOMEY, Pennsylvania
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama
JON TESTER, Montana MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
MARK R. WARNER, Virginia TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
TINA SMITH, Minnesota BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming
JON OSSOFF, Georgia JERRY MORAN, Kansas
RAPHAEL WARNOCK, Georgia KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
STEVE DAINES, Montana
Laura Swanson, Staff Director
Brad Grantz, Republican Staff Director
Elisha Tuku, Chief Counsel
Beth Cooper, Professional Staff Member
Homer Carlisle, Professional Staff Member
Dan Sullivan, Republican Chief Counsel
John Crews, Republican Policy Director
Cameron Ricker, Chief Clerk
Shelvin Simmons, IT Director
Charles J. Moffat, Hearing Clerk
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
THURSDAY, MAY 20, 2021
Page
Opening statement of Chairman Brown.............................. 1
Prepared statement....................................... 46
Opening statements, comments, or prepared statements of:
Senator Toomey............................................... 4
Prepared statement....................................... 47
WITNESSES
Marcia L. Fudge, Secretary, Department of Housing and Urban
Development.................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 48
Responses to written questions of:
Senator Toomey........................................... 52
Senator Warren........................................... 59
Senator Van Hollen....................................... 59
Pete Buttigieg, Secretary, Department of Transportation.......... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 50
Responses to written questions of:
Senator Toomey........................................... 60
Senator Cortez Masto..................................... 62
Senator Kennedy.......................................... 65
(iii)
21ST CENTURY COMMUNITIES: EXPANDING OPPORTUNITY THROUGH INFRASTRUCTURE
INVESTMENTS
----------
THURSDAY, MAY 20, 2021
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met at 10:01 a.m., via Webex, Hon. Sherrod
Brown, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN SHERROD BROWN
Chairman Brown. The Senate Committee on Banking, Housing,
and Urban Affairs will come to order.
This hearing is in the virtual format. A few reminders.
Once you start speaking, there will be a slight delay before
you are displayed on the screen. To minimize background noise,
please click the mute button until it is your turn to speak or
to ask questions.
You should all have one box on your screens labeled
``Clock.'' For witnesses, you will have 5 minutes for opening
statements. All Senators, the 5-minute clock still applies.
At 30 seconds remaining, you will hear a bell ring, then
the bell when time has expired.
If there is a technology issue, we will move to the next
witness or Senator until it is resolved. To simplify the
speaking order process, Senator Toomey and I have agreed to go
by seniority for this hearing.
We are honored today to welcome Secretary Marcia Fudge of
the Department of Housing and Urban Development and Secretary
Pete Buttigieg of the Department of Transportation.
President Biden promised an Administration that reflects
the country it serves. We are lucky to have two Cabinet
Departments led by former mayors from the industrial heartland.
Mayors know better than most how, for decades, an economy
centered on Wall Street has left American cities, towns, and
rural areas too often to fend for themselves.
We have seen the damage: housing that poisons our kids with
lead paint and mold; homes bought up by rich outside investors,
left empty to fall into disrepair; roads and bridges falling
apart; and neighborhoods and workers that are cutoff from
opportunity.
Now we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity--a once-in-
a-generation opportunity--to rebuild this country's
infrastructure.
The investments we make through HUD and through DOT will
matter for our country and will bring down the cost of housing
and transportation for workers and their families.
These are the costs that matter to most people's lives--
your rent, your mortgage, your utilities, your car payment,
your bus fare.
All these investments will create jobs and grow local
communities. When work has dignity, everyone can afford housing
and can afford to get to work.
Over the past few months, this Committee has heard from
leaders in housing and public transportation--not only experts
in Washington, but local leaders who understand what
communities really need to grow. These two distinguished
Cabinet Secretaries are both, both experts and local leaders.
All of these leaders have illustrated how decades of
underinvestment in housing and transit have set us back.
It is common sense. When we do not invest in infrastructure
that a modern economy requires, we lose out to competitors.
Communities stagnate or, in the memorable words of our
colleague from Montana, sometimes they dry up. Inequality gets
worse, pollution harms families, jobs and prosperity flow to
only a small number of wealthy cities, or they move out of the
country altogether.
Rural communities have not gotten the investment they need
to produce enough housing for local families. Bridges are too
often in poor condition. Public transit providers need
continued help. Households especially that do not have a car,
that number is only growing as Baby Boomers age.
All of these problems are often at their most persistent in
Brown and Black neighborhoods that have never had the
transformative Federal investment in their communities.
As we discussed at our hearing on the legacy of redlining,
when we talked about it, from Black codes to Jim Crow to
redlining to locking in discriminatory practices at Federal
agencies, we live in communities we built in the 20th century,
with the biases of the time.
It is time to invest in creating communities that will meet
the needs of this country in this century. This time we cannot
leave anyone behind. We will rebuild our communities to work
for everyone.
The American Jobs Plan is a bold effort to reverse decades
of neglect, to rebuild, to put in place the foundation for a
21st century economy, where people have the jobs and the
economic security to raise a family, to choose the community
they want to live in, to start a small business.
It would produce, preserve, and retrofit over 2 million
affordable homes, would address the huge backlog of capital
needs in public housing, will make our homes more energy
efficient to bring down utility costs--all while creating job
opportunities in the building trades and other sectors.
The American Jobs Plan would construct new bus rapid
transit lines in cities like Columbus and Cincinnati, really in
all regions of the country. It would finally tackle the repair
backlog in the transit industry estimated now to be in excess
of $100 billion.
President Biden and I also agree on the need to replace
aging transit buses with zero-emission vehicles made right here
in America. The Jobs Plan would allow us to replace 50,000
buses.
The Administration recognizes the importance of ensuring
that investments in housing and transit work together and of
encouraging communities to think about how they can help make
it affordable for families to live there.
We know when a business decides where to build a new
manufacturing facility or a young family decides whether to
relocate for a new job, they do not only consider one factor.
They think about how they will get to work, how long will the
commute be, will their whole paycheck get eaten up by rent or
the mortgage, is there broadband at home, is there child care
nearby they can afford.
These pieces fit together. Communities need all of them if
they want them to survive and thrive.
While much of today's conversation will focus on housing
and transit investments, we must tackle all of these critical
investments.
The Brent Spence Bridge over the Ohio River in Secretary
Fudge's and my home State that connects Cincinnati and northern
Kentucky carries approximately 3 percent of our Nation's GDP,
but that bridge is dangerously outdated.
Brent Spence is far from the only one. Our Committee
Members' States have thousands of large and small bridges in
need of repair. Those bridges carry millions of cars and buses
every day.
I look forward to working with both Secretaries on the
Bridge Investment Act to make sure that Congress finally
tackles overdue bridge projects.
We call this the ``American Jobs Plan'' for a reason.
Almost all these jobs will be here. They cannot be shipped
overseas. You cannot repair an American railroad track or an
American bridge from China.
We are going to build new buses and rail cars and homes in
America, with American raw materials and American union
workers.
The President called this a ``blue collar blueprint to
rebuild America.'' He is right.
We need bold action to protect our communities, to build
infrastructure, protect them from climate disasters, to put
Americans to work in good-paying jobs.
The two former mayors today, from Warrensville Heights and
South Bend, these two mayors know the pride people take in
their neighborhoods and their hometowns. People want to see
their communities thrive and grow. They want job opportunities
for their kids. They want transportation and housing options
they can afford.
And local leaders, of both parties, are desperate--I talk
to mayors and county commissioners all the time; actually, in
Ohio, there are many more Republicans than Democrats in those
offices. They are desperate for the resources and support to
make those dreams a reality. For decades, they have watched
Washington point to soaring stock prices as evidence the
economy is doing well, yet their communities too often are not.
That Wall Street wealth never translated into investment in
their own Main Streets.
We change that approach starting now.
I look forward to hearing from both our witnesses,
Secretary Marcia Fudge, Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Senator Toomey is recognized.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PATRICK J. TOOMEY
Senator Toomey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Fudge
and Secretary Buttigieg, welcome to both of you.
The topic of today's hearing is an important one. It is
infrastructure. A week ago I met with President Biden and a
group of my Republican colleagues to discuss a potential
bipartisan infrastructure package. Secretary Buttigieg was
there. It was a constructive meeting, and I am encouraged by
the President's apparent willingness to negotiate with
Republicans.
I would suggest that there should be three features of an
infrastructure package if it is going to have broad, bipartisan
support.
First, it should responsibly boost support for real, that
is to say physical infrastructure. That is the platforms that
we share, the platforms and systems that we use to move people,
goods, and services throughout our economy. Those are things
that most Americans understand to be infrastructure, things
like roads and bridges and ports and airports and transit.
Second, a package that we agreed to cannot undo the 2017
tax reforms that helped create the best economy of my lifetime.
Remember, before COVID, just a little over a year ago, we were
experiencing an almost unprecedented economic boom. We had the
lowest unemployment rate in 50 years, all-time record low
unemployment for African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, many
other subsets of our population. We had more job openings than
there were people looking for jobs. We had a record low poverty
rate. We had wages growing across the board, wages growing
fastest for the lowest-income workers. So this economy was
narrowing the income group while it was performing at a
spectacular pace. I am suggesting it would be a good thing to
get back to the best economy of my lifetime. So we will not get
there if we undo the tax reform that helped us achieve that.
Third, we should not pay for a big infrastructure package
by borrowing or printing hundreds of billions of more dollars.
The good news on this front is we have hundreds of billions of
unspent COVID-related legislated funds that Congress can
repurpose to pay for the infrastructure. According to CBO, over
$700 billion just of the Democrats' March so-called COVID bill
will not be spent even by the end of this year. And, in fact,
the Biden administration has already begun repurposing unneeded
excess COVID funds from previous bills. HHS has diverted $1.7
billion that was originally meant for COVID, and they are using
that instead for unaccompanied minors at the border.
So what Congress should not do is simply go on a spending
binge of more taxpayer dollars on a liberal wish list that
expands the welfare State. Let us take housing, for example.
The Biden administration is now proposing almost a quarter
of a trillion dollars for housing in an infrastructure plan.
So, first of all, let us be clear: Housing is housing.
Housing is not infrastructure. Of course, people need houses.
They also need food and clothing and education and health care.
That does not mean that every human need is infrastructure. It
is not. We can reach an agreement on infrastructure. But the
Administration wants to spend quarter of a trillion dollars on
top of the fact that just this past March--that was 2 months
ago--they had spent $32 billion for housing. And that came
after Congress had provided over the course of last year $80
billion for housing, which itself was on top of the roughly $50
billion we spend annual on HUD alone, not to mention the
billions we spend on other housing programs. If you have lost
track of all the tens of billions of dollars, it is because it
is really hard to keep it straight. It is a staggering amount
of money.
It is a similar story on the Administration's transit
proposal. The Biden administration wants to spend another $85
billion for transit as part of this infrastructure bill. That
would come after the Democrats in March spent $30 billion for
transit, which itself came after $40 billion last year for
transit. And that was on top of the $13 billion that we
annually spend on transit.
So in case you were not using a calculator to keep track,
that is $83 billion that Congress spent on transit just over
the course of 1 year. That number actually exceeds the annual
operating and capital costs combined of every single transit
agency in America for a full year.
Well, our Democratic colleagues point to a decline in
ridership, but ridership did not drop to zero. And if it had,
we would have to ask ourselves whether we should be throwing
all this money in a system that has no riders. And, in
addition, State and local governments ought to have some
responsibility for this, and we sent them $850 billion on top
of last year's all-time record high collection of revenue.
Some of the provisions in the Administration's so-called
infrastructure plan are so unrelated, completely unrelated to
infrastructure that it is hard to even consider them with a
straight face: $400 billion to expand Medicaid, $100 billion in
consumer subsidies and rebates to purchase electric vehicles.
The list goes on and on.
Only 6 percent of the Administration's $2.2 trillion so-
called infrastructure actually goes to roads and bridges. So
this kind of Government spending is not sustainable. It is
contributing to inflation that is already with us. That
inflation is essentially an extra tax that all of our
constituents have to bear when they buy any of the things they
need in life.
And none of this should come as a surprise. Even President
Obama's Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers, warned us of the
negative inflationary risks of excessive spending. And he was
issuing that warning about the Democrats' bill in March which
at $1.9 trillion he thought was much too big. They passed it
anyway, and now our Democratic colleagues are coming back to
spend literally trillions more.
Let me end where I began. In my view, I do think it is
possible for us to enact a bipartisan bill that responsibly
boosts Federal support for real physical infrastructure. And if
all sides are willing to negotiate in good faith, I think an
agreement can be struck. But I hope we will focus on that, real
infrastructure that our economy and society needs, and do it in
a responsible fashion.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Toomey. I will now
introduce our witnesses.
The Honorable Marcia Fudge, my former Congresswoman from
Ohio's 11 District, has spent her career fighting for better
opportunities for Ohioans. She has firsthand experience making
housing more affordable for more families, including as the
mayor of Warrensville Heights, Ohio. We are fortunate she is
now applying her expertise across the Nation. It was an honor
to chair the hearing reporting her nomination out of this
Committee. It was my first hearing as Chair of this Committee.
She was our first nominee reported out since I have been
Chairman. It is an honor to work with a fellow Ohioan as
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Welcome, Secretary
Fudge. Glad you are with us.
Our other witness, the Honorable Pete Buttigieg, served as
mayor of South Bend, Indiana, a State which is to the west of
mine. Mayor Pete showed his passion and creativity in using
infrastructure to improve the well-being of workers and
businesses in South Bend, implementing a Smart Streets
Initiative that was recognized by USDOT as a national model.
Now with Secretary Peter at the helm, DOT is in a position to
transform streets, bridges, railways, and transit systems
across America, all using our greatest asset, American workers.
Our country is very fortunate. Welcome, Secretary Buttigieg.
Secretary Fudge, you are now recognized for 5 minutes to
provide your opening statement. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF MARCIA L. FUDGE, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING
AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
Secretary Fudge. Thank you so very much, Mr. Chairman. It
is always a pleasure to see you, and thank you on behalf of all
Ohioans for the great work you do for your State.
Mr. Ranking Member, Mr. Toomey, and distinguished Members
of the Senate Banking Committee, thank you for this opportunity
to discuss President Biden's American Jobs Plan.
Today, as America rebuilds from the COVID-19 pandemic, we
face a fundamental decision about our future.
We can choose to take a bold new direction that will make
the United States more prosperous, more equitable, and more
resilient in decades to come; a bold new direction that better
positions us to win the global competition for the 21st
century. That bold new direction is the American Jobs Plan.
If we do not pass this plan, we will choose instead a very
different path. We will return our Nation to the position we
occupied before COVID-19--to an America beset by crumbling
bridges, buildings, and homes; an America unprepared for the
existential danger posed by climate change; an America
grappling with an affordable housing crisis that threatens the
security and the dignity of people in every corner of our
Nation.
Even before the pandemic, nearly 11 million Americans spent
more than half of their incomes on rent. COVID-19 has only made
this situation worse, especially for communities of color and
people of modest means.
The American Jobs Plan would address our housing crisis
head-on in cities, small towns, rural communities, and tribal
nations. The plan invests $213 billion to build and modernize
more than 2 million affordable and sustainable places to live.
To help more Americans realize their dream of hospital, the
plan includes a new Federal tax credit based on the proposed
Neighborhood Homes Investment Act. This credit can lead to the
construction and renovation of approximately 500,000 single-
family homes.
In addition to creating more housing, the American Jobs
Plan preserves the affordable housing we already have. Nearly 2
million people, including more than 1 million Americans of
color, live in public housing. Yet much of our public housing
is more than 50 years old and faces significant capital needs.
The American Jobs Plan contains a $40 billion downpayment
to help repair and rehabilitate our public housing
infrastructure. This would dramatically improve the quality of
life for residents. Furthermore, public housing is often
located in underserved communities that are especially
vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Investments that
reduce energy use and increase resiliency can mitigate these
risks. This plan will help make America's homes and public
housing more efficient and better equipped to withstand extreme
weather.
In addition, this plan advances equity tribal nations. It
contains $2 billion in Indian housing block grants to expand
affordable housing, resilient infrastructure, and sustainable
community development in tribal lands. All told, the
investments in the American Jobs Plan underscore a fundamental
truth: that housing is a vital part of our infrastructure.
A secure and stable home represents more than four walls
and a roof. It can connect us to better jobs, more affordable
transportation options, and communities with cleaner air and
cleaner water. It can connect our children with good schools,
providing them with a pathway to earn a brighter future.
Our homes are bedrock, brick-and-mortar institutions that
lay the foundation for a stronger and more connected society--
just like our streets, our highways, and our airports. To put
it simply, our homes serve as a bridge to greater opportunities
for a better life.
If we want the United States to remain the greatest Nation
in the world, then we must first take care of home--in the most
literal sense.
To pass an infrastructure plan that fails to address our
affordable housing crisis would be akin to building a road that
leads to nowhere. That is why I am honored to appears today
alongside Secretary Buttigieg. The Biden-Harris administration
understands that in order to successfully enact the Jobs Plan,
our two agencies must work in unison to help build more
sustainable infrastructure and expand access to both affordable
housing and affordable options for transportation. Together, we
can help revitalize our Nation's infrastructure, including our
housing infrastructure, and create an America that is more
thriving, more resilient, and more interconnected than ever
before.
With that, I am happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Secretary Fudge.
Secretary Buttigieg, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF PETE BUTTIGIEG, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF
TRANSPORTATION
Secretary Buttigieg. Thanks very much, Chairman Brown,
Ranking Member Toomey, Members of the Committee. I appreciate
the opportunity to testify before you today, and I want to
thank you for your support for the Department of Transportation
and our vital mission. I am very honored to be here with
Secretary Fudge to discuss America's transportation and housing
needs, particularly in this moment of great challenge and
opportunity.
We know that public transit has been hit hard by the
pandemic. I want to thank you and your colleagues for passing
the American Rescue Plan and other relief packages that
provided a lifeline for public transit, for the people who
depend on it, and for the essential transit workers who get
people where they need to go.
Public transit is key to building vibrant and
interconnected communities, creating jobs, reducing pollution,
combating climate change, advancing racial equity, and
providing travel options for everyone. Too many families across
the Nation are forced to choose between living impossibly far
away from work so they can afford housing or paying more for
housing than they can afford in order to have a reasonable
commute. This puts a toll on working families who lose precious
time with their loved ones and money needed for other
essentials. Our lowest-income Americans are spending more on
housing and transportation than they are taking in each month.
Building transit and affordable housing alongside each other
can be transformational for communities and families.
That is why I am so grateful to be sitting next to
Secretary Fudge--virtually, of course--at this hearing.
When people can move safely and easily in their community
by public transit, foot, bike, wheelchair, or any other means,
it can improve the lives of those who call that community home.
That is why transit-oriented development and public transit are
such priorities for our Department and for me personally. We
have already made $180 million available for cleaner transit
buses. We allocated $187 million to help communities expand bus
rapid transit. We recently made $10 million available to help
more local governments plan for transit-oriented development in
their communities.
I am also pleased to announce that DOT will soon issue new
guidance to help local communities and other prospective
borrowers use the Department's transit-oriented development
financing programs. And I am thrilled that DOT is
reinvigorating a partnership with the Department of Housing and
Urban Development to identify ways to provide more affordable
housing choices near high-quality public transit.
We are looking for opportunities to work with additional
agencies, including the EPA and the Department of Agriculture,
to make walking, biking, public transit, and other
transportation options more widely available to disadvantaged
and rural communities.
These important steps will benefit communities across the
country, but we must do far more. We face a $1 trillion backlog
in needed repairs and improvements across our transportation
infrastructure. The consequences of decades of disinvestment
are felt in every State and have fallen most heavily on low-
income communities and communities of color, who are nearly
four times more likely to commute by public transit.
Our status quo is unsustainable. It is unfair and it is
holding our people and economy back. And years of tinkering
around the edges have not worked.
That brings us to President Biden's American Jobs Plan. It
is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to meet this moment.
As we rebuild from the worst economic crisis in
generations, this plan will provide the largest investment in
American jobs since World War II, all with protections for
existing labor standards. It will create millions of good-
paying jobs, the majority of which will not require a college
degree, for Americans to help expand and operate our public
transit system, modernize our roads and bridges, and build the
electric vehicles of the future.
It will double Federal investment--$85 billion--for public
transit, making it a more reliable, attractive, and accessible
option to more people in more communities.
It will help us tackle the climate crisis by making public
transit the option of choice for more people, by building a
network of 500,000 electric vehicle chargers, and by replacing
nearly 40 percent of the existing diesel transit vehicle fleet
with electric vehicles.
