Washington, D.C.—The following are opening remarks, as prepared for delivery, from Ranking Member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Rick Larsen (D-WA) and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Highways and Transit Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) during today’s hearing titled, “Examining the Department of Transportation’s Regulatory and Administrative Agenda.”
Video of Ranking Member Larsen’s and Norton’s opening statements are here and here.
More information on the hearing can be found here.
Ranking Member Larsen:
Thank you, Chairman Crawford and Ranking Member Norton, for holding this hearing today on the Department of Transportation’s regulatory agenda.
Members of Congress are motivated to serve on this Committee for lots of reasons.
Whether your interest in transportation includes reducing traffic fatalities, helping U.S. businesses compete in the global economy, combatting pollution, creating jobs or making transportation work for more communities, regulations play a role in meeting these goals.
While Congress writes the laws, federal agencies turn these legislative proposals into rules of the road that can be followed and enforced.
Federal agencies have professionals—engineers, planners and economists—who bring their expertise to bear to make our transportation systems work seamlessly.
This DOT, under the leadership of Secretary Buttigieg, is implementing policies to make our transportation systems cleaner, greener, safer and more accessible.
As the administration continues to implement the BIL, this Committee will continue our oversight to ensure that regulations are consistent with the law and with Congressional intent.
We continue to have a roadway safety crisis, with a total of 42,795 people killed in traffic crashes on U.S. roadways in 2022. Nearly 6,000 of those people were killed in crashes involving large trucks, including 85 people from Washington State.
The BIL took steps towards ending these preventable fatalities, including by requiring rear underride guards and automatic emergency brakes for commercial motor vehicles.
Today we will hear testimony from the Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association, whose members are frontline workers with a vested interest in safety. It is critical we listen to the voices of those directly impacted by truck safety standards.
It is equally important that we listen to those whose lives have been devastated by the loss of a loved one in a traffic crash.
I applaud the tireless work of the transportation safety advocates who help hold Congress and the administration to account as we work to make our roadways safer.
We continue to have a climate crisis, and transportation emissions are increasing.
Transportation is the largest emitter of carbon pollution in the U.S., and 80 percent of those emissions come from cars and light-duty trucks.
The Biden administration’s Greenhouse Gas Performance Measure was a small but important attempt to address climate change.
We cannot solve what we do not measure. While this particular rule has been vacated, asking states to track carbon emissions on their roadways and set non-binding goals to reduce emissions is not an unreasonable ask as part of a system where states control hundreds of billions of dollars and have the flexibility to spend them however they see fit—including on highway expansions.
Ignoring the link between transportation and climate change will not prevent roadways from being washed out during storms, pavements from buckling under extreme heat or tunnels from flooding during a hurricane.
I look forward to the testimony from Transportation for America on how we can chart a better path forward.
Clear, consistent rules save time, save money and certainly save lives. They underpin our ability to travel freely, for businesses to ship their goods to market and for people with differing abilities to access the transportation systems they need to get around.
While we may differ on the details of individual rules, I hope we can agree that consistent, reliable funding for infrastructure and data-driven rules to guide the build out and use of that infrastructure is key to safety and the economy.
Thank you to our witnesses, and I look forward to the discussion.
Ranking Member Norton:
I would like to thank Subcommittee Chairman Rick Crawford for holding this hearing on transportation regulations.
The Department of Transportation is a crucial partner to Congress in implementing the laws we write. The technical expertise within the Department educates and informs Congress in writing laws and fills in gaps through rules and guidance.
The Department and its agencies are tasked with issuing rules to fight climate change, improve safety and air quality, provide transparency and reduce fraud in federally funded projects and standardize the design of roads and bridges to ensure their structural integrity.
In short, the Department’s regulatory role is to ensure the safe and efficient movement of people and goods across our transportation systems.
This is no small task. Roughly every five years, Congress gives the Department’s agencies dozens of new rulemakings to develop and directs them to update or modify existing ones. Additionally, the agencies regularly accept petitions to develop rules from the public.
This process is key to our democracy. It provides avenues for every citizen, lawmaker and stakeholder to provide input into the rulemaking process.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act tasked the Department with several rulemakings of interest. I would like to speak today about those that will improve safety for all users of our roadways.
The law required the Federal Highway Administration to update the standards for street design, which is particularly important as cities work to reduce pedestrian and bicyclist fatalities. The agency has also issued guidance to states on how to incorporate vulnerable road user safety assessments into their safety programs.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is required by the infrastructure law to develop regulations to ensure cars are equipped with impaired driving prevention technology to avoid fatalities from drunk driving.
The infrastructure law also directed the Department to finalize several rules designed to improve safety in the trucking industry. Fatalities involving large truck crashes have risen 76 percent in the last 15 years. Since 2010, the number of trucks involved in fatal crashes on roads with speed limits of 75 miles per hour or more saw a 440 percent increase.
The Department has already issued a final rule requiring truck trailers to have rear impact guards to provide protection to passenger vehicle occupants.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is still working to finalize a rule to require automatic emergency brakes on heavy duty vehicles. The Administration’s proposed rule regarding these brakes is projected to prevent nearly twenty-five thousand crashes and save one hundred fifty-five lives each year. I urge the Administration to move forward to finish this rulemaking.
Finally, I want to note the importance of Congress and the Administration in hearing from multiple points of view when it comes to improving safety. Every road user cares about safety.
Traveling by car, truck, bike or foot remains one of the riskiest things we do on a day-to-day basis. It is imperative that we address safety issues from all perspectives and listen to those impacted. No one person or stakeholder has all the answers, but I believe collectively we can take a stronger approach to reducing injuries and fatalities.
I look forward to working with my colleagues on improving the safety of our transportation system and thank the witnesses for their testimony.
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