Chairman Brown, I thank you for your leadership on reducing
fossil fuel emissions in the transportation sector and for
ensuring that the vehicles of the future are built by union
workers here in the U.S.
This plan would also be the largest investment in
transportation equity in history. At least 40 percent of the
benefits of the plan's climate investments will flow to
overburdened and underserved communities. And the plan has $20
billion to reconnect neighborhoods cutoff by past
transportation decisions, as well as another $20 billion to
improve road safety for all users.
I believe this is the best chance in our lifetime to
modernize our infrastructure so Americans can thrive. This is
our chance to provide current and future generations with the
types of investment our forebears gave us in the New Deal--and
this time to include all Americans in the opportunities that
come from that investment.
I am looking forward to working with this Committee to
deliver for the American people. Thank you for the chance to
testify, and I look forward to the opportunity to respond to
questions.
[Pause.]
Senator Toomey. Chairman, I think you are muted.
Senator Smith. Senator Brown, you are muted.
[Pause.]
The Clerk. Because we are having some technical
difficulties with the Chairman's mic, Ranking Member Toomey,
would you mind going first?
Senator Toomey. That is fine. Can you hear me OK?
The Clerk. Yes, we can.
Senator Toomey. OK. Terrific. I will go first.
So back in March, a couple months ago, our Democratic
colleagues passed a spending bill that provided $5 billion for
emergency housing vouchers to be distributed to people
experiencing homelessness, victims of human trafficking, and
other circumstances.
Under that law and HUD's own regulations, illegal
immigrants are not eligible for these vouchers, but just
yesterday Fox Business reported that HUD reissued guidance that
will have the effect of making it easier for illegal immigrants
to obtain these emergency housing vouchers that are supposed to
be meant for Americans. This happens because, as I understand
it, the new guidance waives an existing HUD regulation that
requires public housing authorities to obtain and verify
documentation that an applicant for a housing voucher actually
has a legal immigration status as opposed to an illegal status
at the time of application.
HUD's own regulations say that this requirement, the one
that HUD is waiving--if this report is accurate--this
requirement is meant to ``decrease the incidence of fraud,
waste, and abuse.'' HUD's guidance may now allow illegal
immigrants to obtain these housing vouchers that, as I said,
are meant for American citizens.
So, Secretary Fudge, isn't it important that we follow the
law and the HUD regulation and have processes in place to
minimize the risk that these vouchers go to people who are not
supposed to have them?
Secretary Fudge. Yes, Senator, indeed, it is, and I thank
you for the question. I think that it is very, very clear from
our May 5th public notice detailing the operating requirements
for the emergency housing vouchers program. It is clear that,
in line with current law, eligibility for assistance is limited
to United States citizens and those with legal residency.
Senator Toomey. Right, but I am concerned that this
guidance, by waiving this rule that HUD has historically used
to minimize the risk that illegal immigrants have these
vouchers, by waiving this, isn't it going to increase the risk
that illegal immigrants will end up obtaining these housing
vouchers that are meant for U.S. citizens?
Secretary Fudge. I do not believe that it will do that in
any significant way, Senator. I think to say that would assume
that every single illegal resident wants to come and scam the
system. That is not how this works. People who are homeless
generally do not have identification; they do not have their
Social Security cards, et cetera. And so what we have done is
allowed our housing authorities and partners to come up with
ways to allow them to at least initially report themselves to
self-certify and then we verify. And so----
Senator Toomey. OK. I----
Secretary Fudge. ----if we find that someone is in the
system that should not be, we certainly will take care of it.
Senator Toomey. Right. So, first of all, my question does
not in any way imply that everyone who is here illegally is
looking for these vouchers. There is no such suggestion. I am
simply saying that if there is not an opportunity to screen out
people who are not actually eligible, if we do not have that
mechanism, then there is likely to be some abuse of this
system, and it inevitably will take months at best to discover
and then litigate and adjudicate these cases.
I would just urge you to reconsider this. This is HUD's own
regulation that is being waived, is described by HUD as serving
the purpose of decreasing incidents of fraud, waste, and abuse.
So I would just ask----
Secretary Fudge. I am certainly willing to do so, sir. I
will take another look at it.
Senator Toomey. I appreciate that.
The other thing is the Administration's so-called
infrastructure plan calls for $40 billion more for public
housing, and, you know, in many, many cases, public housing has
become places where people do not really want to live. There
are notorious stories of concentrations of poverty and crime
and other social ills, and there is research that shows that
families who move out of these projects often are able to
integrate themselves in communities. There is a lower risk that
they will be victims of crime. It seems that there are sensible
alternatives. And, in fact, some of these projects are such in
a state of disrepair that the cost of repairing them is greater
than the cost that it would incur of just providing vouchers
for people to live in good, decent homes.
What are your thoughts on shifting some of this resource to
providing vouchers for low-income people?
Secretary Fudge. You know what, Senator? I agree with you
100 percent. The problem is that we have people who live in
public housing now, and we do not have enough housing for the
demand. And so we still have to take care of the people who are
in public housing, and that is what this $40 billion will do.
For many, many years, we have not invested significantly in
capital needs of public housing. And so what you have is
buildings that are more than 50 years old, the majority of
them, that are in different stages of disrepair.
And so even though I agree that we do need to find ways to
move people into other housing in communities with better
opportunities, we still have to deal with the issue we
currently have, and that is what the $40 billion will do.
Senator Toomey. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Toomey. Can I be heard
now?
Senator Toomey. Yes, you can be heard.
Chairman Brown. OK. Good. Thank you. I apologize. I do not
really know what happened. Thank you and thanks for stepping
up, Pat.
For too long--and I have talked to both of you about this
personally, and I very much appreciate your recognition of this
and your interest in solving it--we have failed to coordinate
our housing and transportation policy. Your Departments are
already working together to make unprecedented investments in
our communities.
A question for each of you. Why do we need to encourage
sustainable community development with coordinated housing and
transit investments? Secretary Fudge, do you want to start with
that, please?
Secretary Fudge. I would just say that a perfect example,
Senator, is in our very own community. More than a decade ago,
the city of Cleveland in Cuyahoga County recognized that need,
and so we right now are a community that primarily is a health
care community. So the health care industry is the largest
employer. So what did we do? We put transportation through the
heart of our communities to get people to jobs, to get people
to the hospitals, to the universities, to the research
institutions. And it is clear it has been successful, so I
think that we are a perfect example of why it is necessary and
why it works.
Chairman Brown. Thank you.
Secretary Buttigieg.
Secretary Buttigieg. You know, I think as you noted,
Secretary Fudge and I are both former mayors. I think mayors
have to think about transportation and housing in an integrated
way because they are part of the texture of how cities form.
But maybe even more relevantly, families have to think about
them in an integrated way because they hit the same family
budget. And what we know is that if we can build housing on
affordable terms and make it affordable to get to where you
need to be, from home to work, to school, and anywhere else you
need to go, that eases pressure on a family budget.
So it is very important to think about how these can
mutually reinforce one another. It is one reason we are excited
in this department about transit-oriented development and other
ways to link housing policies with transit and transportation
policies.
Chairman Brown. Thank you.
Secretary Fudge, we had this conversation when I was in
your office many years ago when you are mayor of Warrensville
Heights, and we have had it since. I do not have to tell you
how pervasive lead paint still is in Cleveland, how devastating
the effects are. One in four children in our city entering
kindergarten has had elevated blood lead levels. Preventing
lead poisoning not only protects kids and their futures; it
also saves health and education costs and creates jobs in
remediation and removal of this poison.
Will you commit to work with me to make significant
investments to eliminate lead paint hazards from homes in the
infrastructure package that you and I and the Congress and the
White House work on?
Secretary Fudge. Yes, I will make that commitment, because
certainly we can and we must do a better job at dealing with
the lead-based paint issue. Absolutely, Senator, I would be
happy to work with you on that.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
Secretary Buttigieg, on the local level, what does it mean
with USDOT is able to fund a major project like bus rapid
transit? Can you as a former mayor talk about the limits local
leaders face under sort of average transportation bills that we
have passed before, what more they could do with the
transformative infrastructure package?
Secretary Buttigieg. Well, certainly local leaders often
have visionary plans for transportation in their communities,
but with the resources that have been available, often it has
taken heroic creativity just to keep things operating the way
they are. And I do not think any visionary mayor or local
leader wants to simply see things remain in the status quo.
Often what has been needed really is a new vision, the
ability to extend transit to where it had not been before, or
as you mentioned, much more efficient means of transit that
were thought of a few decades ago, like bus rapid transit. And
with the right resources, the kind of resources contemplated in
the American Jobs Plan, we can meet those local leaders where
they are. They have already been raising revenue, doing the
work, but often these transformational investments just will
not happen unless there is major Federal support.
Chairman Brown. Thank you.
Last question, Secretary Fudge. Over the past couple
months, this Committee has heard testimony from witnesses on
all side, from Richard Rothstein, who wrote ``The Color of
Law'', to Harvard's Joint Center on Housing Studies, to the
American Enterprise Institute, saying that restrictive zoning
can thwart access to opportunity, can hold us back as we try to
address the affordable housing crisis.
Madam Secretary, how can HUD help communities address
restrictive zoning and expand access to housing development?
Secretary Fudge. Well, I am really happy you asked that
question. The American Jobs Plan does address how we may assist
communities in their zoning, because we do know that there is a
lot of restrictive zoning that has created a problem, and it
has made the cost of home buying and home building even more.
And so what we have done is say to communities we want to
give you an incentive and assist you technically with how you
look at and engage your communities to change some of the
zoning laws that have created historically very difficult
problems to address. We know it is a local issue, but we
believe that we can give the kind of assistance that will make
people rethink it and talk to them about the entire concept of
moving people into communities, thriving communities that give
them opportunities to be more productive citizens, to better
train and school their children. We know that it is something
that has to be done, and the Jobs Plan really addresses it
very, very well.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Madam Secretary.
Senator Warner from Virginia is recognized for 5 minutes.
Senator Warner. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you for holding this hearing. And it is great to see both
Secretary Fudge and Secretary Buttigieg.
Secretary Fudge, I want to start with a couple questions
for you, kind of building on some of the conversations we have
had in the past. I really appreciate the fact that while you
were in Congress, you were always a strong advocate for
community development financial institutions, CDFIs, a
relatively small piece of our overall financing system, but as
my colleagues know, by definition they are lending over 60
percent of their lending to low- and moderate-income
communities. I am proud of the fact that in the December bill
we made a record investment in both MDIs, minority depository
institutions, and CDFIs. And while a lot of the folks on the
Democratic side were quite supportive, I want to call out my
friend Mike Crapo, who was the lead Republican on that. We did
get $12 billion in, $9 billion of which will go in as Tier 1
capital going into CDFIs. That will basically, you know, even
on a conservative basis, add $90 billion worth of ongoing
lending capacity. When we think about the affordable housing
shortages, we have got to both get at the supply, but also the
ability for folks to acquire some of these units.
Secretary Fudge, can you talk about the critical role that
continuing to invest in CDFIs could have as a way to address
some of the housing shortages we have?
Secretary Fudge. Thank you very much, Senator, and thank
you for our conversations that we have had. They have been
quite instructive and I think quite helpful for me as well, and
I hope for you.
What we noticed--and I will tell you a perfect example.
What we noticed when the House and Senate decided to do the
PPP, we realized then that, as we could see what as happening,
that the big banks, the big institutions were getting all the
resources, and that is why people of color, small businesses,
et cetera, were not getting resources, because they deal with
people like CDFIs and small lending institutions. And so when
you start to send resources to those kinds of institutions, you
reach the people of highest need. That is why it is important
to fund CDFIs and small community banks, because the access and
the understanding culturally as well as area-wide is so much
better with these institutions.
So I think that they are something that we must continue to
work with because they are the people who deal with the smaller
loans that help people with technical assistance and other
things when it comes to home buying. They are the people who
drive low-income communities. And so I think that it is an
absolute necessity that we continue to fund and support CDFIs
and small banks.
Senator Warner. Well, thank you, and I do think there are a
number of our community banks who want to try to do more in
this space. They may need some regulatory forbearance. But I
look forward to working with you and the Committee on this.
I also just want to again make sure I get one question in
to Secretary Buttigieg, but I do want to raise that I talked
with you about, Secretary Fudge, and I had mentioned to the
Chairman and I am working with the Administration on. We all
know--and COVID obviously exacerbated this--the wealth gap in
this country, the wealth gap between Black families, White
families, 10:1 differential, almost as large in terms of Latino
families. And a lot of that is due to the fact that Black and
Brown families do not have access to home ownership in similar
levels.
We are working on a program, Mr. Chairman, where we are
looking at an initiative that would help all first-generation
homebuyers--so this would be not just Black and Brown; it would
be White as well, although my data, it would end up being about
two-thirds Black and Brown communities. And I will not get into
all the details here, but with a slight interest rate subsidy,
we could create through Ginnie Mae a product that would allow a
family, if they could meet, you know, a traditional mortgage
payment, create literally a 20-year mortgage product that would
have the payment based upon 30-year kind of rates. Doing this--
and trust me on the math. At this point I will have to point it
out to everybody that it would actually double wealth creation
records. And I really look forward--in 10 years you would get
twice as much wealth creation on a 20-year mortgage as you
would on a 30-year mortgage.
I am down to 15 seconds. I just want to compliment you,
Secretary Buttigieg. You met with frontline workers from WMATA
and the general manager there. Forty percent of the Federal
workforce travels on Metro. We have an important Federal
component there. I am sure Chris Van Hollen will ask you a
question on that, but I wanted to get my 2 cents in before my
time ran out.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Warner.
Senator Hagerty, if he is here, is next. If not, Senator
Moran? If not, Senator Cortez Masto from Nevada is recognized--
oh, Senator Hagerty. I am sorry, Catherine.
Senator Cortez Masto. No problem.
Chairman Brown. Senator Hagerty is recognized for 5
minutes.
Senator Hagerty. Thank you, Chairman Brown, Ranking Member
Toomey. Thank you, Secretary Fudge, Secretary Buttigieg. Thank
you for being here today. I appreciate that.
I would like to turn to my own State, if I could,
Tennessee. We have some of the best roads and bridges in
America in Tennessee. We are also a physically well-managed
State. In fact, we are one of the few States to actual finance
our transportation projects without using debt financing. We
pay as we go on this. But I think--and, Secretary Buttigieg,
you are very well aware of this--that our Interstate 40 bridge
that connects Tennessee and Arkansas across the Mississippi
river, 9 days ago it was discovered it has a severe fracture in
the structural frame, the support girders for that bridge.
I have been in touch with State and local officials, with
the Tennessee Department of Transportation, with barge
operators in the private sector. My team has been working with
the Coast Guard, who have jurisdiction over the Mississippi
River. And, again, the Mississippi is middle America's
superhighway for transportation and commerce.
On Saturday, I sent a letter to President Biden about the
crisis and copied you, Secretary Buttigieg, and I want to thank
you, because as a result of that letter, I saw that this
morning the Federal Highway Administration is sending a team to
Memphis posthaste.
I applaud you for making this a top priority, Secretary
Buttigieg. The crisis has delayed fuel supplies, it has delayed
agricultural products--many critical commodities that reach
markets through the Mississippi River. It has also created
tremendous delays in traffic. This is affecting real people,
the livelihoods, their ability to get to where they need to go.
It is impacting commerce at some many levels. So I want to
thank you for the effort that you have put in, the
responsiveness to my letter and to our conversation, Secretary
Buttigieg, to prioritize this for your Department, and I look
forward to continuing to work with your Department to make sure
that the situation in Memphis and Arkansas is resolved as
quickly as possible.
I hope that the Administration and my Democratic colleagues
are serious about working in a bipartisan way to solve our
infrastructure problems. The I-40 bridge that we are talking
about here is not the only problem, and this bridge should not
require legislation or time-consuming debate about whether
Government nanny care is infrastructure or not. Longer term,
investment in real infrastructure--in our roads, our bridges,
our tunnels, waterways, ports, rail, broadband, our power grid,
and pipes--is needed. But to pay for it by raising taxes on
American workers and job creators just as we are poised to
emerge from a pandemic-driven recession is the opposite of what
we need. We should be incentivizing hundreds of billions of
dollars in private capital and get off the sidelines, and we
need to be reducing bureaucratic paperwork, ridiculous
regulatory costs, and unnecessary delays. And we have got to
ensure that anything we do reaches all the way to the most
rural areas of our country, like in my home State of Tennessee.
Secretary Buttigieg, I would like to turn my first question
to you. You have had past private sector experience as a
management consultant. I am sure that you looked at ways with
your clients to improve operations. I am sure you looked at
private financing, too, and perhaps ways to incentivize private
capital. And within your domain at the Department of
transportation, you have the Build America Bureau. The Build
America Bureau's mission encompasses private activity bonds,
the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act.
the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing
Administration, among other programs.
As we look at infrastructure and think about infrastructure
going forward, Secretary, I wanted to get your comments and
thoughts on the types of process improvements, the types of
bureaucratic regulatory changes that could be made that could
help accelerate investment in infrastructure for us.
Secretary Buttigieg. Well, thank you, Senator, and first of
all, let me just state my appreciation for the collaboration
and involvement with your office and others in dealing with the
I-40 bridge matter.
To get to your question, we do believe there are a lot of
opportunities for us to get more bang for a taxpayer buck
through process improvements, something I encountered even as a
mayor, seeing all of the steps involved in permitting, and have
challenged our team to identify ways that we can find where
there may be duplication or there might be a way to meet the
intent of the law with fewer steps or a simpler and more
predictable process.
I also appreciate your mentioning private activity bonds,
one example, along with some of the others you mentioned, where
we do see ways to mobilize private capital. And it is a popular
program. As a matter of fact, I think we are just about at our
congressionally authorized cap right now. And while it is more
appropriate to some uses than others, since, of course, many of
these financing options really expect or require that there be
an associated revenue stream, we do think there is a lot more
potential here and would welcome opportunities to work with you
on building that out, building on successes like the Build
America Bureau here at the Department.
Senator Hagerty. I will look forward to working on that
with you and your team, Secretary. Thank you.
Secretary Buttigieg. Thank you.
Senator Hagerty. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Hagerty.
Senator Menendez from New Jersey is recognized for 5
minutes.
Senator Menendez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning to
both our Secretaries. It is good to be with you.
Secretary Buttigieg, you and I have discussed the Gateway
project, a series of projects including the port of North
Bridge and the new Hudson River tunnels in a region that would
modernize a 10-mile segment of track that is the linchpin of
the Northeast corridor, a region of the country that generates
20 percent of GDP for the entire Nation. I appreciate that the
President and your Department have consistently highlighted the
importance of Gateway, and I had the pleasure of speaking to
Nuria Fernandez, the President's nominee to be the FTA
Administrator, about the project in her hearing last week. She
committed to working with stakeholders to move the Hudson River
tunnel projects through the capital investment grant program
process, and I would like to ask for a similar commitment from
you. Would you commit to working with the project sponsors and
congressional delegations in the coming months to get the
Gateway project done?
Secretary Buttigieg. Well, thank you for the question, and,
yes, you have our commitment to work with your office, other
members of the delegations, and the project sponsors on this.
This is an example of a project that may be located in one
region but is so critical that you would feel it anywhere in
the country if there were to be, for example, a failure in one
of these critical tunnels. So we are continuing to see this
move along and are committed to working with you to see it go
forward.
Senator Menendez. Well, thank you, Mr. Secretary. I
appreciate your appreciation of what the project means.
The Department has previously said that we should see the
environmental reviews for the project by the end of May after
years of delay by the Trump administration. Do you know if we
are still on track to see that process move forward?
Secretary Buttigieg. We are hopeful to see that move
forward soon, and right now I think the main area where the FTA
and I think also FRA have been in touch with the project's
sponsors has been on the financing plan. As that information
comes together, I am hopeful we can move this along as planned.
Senator Menendez. OK. A good infrastructure plan not only
creates good jobs, but also takes into account how
infrastructure affects access to good jobs. Secretary Fudge,
does a lack of affordable housing in job-rich areas limit
workers' access to good jobs?
Secretary Fudge. There is no question about it. I just
spent some time in your State, Senator, and when we do not have
people housed properly or have them in a position where they
have access to housing or to good jobs or schools, yes, it is a
major issue.
Senator Menendez. Tank you. Low-income communities then
have the additional burden of disproportionately lacking access
to transit which could connect communities to jobs. Secretary
Buttigieg, does a lack of public transit options also limit
workers' access to good jobs?
Secretary Buttigieg. Unquestionably so. People need to be
able to physically get to where the opportunity is, and if they
lack good or affordable options to get there, that is an
economic barrier.
Senator Menendez. So, therefore, wouldn't you both say that
transportation access should be a major consideration when
designing affordable housing policy?
Secretary Fudge. Absolutely.
Secretary Buttigieg. Yes.
Senator Menendez. I agree, and that is why I am
reintroducing the Livable Communities Act, which would create a
grant program to fund coordinated development of affordable
housing and transit so that we can better expand access to
economic opportunities, and I look forward to hopefully working
with both of you. I hope that the fact that you are both here
together testifying, which is not the normal course of events,
is also indicative that both of you will be able to work
together because of the nexus between transportation and
housing.
Madam Secretary, there is a severe nationwide shortage of
affordable senior housing. According to the Urban Institute, of
the 16.1 million new household formations over the next 20
years, more than 80 percent of them--80 percent--will be senior
households. I know what it means to seniors in my State, which
is a high-cost State. What does the significant increase in
senior households means for our senior public and assisted
housing capacity and the senior housing needs that Congress
should prepare for?
Secretary Fudge. Senator, I am so glad you asked that
question because people, I think, forget that significant
numbers of people who live in public housing are senior
citizens. We know that we do not have in place the
infrastructure to allow seniors over the next few years to age
in place. That is one of the reasons why the Jobs Plan talks
about how we take care of our seniors and puts resources in the
202 plan. I think that it is really important that we start to
address this now, as we know the senior population is going to
just continue to increase.
So I thank you for asking the question because it is
something we must address, and we must address it soon.
Senator Menendez. This is where a program like our Trusted
Section 202 program is really important. We look forward to
working with you and with you, Mr. Secretary, on the transit
side of our efforts on the development of our package.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Menendez.
Senator Kennedy from Louisiana is recognized for 5 minutes.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can you hear me
OK?
Chairman Brown. Yes.
Secretary Buttigieg. Yes, Senator.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you. I want to thank our two
Secretaries for being here today. I know you are busy.
Secretary Fudge----
Secretary Fudge. Sir, I am having a little trouble hearing
you.
Senator Kennedy. Can you hear me now?
Secretary Fudge. I can hear you better, yes, sir.
Senator Kennedy. OK. Secretary Fudge, Louisiana, as you
probably know, was hit by two massive hurricanes last year. The
focal point was southwest Louisiana, but the hurricanes were
devastating central Louisiana to northeast Louisiana. With
respect to block grant disaster assistance, my Governor, who
happens to be a Democrat, and I and our entire congressional
delegation have repeatedly talked to the White House about
getting an answer to our request for the disaster relief. We
have asked, we have begged, we have cajoled, we have sent fruit
baskets. We have not sent over a personal pan pizza yet, but we
are thinking about doing that to the White House. We just want
an answer.
Can you help me get an answer?
Secretary Fudge. Well, Senator, it is my understanding that
there was an answer sent to you by OMB on behalf of the
President. Is there something further that you would like me to
do? I am happy to do it.
Senator Kennedy. Yes, ma'am. Tell me what the answer was,
because I have not heard. I have not been able to find anybody
to give me an answer with a search party. I cannot find them
with Google. So if there is an answer, maybe you could tell me
right now. I would really be grateful.
Secretary Fudge. Well, basically I have the letter in front
of me addressed to you from Acting Director Shalanda Young, who
talked with you basically----
Senator Kennedy. Can you tell me what it says?
Secretary Fudge. OK, yes. Basically what it says is that--
certainly, and let me just say this first, though, Senator,
that I am very, very sorry about what has happened, especially
even with the rains of this past week. But it says that the
Administration----
Senator Kennedy. That is OK. If the letter says yes, all is
forgiven. Can you tell me if the letter says yes?
Secretary Fudge. What the letter says and what I am saying
as well is that we are more than willing to support what is
happening, but Congress needs to make that decision. Whatever
decision Congress makes, we are going to be supportive of.
Senator Kennedy. Yes, ma'am. But as you know, customarily
the way this works, the White House has to send a request to
Congress. Has the President decided to send over that request?
And if so, do you know when we get it?
Secretary Fudge. No, but I can ask. But I would say this,
Senator: You know, just by my own time in the House, I voted
for many such pieces of legislation, and all of it did not
start with the White House.
Senator Kennedy. Well, we do things a little differently in
the Senate. I am not saying that the House is wrong. You
probably do it better than we do. But my colleagues normally
will not consider anything until they know where the White
House is.
Secretary Fudge. Well, I will find out, sir, because I
think we need to do as much as possibly can.
Senator Kennedy. OK. Well, I thank you for that, Madam
Secretary.
Let me make sure I understand. You personally, on behalf of
HUD, are supportive of asking Congress to give us the relief.
Is that right?
Secretary Fudge. I personally, yes, but as you say, that is
not my decision to make.
Senator Kennedy. I know. Have you talked to anyone at the
White House about our request?
Secretary Fudge. I have not, but I will make sure that I do
it right away.
Senator Kennedy. OK. Can you tell me who you will talk to?
Secretary Fudge. I will talk with OMB where this started,
and ultimately they are the people who are responding on behalf
of the President and the White House. I will call Director
Young today.
Senator Kennedy. Can you tell me when we will get the
answer?
Secretary Fudge. I am going to call today. Now, I do not
know when that answer will be, but as soon as I get an answer,
I will make sure you get it right away.
Senator Kennedy. OK. So what I am hearing from you is,
despite the letter, the White House has not said yes. Or am I
mistaken?
Secretary Fudge. I do not know, sir, because I have not
been that involved in it. It goes between the White House and
OMB, as I have said. But I will make sure that I find out the
status. That I will do.
Senator Kennedy. OK. If you could--I know you, Madam
Secretary. If we could get an answer.
Secretary Fudge. I will.
Senator Kennedy. My people deserve an answer, and this has
gone on--you know, this has been like rope-a-dope, OK? And this
has gone on, and in order for us to get it done in the
Congress, we are going to have to have a request by the
President. We all know that. And there has just been too much
dodging, bobbing, and weaving. I am a pretty simple guy. I like
breakfast food, and I like straight answers. And if you could
ask the White House to just give me a straight answer yes or
on, I would be eternally grateful.
Secretary Fudge. That I will do.
Senator Kennedy. And I will send you a fruit basket.
Secretary Fudge. I will ask them for a straight answer.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you so much.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Fudge. You are welcome, sir.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Kennedy.
The next three Senators are Senator Tester, then Senator
Moran, and then Senator Warren. I have to duck out to do some
questioning in the Ag Committee about climate, so Senator
Tester is recognized for 5 minutes. If you would then just turn
it to Senator Moran, who will----
Senator Tester [presiding]. I will. But before you leave,
Mr. Chairman, I think it is incumbent upon me to point out that
Senator Moran, always being politically correct, has your book
off his right shoulder.
With that, I want to turn to you, Secretary Fudge. There
are many challenges across the country for folks trying to
access housing. It is true in Ohio, as you know, as well as in
Pennsylvania, certainly true in Montana. It is true in our
cities and towns, but it is also true in rural areas--some
would call then ``frontier areas''--and on tribal lands where
oftentimes communities need more specific help to make Federal
programs work to access the resources that are available.
So, Secretary Fudge, how would HUD ensure that new or
additional housing resources make it into those rural/frontier
and tribal communities?
Secretary Fudge. Senator, thank you so much, and thank you
as always for the discussions we have had about this over the
last few months. I appreciate your insight and input.
The Jobs Plan does specifically set aside resources for
Indian country and for rural communities. As you know, HUD's
mission is to take care of housing everywhere. We do not
differentiate between urban and rural, and we understand very
much the needs of rural communities as well where we talk about
building supportive infrastructure and climate resilience and
community development. We know that it takes a whole of
Government to make these things happen.
So between the work that we do at HUD, the work that is
done at USDA, we are very confident that with the Jobs Plan we
can really make a significant increase and a significant
downpayment and make clear that we believe in the expansion and
empowering of communities, especially rural communities.
Senator Tester. Well, that is good. I just think it is
really important, because they do not have the resources, they
do not have the planners, they do not have the ability to get
these funds easily. And as pointed out by Senator Menendez, it
is important in those communities, too, because, quite frankly,
there is a shortage of housing all across the country. There is
significant need. But there are examples of successful existing
programs that help ease the shortage when these programs are
utilized. There are tax credits that can be leveraged when
available and examples of local communities enhancing their
resources through public-private partnerships.
So, Secretary Fudge, how can we ensure that Federal
resources for housing are fully utilized to get assistance to
as many people and as many communities as possible?
Secretary Fudge. Well, Senator, you know that for a very
long time we have only had--truly in terms of the private part,
we have had the low-income housing tax credits, which have been
very, very helpful. But in the Jobs Plan, there is another tax
credit, the neighborhood homes investment tax credit, that
would also help us leverage more public resources. And then, of
course, there are all the other programs that HUD can assist
with where we have the Native American block grants and the
housing block grants.
I think that if you pull all of these things together, you
are going to find the resources to make not only the rural
communities and, of course, Native communities expand their
housing options; we are able to build new housing with the
resources that have been put into the Jobs Plan; as well, we
can talk about really then starting to talk about resilient
communities, which we know that we can do. But the Jobs Plan
makes sure that all of those resources are there together. With
HOME and other programs from HUD, I think we can make it
happen.
Senator Tester. OK. Secretary Buttigieg, I want to talk to
you a little bit about charging stations. I think it is really
important we make the transition, and I think it is going to
happen regardless. It could happen quicker if we are a little
more aggressive, and I think the charging stations are part of
it.
My question to you is: In Build Back Better, how is this
going to work? Is this a revolving loan fund, or is the
Government going to build charging stations? Or are we going to
give loans out to businesses who want to put charging stations
at convenience stores or grocery stores or wherever it may be?
Can you tell me what the vision is there?
Secretary Buttigieg. Thank you, Senator. It is a very
important question, and it is one of policy design that I think
will vary based on some of the geographies that we are looking
at.
The economics of installing a charging station may pencil
in, for example, a luxury apartment building in the middle of
the city such that no assistance is required at all. On the
other end of the spectrum, there are a lot of locations,
especially in more spread out or rural areas, where there
simply might not be a return unless there is some kind of
support.
So I would not say that the vision is that all charging
stations in the country or even most of them or any of them
need to be owned and operated by the Federal Government. This
is a great opportunity for leverage and to make sure that the
dollars are being put to use in a way that maximizes the
availability.
Of course, our support is not just in financing the
establishment or the construction of the stations, but also
just in siting them, and that is where we have work we can
build on in the alternative fuels corridors designations that
have been going on, which DOT does in partnership with the
Department of Energy, just to establish where across our
highway network we need to make sure there are charging
stations, whether the market would provide them or not, so that
range anxiety does not hold Americans back from adopting EVs.
Senator Tester. Just a statement before I turn it over to
Senator Moran. I will really hope that when it comes to roads
and bridges infrastructure, we continue to rely on existing
formulas. If we start screwing around with that, it gets pretty
dicey pretty quick. Thank you.
Senator Moran.
Senator Moran. Chairman Tester, thank you. Chairman Tester,
over my right shoulder is another book that you might recognize
as well, so I am not currently politically correct as I can be
in this setting.
Secretary Buttigieg, thank you for joining us. You, too,
Madam Secretary. I am pleased to have the opportunity to visit
with you this morning, but I am going to focus on the
Department of Transportation.
Mr. Secretary, let me raise two topics with you. COVID-19
had, as you know, a devastating impact on the airline industry,
and Congress and the Administration responded in a number of
ways to help repair the damage that was done by lack of
commercial air travel. One of the industries that was also
affected by that circumstance is the manufacturing sector of
which Kansas is one of the prime places in which aviation
manufacturing occurred.
With the help of Senator Warner from this Committee and
Senator Cantwell, the Chairman of the Commerce Committee, we
were successful--it was successful in having passed
legislation, the Aviation Manufacturing Jobs Protection
Program. One of the discussions was about who should be
responsible for implementing that program, and the conclusion
was the U.S. Department of Transportation. So in your realm of
responsibilities, you have implementation of this legislation.
It is important to me. I introduced and sponsored the
legislation that became an amendment to the COVID relief
package.
I would ask you--I mean, the Department has published
information on steps eligible businesses need to take prior to
submitting an application. But there is not more definitive
instructions than that. Your Department has been kind to me. I
intend to have a forum in Wichita or at least in Kansas, and
your team has volunteered, once they know more, to be a
participant in that program trying to explain to aviation
manufacturers what the program is, how they can take advantage
of it, and how we can protect our workforce in aviation.
Do you have any ideas at this point about the timeframe in
which these funds will become eligible and when I should be
looking at scheduling and asking your staff to join me to try
to explain it to a group of businesses and employees that are
significantly interested?
Secretary Buttigieg. Yes, thank you. We are moving quickly
to make sure this is implemented successfully, accountably,
and, of course, in a timely fashion. As you point out, the
impact on air carriers is probably better understood in the
public than the impact on manufacturers, and so this important
program really will have a powerful economic impact.
Unlike some of the other COVID relief plans that sent
dollars through existing mechanisms, this required us to stand
up a new one, and we want to make sure that we get it right.
I can tell you that DOT's most senior leadership is heavily
engaged. We have established a Senior Advisory Council
involving every relevant part of the Department to make sure
that we are taking the right steps. And to your question, I
hope to have an application process fully defined and out for
applications later on this summer and would welcome that
opportunity for DOT personnel to be there to help explain it to
potential applicants.
Senator Moran. Thank you for your obvious knowledge and
awareness of this program and presumably, seemingly--
``seemingly'' is a better word--involvement in a personal level
on the part of you as the Secretary. And thanks for committing
your staff to helping me help explain what opportunities exist.
Let me turn to a renewable energy question in regard to
transit. One of the things that I think has happened is that
with the public transit programs that are attempting to
accelerate the transition of our bus fleets from diesel and
gasoline to cleaner energy alternatives, it seems to me that
these programs have overwhelmingly favored certain renewable
fuels--and by that I think those words mean electric--to the
diminution of other cleaner fuels such as renewable natural gas
or natural gas. And as a result, those bus programs that those
renewable fuels, particularly renewable natural gas, make a lot
of sense, I do not think they are going through the process to
seek the funds because of what I think is maybe perhaps a
perceived or perhaps a real bias or prejudice one way or the
other. I would ask that you take a look at being more balanced
in that view. There are buses--and I think I am particularly
probably talking about rural communities--in which renewable
natural gas is a viable and valuable and environmentally sound
alternative to electric vehicles.
I would ask you to enable the transit agencies to pursue
the cleanest available vehicles that suit the needs of the
fleet and the public transit infrastructure. It is better to
get us in a position using renewable natural gas or natural gas
to reduce emissions than those buses continuing in their
current state without the Federal support because they are not
converting to electric. And there are some issues with
electric, as Senator Tester was saying about the charging
stations, also the important elements that make up where
batteries come from are outside the United States. So there are
some issues with this.
I am just looking for you to commit that there is a place
that the Department of Transportation should recognize for
renewable natural gas and natural gas.
Secretary Buttigieg. Well, thank you. We certainly have a
role for natural gas vehicles that are producing fewer
emissions than, for example, a diesel vehicle. Part of the
issue, of course, is that in a program that is designed to
minimize emissions, a vehicle with zero tailpipe emissions will
typically be more competitive. But as you note, sometimes what
is right in one region may be different from another, or there
may be different resources available to different transit
authorities. We will continue to try to tailor what we are
doing so that it makes sense on the ground.
Senator Moran. I appreciate that. Mr. Secretary, as you
know, what is valuable and practical in your largest city in
Indiana or my largest city in Kansas may not be the most
practical or valuable solution in a rural community of several
hundred or several thousands people. And we sometimes think of
transit as being the large cities' way of moving people. But as
you know, in our States it affects lots of seniors and disabled
individuals and getting to the doctor and getting to the
grocery store in ways that are different than what a city mass
transit program would look like.
Secretary Buttigieg. I absolutely agree, yes.
Senator Moran. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brown [presiding]. Thank you, Senator Moran.
Senator Warren from Massachusetts is recognized for 5
minutes.
Senator Warren. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Fudge, we have discussed the importance of
addressing our Nation's affordable housing crisis head on, and
I know that you are committed to increasing the number of
affordable units available to families. But those homes have to
be built somewhere, and too many communities around the country
with restrictive zoning laws that were born out of racial
segregation prevent new affordable housing units from being
built.
Using exclusionary zoning to keep families, often lower-
income families and families of color out of certain
neighborhoods, is wrong. And over time the harm really adds up.
Exclusionary practices drive up the cost of housing for
everyone and reduce the amount of available land.
So, Secretary Fudge, at your confirmation hearing, you told
this Committee that it is important that we get rid of the
notion of ``not in my back yard.'' How does that ``not in my
back yard'' approach impede efforts to address the affordable
housing crisis?
Secretary Fudge. Well, first off, thank you, Senator, for
our ongoing conversations about this. The first thing that it
does is it increases the cost of housing, and it limits where
we can build housing. If you have restrictive zoning
ordinances, then there are two things that happen or can
happen. One is that where there is available land, you cannot
build or the zoning is so onerous that it costs you more money
to build. Maybe they put all kinds of restrictions on it that
increase the cost of buying a property.
The other thing it does is it just basically says to people
in our communities, ``We do not want you to live in our
neighborhood if you are low-income, if you are a person of
color.''
And so what we have found is that these laws have been
around so very long that the Jobs Plan now gives us the
opportunity to go into communities with some incentives to
assist them in how we discuss it, how we could give them the
kind of technical assistance to change it, how we engage
communities so that we can have a better narrative about why we
should allow new housing and housing that is not restrictive in
communities that historically have prevented us from building.
Senator Warren. Right, so let me follow up on that. How
would incentives help? Aren't these changes that the Federal
Government can just make on its own to get this housing built?
Or why do you need these incentives?
Secretary Fudge. Well, they really cannot--a lot of the
zoning laws are really just local--they are local ordinances,
many of which we cannot change as the Federal Government. Now,
we can talk about discrimination overall. We can talk about
civil rights overall. But we cannot just go into a community
and change all of their zoning or planning ordinances. And that
is why we want to engage communities with conversation, with
technical assistance, to talk to them about how they can change
them, how they could--maybe we can come to some agreement that
makes them not as restrictive and not as costly.
Senator Warren. Well, I completely agree with the direction
you are going here. My American Housing and Economic Mobility
Act includes a new $10 billion housing innovation grant program
that would provide funding so that local governments can use it
to build things like parks or schools if they are actively
removing unnecessary barriers to building affordable units in
their communities. Eligible reforms would include things like
changing bans on multifamily construction, revising minimum lot
size requirements, or passing inclusionary zoning ordinances.
So let me ask, Secretary Fudge, could this kind of grant
program make a difference in pushing communities to expand the
supply of affordable housing?
Secretary Fudge. There is no question but that it could be
helpful.
Senator Warren. Good.
Secretary Fudge. And it is certainly something that I would
like to really get into some more detail with you about,
because until we can get to that point that we can include the
kinds of things you are talking about, we are going to forever
have people locked out of communities of opportunity, giving
the opportunity to go to better schools, to have better jobs,
and to build wealth. So I would very much like us to continue
that conversation.
Senator Warren. All right, and I very much want to work
with you on this. You know, I was so glad to see President
Biden call for the elimination of exclusionary zoning and to
end harmful land use policies as part of his American Jobs
Plan. And now I have got a proposal ready to go on this. Taking
on our affordable housing crisis requires a comprehensive
strategy, and reducing exclusionary zoning and land use
restrictions has to be a part of this.
So thank you, Secretary Fudge, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Fudge. Thank you.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Warren.
Senator Cortez Masto from Nevada is recognized for 5
minutes.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
And thank you to both Secretaries Buttigieg and Fudge for this
great conversation and the good work that you are doing.
Let me start off with Secretary Buttigieg. I had the
pleasure of speaking with Acting Administrator Fernandez at her
nomination hearing about the ability for capital investment
grant project sponsors, specifically in my State, the Regional
Transportation Commission in Washoe County, to be able to
utilize its project cost savings, further enhancing their
specific project corridors. I am going to include for the
record a question on whether the Department will reward project
sponsors who are good stewards of taxpayer dollars that come in
on time and under budget with the ability to repurpose those
funds to other important elements of an existing federally
funded project within their community. So I am going to submit
that for the record.
Senator Cortez Masto. I do want to talk to you about Smart
Communities. I know that President Biden included a call for
building on really an Obama era Smart Cities Challenge Program
with $1 billion annually in his infrastructure proposal. Can
you talk to me about why this is important? Why are Smart
Communities important? Why this proposal?
Secretary Buttigieg. Thank you. Let me mention about the
structure of the program and the substance of the program. I
was a mayor when the Smart Cities Challenge came out and saw
the impact it had even on cities like mine that were not even
participating in the competition. It stimulated a race to the
top and encouraged local communities to do what they do best,
which is innovate. So that kind of such with an emphasis on
sharing ideas and an emphasis working directly with local
communities we think was very powerful and something we could
build on.
In terms of the substance of the vision, it is really about
making sure that we future-proof our investments and are taking
advantage of the extraordinary change that is coming to
transportation and certainly will be across the 2020s. That
change could be enormously empowering and beneficial on
everything from climate to equity to job creation, but it will
not be that way on its own. It is why we have to have a lot of
intention and good policies behind it and, of course,
resources, which is why you see it reflected in the President's
vision.
Senator Cortez Masto. Well, thank you, and I could not
agree more. And I do agree that the incentive is so important,
and that is why when I first got here to the Senate, I
introduced the Moving FIRST Act to bring back and expand the
Obama era Smart Cities Challenge. I think it is so important
that this incentive is out there. We have seen the benefits of
it and the opportunities we have to embrace this advanced
technology for our communities.
I will tell you my bill is endorsed by the League of
Cities, NACo, the Chamber of Commerce's Tech Division, and ATPA
and the American Society of Civil Engineers. So I look forward
to working with the Administration. I think this is a great,
great opportunity here for our communities.
But let us talk about the communities, and I only have so
much time. Secretary Fudge, I could not agree more. You both
know this better than anyone. Everything that we are working
on, particularly the nexus between affordable housing, transit,
and employment centers starts at the local level with zoning.
Zoning, zoning, zoning, right? That is the key to all of this,
and that is why at the Federal level we may incentivize, we may
try to get dollars and resources out there, but it really
starts with that initial planning, urban planning or rural
planning and the zoning. And that is why it was important for
me to introduce the Better PLAN ACT.
Now, I absolutely support what Senator Menendez is doing
with his legislation on Livable Communities. The Better PLAN
Act that I have introduced is really compatible with what we
are trying to do here, which is enhancing that coordination
between metropolitan planning organizations, local land use
agencies, and housing stakeholders to align transportation
plans with our local housing goals as well as ensuring that we
are connecting them with those important employment centers.
So, Secretary Fudge, can you talk just a little bit about
that nexus and why it is so important and why we have to engage
local communities in this if we are really going to get it
right?
Secretary Fudge. Well, first off, let me just thank you for
your continued focus on affordable housing. In our
conversations, I have been so very pleased to know of all of
the things that you are working on that I believe are going to
be helpful. But as you talk about--and your State probably is
the perfect example. If we cannot get people to jobs because
they live in communities that are so isolated and/or so
difficult to move people from good jobs to home, then it is a
problem, whether it be a teacher, a firefighter, or anybody
else. I think that we have to make sure that we understand that
both of them are really infrastructure.
But when you talk about building roads and bridges, you
have to connect them to something, so let us not--why can we
not connect them in the way that is beneficial to the people we
represent, all of us? I represent people who need housing, who
need public housing, low-income people. They have to rely on us
to make sure that we plan appropriately, work together to make
sure that what we are doing is going to be beneficial to them
in the long run, and that means we have to have transportation
that is smart, transportation that is accessible to where
people live and work.
Senator Cortez Masto. That is right. And let me add--and I
know my time is up, but one other thing, where they live and
work. But in my State they are working 24 hours, right? So the
transit, that connectivity, that opportunity has to be
available to everyone at all times, particularly if they are
working a graveyard shift or a late shift or a day shift,
whatever that may be. It is so important that we bring that
nexus together for everybody and meet their needs where they
are, so thank you.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Cortez Masto.
Senator Scott from South Carolina is recognized for 5
minutes.
Senator Scott. Thank you, Chairman Brown, and thank you to
the panelists for being here today. I will start with Secretary
Buttigieg.
As you know, a number of my constituents in South Carolina
were affected by the hack of the Colonial Pipeline earlier this
month. They estimated that about 40 percent of the gas stations
in South Carolina were without gas because of that hack. That
means that real people and their lives are strained by the lack
of access to gas. I know by talking to some of my constituents
in Spartanburg and in Greenville, they were waiting an hour in
the line to try to figure out how to get gas in their cars to
take their kids to school or go to the grocery store.
You called the Colonial Pipeline hack a ``wake-up call''
for the country's cybersecurity vulnerability. I actually agree
with that statement wholeheartedly. I think there is another
wake-up call that we are seeing as well, and I believe
Secretary Jennifer Granholm said just last week when she
admitted that pipelines are the best way to transport fuel.
That has to be a wake-up call for the Administration that did
not continue with the construction of the XL Pipeline within
the first few weeks of the Administration.
As Secretary of Transportation, do you agree with the
Secretary of Energy when she says that pipelines are the best
way to transport fuel?
Secretary Buttigieg. Well, of course, it depends on the
context. Nobody is proposing that we establish a pipeline that
goes directly to every gas station or every community in the
country, but----
Senator Scott. Let me----
Secretary Buttigieg. ----for certain----
Senator Scott. ----give you more context then. Do you think
that the important comments by the Secretary of Energy as it
relates to transporting fuel through a pipeline is important
enough for us to revisit the XL Pipeline project? Or does that
statement not include the XL Pipeline from your perspective?
Secretary Buttigieg. Yeah, in my view, it does not support
any change to the Administration's view on the XL Pipeline. It
is certainly the case that over certain long distances in
certain contexts it makes sense to have pipelines. After all,
one thing our Department is very proud of is the work that we
do through the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety
Administration to make sure that 2-plus-million miles of
pipeline in the U.S. are safe.
At the same time, the President is keeping his commitment
that he made during the campaign to guide any decisions about
pipelines or energy policy more generally based on climate
responsibility as well as what makes sense for our economy in
the long term.
Senator Scott. So thank you for that answer. I will say
that according to many experts that I have read, the XL
Pipeline, stopping that project means you are going to carry
that energy over the roads, over the rail, which actually
increases our carbon footprint, not decreases our carbon
footprint. So by not having the pipeline, we are actually doing
more harm to the environment and not less harm. So that is a
confusing position, but I am glad to see that there is an
inconsistency between the two Secretaries.
Let me move to HUD and ask a question of my friend
Secretary Fudge as it relates to manufacturing housing. As you
may recall, back in 2019 we passed bipartisan legislation that
allowed for more manufactured housing to be a part of the
strategy that we use to help home ownership become more
affordable for people throughout the country. When would you
expect HUD to issue guidance for the inclusion of manufactured
housing in States and local governments' consolidated plans?
Secretary Fudge. First off, thank you. It is good to see
you Senator, and I thank you and appreciate your concern about
manufactured housing. You know that we do have some guidelines
and certainly the guidelines that were requested in 2019 I
think probably got caught up in all of the things that were
going along with COVID, but we believe that we will have
something by the end of this year. We know we are little bit
behind, but as I said, in 2019 I think COVID and trying to get
CARES Act funding and other things out may have delayed it, but
we are working on it as we speak, sir.
Senator Scott. Well, as you would imagine, my State has a
disproportionate share of the manufactured housing, and we
experience lots of natural disasters, and I will say that the
current state of manufactured housing has transformed
positively where you have a stronger home, you have a more
resilient home than ever imagined. And so whatever we can do to
hit the accelerator on that I believe will be helpful to those
folks who are on the margin, on the bubble, so to speak. They
could be a homeowner or they could not be a homeowner,
depending on how accessible manufactured housing is. So thank
you very much for your commitment to move that forward.
Secretary Fudge. My pleasure, because I am a strong
proponent as well, Senator, so we will get right on it.
Senator Scott. Yes, ma'am, thank you.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Scott.
Senator Van Hollen of Maryland is recognized for 5 minutes.
Senator Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary
Fudge, thank you for your leadership, and I am pleased to see
the American Jobs Plan include major provisions to increase the
overall supply of housing and affordable housing and use
Federal incentives to address discriminatory local zoning
practices.
I was also pleased to see a reference there to the
importance of continuing with affordable housing vouchers.
Senator Young and I have introduced a bipartisan bill calling
for the creation of 500,000 family stability and opportunity
vouchers. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities has
indicated that any plan to address affordable housing for the
lowest-income households has to include an expansion of the
voucher program, and this is designed to provide wrap-around
services to families, and it has been a proven way of helping
lift people out of poverty.
I have mentioned this to you before. We are going to
introduce it again soon. What I want to ask today is just a
commitment from you to get back to me and to Senator Young as
to whether or not the Biden administration will fully endorse
this proposal. That is my request today, that you get back to
me.
Secretary Fudge. The answer is yes, I will get back to you.
Happy to do it, sir.
Senator Van Hollen. Thank you. And, you know, speaking of
discrimination, one of the most insidious forms of
discrimination is landlords denying families, you know, rent
based on source of income, and we have got to address that, I
believe, in this legislation. Nobody should be denied access to
housing because they are relying on an affordable housing
voucher.
Secretary Buttigieg, I applaud the inclusion of the $20
billion in the American Jobs Plan to help reconnect communities
that had been split by prior Federal infrastructure
investments. We have talked about this before. I was just in
Baltimore City at the mayor this week at the site of what we
call the ``Highway to Nowhere,'' 1\1/2\ miles of highway that
was stopped because people in the better-off part of town
succeeded in stopping it, but not before 1\1/2\ miles of
highway were built that split an African-American community and
neighborhoods. We have got to heal these wounds, bring the
community together. It is a perfect example of why those funds
need to be used.
I want to ask you now about the transportation funding
formula for a second, because if a State like the State of
Maryland wants to build a highway, we just use our Federal
formula funds, and we go ahead. We get 80 percent Federal
funding. If we want to invest in a transit line, a new start,
we need to apply for a grant; we need to get approval from the
FTA; and then at most we get 60 percent Federal match. And,
currently, there is no new start with the full funding grant
agreement of more than 50 percent Federal funds. So, clearly,
if you are a State and you want your dollars to travel faster,
the Federal Government is now incentivizing highways over
transit.
Can you agree that we should change this and commit to work
on changing this as part of the American Jobs Plan?
Secretary Buttigieg. Well, one thing I would point to is
that the once-in-a-lifetime investments that are contained in
the American Jobs Plan roll out on a different basis. You know,
you saw the President's vision include $85 billion for public
transit and transit related investments--not that we do not
care about highways, roads, and bridges. Indeed, there is over
$100 billion committed to that purpose. But we are trying to
base it off where the needs actually are, and that is why you
will see that different ratio encapsulated in the President's
vision for that major investment we need to make for the
future.
Senator Van Hollen. Got it. Well, I want to work with you
on what the cost share is for the States, because right now in
our ongoing programs, there is a huge incentive to go for a
highway investment rather than a transit investment, and that
discourages States from using their dollars for transit, even
when that makes the most sense, because the Federal dollar
travels faster on the highway than on transit.
Briefly, I know you agree that building Federal roads,
bridges, or other infrastructure, we should do it in a way that
is built to last, and if it is in a Federal floodplain or other
area that will be impacted by climate change, we need to build
with resilience.
The Obama administration put in place the Federal Risk
Management Standard. The GAO has said that that is a good way
to save taxpayer dollars. The Trump administration tanked it.
President Biden indicated that he was going to reinstate this
really in the first week, but that has not happened.
Can you speak to this and just commit to moving forward on
this commonsense proposal?
Secretary Buttigieg. With regard to that standard
specifically, I will look into that and see if we can get more
information on where it stands. More generally to your point,
this is why resilience is such a focus of the Jobs Plan. I
think there is a commonsense case to be made that if, let us
say, a road washes out and climate change effects suggest it
will wash out again next year if we put it back just the way it
was, shouldn't our policy be able to tell the difference? And
that is certainly part of what we mean when we say build back
better.
Senator Van Hollen. I appreciate that, Mr. Secretary. This
is one thing you could do today that would help change that
going forward before we even have to enact legislation. So I
really encourage you to do that and hope you can get back to me
on that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brown. Thank you Senator Van Hollen.
Senator Tillis from North Carolina is recognized for 5
minutes.
Senator Tillis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Secretary Fudge
and Secretary Buttigieg, congratulations on your confirmations,
and thank you for being with us today.
Secretary Buttigieg, I want to thank you for reaching out
to me with the courtesy call before you went down to North
Carolina, and I want to ask you a general question of maybe
what you are hearing as you travel across the country. But when
you were down in North Carolina, what takeaways were there in
terms of the needs and priorities down in the State?
Secretary Buttigieg. Well, one of the things I saw was just
how rightly proud North Carolinians are about some of the
visionary work that has been done to support and expand options
in communities that are growing. With growth comes a lot of
challenges, and they are good challenges to have, but still
require forward-looking transportation policy.
I also had a chance to see some of the extraordinary
research that is going on, some of it supported with Federal
and State transportation dollars, things that I could go on
about for hours but I promise not to, in terms of, for example,
optimizing pavement, which might not seem like a sizzling topic
of great interest, but just a little difference in making a
piece of pavement last longer in harsh weather could mean
enormous savings for communities and the Federal Government. So
it was a very instructive trip, and I look forward to
continuing to be in touch on the progress that is being made
there.
Senator Tillis. Thank you. I am kind of curious. Speaking
with legislative leaders and the Governor, one of the topics
that has come up in North Carolina, I am curious if it is
something that we are hearing across the country, is that with
the billions of dollars that are down in the States and they
are looking at flexible ways to use it, have you heard much in
the way of trying to use some of the relief funds that right
now are restricted from transportation projects to potentially,
I think, California has about a $70 billion surplus, for
example, and looking at maybe repurposing some of that for
infrastructure projects?
Secretary Buttigieg. So I think every State and local
government that has gotten support is assessing how best to put
it to use. I do want to emphasize that, of course, we want to
make sure there is the right kind of flexibility for those
dollars to be well spent, but would also flag the risk of
spending the same dollar twice, so to speak, in terms of
imagining that a dollar is unspent simply because it takes
longer to get committed.
To give you an example, you can imagine a transit authority
that sees that their ridership went down 90 percent or 80
percent in 2020. Now they see it maybe back at 50 percent. It
might still be down 30 percent next year. And so you will not
see some of those dollars that are designed to keep them afloat
and obligated until next year, maybe later because of the
reimbursement pattern. But that was part of the congressional
intent, and so I just want to note that there was a multiyear
vision for some of how these dollars would move.
Senator Tillis. Just maybe back as a baseline question, we
have got various views around Washington now about what defines
interference. In your role as Secretary, how do you define
infrastructure?
Secretary Buttigieg. Well, I view infrastructure as the
foundation that makes it possible for Americans to live a life
of their choosing. That can include the transportation
infrastructure that makes it possible for you to get to work or
school. It could include the Internet infrastructure that makes
it possible for you to communicate with work or school, whether
you are physically moving around or not.
We in the Administration, of course, also believe that
tearing down a barrier in the form of, let us say, unaffordable
elder care or child care amounts to part of the care
infrastructure that helps America work. I recognize and respect
there are different views about how we define these things. My
hope is that even if we agree to disagree on a philosophical
question about what to call something, we have a good chance to
agree on good policies that will make a difference for the
American people.
Senator Tillis. Just on that note, I agree with the first
part of your assessment of infrastructure, which I think has
traditionally been defined that way, along with broadband,
which I think the modern definition absolutely should include
it. It is not that I am necessarily opposed to some of the
other initiatives that we are casting a wider net and calling
``infrastructure,'' but I think that most of the American
people, when they think about infrastructure, they think about
the things that are in your lane in the Department of
Transportation and would like to have a separate discussion
about the efficacy, the affordability, and the long-term
viability of those other programs.
Just really quickly, and this is for Secretary Fudge and
Secretary Buttigieg, I feel like Davis-Bacon that, you know,
many say is an artifact from the Jim Crow era that was
preventing minorities to get into construction work, now we are
using it maybe a little bit differently. The concern that I
have is if we are going to impose these higher labor costs on
infrastructure projects, on affordable housing projects, aren't
we really just doubting the impact that we can have with the
use of the Federal taxpayers' money? And, Secretary Fudge, we
can go to you first.
Secretary Fudge. I really do not think that we are, and
that is why we are putting in place things that the Jobs Plan
will help us to bridge the gap for affordable housing, what it
costs to build it, what people can pay for it. If you look at
the Jobs Plan in its totality, you will see that these issues
have actually been addressed within the bill.
Senator Tillis. Well, you know, I have just seen the cost
of labor in these construction projects can nearly double the
cost of labor, so I am having a hard time getting my head
around how that is consistent with trying to produce more
access to affordable housing. But my time has expired. We will
take this up off the Committee. Thank you very much.
Secretary Fudge. Thank you.
Senator Tillis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Tillis.
The Senator from Minnesota, Senator Smith, is recognized
for 5 minutes.
Senator Smith. Thank you, Chair Brown, and welcome,
Secretary Fudge and Secretary Buttigieg. It is great to be with
you virtually.
I am going to try to get to two questions, if I can, for
both of you, and the first question has to do with this. You
know, as we get ready, I hope, to be making bold and
transformational investments in infrastructure, we need to
focus on how to make sure that the benefits of those
investments and the jobs that they create are broadly shared.
And I think that we can all acknowledge that in the past,
communities of color and low-income communities have often not
seen the jobs that were created by Federal and State
infrastructure investments. And, you know, we have seen this
story unfold over and over again in roads and bridge
construction, but also in public housing construction and
maintenance, too.
So I think now in this moment we have an opportunity to
change this, but it is going to take a clear strategy and
intention. So that is what my question is for you. How do you
intend to work on this issue in your agencies so that we can
make sure that communities of color and low-income communities
are benefiting from the job opportunities that are created by
these significant infrastructure investments? And maybe I will
start with Secretary Buttigieg.
Secretary Buttigieg.
Secretary Buttigieg. Well, thank you. We share this
priority. We think it is very important both in terms of the
communities that benefit from the overall asset that might be
added in the form of a transit line or a bridge or road or
whatever it may be, but also those who get to participate in
the business opportunities that are created, the ownership of
the businesses and certainly the workers.
Yesterday with Secretary Walsh, Mayor Bowser here in
Washington, and others, we visited the work site of the
Frederick Douglass Bridge, which takes South Capitol across the
river to Anacostia, and they had very effectively used local
hire and project labor agreements to make sure that the local
community, the diverse local community was reflected on the
work site. I think continuing to partner with local agencies
and authorities with labor organizations and everybody else who
has a stake in this really needs to remain a priority so that
we create the most opportunity we can for including or
especially for those who have been excluded in the past.
Senator Smith. Thank you, Secretary Buttigieg.
And, Secretary Fudge, you and I have talked about this
before. What opportunities do we have for creating jobs for
people living in public housing or in poor communities as we
are, I dearly hope, making significant investments in housing
in those communities?
Secretary Fudge. Thank you very much, and we have talked
about it. I think there are a number of things this Jobs Plan
really can do. Apprenticeship programs so that we can prepared
people for some of these construction jobs, we know there are
going to be more than 100,000 of them. We can talk about doing
things like making sure that certain contracts and certain
employees come from certain geographic areas. We can create
goals for contracts. There are many things we can do and should
do, and the Jobs Plan is going to allow us the opportunity to
do just those things.
Senator Smith. Thank you. Thank you very much. I really
look forward to working with both of you on this. I think this
is extremely important.
Secretary Buttigieg, I want to come back to you on a
question about the American Jobs Plan proposal to include a $20
billion grant program to help reconnect communities that have
been split apart by the creation of Federal highways. So just
give me a minute to tell you about the story of the Rondo
neighborhood in St. Paul. Rondo was a lively community with
hundreds of prospering Black businesses and family homes.
Eighty percent of St. Paul's African-American population lived
in Rondo, including a strong and flourishing middle class. And
then in the late 1950s and 1960s--you know the story--
construction of the I-94 interstate literally ripped this
community in half. Seven hundred homes owned by Black families
were destroyed; 300 businesses gone forever; and the
destruction of these homes and businesses had a devastating
impact on this community: $157 million in home equity lost.
That is equity that never was able to be passed on and has
clearly contributed to the intergenerational wealth gap that we
see so significantly in Rondo, in Minnesota, and the whole
country.
But here is the good news. The amazing community called
``ReConnect Rondo'' has a vision for how to build a land bridge
over the I-94 freeway and create an African-American arts and
enterprise and culture and living community.
So could you, in the few seconds that I have left, talk to
us a little bit about how that vision for ReConnect Rondo fits
with what your vision is for that $20 billion grant program?
Secretary Buttigieg. Well, thank you. Very briefly, this is
certainly an example of what we have been talking about in
terms of how Federal dollars often serve to segregate, divide,
or destroy neighborhoods of color, and as your example
illustrates, this is not something that was confined to one
region of the country. It happened in so many different places.
So now the question is: How can we right that wrong?
Sometimes in some geographies, that has meant removing,
replacing, or submerging a highway. In others, it means working
around it, and that is, I think, an elegant quality of the
proposal you are describing. And these are the kinds of
initiatives that we want to support with Federal dollars in
visions like the American Jobs Plan, again, largely because we
know in a previous generation it was Federal dollars sometimes
that created the problem to begin with.
Senator Smith. Thank you, Secretary. That was no accident,
of course, that that is where the route for the I-94 freeway
was chosen, and I think there is an opportunity to restore that
community. And I would welcome you coming to Minnesota to see
their vision and to imagine with us what we could do there.
Thank you very much.
Secretary Buttigieg. Thank you.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Smith.
Senator Cramer of North Dakota is recognized for 5 minutes.
Senator Cramer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for
having this important hearing. And to the two Administration
officials, thanks for being here.
Mr. Secretary, thanks for the nice conversation yesterday,
and as you know, I sit both on this Committee and the
Environment and Public Works Committee, both of which have some
jurisdiction over the main titles in the surface transportation
authorization bill. Last month, we held a hearing in EPW on the
solvency of the Highway Trust Fund, and it was pointed out them
during the hearing that the fund would be nearly solvent if
transit programs were actually appropriated rather than being
included in the Highway Trust Fund distribution.
Now, I appreciate the point and I assume there is not an
appetite in Congress right now to strip transit from the
Highway Trust Fund. But, traditionally, Congress has always
kept an 80-20 split between highway and transit programs,
respectively. And so as we work toward this reauthorization,
maybe you could give me your perspective or I will just ask
straight up. Do you agree that we should keep the 80-20 split
between highways and transit?
Secretary Buttigieg. Well, I certainly recognize the role
that that split in the formula has traditionally played. I
would say the Jobs Plan thinks beyond the year-to-year funding
that we are accustomed to because we know that a different
ratio may characterize the once-in-a-lifetime transformational
investments that we think we need to make as a country. So I
think even though legislatively those two things may come to be
joined together potentially, depending on how things proceed, I
would say conceptually we are really talking about two
different things.
Of course, I think most of the communities we speak to are
perhaps less concerned with some of the technicalities than
they are with making sure that these priorities are funded. And
I know that that is certainly important in rural areas that
have a lot on the line in terms of whether we continue to
support critical connections, whether we are talking about
roads and highway, transit, or other means of getting around.
I want to echo what some of your colleagues have mentioned,
that transit, I think, in the public imagination sometimes is
conceived of as strictly a big-city phenomenon. But, of course,
it is often in small communities that it can make a big
difference as well.
Senator Cramer. Again, you know, underfunding highways to,
you know, this other issue, it has obviously a detriment as
well. So the bottom line is we need enough money obviously to
do all the things we want to do. In the meantime, I would like
to hang onto at least as much of the formula as we can, if not
all of it.
You know, I am going to switch for just a second. Secretary
Fudge, great to see you again, by the way. I look forward to
working with you some more. As you know, access to affordable
housing obviously is a challenge for a lot of Americans,
including those in rural America. So both highways and housing
have a lot in common. The Housing Choice Voucher program at HUD
helps about 5 million low-income people afford safe housing and
decent housing in the private market. And it is administered,
of course, by local public housing agencies, PHAs, as you know,
and families that receive a voucher have 60 days to find a
unit. They then pay 30 percent of household income toward rent
and utilities while the PHA pays the landlord the remaining
rent. And HCVs increase, of course, stability. They reduce
homelessness and each year lift more than 1 million people out
of poverty.
As HUD acknowledges in its 2019 Evidence Matters report,
landlord participation in the program determines the number of
available units--it is pretty obvious, right?--and their
geographic distribution, of course, which in turn affects
tenant mobility and healthy housing, fair housing.
Unfortunately, there are things like rent payment
standards, administrative processes, and misrepresentations of
the program that can cause uncertainty in the operations and
deter owners from participating in the program. In fact, we
know that landlord participation is declining, with an average
of 10,000 housing providers having left the program each year
between 2010 and 2016.
So as part of improving the voucher holders' access, today
Senator Coons and I introduced a bill to increase resources and
reduce the programmatic barriers in the HCV program that will
help attract, hopefully attract and retain landlords. It is
called the ``Choice in Affordable Housing Act''. It provides
$500 million to create what we call the ``Herschel Lashkowitz
Housing Partnership Fund'', which is named after a long-time
State Senator and mayor of Fargo who was a strong advocate for
affordable housing. Just quickly, it would offer a signing
bonus to landlord with units in low-poverty areas, provide
security deposit assistance so that the tenants can better
afford to meet the required deposits, provide a financial
bonus, increase funding to the tribal HUD VASH program and use
some neighborhood-specific data, and reduce the specs and
delays. I just say all that as my time runs out, Secretary
Fudge, just to tell you that I am looking forward to spending
more time with you to talk about the specifics as we roll it
out.
Secretary Fudge. I look forward to it.
Senator Cramer. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Cramer.
Senator Sinema from Arizona is recognized for 5 minutes.
Senator Sinema. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you to our witnesses for being here today. Secretary Fudge, it
is wonderful to see you again.
You know, we have a lot of work to do to expand
opportunities for first-time homebuyers and ensure that there
is sufficient affordable housing available to Arizonans. The
state of the housing market in Arizona is particularly
challenging right now. It is a very hot market, and I hear from
my friends and neighbors that a home will go on the market in
Phoenix and receive dozens of offers within 48 hours. Many of
these offers exceed the traditional 20-percent downpayment.
Some offers are entirely in cash, and that shows the highly
competitive nature of the market. I have even heard of homes
that are selling for 20 or 30 percent over the list price paid
entirely in cash.
So Arizonans who are looking to buy their first home are
feeling very frustrated, and it is becoming too expensive to
buy a home in Arizona. This has real implications for Arizona
families. Delaying home ownership makes it harder for families
to build long-term wealth, and it can force changes to other
major life events, like taking a new job or getting married or
starting a family.
So what types of solutions do you think could alleviate
some of the housing supply challenges that we are seeing in
Arizona?
Secretary Fudge. Thank you very much, Senator, for the
question and just know that I appreciate our conversations as
well during my confirmation, et cetera.
Let me say there are a couple of things that the Jobs Plan
is going to do to make this much better. We know that the
biggest problem is that there is just not enough supply of
affordable and low-income housing. It just does not exist. And
so one of the things that the Jobs Plan is going to do is
create as many as 2 million new houses or housing units, in
addition to, with some of the tax credits, we think we can add
another 500,000 houses or units of housing.
We also are talking about how we deal with assisting
homebuyers, whether it be homebuyer assistance, technical
assistance, downpayment assistance. We are working on all of
those issues because we know that there are so many impediments
to purchasing housing, but the biggest issue really is a supply
issue. So that is the biggest thinking that we are working on,
and that is a part of the jobs bill.
Senator Sinema. Thank you, Secretary. I know that some of
these shortages and price issues are also due to global supply
chain issues, particularly lumber shortages, that are
contributing to rising construction costs. So my next question
relates to manufactured housing. So whether we are talking
about traditional manufactured housing or the growth of tiny
homes, it is clear that these products are going to play an
important role in satisfying consumer demand and providing
affordable choices.
So what role do you believe that manufactured housing plays
in addressing ongoing housing supply challenges? And how can we
work collaborative to provide more safe, high-quality
affordable choices to prospective homeowners?
Secretary Fudge. I had an opportunity just last week to
have a meeting with the home builders, and they have talked
about the fact that lumber alone has gone up more than 200
percent since COVID began. We know that the cost of trying to
build a single-family house today based upon lumber costs, et
cetera, has gone up more than $32,000. So the things that we
are trying to do with resources like low-income tax credits,
like HOME that can assist with bridging the gap between the
cost of housing and making it more affordable for people to
purchase, we have put in place a new tax credit as well. So
those are things that have been considered within the jobs
package, and I just do say to you that manufactured homes is an
option that we too seldom look at. It is affordable, it is
resilient, it is energy efficient, and it is something that we
should do more and more of, because I think that it is quick to
make sure that we can put in place, so it is fast to put in
place, and it is just a good option, as are tiny homes and
others. But I think the real issue becomes how do we make
whatever the product is more affordable by the use of private
investments, especially by way of tax credits.
Senator Sinema. I agree. Before my time expires, I just
want to ask you a final question about homelessness. We
continue to see a larger number of individuals experiencing
homelessness due to the economic damage from the pandemic. It
is concerning, and we must ensure that our communities have the
resources to provide safe, stable housing and other vital wrap-
around services that can help folks get back on their feet.
So I wanted to raise with you that we are seeing a growing
number of seniors experiencing homelessness in Arizona, and we
have seen this trend on the rise for the past 2 years. Now, it
is a challenging crisis, and there are no easy answers. But I
would like to ask that our teams work together to identify some
solutions to address senior homelessness and, of course, work
to earn bipartisan support.
Secretary Fudge. I would be happy to work with you. We have
a lot of options that we can look at. Certainly, of course,
Congress just did give us resources for emergency vouchers, so
I would be happy to work with your team.
Senator Sinema. Thank you so much, Secretary.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Sinema.
Senator Daines from Montana is recognized for 5 minutes.
Senator Daines. Thank you, Chairman.
Secretary Fudge, on the matter of housing insecurity, you
told the White House press pool on March 18th, ``I do not know
where my Republican colleagues live if they do not think that
there is not a problem, but there is.''
With all due respect, contrary to your assertion that
Republicans are out of touch with the difficulties of housing-
insecure Americans, whether urban or rural, we do understand.
In fact, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, home
prices rose about 11 percent between the fourth quarter of 2019
and 2020 nationwide, and let me tell you, where I live, in
Montana, annual price appreciation was 15.5 percent, the second
fastest in the Nation. In fact, in my hometown of Bozeman, it
has gotten to the point now where housing is not affordable.
The median price is now around $700,000.
Low-income families, seniors struggling to get by, young
families just starting out, municipal workers that form the
backbone of our communities, they cannot catch a break. And
turning back to a point some of my colleagues have already
raised, what concerns me is the fact that your agency intends
to provide assistance to illegal immigrants at the same time
American citizens are homeless.
Considering that taxpayer dollars are a finite resource,
should we really be extending housing assistance to persons who
enter our country unlawfully when there are hundreds of
thousands of homeless Americans, to say nothing of some 40,000
homeless veterans, people who are willing to die for our
freedoms in our country?
Secretary Fudge. Again, I would say that we have no
intention of violating the current law. I have said it. I mean
it. What you are talking about is waiving the document
requirement, which will not, in fact, make it easier for
people, because we know that families who are ineligible
eventually are going to be removed from the system. But we do
need to give our agencies the ability to conduct determinations
as to whether these people do qualify, because initially we do
not know if they qualify or not. But our goal is to make sure
that people are not sleeping on the street.
And so we know that we are going to be able to meet your
requirements and the requirements of the law. I am not at all
concerned about the fact that the waiver is going to increase
the number of illegal, undocumented people in this country.
Senator Daines. Well, sheltering the homeless is critical,
and as a former Member of Congress yourself, I know you will
agree that taxpayer funds should be spent on citizens, and our
first priority has to be our constituents.
Secretary Fudge. Absolutely.
Senator Daines. Shifting gears, we have witnessed record
prices for wood products and other construction materials this
spring, which has played a role in increases in the cost of
housing, big increases. It is going to take some time for the
supply chains to recover, but until then, construction costs
are going to remain exorbitant.
You have mentioned that one of the President's priorities
is the construction of new affordable housing units. Secretary
Fudge, how will HUD address increased costs of timber, plywood,
and other critical building materials?
Secretary Buttigieg. Well, that is a tough one, certainly,
because, you know, unfortunately, HUD does not have the ability
to determine what the market will get for lumber. But what we
can do is to make that housing more affordable by some of the
things that are in the Jobs Plan. We can assist with bridging
the gap between what makes a payment affordable and not
affordable. We can assist with, again, as I said, looking at
downpayment, first-time homebuyer, looking at how we use tax
credits.
There are many things we can do to assist, but we really do
not have the ability to determine what the cost is really going
to be because the market drives a lot of that, and it is just
something that is not within our purview to do.
Senator Daines. One of the real challenges--and thank you,
Secretary Fudge--has been inflation. We are already beginning
to see the effects of inflation that diminishes the spending
power certainly of so many working Americans. And it is the
result of some of the ill-advised, this very partisan stimulus
package. Another massive spending package before we even reach
appropriations season will only serve to accelerate inflation
and make the cost of housing more unaffordable for lower-income
families at a time when they need help.
I want to shift gears now and talk about permitting reform
for Secretary Buttigieg. There are significant infrastructure
needs in my State, a State like Montana--what is that?
Chairman Brown. Sorry.
Senator Daines. There are significant infrastructure needs
in my State and throughout the country. We have got broad,
bipartisan support for funding real infrastructure like roads,
bridges, and ports, et cetera. I am going to cut to the chase
here because I am out of time. Secretary Buttigieg, how does
the Administration plan to address the issue of how long it
takes to go through the permitting process? It can take up to 5
years. It is a real problem. When you get the funds to put the
infrastructure in, but then we are caught up in 5 years of red
tape, how does the Administration plan to address this? And can
you commit to working with Congress to significantly reducing
permitting times to get these projects to the point where they
are starting to dig?
Secretary Buttigieg. I would welcome opportunities to work
with Congress on this. Of course, I do not mean anything that
would be cutting corners in terms of safety or environmental
expectations, but where we see a process taking longer than it
has to or duplication in permitting or an opportunity for our
Department to be more user-friendly, helping to move these
processes along, we would welcome that so that we minimize the
length of time and the expense of any project funded with
Federal dollars.
Senator Daines. Thanks to both of you.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Daines.
Senator Ossoff from Georgia is recognized for 5 minutes.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Buttigieg, there has been already early stage
planning for passenger rail linking Atlanta and Charlotte, with
a possible stop in the Athens area. There is also advanced
discussion of rail connections between Atlanta and Savannah
with a possible connection in the Macon area.
The South is often left out of intercity passenger rail
discussions. Will you please commit to working with my office
to ascertain what can be accomplished through upcoming
infrastructure legislation to expand intercity rail connections
in the Southeast region and comment on such initiatives, if you
see fit?
Secretary Buttigieg. Thank you. Yes, I would welcome a
chance to work with you on this. I think many of the most
compelling opportunities for strong rail connections are in the
South and the Southeast, and as you mentioned, it is not just
the cities at the endpoints of these routes, but those in
between, Macon on the one route to Athens or Commerce
communities in the other. All of these could unlock opportunity
throughout the region, and when that happens, it makes the
country as a whole stronger, which is part of why the
President's Jobs Plan includes such robust resources to expand
access to quality rail in the U.S.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I would like to
ask you a couple questions about infrastructure and transit in
metro Atlanta, first about the MARTA system and then about the
BeltLine project. As you well know and as we have discussed,
since the mid-1960s MARTA has been helping folks get around
metro Atlanta, but particularly as the pace of growth of the
metro area has risen in the last couple of decades, we have
chronically underinvested in this vital transit system. There
is great interest in expanding bus rapid transit to connect,
for example, destinations in Clayton and DeKalb and Gwinnett
counties, also discussed rail extensions. Will you commit to
working with my office, the city of Atlanta, and relevant
regional planning authorities in the State of Georgia to
develop a comprehensive plan to strengthen and expand MARTA
service?
Secretary Buttigieg. Absolutely. As we have discussed, both
familiar routes and resources in MARTA and new possibilities
around bus rapid transit can do a lot to alleviate congestion,
expand opportunity, and, of course, that has climate benefits
and air quality benefits, too. So we are always eager to find
new ways to partner on that, and, again, I am glad that the
President's American Jobs Plan has the resources we need to
allow local authorities not just to hold onto what they have
got, but to actually plan for the future and expand what is
available to those they serve.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. And touching on
the BeltLine initiative, you know, there are over 150
infrastructure projects nationwide that reuse existing or
abandoned infrastructure and transit infrastructure,
reimagining and reutilizing this space to create new mobility
and quality of life, and the Atlanta BeltLine, 7 of the 22-mile
loop of former freight rail have already been transformed into
a multi-use trail with transit capacity, affordable housing,
parks, and green space planned. There has been more than $7.9
billion in private investment in this initiative. I would like
the Federal Government to get involved in helping to complete
this project.
Will you please meet with my office in coming weeks to
discuss what we can do to advance completion of the BeltLine?
And I am so looking forward to welcoming you to Georgia
tomorrow, and I think we will have the opportunity to inspect
it.
Secretary Buttigieg. Thank you. Yes, really looking forward
to a chance to see it in person, welcome a chance to connect
with your office further on how to encourage development. And
we take a lot of pride in the Federal dollars, I think in the
TIGER Program, that went into helping establish the earlier
phases of the BeltLine. Whenever you can reuse and repurpose
resources like that, as you mentioned, it often can unlock
private dollars that follow the public investments that have
been made. And, of course, we need to focus on making sure it
is accessible, that the housing that grows up around it is
affordable. And I know that you have been emphatic about the
importance of that, and I am eager to see it for myself.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you so much, Mr. Secretary.
And, finally, to touch on the importance of completing the
Savannah Harbor Expansion Project, this is the deepening from
approximately 42 to 47 feet of the Savannah River at the
entrance to the port of Savannah. You and I discussed this
earlier this week. I was in Savannah a couple of weeks ago
meeting with Mayor Johnson, the port authorities, the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers. This project has been consistently over
budget and behind schedule, but we are now very, very close to
completing it. I secured a commitment from the President's
nominee for the Deputy position at OMB a couple of months ago
to prioritize this project.
Mr. Secretary, will you commit to working with me and Mayor
Van Johnson of Savannah to ensure that Savannah is timely and
fully completing this deepening and expansion project, I hope
by the end of this year?
Secretary Buttigieg. Yes, I look forward to working with
you on this. This is something of not just regional but I think
national interest given the size and capacity of this port, and
it is important to us to see it through to timely completion.
Senator Ossoff. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Ossoff.
Senator Warnock from Georgia is recognized for 5 minutes.
Senator Warnock. Thank you so very much, Chairman Brown,
and thank you both, Secretary Fudge and Secretary Buttigieg,
for your leadership. Congratulations on your appointment.
On Monday, I had an opportunity to speak with Nuria
Fernandez, the nominee for Federal Transit Administrator, about
the capital investment grant program and the need to invest
more in both urban and rural public transportation service for
communities that need that investment.
Secretary Buttigieg, I look forward to working with you on
these critical transportation priorities, but today I want to
talk to you about reconnecting communities, literally
reconnecting them, and reversing the damage done to
predominantly poor and Black communities during the
construction of our interstate highway system.
You and I have spent a little time together down in Atlanta
and at Ebenezer Church where I serve. Are you familiar, do you
remember the Downtown Connector or Interstate 75/85 that runs
through the core of Atlanta right next to my church?
Secretary Buttigieg. Yes, I remember.
Senator Warnock. And are you aware that its construction in
the 1950s and 1960s displaced or separated historic Black
neighborhoods in Atlanta? It literally split Sweet Auburn
Avenue with all of these Black businesses that were thriving,
split them in two?
Secretary Buttigieg. Yes, unfortunately, this is a pattern
that a lot of federally supported highways in that period
followed, and I am aware that that had enormous impact in that
community.
Senator Warnock. And the irony is that this interstate that
we are talking about, 75/85 in Atlanta, is called, ironically,
``the Connector,'' and it did exactly the opposite, separating
these precious neighborhoods in Atlanta.
Given this unfortunate history, what responsibility do you
think that we as policymakers have today when making new
physical infrastructure investments?
Secretary Buttigieg. Well, I think when you break
something, you have a responsibility to put it right. And the
reality is that Federal transportation policy broke something,
broke a community in two in an important way. And that creates
a responsibility for us today to use resources to create
connections where there had been divisions.
We know how to do it. At least in dialog with the community
we can arrive at ways to do it. And it is one of the reasons
why the Thriving Communities initiative that is envisioned in
the President's American Jobs Plan creates real dollars to make
that possible. This is clearly a responsibility of the same
Federal Government that in some cases created these problems.
But it is an opportunity not just to mend what was broken, but
I think to lift up entire communities through the benefits that
would come from them being better connected.
Senator Warnock. And can you speak a little bit about some
ways we can redress these inequities?
Secretary Buttigieg. Well, I think it, of course, needs to
be tailored to the specific community, and I would welcome an
opportunity to speak with you more about some of the ideas that
have emerged locally. Sometimes it has to do with reenvisioning
where a highway or piece of infrastructure ought to go. Other
times it is leaving it intact but finding ways to connect
across, above, or beneath it. And, again, these are the kinds
of things that in the Jobs Plan, which, for example, includes
$5 billion to make sure that future projects help rather than
harm on transportation equity and greater connectivity. These
are the things we could be doing together, provided we had the
resources to work with, and I would welcome the opportunity
both to secure those resources and to put them to good use.
Senator Warnock. Great. And you are absolutely right. I
agree with you that the Federal Government has a responsibility
to repair what it actually broken, and it is the reason I am an
original cosponsor of the Reconnecting Communities Act. And I
know you are coming to Atlanta tomorrow, so we will get a
chance to see this highway, again, ironically called ``the
Connector,'' with me and Senator Ossoff.
Will you commit to working with me and my colleagues on
this legislation to ensure that projects that seek to reconnect
these communities in Georgia, like the more appropriately named
``Midtown Connector'' and ``Project Stitch'' in Atlanta, as
well as the reimagining of the I-16 off ramp in Savannah, my
hometown, are realized?
Secretary Buttigieg. Yes, I welcome a chance to work with
you on this, and, again, this is in the spirit of a major
Administration and departmental priority, and so I appreciate
the work that has gone on and the leadership already to put
together policies that would make a difference here.
Senator Warnock. Great. Thank you so much.
Mr. Chairman, I look forward to engaging Secretary Fudge. I
wanted to talk to her about the social determinants of health,
and I know it is something she is passionate about, and we will
have time to talk about in the near future, I hope.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Senator Warnock, and she
absolutely is. We have all had those conversations with her.
Thank you.
Thanks to both of you. Secretary Fudge, thank you. Good to
see you again. Secretary Buttigieg, you, too. Thanks for
discussing why we need transformational coordinated investments
in our housing and transportation infrastructure. These
investments we know will create good American jobs and access
to opportunity while helping communities become more equitable
and affordable and resilient.
I want to clarify one thing with a brief question, a last
question to each of you. When people say ``labor costs,'' as
you heard in this Committee, what they mean is American workers
and fair wages. These jobs will be pay good wages and allow
workers to live with dignity in their communities they are
helping to build. They will spend those wages in their
communities at local businesses. Labor costs are the way people
make a living.
I want to close by bringing our discussion back to those
workers we serve and what this investment would mean in their
lives. I know you both understand dignity of work and what this
means. My question is more kind of an attitudinal, what sort of
visceral response perhaps might work. When was the moment each
of you--and I will start this time with you, Secretary
Buttigieg. I started with Secretary Fudge more often in this.
When was the moment you realized we needed a transformative
infrastructure investment in this country? When did you first
have that sort of vision and inspiration? For each of you.
Secretary Buttigieg. Well, every mayor does battle with
potholes, and I remember early in my time as mayor looking at
the condition of our streets and roads, the work that needed to
be done, and trying to do some mental math about what it would
take to have a great road network in our city, and turning to
my public works director and asking, ``With the funding we
have, how long would it take for us to redo every lane mile of
street in the city?'' And he let me know it would be on the
order of 50 to 100 years. And I thought, ``Great. All I need is
some kind of asphalt to be invented that in our snowy climate
could survive more than 8 or 10 years.''
That was just one example of many that showed to me what it
would mean not just to have more funding for the things we had
been doing all along like repaving roads, but more alternatives
for how people can get around. I think all of us have had
moments like that again and again, especially when traveling
overseas and seeing the kinds of transportation infrastructure
that citizens and other countries take for granted. I remember
being a student in the U.K. on a train that they do not
consider high speed, they just consider it regular speed, and
realizing maybe for the first time in a visceral sense that we
as Americans have come to settle for less. As somebody who
believes in the idea of Americans having the best in the world
at whatever we do--and that certainly ought to include
transportation--that pricked my national pride a little bit and
left me motivated to make sure that, whether we are talking
about roads or rail or housing or energy or anything else, we
have got the best in the world. And that is what I think the
President's American Jobs Plan can allow us finally to do in
our lifetime.
Chairman Brown. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Secretary Fudge, when did it sort of jump into your mind
the need for transformational investment in housing and
infrastructure?
Secretary Fudge. Really probably from the day I started to
work. I realized how it would take me four buses to get to
downtown Cleveland to go to work, and the only effective way to
do it was by car. I would have to carpool with people because
they did not have cars. And then we started in our infinite
wisdom to build more and more roads into the exurbs, way beyond
the suburbs, where people could not get to work. There was no
transportation to get them there, so they had to have a car.
And so you start to think about it maybe not in the way I think
about it now, but I knew there was a problem then, and it has
taken us an awful long time to get to this point to try to
address it.
Chairman Brown. Thank you. Excellent answers. Thank you
both for being here.
For Senators who wish to submit questions for the record,
those questions are due by the close of business next Thursday,
May 27th. For witnesses, please submit your responses to
questions for the record 45 days from today.
Thank you both very much for being here. Thank you both
very much for your public service. Good to see you both.
The Committee is adjourned. Best wishes.
Secretary Fudge. Thank you.
Secretary Buttigieg. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 12:21 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[Prepared statements and responses to written questions
supplied for the record follow:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN SHERROD BROWN
We are honored today to welcome Secretary Marcia Fudge of the
Department of Housing and Urban Development and Secretary Pete
Buttigieg of the Department of Transportation.
President Biden promised an Administration that reflects the
country it serves, and we are lucky to have two Cabinet departments led
by former mayors from the industrial heartland.
Mayors know better than most how, for decades, an economy centered
on Wall Street has left American cities, towns, and rural areas to fend
for themselves.
We've seen the damage: housing that poisons our kids with lead
paint and mold. Homes bought up by rich outside investors and left
empty to fall into disrepair. Roads and bridges that are falling apart.
And neighborhoods and workers that are cut off from opportunity.
Now, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to rebuild our
country's infrastructure.
The investments we can make through HUD and DOT can bring down the
cost of housing and transportation for workers and their families.
These are the costs that matter to most people's lives--your rent,
your mortgage, your utilities, your car payment, or your bus fare.
And these investments will create jobs and grow local economies.
When work has dignity, everyone can afford housing and afford to get to
work.
Over the past few months, this Committee has heard from leaders in
housing and public transportation--not only experts in Washington, but
local leaders who understand what communities really need to grow. They
have illustrated how decades of underinvestment in our Nation's housing
and transit have set us back.
It's common sense--when we don't invest in the infrastructure that
a modern economy requires, we lose out to our competitors. Communities
stagnate or, in the memorable words of our colleague from Montana, dry
up. Inequality gets worse, pollution harms families, and jobs and
prosperity flow to only a small number of wealthy cities--or they move
out of the country altogether.
Rural communities have not gotten the investment they need to
produce enough housing for local families, bridges are in poor
condition, and public transit providers need continued help to serve
the one million rural households who don't have a car--a number that is
only growing as baby boomers age.
And all of these problems are often at their most persistent in
Black and Brown neighborhoods that have never had transformative
Federal investment in their communities.
As we discussed at our hearing on the legacy of redlining, we are
still living in communities we built in the 20th Century, with the
biases of the time.
It's time to invest in creating the communities that will meet the
needs of the country in the 21st Century. And this time, we cannot
leave anyone behind. We will rebuild our communities to work for
everyone.
The American Jobs Plan is a bold effort to reverse decades of
neglect, to rebuild, and to put in place the foundation for a 21st
century economy, where people have the jobs and the economic security
to raise a family, to choose the community they want to live in, to
start a small business.
It would produce, preserve, and retrofit over two million
affordable homes, address the huge backlog of capital needs in public
housing, and make our homes more energy efficient to bring down utility
costs--all while creating job opportunities in the building trades and
other sectors.
The American Jobs Plan would construct new bus rapid transit lines
in Columbus, Cincinnati, and other cities in all regions of the
country. It would finally tackle the repair backlog in the transit
industry that is now estimated to be more than $105 billion.
President Biden and I also agree on the need to replace aging
transit buses with zero-emissions vehicles made right here in America.
The Jobs Plan would allow us to replace 50,000 buses.
The Administration also recognizes the importance of ensuring that
the investments in housing and transit work together, and of
encouraging our communities to think about how they can help make it
affordable for families to live there.
We know when a business decides where to build a new manufacturing
facility, or a young family is deciding whether to relocate for a new
job, they don't only consider one factor--they think about how they'll
get to work, how long will the commute be, will their whole paycheck
get eaten up by rent or the mortgage, is there broadband at home, is
there childcare nearby they can afford.
All of these pieces fit together, and communities need all of them
if they want to thrive.
While much of today's conversation will focus on the housing and
transit investments in our Committee's jurisdiction, we must tackle ALL
of these critical investments.
The Brent Spence Bridge over the Ohio River between Cincinnati and
Northern Kentucky carries approximately 3 percent of our Nation's GDP,
but the bridge is dangerously outdated.
And Brent Spence is far from the only one--our Committee Members'
States have thousands of large and small bridges in need of repair, and
those bridges carry millions of cars and buses every day.
I look forward to working with Secretary Buttigieg and my
bipartisan partners in the Bridge Investment Act to make sure that
Congress finally tackles overdue bridge projects.
And we call this the American Jobs Plan for a reason--almost all of
these are jobs cannot be shipped overseas--you can't repair an American
railroad track or an American bridge from China.
We're going to build new buses and rail cars and homes in America,
with American raw materials and American union workers.
The President called this a ``blue collar blueprint to rebuild
America.'' He's right.
We need bold action to rebuild our infrastructure, to protect our
communities from climate disasters, and to put Americans to work in
good-paying jobs.
The former mayors here today know the pride people take in their
neighborhoods and their hometowns. People want to see their communities
thrive and grow, they want job opportunities for their kids, they want
transportation and housing options they can afford.
And local leaders, of both parties, are desperate for the resources
and support to make those dreams a reality. For decades, they've
watched Washington point to soaring stock prices as evidence the
economy is doing well--but that Wall Street wealth never translated
into investment in their own Main Streets.
We are changing that approach, starting now.
I look forward to working with our witnesses today to invest in the
people and the places that make our country work. Welcome to Secretary
Marcia Fudge and Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
______
PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR PATRICK J. TOOMEY
Mr. Chairman, thank you. Secretary Fudge and Secretary Buttigieg,
welcome to you both.
The topic of today's hearing is an important one: infrastructure. A
week ago I met with President Biden and a group of my Republican
colleagues to discuss a potential bipartisan infrastructure package.
Secretary Buttigieg was also there. It was a constructive meeting, and
I'm encouraged by the President's willingness to negotiate.
There are three features of an infrastructure package that should
have broad, bipartisan support. First, it should responsibly boost
support for real physical infrastructure. That's the platforms and
systems we share and use to move people, goods, and services. That
means things like roads, bridges, ports, airports, and transit.
Second, a package cannot undo the 2017 tax reforms that helped
create the best economy of my lifetime. Before COVID, we were
experiencing an economic boom. We had the lowest unemployment rate in
50 years, more jobs than people looking for work, a record low poverty
rate, and wage growth across the board with wages growing fastest for
the lowest income earners. That's the economy we should work to get
back to.
Third, we should not pay for an infrastructure package by borrowing
billions of more dollars. The good news is we have hundreds of billions
of unspent COVID funds that Congress can repurpose to pay for
infrastructure. According to CBO, over $700 billion of the Democrats'
March so-called COVID bill won't be spent until after 2021. In fact,
the Biden administration itself has already begun repurposing unneeded
COVID funds. HHS has diverted $1.7 billion meant for COVID to its
unaccompanied minors program.
What Congress shouldn't do is spend more taxpayer dollars to
achieve liberal wish-lists that expand the welfare State. Take housing,
for example.
The Biden administration is proposing almost a quarter-of-a-
trillion dollars for housing in its infrastructure plan.
Let's be clear: housing is housing. People certainly need housing,
but housing is not infrastructure. The Administration now wants this
new spending after Democrats in March spent $32 billion for housing.
Democrats did that after Congress provided more than $80 billion for
housing in response to COVID in 2020, which was on top of the $50
billion we annually spend on HUD programs alone, the billions we spend
on other housing programs, and the tens of billions more we forgo in
tax revenues to subsidize housing.
The same holds true for the Administration's transit proposal. The
Biden administration wants to spend $85 billion for transit as part of
an infrastructure bill. And the Administration is proposing this after
Democrats in March spent $30 billion for transit.
Democrats did that after Congress provided more than $40 billion
for transit in response to COVID in 2020, which was on top of the $13
billion we annually spend on transit. That's a total of $83 billion
that Congress spent on transit over the course of one year. Amazingly,
that number exceeds both the annual operating and capital costs of all
the transit agencies in the U.S combined in 2019.
Democrats tried to justify this spending by saying that transit
systems would collapse from declines in ridership and State and local
government revenues. But ridership did not drop to zero and has
improved. And, on the whole, State and local tax collections set a new
record in 2020. For example, California has a budget surplus of over
$75 billion that it may use to send out ``free'' money to Californians.
Plus, over the course of a year, we sent more than $850 billion to
States and local governments for COVID relief.
Some provisions in the Administration's so-called infrastructure
plan are so unrelated to infrastructure, it's hard to read them with a
straight face. For example, $400 billion for Medicaid caregiving
services, $100 billion in consumer rebates to purchase electric
vehicles, and $10 billion for a Civilian Climate Corps.
In fact, overall, less than 6 percent of the Administration's $2.2
trillion infrastructure plan goes to roads and bridges. This excessive
Government spending is not sustainable and is contributing to inflation
that will harm average Americans. Inflation is essentially an extra tax
they must bear because goods and services will cost more.
None of this should come as a surprise. Earlier this year President
Obama's Treasury Secretary Larry Summers was warning us of the negative
inflationary risks of excess spending. And that warning was regarding
the Democrats' March $1.9 trillion spending bill. But Democrats ignored
his warning. And now the Democrats are coming back to spend hundreds of
billions more.
Let me end where I began. In my view, it's possible for us to enact
a bipartisan bill that responsibly boosts Federal support for real
physical infrastructure. If all sides are willing to negotiate in good
faith, an agreement can be struck. Let's focus on that, rather than
efforts to increase wasteful Government spending that will harm
Americans by contributing to inflation.
______
PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARCIA L. FUDGE
Secretary, Department of Housing and Urban Development
May 20, 2021
Chairman Brown, Ranking Member Toomey, and the distinguished
Members of the Senate Banking Committee: thank you for this opportunity
to discuss President Biden's American Jobs Plan.
Today, as our Nation continues to rebuild from the COVID-19
pandemic, we face a fundamental decision about our future.
We can choose to take a bold new direction that will make the
United States more prosperous, more equitable, and more resilient in
the decades to come. A bold new direction that better positions us to
win the global competition for the 21st century. That bold new
direction is the American Jobs Plan.
If we do not pass the American Jobs Plan, we will choose instead a
very different path. We will return our Nation to the position we
occupied before COVID-19. To an America beset by crumbling bridges,
buildings, and homes. To an America unprepared to respond to the
existential danger posed by climate change. To an America grappling
with an affordable housing crisis that threatens the security and the
basic dignity of families in every corner of our Nation.
Even before the pandemic, nearly 11 million Americans spent more
than half of their incomes on rent. COVID-19 has only made this
situation worse.
Our Nation's affordable housing crisis is especially severe among
low-income households and communities of color. It keeps millions of
Americans up at night, wondering if they will need to choose between
paying for housing--or other essentials such as health care, groceries,
or school supplies. Moreover, it limits their ability to save and
invest in their family's future--from buying a home to starting a
college fund for their children.
Today's affordable housing crisis is due--in large part--to
yesterday's lack of investment. Both the public and private sectors
have failed to produce enough housing for our growing population and to
maintain our existing stock of affordable housing. We are at risk of
losing thousands of affordable homes, including many in public housing,
that have fallen into disrepair and may threaten the safety of
residents.
The American Jobs Plan would reverse this trend and address our
affordable housing crisis head on. The plan invests $213 billion to
build and modernize more than two million affordable and sustainable
places to live. It provides $75 billion in targeted tax credits,
formula funding, grants, and rental assistance that can fill the gap
between how much it costs to produce or preserve housing--and how much
families are able to pay. In addition, it will allow HUD, the
Department of Energy, and our partners across the Federal Government to
fight climate change by making our homes more energy efficient--and
better equipped to withstand extreme weather events.
The American Jobs Plan addresses restrictive zoning regulations
that artificially limit our Nation's supply of affordable housing.
These constraints raise the price of housing--and increase
transportation time and costs for workers who must commute longer
distances from the areas where they can afford to live. To help solve
these problems, the American Jobs Plan incentivizes local jurisdictions
to take concrete steps to eliminate local regulations that restrict
housing choices for people with low or moderate incomes.
In addition to creating more housing, the American Jobs Plan
preserves affordable housing that already exists. Nearly 2 million
people--including more than 1 million Americans of color--currently
live in public housing. Yet much of our public housing inventory is
more than 50 years old and faces significant capital needs.
That is why the American Jobs Plan contains $40 billion to
rehabilitate and repair our public housing infrastructure. This funding
would dramatically improve the quality of life for people who live in
public housing. Furthermore, public housing is often located in under-
resourced communities that are especially vulnerable to the dire
effects of climate change. Investments that help reduce energy use,
increase resilience, or fortify against extreme weather events can help
mitigate these risks.
We know that stable, affordable housing can serve as a springboard
for renters to achieve the dream of home ownership. To help more
Americans realize that dream, the American Jobs Plan includes a new
Federal tax credit based on the proposed Neighborhood Homes Investment
Act. The new credit could lead to the construction and renovation of
approximately 500,000 single-family homes during the next decade. This,
in turn, can enable more families to become homeowners and build a
source of wealth they can pass down to future generations.
All told, the bold investments provided in The American Jobs Plan
underscore a fundamental truth: that housing represents a vital part of
our Nation's infrastructure.
A secure and stable home represents more than four walls and a
roof. It can connect us to better jobs, more affordable transportation
options, and communities with cleaner air and cleaner water. It can
connect our children with good schools--providing them with a pathway
to earn a brighter future.
Our homes are bedrock, brick and mortar institutions that lay the
foundation for a stronger and more connected society--just like our
roads, our highways, and our airports. To put it simply, our homes
serve as a bridge to greater opportunities and a better life.
If we want to ensure the United States remains the greatest Nation
in the world during the 21st century, then we must first take care of
home--in the most literal sense.
That is why I am honored to testify today alongside Secretary
Buttigieg. HUD and the Department of Transportation are committed to
working with one another to help communities build more sustainable
infrastructure--and expand access to both affordable housing and
affordable options for transportation.
The Biden-Harris administration understands that--in order to
successfully enact the American Jobs Plan--we will need to deepen the
partnership between our two agencies. HUD is committed to joining
forces with the DOT to help ensure that the historic investments
contained in the American Jobs Plan are delivered with efficiency and
with equity.
Together, we can help revitalize our Nation's infrastructure--and
create communities that are more thriving, more resilient, and more
interconnected than ever before.
With that, on behalf of the Department of Housing and Urban
Development, I am happy to answer any questions you may have.
______
PREPARED STATEMENT OF PETE BUTTIGIEG
Secretary, Department of Transportation
May 20, 2021
Chairman Brown, Ranking Member Toomey, and Members of the
Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today,
and for your support of the Department of Transportation and our vital
mission. I'm honored to be here with Secretary Fudge to discuss
America's transportation and housing needs--particularly in this moment
of great challenge and opportunity.
We know that public transit has been hit hard by the pandemic. I
want to thank you and your colleagues for passing the American Rescue
Plan and other relief packages that provided a lifeline for public
transit, the people who depend on it, and the essential transit workers
who get people where they need to go.
Public transit is key to building vibrant and interconnected
communities, creating jobs, reducing pollution, combating climate
change, advancing racial equity, and providing travel options for
everyone. Too many families across the Nation are forced to choose
between living impossibly far away from work so they can afford
housing, or paying more for housing than they can afford in order to
have a reasonable commute. This puts a toll on working families, who
lose precious time with their loved ones and money needed for other
essentials. Our lowest-income Americans are spending more on housing
and transportation than they're taking in each month. Building transit
and affordable housing alongside each other can be transformational for
communities and families.
That is why I'm so grateful to be sitting next to Secretary Fudge
at this hearing.
When people can move safely and easily in their community by public
transit, foot, bike, wheelchair, or any other means, it can improve the
lives of those who call that community home. That's why transit-
oriented development and public transit is such a priority for our
Department and for me personally. We have already made $180 million
available for cleaner transit buses. We allocated $187 million to help
communities expand Bus Rapid Transit. We recently made $10 million
available to help more local governments plan for transit-oriented
development in their communities. I'm also pleased to announce that DOT
will soon issue new guidance to help local communities and other
prospective borrowers use the Department's transit-oriented development
financing programs. And I'm thrilled that DOT is reinvigorating a
partnership with the Department of Housing and Urban Development to
identify ways to provide more affordable housing choices near high
quality transit. We are looking for opportunities to work with
additional agencies, including EPA and USDA, to make walking, biking,
public transit, and other transportation options more available to
disadvantaged and rural communities.
These important steps will benefit communities across the country.
But we must do far more. We face a $1 trillion backlog in needed
repairs and improvements across our transportation infrastructure. The
consequences of decades of disinvestment are felt in every State, and
have fallen most heavily on low-income communities and communities of
color, who are nearly four times more likely to commute by public
transit.
Our status quo is unsustainable--it's unfair and it's holding our
people and economy back. And years of tinkering around the edges have
not worked.
That brings us to President Biden's American Jobs Plan. It is a
once-in-a-generation opportunity to meet this moment.
As we rebuild from the worst economic crisis in generations, this
plan will provide the largest investment in American jobs since World
War II, all with protections for existing labor standards. It will
create millions of good-paying jobs, the majority of which will not
require a college degree, for Americans to help expand and operate our
public transit system, modernize our roads and bridges, and build the
electric vehicles of the future.
It will double Federal investment--$85 billion--for public transit,
making it a more reliable, attractive, and accessible option to more
people in more communities.
It will help us tackle the climate crisis by making public transit
the option of choice for more people, by building a network of 500,000
electric vehicle chargers, and by replacing nearly 40 percent of the
existing diesel transit vehicle fleet with electric vehicles. Chairman
Brown, I thank you for your leadership on reducing fossil fuel
emissions in the transportation sector, and for ensuring that the
vehicles of the future are built by union workers here in the U.S.
This plan would also be the largest investment in transportation
equity in history. At least 40 percent of the benefits of the plan's
climate investments will flow to overburdened and underserved
communities. And the plan has $20 billion to reconnect neighborhoods
cut off by past transportation decisions, as well as another $20
billion to improve road safety for all users.
I believe this is the best chance in our lifetime to modernize our
infrastructure so Americans can thrive. This is our chance to provide
current and future generations with the type of investment our
forebears gave us in the New Deal--and this time, to include all
Americans in the opportunities that come from that investment.
I look forward to working with this Committee to deliver for the
American people. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify, and I
will be happy to answer your questions.
RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR TOOMEY
FROM MARCIA L. FUDGE
Q.1. The last time a Capital Needs Assessment of HUD's public
housing was conducted was in 2010. Do you believe HUD should
conduct another Capital Needs Assessment to accurately measure
the current capital needs backlog for public housing?
A.1. HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research is
currently exploring ways to estimate current capital needs
using existing HUD data sources. The Department believes that
the most cost- and time-efficient way to assess the portfolio's
capital needs would be to gather data on capital needs at the
property level much as it gathers data on the physical and
financial condition of public housing at the property level.
Just as HUD uses physical/financial assessment data to identify
where there needs to be intervention, HUD would be able to use
property-level capital needs data to work with PHAs to address
urgent capital needs and to craft strategies/policies to
efficiently address capital needs on an ongoing basis.
Based on the 2010 assessment and the level of funding
Congress has provided since, we are confident that the $40
billion proposed by the President in the Build Back Better
agenda is less than the total capital need but will leverage
other private and public financing sources to bring sufficient
resources to bear to transform the public housing stock for the
21st century.
Q.2. How did you come to the conclusion in the Biden
administration's infrastructure plan that you need $40 billion
for capital repairs for public housing?
A.2. Based on HUD's experience with programs to rehabilitate
and/or reposition Public Housing, HUD believes $40 billion is
the amount necessary to leverage additional public and private
funding to realize a holistic transformation in the nationwide
stock of public housing.
The modernization needs of the public housing stock extend
beyond the backlog of replacing existing capital items and
include the need to address concerns regarding the stock itself
(climate resilience, energy inefficiency, environmental
hazards, physical condition, functionality); the health,
safety, and quality of life for resident families (including
racial equity, geographic location, access for persons with
disabilities, internet connectivity); and other risks to the
properties' long-term physical, operational, and financial
viability.
HUD is confident that the overall annual financial capital
need far exceeds annual Congressional appropriations for the
public housing Capital Fund, typically significantly less than
$3 billion, with continuously accruing capital needs too often
rendering those annual appropriations necessary just to address
deferred maintenance.
Q.3. Do you believe it would be useful for HUD to identify
public housing developments where the cost of capital repairs
exceeds the cost of conversion to tenant-based or project-based
assistance? Please explain why or why not.
A.3. As noted above, the Department believes that it would be
better for there to be property-level assessments of capital
needs. One reason for obtaining specific property-level data
would be to assess whether continued investments in a given
property make sense based on a variety of factors, including
the cost of transitioning from public housing to a Section 8
assistance platform.
We do not currently have the necessary project-specific
data to make cost-test determinations under Required Conversion
(Section 33) or Voluntary Conversion (Section 22); however, HUD
continues to make Voluntary Conversion available to PHAs who
wish to produce such project-specific data. To date, 1,039
units have used Voluntary Conversion. Only 1,073 units have
been required to convert under Required/Mandatory Conversion.
To put this in context, a total of 110,000 units have been
repositioned since FY2018.
Legislative language included in enacted appropriations
bills for several years has precluded HUD from requiring PHAs
to conduct physical needs assessments. This means that HUD does
not have information from PHAs on the physical needs of their
properties. Therefore, we cannot assert the best way to
revitalize specific properties. We do know overall that there
are about 970,000 units of public housing and more than half of
the housing stock is over 50 years old.
It is important to note that determining the appropriate
recapitalization strategy for these units is contextual and
should be determined by local actors, specifically the PHA and
the residents, working with local and State leadership and
funders.
Q.4. Do you believe it would be useful for HUD to know the
estimated capital needs backlog for developments administered
by public housing agencies (PHAs) that HUD, the HUD Office of
Inspector General (OIG), or the U.S. Department of Justice
(DOJ) have alleged are grossly mismanaged, or those that have
been identified by HUD as ``substandard'' or ``troubled?''
Please explain why or why not.
A.4. In order to identify specific properties where capital
investment would make a difference, the Department would need
to have property-specific estimates of capital needs, and we
agree that it would be useful to know the estimated capital
needs of developments at PHAs identified as facing particular
challenges.
Many PHAs that are in troubled or substandard status are in
that situation due to the impact of funding volatility in the
public housing program on their property's physical and
financial condition. Currently, we have 71 troubled PHAs
(23,219 units or 2.4 percent of all public housing units) and
373 substandard PHAs (95,062 units or 9.8 percent of all public
housing units). Combined, troubled and substandard PHAs manage
12.2 percent of all public housing units.
Funding for capital improvements could help transform the
performance of these agencies. For example, many PHAs have seen
improvement after successfully converting public housing
properties under RAD, stabilizing funding and leveraging other
funding sources to address capital needs. To date, 109 PHAs
that were in troubled or substandard status when RAD first
began have converted 22,898 units and generated nearly $1.8
billion to re-invest in the public housing assets. Further,
PHAs with limited development experience have been able to
partner with high-capacity housing developers and managers to
improve and maintain properties to the market standard.
Q.5. My Banking Committee staff asked HUD over a month ago for
HUD's best estimate of the public housing capital needs
backlog. However, HUD has still not provided that information
and other related data.
When will HUD provide my staff this information?
A.5. With, as noted above, only limited data available to HUD
on this matter, we are working to develop our best estimates of
the capital needs backlog for public housing, based on the
variety of data sources available to us. We are working to
cross-reference data from all the sources available to us to
estimate the capital needs. Our CIR office has since provided a
response to your office.
But as noted above, those baseline figures will only take
into account the backlog of replacing existing capital items.
Despite not having sufficient funds to address the entire
backlog of needs, PHAs continue to use their Capital Fund
appropriations to address urgent capital needs annually. HUD
considers the true need to provide a portfolio of quality
affordable housing for all public housing residents to extend
significantly beyond those basic backlogged replacement items,
to include additional needs inherent in the portfolio itself
(climate resilience, energy inefficiency, environmental
hazards, physical condition, functionality); the health,
safety, and quality of life for resident families (including
racial equity, geographic location, access for persons with
disabilities, internet connectivity); and other risks to the
properties' long-term physical, operational, and financial
viability. That is why HUD has confidence that the true need,
which it will be able to meet through leverage, is well in
excess of $40 billion.
Q.6. Do you think it is a good idea for Congress to spend $40
billion without asking to review justifications for that
amount?
A.6. HUD always commits to being good stewards of public
funding, and we will set exacting criteria for Build Back
Better funding to demonstrate measurable improvements in the
quality of housing offered to public housing residents. It is
clear that longstanding appropriations for the Capital Fund
have fallen substantially short of the needs established in the
2010 capital needs study. The $40 billion request represents
the amount required to address estimates of the capital needs
of the public housing inventory on the assumption that PHAs
will be able to raise tens of billions of dollars in leveraged
funds to transform the public housing portfolio.
Q.7. In 2020, HUD's OIG determined that for the last 11 years,
HUD has failed to submit an annual report to Congress required
by law on troubled PHAs. Will you transmit this report to
Congress this year as required by law?
A.7. Yes, HUD is finalizing the FY2020 report and it will be
submitted to Congress in the next 30-45 days. Attached is the
previously submitted FY2019 report. (https://www.sigtarp.gov/
sites/sigtarp/files/Quarterly_Reports/
July_30_2019_Report_to_Congress.pdf)
Q.8. In implementing operating requirements for Emergency
Housing Vouchers (EHVs) pursuant to the March 2021 Democrat
stimulus bill, HUD has waived a regulation that prohibits PHAs
from admitting anyone who has been previously evicted from
federally assisted housing within the last 3 years for drug-
related criminal activity. \1\ Why have you decided to waive
this regulation? Do you believe people previously evicted from
federally assisted housing for engaging in drug-related
criminal activity should be given an EHV instead of other
noncriminals who have not been evicted?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ 24 CFR 982.553(a)(1)(i).
A.8. HUD recognizes decent and stable housing is essential for
human survival and dignity and sought to ensure equitable
access for the target population in the development of the EHV
program. EHVs are specifically targeted to families who are
experiencing homelessness; at risk of experiencing
homelessness; fleeing, or attempting to flee, domestic
violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, or human
trafficking; or were recently homeless and for whom providing
rental assistance will prevent the family's homelessness or
having high risk of housing instability. HUD provides federally
subsidized housing to millions of low-income people who could
not otherwise afford homes on their own; however, existing
policies exclude numerous families who may have been previously
evicted from federally assisted housing for drug-related
criminal activity, condemning them to homelessness or transient
living.
As reflected in HUD's 2020 Annual Homeless Assessment
Report (AHAR), African-Americans and indigenous people remained
considerably overrepresented among the homeless population
compared to the U.S. population. People identifying as Black or
African-American accounted for 39 percent of all people
experiencing homelessness in 2020 and 53 percent of people
experiencing homelessness as members of families with children,
despite being 12 percent of the U.S. population. In contrast,
48 percent of all people experiencing homelessness were White
compared with 74 percent of the U.S. population. People
identifying as Hispanic or Latino (who can be of any race)
represented 23 percent of the homeless population, but only 16
percent of the population overall. HUD recognizes the need for
communities to better understand and address the
overrepresentation of people of color among those experiencing
homelessness. Waiving the regulation to prohibit PHAs from
admitting families who have been previously evicted from
federally assisted housing within the last 3 years for drug-
related criminal activity aligns with the American Rescue
Plan's goal of establishing equity as one of its central goals.
The current Housing Choice Voucher regulatory requirements
at 24 CFR 982.553 state a PHA must prohibit admission if a
household member has been evicted from federally assisted
housing for drug-related criminal activity. However, this
prohibition is not absolute. A PHA may admit the household if
they determine the subject member has successfully completed a
drug rehabilitation program approved by the PHA or that the
circumstances leading to the eviction no longer exist. The
waiver of this regulation is the same policy that has been
applied for many years to the HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive
Housing (HUD-VASH) program that serves veterans experiencing
homelessness. Given the target populations of homeless, at-risk
of homelessness, and survivors of domestic violence, dating
violence, and human trafficking, individuals and families may
include individuals struggling with drug addiction, and that
addiction may be one of the root causes of their homelessness.
HUD recognized the opportunity for safe housing provided to
families through the EHV program as a critical first step in
helping households recover from addiction. Consequently, PIH
Notice 2021-15 advised Public Housing Agencies that
prohibitions based on criminal activity for the eligible EHV
populations regarding drug possession should be considered
apart from criminal activity against persons (i.e., violent
criminal activity).
HUD is not prioritizing previously evicted families from
federally assisted housing who have previously engaged in drug-
related criminal activity over any other eligible population to
receive Emergency Housing Vouchers. The Department's goal is to
ensure equitable access to vouchers for thousands of families
who find themselves condemned to living on the streets, in
overcrowded shelters, in squalid transient motels, or crowded
into the homes of friends and relatives.
Q.9. As a justification for waiving requirements to collect and
verify the immigration status of applicants for EHVs, HUD cited
a concern that ``documentation may not be readily on hand and
may be difficult to obtain for individuals and families
experiencing homelessness.'' \2\ How are the circumstances of
homeless families today unique such that they require waiving
regulations that had not been waived before?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ HUD, PIH Notice 2021-15, at 33 (May 5, 2021).
A.9. The Emergency Housing Voucher program was authorized and
funded as part of the American Rescue Plan to help communities
respond to the Nation's homelessness crisis, which has been
severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. While developing
PIH Notice 2021-15, HUD received reports from several
communities that waiting times for vital documents, such as
identification, birth certificates, and social security cards
increased during the pandemic, resulting in obstacles to
quickly re-house people experiencing homelessness, including
victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and human
trafficking. People experiencing homelessness have
understandable difficulty retaining their possessions,
including their identification and documents. Even under normal
circumstances, it can take weeks to assist people experiencing
homelessness with collecting the supporting documentation that
is required to verify eligibility. Barriers, such as
transportation, lack of supporting documentation, and lack of a
permanent address, hinder processes to obtain vital documents.
In response to this widespread concern among communities, one
of the regulatory flexibilities that HUD made available to PHAs
(and their Continuum of Care (CoCs) partners, who are
responsible for referring applicants) for the emergency housing
voucher program, was the option to have additional time to
collect documentation to verify recipient eligibility,
including SSN, proof of eligible immigration status, date of
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birth, and disability status.
Q.10. The law governing noncitizen eligibility for EHVs permits
lawful residents meeting certain criteria and provides for no
exceptions. \3\ A related law prohibiting aliens from being
eligible for other housing programs (unless they are qualified
aliens) does provide exceptions for certain short-term shelter
programs when assistance is not conditioned on income, \4\ but
the amount of assistance through the EHV program is conditioned
on the applicant's income and the program is not short-term.
Why do you believe your justification for the waiver--that
homeless people have difficulty obtaining documentation--is
acceptable given that Congress considered permitting assistance
to unlawful aliens only for certain homeless assistance
programs that substantively differ from the EHV program?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ 42 U.S.C. 1436a.
\4\ 8 U.S.C. 1611(b).
A.10. HUD has made clear that PHAs are responsible for ensuring
all voucher recipients meet the eligibility requirements for
the program. This includes ensuring voucher recipients are U.S.
citizens or non-citizens with an eligible immigration status.
PHAs that choose to take up this option for regulatory
flexibility are still required to collect documentation
verifying eligible status within 180 days of admission to the
program. These alternative requirements do not waive the
verification of eligibility or the collection of supporting
documentation; they simply provide PHAs with flexibility and
additional time to collect such documentation as may be
required in order to prevent delays in addressing the urgent
housing needs of vulnerable families.
There are several additional safeguards in place. First,
the Notice is explicit that ``The adoption of this waiver does
not authorize any ineligible family to receive assistance under
these programs. If a PHA determines that an ineligible family
received assistance, the PHA must take steps to terminate that
family from the program.'' Second, with respect to evidence of
eligible immigration status for noncitizens claiming
eligibility for assistance, for PHAs that take advantage of the
waiver option, applicants must sign a declaration of eligible
immigration status and then within 180 days of admissions such
individuals must submit supporting documentation to the PHAs.
Examples of supporting documentation are detailed in Exhibit 1
of the HCV Program Guidebook titled ``Eligibility Determination
and Denial of Assistance''. Third, referrals for these vouchers
will be made through local Continuums of Care's coordinated
entry systems. In these systems, homeless shelters and homeless
outreach provider organizations will be referring individuals
and families with whom a relationship has already been
established.
Q.11. GAO recently reported that HUD has not conducted a
comprehensive fraud risk assessment of the Community
Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) program and
that its current fraud risk approach does not involve relevant
stakeholders, such as grantees. \5\ In response to these
findings, however, HUD did not specify whether it agreed or
disagreed with the GAO's recommendations. \6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ GAO, GAO-21-177 ``HUD Should Take Additional Action To Assess
Community Development Block Grant Fraud Risks'' (May 5, 2021), https://
www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-177.pdf.
\6\ Id. at 40.
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Do you agree with these GAO's recommendations?
A.11. HUD recently sent its response to the GAO report. In that
letter (hereby submitted to the record), we provide information
about actions that we are already taking to assess risk and
commit to specific actions to address the GAO recommendations.
(https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-177.pdf)
Q.12. If yes, how will you implement them? If not, why not?
A.12. Our letter provides examples of actions we have already
taken to strengthen existing fraud-related controls and commits
to the implementation of additional specific responsive
measures.
Q.13. In HUD's official response to GAO's report on CDBG-DR, a
HUD official stated that HUD ``views fraud risks in programs
managed by grantees as fraud risk to the grantee . . . .'' \7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ Id. at 67.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do you agree? Please explain why or why not.
A.13. Yes. As we say in our letter, Congress has affirmed the
block grant status of CDBG-DR funding. Consistent with the
block grant framework of the Housing and Community Development
Act, CDBG-DR grantees are responsible for the design and
implementation of programs that respond to their specific
recovery needs. HUD's role is to make a determination that
grantee programs are operated in compliance with CDBG-DR
requirements, based on HUD's review of a grantee's Action
Plans, Action Plan Amendments, Quarterly Performance Reports,
voucher submissions to support grant payments, and through on-
going monitoring and technical assistance engagements with
grantees. Our response to GAO provides examples of the risk
management tools and controls the Department has deployed that
are designed to protect the Department's assets and enhance
grantee capacity to detect and prevent fraud. Ultimately, if a
grantee does not comply with antifraud or CDBG-DR requirements,
HUD has authority to enforce against the grantees, including
seeking repayment from non-Federal sources for any misuse of
funds. In this way, the fraud risks are borne by the grantee.
While the Department views fraud risks in programs managed by
grantees as fraud risk to the grantee, HUD has agreed to
investigate additional measures to mitigate risk and prevent
fraud, waste, and abuse in the disbursement of CDBG-DR funds.
Q.14. Do you think it is inappropriate or imprudent to involve
relevant stakeholders responsible for the design and
implementation of the CDBG-DR's fraud controls as part of HUD's
fraud risk assessment process?
A.14. HUD believes it is prudent to involve grantees in the
process and outlines a set of techniques to involve grantees in
its letter to GAO, which is attached to these QFR responses.
------
RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR WARREN
FROM MARCIA L. FUDGE
Q.1. Currently more than 75 percent of foreclosed FHA
properties are sold to third parties prior to conveyance into
the HUD REO portfolio through the FHA Claims Without Conveyance
of Title (CWCOT) program. Because properties that flow through
CWCOT never enter HUD's REO portfolio, they aren't subject to
home ownership and nonprofit acquisition opportunities provided
through HUD's REO program, including the 15-day ``first look''
period of priority for homeowners, nonprofits, and Government
agencies. The properties are also often sold through private
auction websites that are not accessible to the average family.
Does HUD have any plans to review the CWCOT program, including
whether new guidelines may be necessary?
A.1. HUD is proactively reviewing its property disposition
paths and foreclosure prevention tools. The current volume of
real estate owned (REO) portfolio is very low given the ongoing
COVID-19 related foreclosure moratorium, entering its 16th
month. The CWCOT program has historically been effective in
reducing the timelines on foreclosed properties, in an effort
to reduce neighborhood blight and the other negative effects
that vacant REO property can cause in neighborhoods. CWCOT
makes up roughly 50 percent of all property disposition
activities that took place in 2020. One of the key goals in our
efforts to get properties back into the hands of homeowner
occupants or mission-oriented non-profits is to improve and
expand the Good Neighbor Next Door program, which sells REO
properties at a discount for sale to public service workers
like teachers, firefighters, paramedics, and police,
encouraging them live in the communities where they work. The
Presidents FY22 budget includes funding for enhancements to
this program. We continue to review our loss mitigation
policies, including CWCOT execution and other disposition
policies to ensure an equitable recovery for those families who
are behind due to COVID-19 related hardships. HUD looks forward
to working with your office on options that can benefit
homeowners and communities.
------
RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF
SENATOR VAN HOLLEN FROM MARCIA L. FUDGE
Q.1. The last update to HUD's C-PACE guidance was in January
2017, and many stakeholders have expressed concern with the
inability to leverage private C-PACE capital into new
construction and preexisting multifamily buildings to maximize
project energy/water sustainability based on the 2017 guidance.
To support the Administration's climate priorities, is HUD
working on updating its C-PACE guidance for its multifamily
programs so that it can be more efficiently used by
participants while continuing to protect tenants?
A.1. The Multifamily guidance on combining PACE Financing with
HUD/FHA properties has been in effect since 2017 and to the
best of HUD's knowledge, it has not received significant
concerns about implementation barriers posed by the guidance
from Multifamily lenders, borrowers, and local governments. In
fact, many local governments have received approval for their
Multifamily PACE program from HUD. HUD's assessment is that
limited interest in PACE is affected by the many other ways to
finance energy efficiency and sustainability property
improvements, including FHA mortgage financing. HUD always
welcomes suggestions on how to improve our guidance, and
encourages stakeholders to contact their respective Multifamily
field offices with specific concerns regarding implementation
of the guidance.
------
RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR TOOMEY
FROM PETE BUTTIGIEG
Q.1. Transit System State of Good Repair--In your testimony,
you highlighted the need to address the maintenance backlog
across the Nation's transportation infrastructure. The Federal
Transit Administration (FTA) currently issues project
justification warrants that automatically give certain Capital
Investment Grant projects a satisfactory rating if certain
requirements are met, including verification that a system is
in a state of good repair. However, this requirement is limited
to certain projects and only a fraction of the projects in the
Capital investment Grant pipeline have qualified for and
received these warrants. Do you believe that a transit agency
should have to demonstrate progress toward bringing its system
into a state of good repair when looking to expand its system?
A.1. FTA estimates that the transit state of good repair
backlog exceeds $105 billion, and there are more than $20
billion of expansion projects in the Capital Investment Grants
program project pipeline. We look forward to utilizing the
increased funding provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
to help address this backlog and these critical expansion
projects. Each transit system across the United States faces a
unique array of challenges and opportunities. A singular
standard for demonstrating progress toward achieving a state of
good repair could easily be overly punitive to systems most
requiring Federal assistance. In addition, during the COVID-19
pandemic, agencies across the Nation have faced unprecedented
operational challenges. Finding agencies that did not defer
some maintenance while maintaining safety as the lowest cost
option for remaining operational would likely be very
difficult; however, we will continue working with transit
agencies to address their maintenance backlogs.
Q.2. Natural Gas Eligibility in FTA's Low or No Emission
Vehicle Program--The FTA administers the Low or No Emission
Vehicle (Low-No) Program. Natural gas buses are eligible for
the program, but virtually all of the projects that have been
selected for the program are zero-emission electric buses.
According to data from the California Air Resources Board,
buses fueled by compressed natural gas (CNG) can reduce
greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent compared to diesel
buses. In 2014, while you were Mayor of South Bend, Indiana,
the city's transit authority began replacing a large portion of
its transit bus fleet with CNG buses. Over the course of the
next several years, South Bend won awards for greenhouse gas
reductions in its vehicle fleet. Can you explain why, despite
being eligible, natural gas bus projects have not received
awards under the FTA's Low-No Emission Vehicle Program?
A.2. The Low or No Emission Vehicle competitive program
provides funding to State and local governmental authorities
for the purchase or lease of zero-emission and low-emission
transit buses as well as the acquisition, construction, and
leasing of required supporting facilities. FTA has awarded $409
million for these types of projects since the program began in
2016.
FTA implements the program in accordance with the
authorizing statute, 49 U.S.C. 5339(c). The statute requires
that FTA ``shall only consider eligible projects relating to
the acquisition or leasing of low or no emission buses or bus
facilities that . . . make greater reductions in energy
consumption and harmful emissions, including direct carbon
emissions, than comparable standard buses or other low or no
emission buses.'' FTA applies this statutory requirement to all
applications for eligible projects it receives pursuant to the
Notice of Funding Opportunity.
Beyond the Low or No Emission Vehicle program, the
Department has also awarded funds for compressed natural gas
(CNG) vehicle purchases under the Buses and Bus Facilities
competitive program. In addition, both CNG and zero-emission
electric buses are eligible under the Buses and Bus Facilities
formula program, and transit agencies can opt to use that
formula funding to purchase either vehicle type.
Q.3. Transit System Expansion--The Biden administration's
American Jobs Plan calls on Congress to spend an extra $25
billion for transit system expansion. However, transit
ridership has steadily declined since 2014, with the exception
of a slight bump in 2019. Ridership fell off a cliff as a
result of the COVID-19 pandemic and may never return to
prepandemic levels, according to Moody's Analytics. Why
shouldn't we wait to see if transit ridership rebounds before
spending tens of billions of taxpayer dollars more on transit
expansion projects?
A.3. The funding that Congress has provided to public transit
agencies has been essential, to maintain service to the
American people during the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the past
several months, transit ridership has been increasing, but it
will be a while before we recover to prepandemic levels. I am
committed to helping expand transportation options, not just
return to the way things were before the pandemic.
While the pandemic saw transit ridership drop
significantly, bus ridership, especially in neighborhoods where
essential workers live, remained relatively stable,
highlighting the importance of this full range of public
transit for essential workers and those who rely on it to
access health care, groceries, and more. While the changes of
travel patterns as a result of the COVID pandemic may develop
over a series of years, the need to improve access and quality
of transportation options has only grown. FTA estimates that
the transit state of good repair backlog exceeds $105 billion
and there are more than $20 billion of expansion projects in
the project pipeline. This is why the Administration is looking
forward to working with Congress to implement the historic
investment in public transit made possible by the recently
enacted Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
------
RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF
SENATOR CORTEZ MASTO FROM PETE BUTTIGIEG
Q.1. Washoe County, NV Issue on CIG Cost Savings--Secretary
Buttigieg, I wanted to share the transcript of the conversation
I had with FTA Acting Administrator Fernandez that I mentioned
during your appearance at the Banking Committee hearing:
CORTEZ MASTO: Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you to the
Ranking Member as well. Ms. Fernandez, In 2018, the
Regional Transportation Commission of Washoe County
completed their Fourth Street Prater Way Bus Rapid
Transit Project ahead of schedule and under budget. And
then in March of this year, they also completed the
Virginia Street Bus Rapid Transit Extension Project
early and under budget.
My colleagues and I from Nevada have written to you,
urging the approval of RTC's request to utilize its
project cost savings to further enhance these two
projects for bus enhancements at the downtown Reno 4th
Street station and additional bus lanes and accessible
sidewalks in the Virginia Street Project corridor.
Can you please speak to your position on allowing local
agencies like the Regional Transportation Commission in
Northern Nevada to utilize their left over funding on
other aspects of their projects?
FERNANDEZ: Senator, it's always great news when
projects are delivered within the agreed schedule and
under budget, and I will take this opportunity to
applaud the successful completion of the two Reno bus
rapid transit projects. I know that they have already
retained their share of the cost savings, and if
confirmed, I will commit to carefully considering such
requests from the project sponsors.
CORTEZ MASTO: Wonderful. That's great news. Thank you.
And I hope you consider them in a favorable way that
benefits continued improvements in northern Nevada.
And this is not only an issue for Nevada, but other
projects in the county. I would like to request a timeline from
you on the when we will expect to see a favorable resolution to
this matter that should reward project sponsors who are good
stewards of taxpayer dollars by coming in on-time and
underbudget with the ability to repurpose funds to other
important elements of an existing federally funded project. Can
you please have your staff communicate that information, as
well the context for what is going into this decision making
process, within the next month?
A.1. On June 1, FTA informed the Regional Transportation
Commission of Washoe County (RTC) that it would be permitted to
retain a portion of FTA's share of cost savings from the 4th
Street/Prater Way Bus Rapid Transit project and the Virginia
Street Bus Rapid Transit project.
The RTC should be commended for successfully completing the
two Reno bus rapid transit projects on-time and under budget.
Q.2. Smart Communities and The Moving FIRST Act (w/ Sens. Burr,
Sinema, Portman), S. 652--Secretary Buttigieg, as I mentioned
at the hearing, I have been working for 4 years now on my
bipartisan Moving FIRST Act to bring back and expand the Obama-
era Smart Cities Challenge. I appreciate your familiarity with
that previous program.
My bipartisan cosponsors and I agree with much of what you
said in regards to the value of these competitive opportunities
for our communities of all sizes. That is why we have so much
specific support for this legislation, including:
1. National League of Cities
2. National Association of Counties (NACO)
3. Transportation for America
4. American Society of Civil Engineers
5. U.S. Chamber Technology Engagement Center (C-TEC)
6. ITS America
7. Association of Global Automakers
8. Honda North America, Inc.
9. American Trucking Associations
10. Lyft
11. Uber
12. Railroad Passengers Association
13. League of American Bicyclists
14. Intelligent Transportation Society of America
15. Smart City Council
16. Venture Smarter
17. Smart Regions Initiatives
18. Center for Data Innovation
19. Waycare
20. Wi-fiber
21. Panasonic Corporation of North America
22. GPS Innovation Alliance (GPSIA)
23. Qualcomm
24. CompTIA
25. Security Industry Association (SIA)
26. CTIA
27. Verizon
28. Sprint
29. Geotab
30. Hotwire Communications
31. Small UAV Coalition
32. Securing America's Future Energy (SAFE)
33. The Electrification Coalition
34. Nevada League of Cities
35. Nevada Association of Counties
36. Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada
37. Regional Transportation Commission of Washoe Co.
38. Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce
39. Reno-Sparks Chamber of Commerce
40. Nevada Trucking Association
41. Switch
42. Tahoe Transportation District
43. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (TRPA)
44. Tahoe Prosperity Center
Can I get your commitment to support this bipartisan effort
to bring back a very popular program in red and blue States,
and to help us utilize and expand intelligent transportation
solutions to address locally appropriate challenges?
A.2. The Department understands the importance of utilizing and
expanding innovative transportation solutions across the Nation
and looks forward to working with Congress on approaches to
deploy these innovations to improve safety and efficiency. The
Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation
(SMART) Grant Program authorized in the Bipartisan
Infrastructure Law provides funding for demonstration projects
focused on advanced smart city or community technologies and
systems in a variety of communities to improve transportation
efficiency and safety. The SMART grant program builds on the
success of DOT's Smart City Challenge and prior DOT pilot
programs.
Q.3. The TRAVEL Act, S. 1516 and COVID's Impact on Nevada's
Travel and Tourism Sector--Secretary Buttigieg, I have been
working with the U.S. Travel Association and their members,
including the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, to
develop legislation titled the TRAVEL Act that would position
regions with increased tourism with greater significance and
consideration when it comes to Federal transportation
investments by the USDOT. This legislation is directly in line
with what is described and laid out in the Department's
National Travel and Tourism Infrastructure Strategic Plan
FY2020-2024. We need to get ahead of the transportation needs
of this vital economic driver to so many places in America--
whether it's rural, urban, suburban, or tribal. My legislation
calls for leveling the playing field for the needed projects
that aid in efficiently moving our tourists, as well as the
workers who help them enjoy their travels. With that, it
creates the Office of Travel and Tourism to help the department
maintain a focus on the needs of these important communities. I
am eager for you to visit Nevada so I can show you the impact
that helping alleviate congestion around Lake Tahoe or on I-15
corridor between California and Nevada would make, or the
impact that investments in the future Interstate 11 from
Arizona through Nevada will make to our region. As you well
know, COVID-19 has been debilitating for the travel and tourism
industry. But making the smart investments so that this sector
can return stronger and be more resilient in the future is the
opportunity in front of us now.
Can you please provide me an update on how the department
is assisting communities like mine that have been devastated
the inability to maintain the strength of our tourism industry
in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic?
A.3. The travel and tourism industry was devastated nationwide
by the COVID-19 pandemic, and DOT has worked in partnership
with many stakeholders to address these concerns, within the
scope of our authority. The Department helped Americans get
back to work, travel, and everyday activities as safely as
possible. Through supplemental funding appropriated to help
mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, DOT has kept the
Nation and Nevada moving. Additionally, supplemental COVID
funding has allowed Amtrak to continue operating the California
Zephyr route, which services Elko, Winnemucca, and Reno.
Q.4. Second, can you commit to working with the CDC, HHS, the
State Department and others in the Administration to ensure we
review the preparations that were taken, and response that was
employed in the past year-and-a-half, to make sure that we are
better informed to address and mitigate the impacts of health
events like this in the future?
A.4. Yes, the Department is focused on learning from actions
taken throughout the pandemic and will continue to work with
interagency partners to incorporate lessons learned into our
plans for future emergencies. DOT is also interested in
identifying best practices initiated during the pandemic that
could be replicated and expanded to improve the safety of all
Americans.
Q.5. And lastly, can I get a commitment from you to have your
department and individual modes review my TRAVEL Act and work
directly with me on how we can address the needs of the
transportation networks that move tourists in order to
enhancing our economic recovery for tourism, protect our
environment, and provide jobs in many places so hurt over the
past year-plus?
A.5. Yes. I commit to the Department reviewing your bill and
look forward to continued work with you and your colleagues to
implement the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
------
RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR KENNEDY
FROM PETE BUTTIGIEG
Q.1. The near-airport parking industry serves and, in most
cases, directly competes with airports for parking customers.
While many of the pandemic relief efforts provided direct,
large appropriations to the Nation's airports during this
significant and unprecedented downturn in travel, airports are
demanding near-airport parking operators continue to pay access
and permitting fees without relief, increasing upcoming fees in
more than a few cases, and also requiring operators to remit
portions of revenues earned by operators on non-airport land
utilization. These airport demands and a lack of flexibility
accompany the lack of access many national operators have had
to any COVID relief funding during a year of struggle at the
height of which, near airport parking revenues fell 95 percent.
In years past, operator access fees paid by the industry to
airports amounted to upwards of $25 million annually. These are
real and desperately needed dollars for an industry in
financial disarray having already lost more than $1 billion in
revenues over the course of the pandemic.
The Coronavirus Economic Relief for Transportation Services
(CERTS) program was created as part of the Consolidated
Appropriations Act of 2021. The program, administered by the
Secretary of the Treasury in consultation with the Secretary of
Transportation, can create a viable path for relief for the
motorcoach, school bus, passenger vessel and other
transportation providers. The near airport parking industry,
itself regulated by the Department of Transportation and not
unlike the motorcoach industry, has identified the program as
another avenue for relief, but absent the Secretary's use of
discretion and direct involvement, the industry's chances for
long-term survival are slim.
Coronavirus Econ. Relief for Transp. Serv. (CERTS)-Near-
Airport Parking Industry--The Consolidated Appropriations Act
of 2021 included the Coronavirus Economic Relief for
Transportation Services (CERTS) Act, a $2 billion relief
program for transportation service providers including
motorcoaches, passenger ferries, school bus operators, and
``any other passenger transportation service company subject to
regulation by the Department of Transportation as the
(Treasury) Secretary, in consultation with the Secretary of
Transportation, determines to be appropriate.'' CERTS program
guidance was released on May 6th, leaving out ``other''
passenger transportation providers entirely. For example, a DOT
regulated provider running an off-airport courtesy shuttle or a
35-passenger minibus would currently be excluded simply because
their vehicles lack the right baggage compartment.
Secretary Buttigieg, please describe the process DOT used
to determine that no other transportation providers would be
eligible for relief?
A.1. DOT understands the devastating impact that the COVID-19
pandemic has had on the transportation sector. As directed by
Congress, U.S. Department of Treasury is the lead Department
responsible for CERTS program implementation. DOT provided
technical assistance to Treasury in its development of the
CERTS application guidance and eligibility criteria and also
provided support to ensure that CERTS grant funding is
distributed as promptly and responsibly as possible. At the
outset, DOT stood up a team of senior career officials from
OST, FMCSA, FTA, MARAD, and the U.S. Coast Guard to assist with
industry stakeholder outreach and provide technical assistance
to Treasury. For example, during the review process, FMCSA
reviewed all 1,600+ motorcoach applications and conducted data
checks to verify applicant eligibility. FMCSA also reviewed
over 4,000 other records that had been blocked and quarantined
by Treasury's system to verify none were falsely deemed
ineligible. These collaborative efforts contributed to
Treasury's successful implementation of CERTS.
Treasury determined the scope of CERTS had to be limited to
the four types of entities Congress specifically listed in the
legislation and could not be expanded to other industries or
types of transportation providers because program funding was
significantly oversubscribed. Approved applicants in the four
eligible industries received prorated grants representing less
than 25 percent of their lost revenues.
Q.2. Would you commit to working with my office to revise the
guidance, ensuring other DOT regulated transportation
providers, who have been equally devastated, are able to access
these funds as Congress intended before the Treasury grant
portal opens?
A.2. Treasury has stated in its press release that the $2
billion in available funding has been disbursed, and that the
amount of documented revenue loss by applicants was in excess
of $8 billion. Should Congress authorize additional CERTS
funding, the USDOT stands ready to assist you and your
colleagues in any future technical assistance requests.
As directed by Congress, Treasury is the lead Department
responsible for CERTS program implementation. Treasury reviewed
the legislative language very carefully in initially
determining eligibility and released related guidance on May 6,
during which they invited questions from the public. They
opened the CERTS application portal on June 19, and the
application period closed on July 19. On August 13, Treasury
began notifying and releasing grant agreements to approved
applicants. Treasury made grant payments on a rolling basis as
soon as the grantees signed the agreements. On October 8,
Treasury sent the final payments to recipients of funding
provided through the CERTS program. Over 1,400 motorcoach,
school bus, passenger vessel and pilotage companies
representing all 50 States received grants--93 percent of which
are small businesses and more than 33 percent of which are
minority-owned businesses. The CERTS grant recipients can be
found on Treasury's website available here: https://
home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/coronavirus/assistance-for-
american-industry/coronavirus-economic-relief-for-
transportation-services/Coronavirus-Economic-Relief-for-
Transportation-Services-CERTS-Grant-Payments.
Q.3. Similarly, if you answer in the affirmative, please
explain how you would work to open that avenue with the
anticipated timeline and application process Treasury has
already announced.
A.3. In October 2021, U.S. Department of the Treasury sent the
final payments to recipients of funding provided through the
CERTS program. Over 1,400 motorcoach, school bus, passenger
vessel and pilotage companies representing all 50 States
received grants--93 percent of which are small businesses and
more than 33 percent of which are minority-owned businesses.
DOT stands ready to assist you and your colleagues in any
future technical assistance requests.
Q.4. Do you believe that entities that are required to register
their vehicles for DOT licensing and follow the FMCSA rules and
regulations are under the jurisdiction of the Department?
A.4. Being required to register for a USDOT number is not a
measure of whether FMCSA has jurisdiction over the registered
entity. Many States require vehicle operators to obtain USDOT
numbers, for example, even if the operators are not subject to
FMCSA jurisdiction.
Regarding near-airport transportation, under 49 U.S.C.
13506(a), ``Neither the Secretary [of Transportation] nor the
[Surface Transportation] Board has jurisdiction [under 49
U.S.C. chapters 135-149] over transportation of passengers by
motor vehicle incidental to transportation by aircraft.''
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